Looking For The Long Ride

I guess my awareness of the “Long Ride” began when I quit high school about two or three months before graduation and hitchhiked to New York City with a friend who tended toward being a little weird—but in the overall scheme of things, quite normal for the times we were living in.

I think his name was Ray and he was a little timid about going to NYC, but with my never-may-care attitude as his shield, he packed his bags and joined me on the side of the I-94 expressway for our trip to the Big Apple. We had both met a guy who was attending the high school I was in who said that he knew people in New York who would put us up and help us find our way. But that is another story for quite a different day—and perhaps not one I am really ready to take out of the vault.

Suffice it to say, I stayed in New York long after Ray headed back home to who knows what and I eventually moved on to San Francisco during what was to become the Summer of Love. It could have really been called the Summer of Music and everybody would have understood. When I arrived in Haight Ashbury, just south of the Golden Gate Park, there were hippies lined up against the stores on both sides of the street that eventually ran into the park. I remember lots of Hell’s Angel types mixed in and a steady line of people going into what we called the “free clinic”. This was where all the people who believed in ‘free love” ended up for their penicillin shots—if you get my drift.

Several blocks away and running parallel to the street was pan-handle park, where a group calling themselves the “diggers” would cook some kind of pasta dish every night to feed the hundreds of youth who had found their way to the city. They lived in a house that was not to far from where the Grateful Dead lived and I remember eating spaghetti with the rest of the “street people” on several occasions. As was my lot, I found people who let me sleep in their houses and hang out with them—it was only later I was to realize that my heavenly father was looking out for me during these formative times.

And did I mention that I was not that far from the Straight Theater at the corner of Haight and Cole streets. This was a smaller and hippier version of the giant Fillmore auditorium more or less run by Bill Graham and the one that most people remember when they think of Frisco’s music scene. The Straight saw the Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish, Moby Grape, and the Jefferson Airplane perform—just to mention a few of more or less local bands that were featured. What I remember most is the light shows that filled the giant screen on the stage behind the bands. The colors would move to the sounds of the music and were really quite sophisticated in a late sixties kind of way. I think they also used strobes and black lights in addition to the colored water and oil mixes on top of an old opaque projector in the back of the room. And of course, everybody danced—if you can call bouncing up and down to the beat of the music for several hours—dancing? I remember evangelist Kenneth Copeland saying at one of his events that if the church behaved the way they should (meaning energetic dancing to the worship music) there would be no need to go to a work out center. He is probably right.

But it was really all about hanging out and enjoying the music. I always thought that they had so many concerts because they wanted to keep all the people occupied and off the streets and maybe there is a bit of ironic truth hidden in that belief—maybe not.

There were also the concerts in Golden Gate Park on the weekends which featured bands like Steve Miller and the Airplane. And the nightly jams in the Panhandle Park after a free meal at the hands of the Diggers. Not quite utopia but an attempt to find the road that led to the long ride indeed. I was seventeen and convinced that there was more to life than a job in daddies car lot after high school graduation. I was just a kid from a small town in Michigan looking for something a little more permanent and dare I say eternal. Something I could believe in and become a part of and really during those times the music held it all together—although in a loose sort of sloppy hippie way.

The plaintive cries of the Jefferson Airplane to love somebody, to Strawberry Fields and Penny Lanes; Donovan’s Mellow Yellow, the Butterfield Blue’s Band’s, East West and the Door’s Light My Fire, paved the way for Jimi Hendrick, U2 and even contemporary Christian praise and worship music. Today I listen to Misty Edwards, Joanne McFatter, Chris Tomlin, Hillsong and Morningstar music. Good music always opens up the doors of perception or leads us into a better understanding of just where it is we stand.

And yes, sometimes the rhythm even follows us on that after dinner walk with our significant other or on that long 25 mile bike ride in the country. It is always with us, just the way God told us that He would always be there as well.

From Haight Ashbury to today is not that far apart when you consider how very long eternity must really be. Enjoy your ride today and your history as well and remember that you haven’t heard all the music that can be listened to yet.

Tonight is one of those nights where I need to use the computer to generate a little cash for the Henry household. I do a few newsletters and web sites on the side and generally enjoy what I do—that is if it doesn’t begin to take up my life—I like to read the paper, talk to my wife before and after dinner and watch a few TV shows as well when I am clocked out from “real” work.

As I began to layout the latest newsletter I inserted a few CD’s into the player that sits by my desk and pushed the start button on the console. As the bopping sound of Lionel Hampton began to fill the room and my fingers began to snap to the beat I thought of my mother and how she loved to listen to jazz and big band music and how that has affected my life in a good way.

I remember those youthful days and nights watching my mom and dad listen to music on the ancient turntable we had in our living room. It is worth remembering that the living room had off-white carpeting.

I can even remember the turntable being delivered in a big box and the all of us sitting around waiting for my dad to open it. This was back in the day when twenty-cents went a long way and comic books were only a nickel. Even though it seemed like it would be several years before we had our own records to play, this was a “family present”. As it turned out it would not take that long for my brother and I to begin our own collection of early rock and roll, folk and jazz records to play on that turntable. We even got to the point where we realized those portable turntables all but tore up the groves in our records and we got a better turntable to play records through an amplifier and not through some small tiny attached speakers.

Now bear in mind, this is not a completely accurate picture of those days. My time line might be a little off but this is the best my memory can handle at this point in my life. And being completely right is not the point anyway. It is more of what I came away with from that experience that counts.

Both my mother and father liked music—generally big band jazzy type stuff. The first records we got in the mail to play on the new turntable were Columbia or Capital record sampler albums with a selection of songs currently available in their catalog for sale. This music went from Andy Williams ballads to cuts from a Miles Davis album and lots of stuff in between. One song I vividly remember playing over and over was the M.T.A. by the Kingston Trio. It was a peppy song about a guy who got on the subway in Boston and while he was on his way to work the fares were increased and he couldn’t get off the train because he didn’t have the money in his pocket to pay the fare. Kind of far-fetched but a great song about politics and all the rest. I am looking at the CD of their greatest hits which includes that song. Things have come almost full circle.

There were times in my life when after a night out on the town (think high school senior, etc.) I would come home and not be at peace enough to go to bed and fall asleep and I would quietly sneak into the living room and put on an album by Bob Dylan or Miles Davis and listen to it through the headphones until I was calm enough to go to bed. Music was what got me through a lot of tough times and I am grateful for my parents input into that process. It was like I had my very own soundtrack to life and was not even aware of it—come to think of it, it was even before the very concept of soundtracks had even been invented. Here I am thinking to that time in the movie Jerry Maguire when Renee Zellwegger and Tom Cruise have their “moment” and we are treated to the Bruce Springstein song “Secret Garden” and that seems to sum up everything that has happened between them up to that point. Or imagine Natalie Portman walking down a Manhattan avenue with a Damien Rice song playing in the background as Jude Law catches a glimpse of her and is fully smitten.

I have come to realize after living more than half a century that we all have a life soundtrack playing in our lives. We might not be aware of it—it could be a Mahler symphony or a top-forty ballad—every now and then we might catch a John Mayer rift or a Sly and the Family Stone, “Dance to the Music” feeling in the background of whatever is going on. The only difference being that there is most likely no camera man following you around nor a song editor finding just the right mood music to place behind the action in your life—but the sound is there none the less—trust me on that one.

The other night my wife and I watched a movie “August Rush” which never made it to our little mountain town. It is the story of a young boy separated from his mother and father at birth who uses his musical gift to draw them back to him. As with all Hollywood movies it is not perfect in its portrayal of humanity as I would like it to be. But the point really lies underneath all of our frailty and really speaks to the hope that is resident within the collective human spirit.

Music really is all around us—I woke this morning to the birds singing and enjoying the food I put out for them. Even my tiller makes a certain sound that punctuates the distance between me and the sound of the shovel being pushed by my foot into the soft spring soil of my Appalachian home. And perhaps the only thing that separates me from this concert is the voice of my enemy who likes to bring things to my attention at 3 am in the morning which I can’t really do anything about but really wants to interrupt the peace or joy that I have found in living for the long ride. It is the sound of distraction, fear and  doubt and sometimes I have to get out of bed and sit in my favorite chair until I can find—once again—my very own soundtrack—while not without its pathos and bathos, is not condemning or intent on my destruction.

And that my friend, is a good ride indeed. Enjoy your ride and your very own soundtrack.

I will have to admit upfront that I am not a fan of what we have come to call news reporting during the past several years. I can’t remember when I last watched the evening news on television (maybe 20 years) or read “Newsweek” or “Time” magazine—which were staples during my newspaper reporter days in the early eighties.

However, one of my major weaknesses—besides Hagen Daz ice cream—is my affinity towards the “mac paper” USA Today. I seem to buy it almost every work day and if the truth be told, head first of all to the Life Section to see what’s up in the life of all those people that I will never be and am not sure I totally approve of anyway. I like to get the latest scoop on movies, books and TV shows and this really seems like the place to land. Then I move on to the green section which is their business news and by reading that section generally have an idea of what is happening in the “real” world of stocks and bonds, business and technology. If time permits, I will often take in the sports section and keep up on what Tiger Woods is doing or what is going on in the world of tennis, baseball or biking.

Now that that dirty laundry is out in the open, I will also admit that I read the Winston-Salem Journal on occasion and that if you keep up with the news, their Saturday, March 15th paper was or was not the one to read—depending on how you look at the current state of affairs in America. It was chock full of the stuff that nobody really wants to hear about in the first place but news junkies soak up like a dry sponge during a long drought.

On the front page we read that investment bank Bears Stearns was on the verge of collapse and was bailed out by JP Morgan and in an extraordinary step, the Federal Reserve. They lost nearly half their market value (about $5.7 billion) in a matter of minutes largely because of their ties to the “sub-prime” mortgage crisis, which is still raising its’ ugly head in board rooms all across the country.

In other news we find that wheat, the food staple of most all civilized nations, has tripled in price during the past ten months. Poor wheat harvests in the U.S., Australia and parts of Europe have
caused China and other Asian countries to buy more American crops,
which are especially attractive because of the weak U.S. dollar. In addition, we are not planting as much of the stuff because lots of farmers are getting on the ethanol band wagon by growing more corn, which has also gone up in price dramatically.

And if that is not enough, along with rapidly rising fuel prices and the prospect of $4 a gallon gas by mid-summer, we find this little piece of information from Grants Pass, Oregon. It seems like fisheries have canceled the early season of ocean fishing for Chinook salmon off the coast of Oregon and Northern California because of a “collapse” of fish stocks in California rivers. Why there is less salmon to catch is up for debate but the two biggest theories are disruptive weather patterns along the Pacific coast and the increased pumping of water from the Sacramento River for farmers in Central and Southern California. Six of one and a half dozen of another is my thought.

It almost seems like it has taken several years for what we then called the Y2K effect to take place—and this recent news has nothing to do with that event but has everything in common with its’ effect.

We are being poisoned by our spinach, our beef and our dog food. There is more lead in our kids toys than ever before and people are dying because of an adulterant in their blood thinner. And I will be bold or stupid enough to ask—what’s next!

Back in the day when I used to ask a stupid question—or so thought my mom—she would say, “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China” as if I was of an age to understand all that grownup logic. I guess what she really meant was whatever excuse you just came up with for whatever it is you just did, is not that good and won’t hold up in a Chinese court of law or anywhere else for that matter (a little latitude here).

However, what my mother didn’t live long enough to see was how close China really is in economic terms to America and  that what happens over there is only a few hours from happening here as well.

I am ready to fully admit that our global economy has me baffled to some degree and the fact that Apple Computer can make more money this past year than ever before in their storied history and just because their stock didn’t “meet” their predictions and/or the investors expectations and was tanked the very next day, is simply business as usual but still confusing to me.

As to “Y2K” I firmly believe at this time that we should begin, ever so slightly, to take measures to stock up on food stuff that has a long shelf life. That we should make every effort to get out of debt and begin to live a more simple life—take more walks, watch less TV and burn less gas in the days, weeks and months to come.

At best our economy is a thought in the heart of a God who has given us the ability to “create wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18). But everybody knows we can’t just keep on producing goods that no one can afford to buy in order to make our stock prices attractive to potential buyers. And yes, what about China and India and all those other nations who want to to be able to have cell phones and I pods and all the other stuff we take for granted. But it takes petroleum to “fuel” an economic burst and there is only so much of that stuff to go around and then what?

Just as George Washington Carver looked at the lowly peanut and found lots of stuff hidden inside, the answers are there—we just need to know where and how to look for them. I believe we need our eyes opened in a very practical way in the next little while in order to understand the times we are in and how to respond to them.

Enjoy your ride today—it is getting more interesting on the road we all share.

During the past couple of weeks our mountain weather has gone from the mid sixties to the low twenties with several inches of snow, a few inches of rain and lots of windy days and nights thrown in for good measure. During my almost thirty years in the western part of North Carolina I have seemingly seen it all.

Several observations can be made about spring in the mountains: it rains more than it snows; we are always teased by fantastic weather only to have it vanish completely over a several hour period; and the daffodils always want to bloom before the weather on the top of the earth is really ready for them. In between we have what everybody has: sometimes the late frost gets the fruit and the rest of what blooms early and sometimes it doesn’t.

Have you ever noticed how the big chain stores like Lowe’s Hardware get seeds and stuff to plant way before it is really time to even think about it. But if you hesitate even for a Saturday or two you will find that all the seeds have been bought and if the the past is any indication, they won’t be getting any more of that stuff in for those of us who realistically waited.

We once had a store in Boone that catered to the “real” gardening crowd. If we came in to early because of one of those tempting warming trends, we were told in no uncertain terms to cool our jets and wait for a while until it was really safe to plant. In other words, they wouldn’t keep you from buying but would let you know that your success rate would increase if you waited until the time was really at hand to plant. They were the ones that bought seeds in big cans and would measure them out into little packets for sale and would generally have enough left if you wanted to plant that extra run of spinach in the fall and had forgotten to buy the seeds in May. Whereas, Lowe’s and their like, time everything to move quickly so that they can free up space to sell us the next season’s stuff before we are even done with the last one. It’s all about moving the merchandise and making a profit for the stock holders rather than about you and me and the people that keep them in business.

This year, after having run out of seeds last year way before I was ready to run out of them, I bought lots of salad seeds and even got some grape and berry plants though I knew that I wouldn’t be in the garden for at least a month. They will be out of stock long before I have even planted a row of lettuce but I remember what the market was like the past couple of years and though I wasn’t ready to buy I wasn’t ready to run out in mid-summer either. Push, push, push. Wal-Mart even starts selling Christmas lights in September these days and in my neighborhood there are a couple of people who haven’t taken last years lights down yet. Maybe we will still see them in August—what do you want to bet!

In other news I could mention the last and perhaps one of the best books I have ever read. It’s called “The Shack” and is very hard to fully explain. Fact or fiction, it is a book about one man’s encounter with God after his youngest daughter is kidnapped while on a family camping trip. It is one of those books I looked forward to getting off of work so that I could come home and finish reading. If it is your time to read it you won’t be able to put it down. All I can say is that for many of us it is a big piece to the puzzle of our lives and where we are to head in the days in front of us.

This past Sunday was an example of one of those beautiful spring days that I often reference. My biking buddy Glen and I headed out after church and a quick lunch to take a 30 mile ride on one of my favorite roads. It is always the same but different every time—we have a great ride and pat ourselves on the back every few miles for being on the road and not in our easy chairs taking a Sunday afternoon nap—although by mile 25 I was tired and hoping my car was just around the corner. It wasn’t and I did finally make it home and into my big easy chair with a glass of Merlot as my reward for being such a good boy. It’s a tough life but somebody has got to live it.

As you have probably noticed, blogging has taken a back seat to…I really don’t know what but it must be important. Life is lately like the price of gas and almost everything else…prices keep going up and we really don’t know where all the money goes other than the fact that there is often more month than money many times. I remember when gas was twenty five cents a gallon and you could get a hamburger, fries and a shake for well under a dollar.

In the meantime, I sit and wait for another good book to fall into my lap and the next episode of “Lost” to appear on television. In due time it will be time to drag my winter weary body into what was once a garden and do something to make it look that way again. Thursday is looking good for an afternoon ride and then another cold weekend is in store before things begin to heat up and the days get longer and the walks after dinner begin again for the next year.

Enjoy your ride and I hope you find a good book to help you through the next few weeks.

Today has been one of those cold dreary days that have February in the mountains written all over it—the fire wood is damp, it’s hard to get the house above 65 degrees and after a gray day or two it’s now foggy outside and getting dark earlier than usual.

It’s been a weekend where very little gets done and there is not much I am particularly inspired to do. In my mind it is like the flip side to a coin where the other side has clarity and breakthrough pictured boldly in three dimensional glory.

As I said—or at least implied—I had to pull myself out of the rocking chair, where I was covered with a warm blanket in order to attend a solo piano concert by a friend of mine this Sunday afternoon. I was happy under the blanket waiting for the house to get warm, but I am glad that I made the effort.

I knew that my friend (Steve Sensenig) was a good pianist but I was nonetheless surprised at how masterful he was when it came to taking on Beethoven, Chopin and Mendelssohn all by himself in that small recital room on campus. I had positioned myself to be at eye level with his hands and slightly to the left of the keyboard. Except for about twenty people or so in the room mostly behind me, it was just me and Steve and the music for a little under an hour.

It is hard to describe the thoughts and feelings that float by as we allow ourselves to relax and be entertained. Not unlike a good movie, our focus seems to be shaken loose from “everyday” reality and lands somewhere in the realm of possibility. We find ourselves in a place that is not really all that unfamiliar but a place that we know from experience that we must leave at some point. It is a place where hopes and dreams come together in a mix of extreme expectancy only to be followed by the poignant realization that we live our lives far below what we are capable of.

It’s that moment of time when we relax and enjoy the minute by minute beat of a feeling that given the opportunity says we can do and/or be anything that we can think of or imagine. That is until we reach the very moment of breakthrough and the music stops or the movie ends and we find ourselves back in the parking lot looking for our car.

And I have said all that to say this: that even though I have sat through that same movie for many years, I think I am just about to enter into an area of reality that I have only, up until now, been able to sense as a light breeze might be felt coming in off the ocean. It’s a fullness that expresses itself in a joy and an understanding that is as if the movie continues even when we have left the theater or concert hall. That the photo frames that have escaped us all these years are about to be captured in full color and surround sound.

I know this must sound a bit extreme and somewhat truncated. I realize that saying what I have is a lot to get our heads around. How can we go from watching the movie to actually being a part of it? And I don’t exactly have a road map in front of me—it is more of a sense or a feeling that a window of opportunity has opened in front of me and that I must by all means go through it.

My wife and I watched a DVD the other evening that was made at a conference last October in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas. It was called “Shatter” and was a Christian arts and worship release event. The very last evening of the conference, after a two hour plus praise and worship service with banners and dancing and people making art, John Paul Jackson got on stage and said that our idea of what worshiping God means has been to narrow. He then went on to explain that whenever we did something within an area of our gifting, we were in reality worshiping God. Scripture says that God gave gifts to men and what better way to exalt the giver of the gift that to operate in it and enjoy it.

Therefore if your gift is encouragement, when you encourage someone you are in a sense glorifying God through that act. And you most certainly don’t have to attend a Sunday “worship” service to feel as though you are indeed worshiping God. Not that that hurts—but you know what I mean.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that when the music stops, you move on to the next song and don’t wait around until something from someplace else just happens to show up in front of you until you begin to sing again.

Enjoy your ride and your song.

I grew up in a small to medium sized town in Michigan called Port Huron. The town itself was sort of nondescript and was like many towns of its day—the rich people lived in one part of town, the poor in another and those who found themselves in between—well they sort of lived on the edges of where everybody else lived.

We had two high schools, a couple of radio stations, a community college, two golf courses and a sailboat marina among other attractions. In addition, the town was just across the St. Clair River from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. During my youth we would travel to hockey games across the Blue Water Bridge which joined the two towns just at the place that Lake Huron ended and the river began. If you have ever heard of the Port Huron to Mackinaw sailboat race then that would be the place where the race began every July.

It was an interesting place to grow up nonetheless and the reason I am remembering any of this is that on the way to the coffee shop tonight to take my daughter to meet a friend, I turned on the Beatles’ Rubber Soul album and listened to one of my favorite songs from that time period, Norwegian Wood. And that brought back another interesting memory from that time period that I hadn’t thought about in quite some time.

Port Huron had its share of strange people who just seemed to float around. People who would show up one day and then wouldn’t be seen again for months. Stories would grow up around these people and after so long you would not know what was the truth and what was rumor.

One of these people lived just on the outskirts of my neighborhood and even though I never really learned his complete history, suffice it to say I would occasionally find myself at his house and would listen to his music and his stories. He lived in an apartment above a closed in garage which wasn’t used much as he didn’t have a car but what he did have was an old upright piano sitting against an outside wall.

I have always been fascinated by pianos and this one was in tune and everything. He told me it was for sale and even though I knew that one—my parents would never approve of me buying it and two—even if I did there was no way I could get it to my house and even if I could there wasn’t anyplace for it to live.

So, as my memory serves, for the next several months I would visit that garage and play around with my new purchase. I remember giving him twenty bucks for it and thinking back, probably knew somewhere in my mind that I was really just paying a rental fee. I even went so far as to buy the piano sheet music to Norwegian Wood and spent hours just trying to train my fingers to hit all the right keys.

Like I said, he was one of “those” people and one day I found the door to the garage locked. I hadn’t seen Jim or Joe or whatever his name was around but I had heard that his mother lived in an old house by the local beach, just a few blocks from the piano garage. It was one of those places that had seen better days and as I approached I could see all the curtains shut and noticed the grass hadn’t been cut in a couple of weeks. I knocked and waited and knocked and waited some more. Just as I was about to leave an older, somewhat disheveled artistic looking lady came to the door and asked me why I was bothering her. I told her that I had been playing the piano in her son’s garage and that the door was now locked and wondered if she knew where her son was and if she had a key so that I could open the door and get in to play the piano.

I didn’t tell her that I had “rented” it out or any of the other details of my life that pertained to the aforementioned instrument. She proceeded to tell me that he had left town again and that she really had no idea of when he would return or where he was for that matter. She indicated that there might be a key around somewhere but I could tell that she doubted my story and that that was the last time I was ever going to be in that garage.

I was disappointed as I walked away but seem to remember getting caught up in some other aspect of my life and that my piano days began to seem further and further away. I don’t remember ever seeing or thinking about my piano friend again.

That is until yesterday and the strains of Norwegian Wood wove their way into my head and then on to this cyber page.

I have had several other love affairs with pianos since that time and when I get a moment it might be interesting to tell the story of when I would sneak into the sanctuary of my church in Port Huron in order to play the great big pipe organ that sat unused all work-week long.

Enjoy your ride today and remember it is the little things in life that make the ride interesting.

In light of my recent discovery of the “Yes We Can” music video featuring Barak Obama and its powerful message calling people together for change, I have to wonder what the real message of this video is and whether it is realistic to think that “ordinary people” can make much of a difference in the political landscape of America.

In the overall scheme of things it is hard to describe just how very little politics matters in my life.

And I think it all stems back to a political science class I took at St. Clair Community College in the late sixties.

Located in Port Huron, Michigan, SC Four was a feeder school for the state college system in Michigan and taken at that level was not a bad place to hang your hat, so to speak.

I entered community college after returning from Europe and getting my high school diploma at night school. I joined the pregnant girls and the guys that married them in night school because the principal of the high school I attended before I split to discover myself would not let me back in the regular day school regimen. Something about me being more mature and all that, he said. And while I never quite forgave him for that decision, it didn’t take me long to figure out he had made the right one.

So I got my High School diploma at night school and moved on to community college as a way to eventually get into Michigan State University, the very same school that Magic Johnson attended.

This was an interesting period of my life. Against my better judgment I moved back into my parents house after being in Europe for several months and got my diploma. Then I went to community college for 2 years in order to get my life back to some sort of normal. I even became the student government president during that time period and reveled in all the doors that position opened to me. My pony tail hair had become short and for all practical purposes I was as straight as a string.

But other things were working inside of me and it wasn’t long before my mind began to wander and I moved on from there to Lansing, Michigan where MSU was located.

However, I am getting way ahead of myself.

While at community college, one of my very first classes was Poly Sci 101 taught by a teacher named Stephen Rubel. The very first class I remember him stating with all the authority vested upon a community college teacher that political parties would very soon become a misnomer as each candidate would eventually have to do what was demanded of them by whatever circumstance the US found itself in. That it really wasn’t a democrat or republican thing at all but that the candidate that looked best on TV would be the one who would win and so forth.

Bear in mind that this was before everything about a campaign and running for any public office would become all about consultants, media analysts and focus groups. Not to mention political action committees, the silent majority, the religious right and liberal left.

What brought this all home to me was an e-mail link I received the other day from Denny Hatch who is an internet target marketing guru. The link said:

Electile Dysfunction: The inability to become aroused over any of the choices for president put forth by either party in the 2008 election year. —Ed Zuckerman, Proprietor of “Government Policy Newslinks” to Denny Hatch, e-mail, January 23, 2008

And in light of all the “E D” commercials we have to put up with on television, I thought this was hilarious. So much so I got a good belly laugh and then realized I couldn’t agree with it more. There is no Camelot candidate for us to choose this year and hasn’t been one for some time. Maybe they got caught in the last trickle down wave from Washington and are still trying to find their way back into mainstream America.

While thinking about all this I stumbled across a Bill Kinnon post on his Achievable Ends blog which features the Barak Obama “Yes We Can” speech from the New Hampshire primary. “Yes We Can” is a music video by Will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas incorporating this speech. It features a host of celebrity cameos, including Scarlett Johansson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Nick Cannon and Herbie Hancock.

Suffice it to say I was intrigued by the concept and have to believe that a lot of votes are being directed his way due to this video. Little did my Poly Sci professor know how much his idea of the “television” candidate would be realized in 2008 when he made his remarks to that class of 1970.

At this point I have no idea who will get my vote. On my way to work I saw a pickup truck with a big poster on the back about Ron Paul who I guess is a grass roots presidential candidate. And knowing what the press does with anyone who runs for public office, I wonder why anyone would want the job.

I don’t know what else to say other than the Obama video link is below. Let me know what you think about all this.

Yes We Can Video

Yesterday was one of those days that rolls around every 15 or 20 years or so in North Carolina when the temperatures in February reach record highs. The recorded temperature yesterday for Boone was 69 degrees, surpassing by 7 degrees the 62 degree day recorded in 1991.

And being the bike rider and opportunist that I am, that kind of weather spoke loud and clear to me: “Take the afternoon off work and go for a long bike ride—you would be stupid if you didn’t.” So, I didn’t argue with this voice inside my head and after a quick lunch I cleaned up my bike and headed out with my buddy Glen to get a little fresh air and exercise.

If you have ever found some activity that totally pleases you what I am about to say will make a lot of sense. While riding I told Glen that it shouldn’t be this easy—finding pleasure in just riding—without a lot of attendant pain and so forth. Riding for me has become the sort of endeavor that requires little more from me than just showing up and getting into the saddle.

Yet it seems like it should be harder—more masochistic—that I should have to pay for my satisfaction with a pound of flesh and a high mortgage rate. Yet that could not be farther from the truth.

Yesterday we rode 30 miles and tackled one of the highest hills that we have ridden. Normally this would be something that we would do in April or May and having done it so early in the year is a promise for good things for the rest of 2008—bike-wise. And other than a little calf-cramp late in the day, the ride was pure pleasure.

It would be my hope at this point that you would have found something as rich and rewarding in your life as riding has become to me.

I am reminded of a verse in the book of Ecclesiastes that states:

3:12 I know that there is nothing better for them (read “us”) than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime;

3:13 Moreover, that every man who eats and drinks and sees good in all his labor–it is the gift of God.

What the writer is saying to me is that God is very interested in our lives and really has our best interests at heart. That if we enjoy an activity such as eating or riding or working, this feeling or understanding of that enjoyment comes from God as well. In other words, God has so framed our relationship to the world around us that in gaining pleasure from it is part of the dynamic built into our perception of its reality.

And that my friend is really a mouthful.

In all of this just voiced I am not implying that I am some super-spiritual being that basks in the joy of living 24/7. I have my hangups and am dysfunctional in my own specific ways. But I realize that we are all joined together by a silver thread that is used to stitch the pieces of this patch-work quilt called humanity. Whether African or Indian, Asian or Caucasian, we share in an adventure that can only be called “inspired”.

To see my ride as frivolous or unimportant is to devalue how much I really mean to God—to fully understand how much I am cared for is almost to much for me to comprehend.

This is the divine tension called “living” that we are faced with each and everyday.

Songs have been written about it—poems have attempted to give us insight into what it is all about.

But until you are fully into your ride, you will never know just how much it is you have been given to live and to rejoice in.

And that my friend is a ride and a wrap.

One of the major differences between North Carolina and my previous home state of Michigan is the incidences of freezing rain/ice storms during the winter months. My memory of Michigan is that the sky clouded over in late October and you didn’t see the sun again until almost May. Then it would get cold and the snow would snow on top of snow and everything eventually looked gray and unappetizing—not your “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas” kind of picture at all.

Not that winter was all bad—when I was a kid I earned a lot of money shoveling snow on those days when it dumped a bunch and we didn’t have to go to school. We’d walk around the neighborhood and knock on doors and sometimes we wouldn’t get home until late in the afternoon. I never thought about it this way before, but I bet my mother was glad to see us pick up the shovel and head out—you know how kids can get when school is out there is nothing to do.

By my late twenties and early thirties, I had also discovered all the many recreational types of things you could do during the long Michigan winters. Since there were lots of state parks, cross-country skiing became one of my favorite things to do with my not yet wife Sandi. We still talk about those days. Instead of letting her teach me how, I bought a couple of books and read up on the sport and since I was a purist the skis I purchased were very Nordic and wooden and were the kind that needed different kinds of wax applied to them depending on the type of snow you would be skiing in. Sandi’s were fiberglass and had little ridges on the bottom and worked in all types of snow and actually worked better than mine most of the time. But that is the way life was back then—I would like to think that I have changed for the better.

We have been in North Carolina since 1978 and have seen our share of ice storms and freezing rain. Back in the day, whenever we had freezing rain, the power would go off for an indefinite period of time and so I bought lots of kerosene lamps and we always kept water in jugs handy. There were many times I would fire up the old Coleman stove just outside the door in order to heat some water for coffee or soup. Ah…those were the days my friend!

The first seven years in NC we had a wood cook stove as well as a wood heater and when the power went off nothing much really changed—life went on as almost usual.

But we don’t lose our electricity much anymore. Our power comes from Blue Ridge Electric and all during the spring, summer and fall months you can see trucks all around the county cutting the tree limbs that could potentially fall on the power lines during one of our freezing rain periods. They have done a good job and I am typing this story while everything around me (outside that is) is covered in up to 3/8ths of an inch of ice from the freezing rain we had last night. The temperature is hovering around the 34 degree mark and my driveway is a 30 degree pitch of solid ice.

I may make it into work after a while. I have only heard one vehicle leave the neighborhood since I have been up and I will probably throw some ice melt on the driveway in a bit to help it along.

Since I can’t get out and about to show you what things look like, I took a picture of my bird feeders out of my kitchen window. At least you will get an idea of what it’s like outside on this first of February in the mountains of North Carolina.

I am going to feed the fire and get another cup of coffee. Enjoy your day wherever you may be riding.