My reading for Lent this year was Pope Francis’s autobiography, Hope. The Pope says in the introduction that this book was scheduled to be released after his death, but he felt the current state of worldly affairs warranted its release before his death and before he fell ill and was hospitalized. It makes me wonder if he knew his end was near and the flock would need guidance during these difficult times we are experiencing.
It’s an exceptional book. Pope Francis tells his history, his background, and always ties the past into the relevance of following Christ and taking our faith into the world. Hope is a book I will keep on my shelf. I will add it to my essential reading list to reread at least every five years.
As I type this, I am watching Pope Francis’s funeral procession through the streets of Rome, and I am struck by the words of Father James Martin of the Jesuit Order when asked to define the lasting legacy of Pope Francis. Fr. Martin thought for a few seconds and said Pope Francis’s greatest legacy is that he lived in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.
Pope Francis walked the Christian walk. His whole life was dedicated to living his faith both inside and outside the physical church. He lived his faith above and beyond the strict ceremonies and procedures as Jesus himself did. Christianity is a living faith. Christianity is community. To live as Christians, we must all follow Pope Francis’s spirit and, from least to greatest, walk with Jesus Christ among our brothers and sisters.
I highlighted four quotes from the book that hit hard. Here’s the first.
“We must feed hope through the force of gestures, instead of placing our hope in gestures of force. “
Of the entire canon of Bob Dylan’s work, I think Workingman’s Blues #2 runs a close second to Like a Rolling Stone. The song came out in 2006 on Dylan’s Modern Times album. I cannot remember where I first heard or became aware of it. It was probably on one of the last area real-life classic rock stations before those faded into oblivion. The song isn’t one of the more popular or well-known of Dylan’s works but it strikes a chord in my middle-class soul.
Dylan says the song was written after touring with the great Merle Haggard as a nod to his Workin’ Man’s Blues, hence the “#2” in the title. For me, this is such a great song because of the visuals and emotions Dylan strikes with the music and the lyrics. Add in Dylan’s gravely, older voice, and this song hits the mark dead center.
The gold nugget at the heart of the story is, that despite life’s burdens that drag the narrator down, there exists the hope things will get better. At the end of the day, we all need to shine our nugget of hope to keep it fueling our daily toils despite “the buyin’ power of the proletariat” being down. (Who else besides Dylan can work the word “proletariat” into a song without a “WTF?” by the listening audience?)
Stoned59, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Workingman’s Blues #2 by Bob Dylan
There’s an evening’ haze settlin’ over the town Starlight by the edge of the creek The buyin’ power of the proletariat’s gone down Money’s gettin’ shallow and weak The place I love best is a sweet memory It’s a new path that we trod They say low wages are a reality If we want to compete abroad
My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf Come sit down on my knee You are dearer to me than myself As you yourself can see I’m listening’ to the steel rails hum Got both eyes tight shut Just sitting here trying to keep the hunger from Creeping it’s way into my gut
[Chorus] Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind Bring me my boots and shoes You can hang back or fight your best on the front line Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues
Now, I’m sailing’ on back, ready for the long haul Tossed by the winds and the seas I’ll drag them all down to hell and I’ll stand them at the wall I’ll sell them to their enemies I’m trying’ to feed my soul with thought Gonna sleep off the rest of the day Sometimes no one wants what we got Sometimes you can’t give it away
Now the place is ringed with countless foes Some of them may be deaf and dumb No man, no woman knows The hour that sorrow will come In the dark I hear the night birds call I can hear a lover’s breath I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall Sleep is like a temporary death
[Chorus] Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind Bring me my boots and shoes You can hang back or fight your best on the front line Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues
Well, they burned my barn, they stole my horse I can’t save a dime I got to be careful, I don’t want to be forced Into a life of continual crime I can see for myself that the sun is sinking How I wish you were here to see Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking That you have forgotten me?
Now they worry and they hurry and they fuss and they fret They waste your nights and days Them I will forget But you I’ll remember always Old memories of you to me have clung You’ve wounded me with words Gonna have to straighten out your tongue It’s all true, everything you have heard
[Chorus] Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind Bring me my boots and shoes You can hang back or fight your best on the front line Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues
In you, my friend, I find no blame Wanna look in my eyes, please do No one can ever claim That I took up arms against you All across the peaceful sacred fields They will lay you low They’ll break your horns and slash you with steel I say it so it must be so
Now I’m down on my luck and I’m black and blue Gonna give you another chance I’m all alone and I’m expecting you To lead me off in a cheerful dance Got a brand new suit and a brand new wife I can live on rice and beans Some people never worked a day in their life Don’t know what work even means
[Chorus] Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind Bring me my boots and shoes You can hang back or fight your best on the front line Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues
Storytellers, really good storytellers, are priceless. It doesn’t matter if it’s the storyteller down at the local tavern or the storytellers behind award-winning books, movies, and songs, they are a precious commodity. They are a useful and valuable thing for community and society.
One of America’s greatest storytellers was the musician John Prine. Prine produced a treasure trove of storyteller songs in his 50+ years as a professional musician. He’d survived throat cancer and lung cancer. Both affected his singing voice but neither stopped him from performing, which he did until his untimely death in April of 2020 from COVID complications.
I’m eternally grateful to Coach Paul Lane for burning a CD of John Prine and sliding it into a stack of CDs he gave me one summer. I remember throwing it into the player while working out in the garage gym when “Hello in There” came on. I had to stop everything I was doing, sit down, and listen to those lyrics three or four times before I could get back to business. It is such a great song, mesmerizing and hypnotic to the point you feel you’re sitting in the room with the old couple. That’s powerful storytelling. That’s magic.
There’s so much one could ramble on about John Prine but I think his collaborator on the great “In Spite of Ourselves”, Iris DeMint, said it best.
“John Prine was, without a doubt, one of the greatest songwriters this world will ever know,” DeMent wrote on Facebook. “Here’s why he rests on my heart’s mountaintop: Because he cared enough to look—at me, you, all of us—until he saw what was noble, and then he wrapped us up in melodies and sung us back to ourselves. That was the miracle of John Prine. And it was enough.”
There are a multitude of great John Prine content on YouTube. One can randomly select one and travel down the road to storytelling greatness. I particularly appreciate his work throughout his career highlighting the struggles of Vietnam Veterans, like “Sam Stone” and “Angel From Montgomery”. Below is a link to the last song he recorded before passing. It’s called “I Remember Everything” and it’s storytelling only as John Prine can weave.
John Prine’s last recorded song, “I Remember Everything”.
DDay+80—eighty years since the Greatest Generation began the greatest offensive in all human history directed at the face of tyranny.
With three writing projects in the orbit of three different eras of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s professional life, I’ve done quite a bit of reading and research on Ike Eisenhower. The most important thing I’ve discovered in this work is how much I find Ike’s ideas and philosophies mirror my ideas and philosophies as I approach age 60.
Growing up in Kansas City, Kansas, all I ever really knew about President Eisenhower in the grand scheme of things was that he was born in Kansas. I remember bits and pieces of visiting the Eisenhower Library & Museum in Abilene, Kansas when I was about 8 or so on a family summer vacation to visit my grandparents’ house at Tuttle Creek Lake near Manhattan. My main memory is standing on a hot summer day inside the cool and quiet Place of Meditation, the final resting place of Ike and Maime. The surviving impression from that day is my gut telling me this place was somewhere special and the people buried here were something special.
After spending the last few years on a deep dive into Dwight David Eisenhower, I now can confirm those gut feelings, Ike was something special and his influence helped build the United States into the world leader the people of my generation and those to follow grew up taking for granted.
We could all benefit at this 2024 moment in the United States from the life of Dwight D. Eisenhower. There are many historical parallels to the decade leading up to World War II that are increasingly impossible to ignore. As Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
In remembrance of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, here is the letter General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, sent his troops before the commencement of the D-Day attack on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 2024.
May God bless all the brave soldiers and their families for their bravery and sacrifice in standing up to Nazi evil.
General Eisenhower’s letter to the troops before the D-Day invasion, June 1944.
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brother-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed people of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-1941. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their war strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
Rest in peace, Jimmy Buffet. This loss hits hard. Few performers or creators affect who I am to the level Jimmy Buffet does. From day one of being introduced to his music as a kid in the 1970s to streaming Margaritaville Radio on the road. His book, A Pirate Looks at Fifty, is a fantastic read. If you’ve never heard his 1994 release, Fruitcakes, you need to run and find it now. It’s one of his best and his cover of the Grateful Dead’s Uncle John’s Band is magnificent (It was a standard inclusion on the burn CDs we’d play during summer conditioning back in the day.)
I don’t know what else to say except to attempt to express an appreciation for his work. He will be missed but leaves us with a full bucket of words, music, and reminders to relax and enjoy life.
Come Monday it will be alright…
I sure hope so.
Thank you, Jimmy, for a lifetime of entertainment.
A Pirate Looks at 40
Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call Wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall You’ve seen it all, you’ve seen it all
Watched the men who rode you switch from sails to steam And in your belly, you hold the treasures few have ever seen Most of ’em dream, most of ’em dream
Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late The cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothin’ to plunder I’m an over-forty victim of fate Arriving too late, arriving too late
I’ve done a bit of smugglin’, I’ve run my share of grass I made enough money to buy Miami, but I pissed it away so fast Never meant to last, never meant to last
And I have been drunk now for over two weeks I passed out and I rallied and I sprung a few leaks But I got to stop wishin’, got to go fishin’ Down to rock bottom again Just a few friends, just a few friends
I go for younger women, lived with several awhile Though I ran ’em away, they’d come back one day Still could manage to smile Just takes a while, just takes a while
Mother, mother ocean, after all the years I’ve found My occupational hazard being my occupation’s just not around I feel like I’ve drowned, gonna head uptown I feel like I’ve drowned, gonna head uptown
As with many of Pink Floyd’s great songs, Wish You Were Here stands on its own. All the gushing and blubbering I can do about it merely fades in comparison to the work itself. It’s a beautiful piece of art. The song tugs at the heartstrings. It brings a sense of longing to the soul of the listener. The universal humanity in the song’s five or so minutes is astounding.
Wish You Were Here is on the 1975 album of the same name. It’s the follow-up album to The Dark Side of the Moon, which is often considered the greatest rock album of all time. It’s also the second release in an almost surreal string of four exceptional pieces of creative work Pink Floyd released in the 1970s.
The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
Wish You Were Here (1975)
Animals (1977)
The Wall (1979)
These four albums are all stunning in their own right. The only downfall of the second, third, and fourth albums is the fact they weren’t the greatest rock & roll record of all time, The Dark Side of the Moon. Last week at work, I had an enormous amount of paperwork I’d been putting off for far too long. I showed up intent on sitting down and working through my self-imposed paperwork problem. So I opened Spotify on my desktop and played The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall in succession.
Wow.
That’s really the only word to describe the experience. The paperwork got done. The songs echoed past, present, and future in my brain. I’d forgotten how good and underrated Animals is. Hell, I’d forgotten how great all four of these albums are. I highly recommend revisiting each of these four records if you have the chance. Fabulous creative work.
Wish You Were Here is one of the songs that keeps bouncing around in my head. It hits my soul in a completely different way in 2023, at age 58, than it did in the late 1970s as a young teenager. That’s exactly what creative words do. They seep their way into your being, set root, and grow.
Running over the same old ground What have we found? The same old fears Wish you were here
A Word’s Look: Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from hell? Blue skies from pain? Can you tell a green field From a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade Your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? Did you exchange A walk-on part in the war For a leading role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here We’re just two lost souls Swimming in a fish bowl Year after year Running over the same old ground What have we found? The same old fears Wish you were here
I hadn’t heard this song for years but the line, “And when I die you can bury me in Lubbock Texas in my jeans”, popped into my head the other day for no particular reason. The mind is a weird thing—an amalgamation of stored experiences, thoughts, and dreams. I was thinking about home and found homes and adopted homes and how all three meld together to form your true home. To me, now on the downslope to sixty years on this planet, that single line from this great 1980 song defines the essence of what true home means.
Mac Davis could do just about anything in the entertainment business. Songwriter of such megahits as Elvis’ In the Ghetto, I Believe in Music recorded by a whole slew of people, Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me, and the late-night, driving home from a party anthem, Lord It’s Hard to Be Humble. Singer/songwriter of many popular hits and albums over a twenty-year career. He also acted. Over his long acting career, he starred in the 1979 movie, North Dallas Forty, hosted his own variety show, appeared in several TV shows, including a hosting gig for an episode of The Muppet Show, and was a voice-over talent in a handful of popular animated series. He could pull off just about anything and do it with his mix of down-home personality and general likeability.
For some reason, probably because he did so many things well and did them in his own easy-going style, Mac Davis was never really given the credit he deserved for the talent he exhibited. He died in November of 2020 from complications after heart surgery.
This song, Texas in My Rear View Mirror, will always be in my top 100 songs. It means as much to me now as it did in my 1980s crazy-ass youth. It’s about true home. Something I’ve been lucky enough to find and something I hope to never take for granted. Because every day, “ the vision was getting clearer in my dream”.
Texas in My Rear View Mirror by Mac Davis
I was just fifteen and out of control lost to James Dean and rock and roll I knew down deep in my country soul that I had to get away Hollywood was a lady in red who danced in my dreams as I tossed in bed I knew I’d wind up in jail or dead if I have to stay
I thought happiness was Lubbock Texas in my rearview mirror My mama kept calling me home but I just did not want to hear her And the vision was getting clearer in my dream
So I let out one night in June stoned on the glow of the Texas moon Humming an old Buddy Holly tune called Peggy Sue (pretty, pretty Peggy Sue) With my favorite jeans and a cheap guitar, I ran off chasing a distant star If Buddy Holly could make it that far then I figured I could too
I thought happiness was Lubbock Texas in my rearview mirror My mama kept calling me home but I just did not want to hear her And the vision was getting clearer in my dream
But the Hollywood moon didn’t smile the same old smile that I’d grown up with The lady in red just wanted my last dime And I cried myself to sleep at night too dumb to run too scared to fight And too proud to admit it at the time
So I got me some gigs on Saturday night not much more than orchestrated fights I’d come home drunk and I tried to write but the words came out all wrong Hellbent and bound for a wasted youth too much gin and not enough vermouth And no one to teach me to seek the truth before I put an end to this song
I still thought happiness was Lubbock Texas in my rearview mirror My mama kept calling me home but I just could not, would not hear her And the vision was getting clearer in my dream
Well I thank God each and every day for giving me the music and the words to say I’d never had made it any other way he was my only friend Now I sleep a little better each night and when I look in the mirror in the morning light The man I see was both wrong and right he’s going home again
I guessed happiness was Lubbock Texas in my rearview mirror But now happiness was Lubbock Texas growing nearer and dearer And the vision was getting clearer in my dream
And I think I finally know just what it means And when I die you can bury me in Lubbock Texas in my jeans
THE COACH HAYS 