I recently responded to a Facebook post in reply to my posting of a link to a video of Obama stating he was born in Kenya. Her point was basically all of this doesn't matter and we just need to move on.
Here it is.
If Bush had done a shred of the stuff Obama has lied about, the media would have excoriated him, along with most liberals. The 'birther' thing is only one of many problems with his presidency. Did you know the Hawaiian Secretary of State refused to certify Obama's eligibility for the DNC nomination in 2007? As President of the DNC, Nancy Pelosi was the only other person who could certify him. And she did. Never happened with anyone else before. It is proven already that the birth certificate posted by the White House was a forgery. I downloaded it and deconstucted it myself, as did the experts. That birth thing is not even the primary issue. What is the primary issue is that Obama is taking this country down the road to ruin. If we continue down the same course, the economy will collapse, and there will be rioting in the inner cities when the two or three days worth of food is gone from the shelves of the stores. It will make Greece look like a dust up at a baseball game. And along the way, he lying to us left and right and the media along with his minions are covering for him. A conservative president would be in impeachment hearings right now for the same behaviors Obama is given a pass on. No one has to agree with me. But there are many who do. I will be glad to present facts for those who are interested. If you don't like what I have to say, fine, it's a difference of opinion and belief. But if you want to disagree with me, present the facts and we can have an adult discussion about it. Please be prepared first. Look up Clower and Piven, Bill Ayers, Rules for Radicals, Weather Underground. Familiarize yourself with the Muslim Brotherhood. I will be glad to send you a file filled with facts that would scare anyone interested in really knowing what is going on. I don't think anyone can deny the coincidence of the election results and the sudden escalation of attacks by Hamas on Israel. When this whole Benghazi business is unraveled, even the lapdog media won't be able to hide the truth, thanks to the resources of Social Media. Of course, if Obama and the UN have their way, they will be able to control freedom of speech there. Wanna see the proposals? I'll be glad to pass the links along...if you really want to know the facts. Just sayin'...
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
Obama's 'Grassy Knoll'
Is it possible that the main-stream media's complicity in Benghazigate is only exceeded by it's attempts to dupe the American people that John F. Kennedy was shot by 3 shots in 6 seconds from a horribly inaccurate bolt action rifle, unable to cycle a round faster than 2.3 seconds under the best circumstances, 3 shots by Lee Harvey Oswald, a below average shot ar best, 3 shots with such incredible accuracy at a moving vehicle that today's best snipers would have difficulty making 2 out of 3 of those shots with far more accurate rifles, and this same media refuses to inform the American people what this president was up to and how he tried to cover up actions he sanctioned that would not only result in his not being re-elected, but could well result in criminal charges being brought against him and key players in his administration. The truth will emerge in spite of those who would hide their despicable acts in hopes that by the time we the people figure out what's happened it will be too late. Events have been set in motion in the Middle East that threaten the very existence freedom as we know it here in America. On Nov. 6 , 2012 we will find out if there is even a chance the precious freedoms brave Americans gave their lives for will survive beyond this generation. Pray to God it isn't too late already. Even now, frightening revelations are coming to light, as indicated in this article:
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/arming-jihadists-backfires-in-benghazi/#.UI65TI9yrUs.twitter
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/arming-jihadists-backfires-in-benghazi/#.UI65TI9yrUs.twitter
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Will The Mainstream Media Make America More Liberal, Or Go Bankrupt Trying?
Maybe because my last couple of weeks have consisted of flying all night, thereby turning my circadian rhythm upside down, making sleeping during normal night time hours near impossible on my off days, I decided to fill my sleepless time with an exercise in armchair analysis of the viewership each of the cable news networks receives. I looked up the ratings on Zap2it.com and entered the data from October 11th to October 23rd into an Excel spreadsheet. Using the programs charting tools, which was suprisingly easy for a novice like myself, I created a chart comparing Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and HLN. Take a look at what I saw:
Most people I know look at cable news networks in terms of two categories; Fox News, the conservative 'outsider' and the more liberal 'Mainstream Media' which would include CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and HLN. Now looking at the chart it is blaringly obvious that Fox News enjoys a viewership consistently that is nearly twice as much as it's nearest competitor, MSNBC, and several times more than CNN. In my travels I get to meet and talk to a lot of people. As soon as someone tells me which cable news channel they watch, I can be quite certain which way their political views are going to lean. Conservitives watch the Fox News Channel, and liberals think Fox is right wing propoganda. On the other hand, liberals watch MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, or HLN. Most conservatives will tell you the mainstream media is heavily biased toward liberal viewpoints, to the degree that most conservatives will tell you they believe the mainstream media is doing all it can to make sure Barack Obama gets re-elected to a second term. I will say right here that I believe that as well, recognizing that it is my opinion. I do believe there are a number of sources where facts are presented and a good case can be made that there is proof of that, but I will leave the proof of evidence for another discussion and stick with declaring what I have to say here about media bias as my opinion, based on my personal observations.
The core of what I am asking here is this; in the broadcasting business, you make money by attracting advertisers who pay for time to run their ads. It seems logical that an advertiser would want their ads to run on the network where they would get the most exposure, where more people would be watching at any time their ads would run. The whole ratings thing is all about how many people are watching a given network at a certain time. If you look at the chart here, it is plain to see that Fox News has a lot more viewers than the mainstream media. Why? I think it has to do with the content presented by the different news organizations. More people watch Fox News because they believe what is presented there is more credible, less biased, and aligns with their political views. So why don't the mainstream media networks change their reporting to come from a more conservative viewpoint to attract more viewers? It doesn't make sense that they don't want more viewers. There must be a deeper motivator that keeps them so doggedly liberal. Certainly the anchors, contributors, and presenters are selected and promoted based in part on their willingness and ability to reflect the political views of those in power leading the network. So it must be the ones who hold the keys of power in these organizations that are keeping their organizations pointed in the political direction they themselves espouse, even if it means sacrificing viewership, advertizing revenue, and ratings. Do they really believe they are doing the world a great service journalistically by holding fast to, and promoting their political ideologies? If so, have they not considered that the leadership at Fox may have the same sense of duty, to make sure more conservative values are preserved and presented the style and content of their reporting? If we assume the motivation for holding fast to the political leanings of one direction or the other is based personal convictions of the leaders in these organizations, I have to wonder if they aren't puzzled by the glaring difference in the number of Americans who have similar leanings. The difference is huge! In a democracy that means something. Why the mainstream media refuses to cater to the majority in America puzzles me. Are their convictions that they are so right that deep, that they would sacrifice success in the broadcasting business? If they believe that promoting a liberal agenda on their networks is going to change the tide of opinion among Americans, what evidence do they have to go on that such is even a possibility? Maybe they are like Mitt Romney's sons, who when they were younger thought if they could keep telling dad the same thing over and over, even though it wasn't true, eventually he would believe if by virtue of shear repetition. The trends we are seeing would seem to indicate otherwise. The American people are becoming more and more suspicious of the reporting from the mainstream media; more skeptical as to the so-called objectivity of the reporting. Newsweek just announced they will no longer be printing their news magazine. Obviously because it is no longer profitable. I wonder if one day the mainstream media will wise up and begin reporting objectively and unbiased, or if they are determined to try to convince the American people their liberal values are right, even if it means losing market share to the point of going out of business. But then, the bigger question of their relevance and the value of their convictions to the American public will have solved itself.
Most people I know look at cable news networks in terms of two categories; Fox News, the conservative 'outsider' and the more liberal 'Mainstream Media' which would include CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and HLN. Now looking at the chart it is blaringly obvious that Fox News enjoys a viewership consistently that is nearly twice as much as it's nearest competitor, MSNBC, and several times more than CNN. In my travels I get to meet and talk to a lot of people. As soon as someone tells me which cable news channel they watch, I can be quite certain which way their political views are going to lean. Conservitives watch the Fox News Channel, and liberals think Fox is right wing propoganda. On the other hand, liberals watch MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, or HLN. Most conservatives will tell you the mainstream media is heavily biased toward liberal viewpoints, to the degree that most conservatives will tell you they believe the mainstream media is doing all it can to make sure Barack Obama gets re-elected to a second term. I will say right here that I believe that as well, recognizing that it is my opinion. I do believe there are a number of sources where facts are presented and a good case can be made that there is proof of that, but I will leave the proof of evidence for another discussion and stick with declaring what I have to say here about media bias as my opinion, based on my personal observations.
The core of what I am asking here is this; in the broadcasting business, you make money by attracting advertisers who pay for time to run their ads. It seems logical that an advertiser would want their ads to run on the network where they would get the most exposure, where more people would be watching at any time their ads would run. The whole ratings thing is all about how many people are watching a given network at a certain time. If you look at the chart here, it is plain to see that Fox News has a lot more viewers than the mainstream media. Why? I think it has to do with the content presented by the different news organizations. More people watch Fox News because they believe what is presented there is more credible, less biased, and aligns with their political views. So why don't the mainstream media networks change their reporting to come from a more conservative viewpoint to attract more viewers? It doesn't make sense that they don't want more viewers. There must be a deeper motivator that keeps them so doggedly liberal. Certainly the anchors, contributors, and presenters are selected and promoted based in part on their willingness and ability to reflect the political views of those in power leading the network. So it must be the ones who hold the keys of power in these organizations that are keeping their organizations pointed in the political direction they themselves espouse, even if it means sacrificing viewership, advertizing revenue, and ratings. Do they really believe they are doing the world a great service journalistically by holding fast to, and promoting their political ideologies? If so, have they not considered that the leadership at Fox may have the same sense of duty, to make sure more conservative values are preserved and presented the style and content of their reporting? If we assume the motivation for holding fast to the political leanings of one direction or the other is based personal convictions of the leaders in these organizations, I have to wonder if they aren't puzzled by the glaring difference in the number of Americans who have similar leanings. The difference is huge! In a democracy that means something. Why the mainstream media refuses to cater to the majority in America puzzles me. Are their convictions that they are so right that deep, that they would sacrifice success in the broadcasting business? If they believe that promoting a liberal agenda on their networks is going to change the tide of opinion among Americans, what evidence do they have to go on that such is even a possibility? Maybe they are like Mitt Romney's sons, who when they were younger thought if they could keep telling dad the same thing over and over, even though it wasn't true, eventually he would believe if by virtue of shear repetition. The trends we are seeing would seem to indicate otherwise. The American people are becoming more and more suspicious of the reporting from the mainstream media; more skeptical as to the so-called objectivity of the reporting. Newsweek just announced they will no longer be printing their news magazine. Obviously because it is no longer profitable. I wonder if one day the mainstream media will wise up and begin reporting objectively and unbiased, or if they are determined to try to convince the American people their liberal values are right, even if it means losing market share to the point of going out of business. But then, the bigger question of their relevance and the value of their convictions to the American public will have solved itself.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Who says my story has to be in sequential order?
My intention was to continue my story where I left off in the last post. I even started composing it offline while on a layover recently. Started, meaning not finished. Well I just finished writing about how I came to be Mormon and why I still am, for a profile I am posting on Mormon.org. And the ADHD part of me says "if you don't copy that post in your blog now, while you're thinking about it, you may well forget it and lose the chance to put a pretty important answer to that initial question "Why Am I Here?" up on this blog." So I guess for the sake of quieting that worried ADHD voice I'll go ahead and post what I wrote for my profile here, and get on with the sequential telling of 'the story' later.
I was born in Salt Lake City to LDS parents. As a teenager I began to question the values and teachings I had been raised with, which resulted in a departure from church activity and exploration of other philosophies, religions, and life styles. I had begun my college studies, attending Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, when my best friend was killed in a private plane crash. As I grieved his loss and tried to make sense of what seemed to be such a senseless death, serious questions about the purpose of life took center stage in my mind. Were there really answers to these questions and if so, where would I find them? In this process it occurred to me that if I were to be honest and fair with myself I needed to include a thorough investigation of the religion I was born into while searching for the truth among other beliefs. It seemed illogical to exclude it simply based on the fact that it was what I had grown up with. I decided to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover with a sincere desire to discover the truth. My question at the outset had been "Is this the product of Joseph Smith's imagination, one of the greatest frauds of our time, or is it possible that the time had come for the restoration of all things prophesied in the New Testament and Joseph Smith was telling the truth?" If the former were true, I would need to continue my search elsewhere, among other beliefs and philosophies. Throughout the entire time I was reading the Book of Mormon, I attended Sunday meetings at the local university student branch. What I experienced during this time was the kind of enlightenment which I could best describe as a series of "Aha" moments. My most profound questions regarding the purpose of life, and my life in particular became clear and I came to know the Book of Mormon to be exactly what it claimed to be...scripture, translated by the gift and power of God from the writings of ancient prophets. Scripture which enhanced my understanding and belief in Christ as the Son of God and Savior of the word, my personal Savior and Redeemer, whom I could have a real and personal relationship with. It wasn't just intellectual analysis that brought me to that conclusion, although I found nothing contrary to logic or reason. What became the bedrock of my testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon were spiritual experiences I was having as I was reading and studying, experiences too personal to share at length here. Suffice it to say I came to know the Book of Mormon to be true, and it's author and translator, Joseph Smith, to be who and what he claimed to be, a modern day prophet called to be a tool in the hands of God to restore the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His church in preparation for His prophesied return. That was more than thirty years ago. I know now more than ever that my experiences were nothing less than divine guidance for someone who was earnestly seeking to know the truth about God. Countless experiences throughout my life have confirmed that belief and knowledge. I am far from perfect, yet I have a hope that someday, certainly beyond the veil of this existence, with the help of the Lord I may become like him, as he has invited and even commanded us all to do. In the mean time, my membership in the church and testimony of it's truthfulness influences every aspect of my life. To the degree that I fail to live in harmony with those revealed truths, I experience sadness and disappointment, and conversely, I find the greatest happiness and fulfillment in life when I am living in accordance to the teachings of the gospel as revealed through modern day prophets and apostles.
I was born in Salt Lake City to LDS parents. As a teenager I began to question the values and teachings I had been raised with, which resulted in a departure from church activity and exploration of other philosophies, religions, and life styles. I had begun my college studies, attending Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, when my best friend was killed in a private plane crash. As I grieved his loss and tried to make sense of what seemed to be such a senseless death, serious questions about the purpose of life took center stage in my mind. Were there really answers to these questions and if so, where would I find them? In this process it occurred to me that if I were to be honest and fair with myself I needed to include a thorough investigation of the religion I was born into while searching for the truth among other beliefs. It seemed illogical to exclude it simply based on the fact that it was what I had grown up with. I decided to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover with a sincere desire to discover the truth. My question at the outset had been "Is this the product of Joseph Smith's imagination, one of the greatest frauds of our time, or is it possible that the time had come for the restoration of all things prophesied in the New Testament and Joseph Smith was telling the truth?" If the former were true, I would need to continue my search elsewhere, among other beliefs and philosophies. Throughout the entire time I was reading the Book of Mormon, I attended Sunday meetings at the local university student branch. What I experienced during this time was the kind of enlightenment which I could best describe as a series of "Aha" moments. My most profound questions regarding the purpose of life, and my life in particular became clear and I came to know the Book of Mormon to be exactly what it claimed to be...scripture, translated by the gift and power of God from the writings of ancient prophets. Scripture which enhanced my understanding and belief in Christ as the Son of God and Savior of the word, my personal Savior and Redeemer, whom I could have a real and personal relationship with. It wasn't just intellectual analysis that brought me to that conclusion, although I found nothing contrary to logic or reason. What became the bedrock of my testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon were spiritual experiences I was having as I was reading and studying, experiences too personal to share at length here. Suffice it to say I came to know the Book of Mormon to be true, and it's author and translator, Joseph Smith, to be who and what he claimed to be, a modern day prophet called to be a tool in the hands of God to restore the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His church in preparation for His prophesied return. That was more than thirty years ago. I know now more than ever that my experiences were nothing less than divine guidance for someone who was earnestly seeking to know the truth about God. Countless experiences throughout my life have confirmed that belief and knowledge. I am far from perfect, yet I have a hope that someday, certainly beyond the veil of this existence, with the help of the Lord I may become like him, as he has invited and even commanded us all to do. In the mean time, my membership in the church and testimony of it's truthfulness influences every aspect of my life. To the degree that I fail to live in harmony with those revealed truths, I experience sadness and disappointment, and conversely, I find the greatest happiness and fulfillment in life when I am living in accordance to the teachings of the gospel as revealed through modern day prophets and apostles.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Why am I here?
Since this is my first 'blog post' it seems appropriate to say how I got here and what I am doing, or at least what I would like to do here. Let me warn you now if getting right to the point is your thing you can stop reading and go back to your blog search. Writing is a sort of therapy for me, and when it comes to therapy, most people who know me would agree that I need a lot. So, when I do start to pour out whatever it is that is on my mind at the moment I somehow don't see myself getting right to the point, but rather, taking my time telling whatever it is I feel like telling. If you find you enjoy reading what I have written, then we have both gained something from being here. Honestly, I don't know whethere anyone will read this, and if so, whether they will feel they have gained something by it, whether it be entertainment, a new perspective on something, a peek at the world I grew up in and now live in the way I see it, or an opportunity to point out some egregious grammar or spelling errors, I guess I hope someone will get something good out of it, other than me. If not, OK, I enjoyed the experience of writing it. If so, BONUS! It's icing on the cake for me. Oh, names have been changed to protect the innocent, and me.
I had the good fortune of attending High School in California, Oklahoma, and Utah. Oh, yeah, talk about different. At the time, San Ramon High School "Lobo's" were comprised of grades nine through twelve. I had moved from Utah, Salt Lake City's East Bench, to the San Francisco Bay area, San Ramon to be exact. I went from completing the eighth grade at Butler Junior High School where boys were routinely sent home for coming to school with 'frayed' jeans, that is with the hem on the bottom of their pant legs let out showing frayed ends. To complete the coolness you also had to split the seam on the outside about an inch, allowing the bottom of the pant leg to sort of bell out around the top of your shoe. If you pulled your shirt out and tried to walk around with the shirt tail out you would be told to tuck it back in. But if you showed up at school with 'frayed' jeans, well, the only remedy was to go back home and not come back until you had on pants that met the BJHS dress code. The girls' dress code was even more strict, but I don't remember too much about the details, other than to say what I was to have my eyes opened up to in San Ramon was a world apart from what I was used to. I don't remember seeing any girl at BJHS wearing a skirt any shorter than her knees, not for long anyway. But in San Ramon, oh boy, I'm not even sure there was a dress code. If there was, it must have included NOT wearing anything LONGER than two inches above the knee, shorter was apparently encouraged. I wore glasses in the ninth grade and I imagine them fogging up the first day of school, seeing a very healthy, well developed young lady wearing bib overalls cut off just below the crotch and a tube top exposing a perfect view of her midriff from the side. I wasn't sure if I had arrived in some sort of heaven or hell. The view was great, but for a skinny, nerdy teen like me the prospect of fitting in to this ultra-cool high school society was about as out of reach as the idea of being discovered bleating a few notes on my trumpet and becoming an instant rock star. The bad thing about being the oldest child is your parents don't have any frame of reference from the current century to know how to help you fit in with other kids your age. Their ideas at the time about what might be cool were stuck in a malt shop somewhere twenty years prior. So to help me fit in and make friends they signed me up for bowling league with the nerdy kid next door, whose idea of fun and being cool was well, participating in bowling league Saturday mornings. Actually, I enjoyed learning the basic how-to's of keeping the ball out of the gutter and even hitting some pins occasionally, but I could see this was never going to be the doorway to popularity at school, let alone shedding any of that golden light on me that can bring a nobody kid out of obscurity into the fabric of those accepted as 'normal' by the peer groups that mattered. In California, everything was so...different. The weather, the landscape, even the sky seemed different. The doors to all the classrooms opened not into hallways, per se, but into a covered outdoor walkway. In Utah, you had to leave the building to get outside. Here I could step out of the classroom, take four strides across the walkway and step on to the grass between the classroom buildings. Lockers lined some of the walkways, and they, too, were outside. I had a Social Studies teacher who would routinely bring the class out of the classroom to sit on the concrete walkway cross-legged, her with her back against the wall and knees pulled up straight so that any unfortunate boy juxtaposed in just the wrong place could not look at her during her lecture without being forced to see her not so great looking thirty-something legs and what would have been the holy grail for many of us teenage boys had her white cotton panties not been covering what, to us was an old-lady butt and it's accompanying accoutrements. Yes, even the teachers were different here in California.
Take my English teacher, for example. I don't remember her name, let's just call her Mrs. Johnson. At her age if she didn't have tenure, she was never going to. Somehow, I think she had it, though, because she did and said things that were unconventional, as though she didn't care what parents or administrators would think. She called us all wombats, for example. I wasn't even sure what a wombat was, but it didn't sound like a compliment. Yet, she said it in such a way as to make it sound at once like an affront and at the same time an endearment. She wasn't just there, either, she really enjoyed teaching a bunch of wombats a few things about the English language, and writing in particular. Her love for literature was infectious. So when she gave us the assignment to pick a popular song and write about it, I felt from the outset that here was one of those uncommon assignments I might actually enjoy. I don't know why out of all the music being played on the radio that night "Country Roads" by John Denver surfaced as the one I should write about. The melody is catchy, and the lyrics have a 'take me somewhere better' theme, which I suppose appealed to the romanticist in me. Or maybe it was just the fact that I could understand the words, and, oh yeah, I could understand the words. So I wrote down what I thought the song was telling me and what I thought it might mean to others. Then, horror of horrors, Mrs. Johnson said we had to tell the class, I mean stand up in front of the record player and read what we wrote and explain it. (For the non-ancient reader, a record player was a device which used a stylus, or 'needle' as we called it, attached to a long plastic arm which, when placed on a turning record, that is a round, flat vinyl plate-like thing with tiny grooves, would pick up the vibrations from the tiny grooves and amplify them to reproduce recorded music, etc., in fact, these days DJ's use them on a stationary turn table, moving the record back and forth to produce that 'scratch' sound. Record albums are something of a collector's item these days, but you might find a record player in a museum, or some older person's house that is sort of museum like.) When I stood up and played "Country Roads" and read my paper, then explained spontaneously why I thought I wrote what I did my heart must have been pounding 200 beats per minute. I had to remember to breathe while trying not to show my nervousness on the outside. Mrs. Johnson risked pushing me into cardiac arrest when she turned to the rest of the class and asked "what do you wombats think?" You ever notice how when it seems you most need a rock to crawl under, there never is one handy? Well, I'm not sure if Mrs. Johnson actually used the term 'wombats' that time, but to my surprise, those wombats had nothing but good things to say about my presentation. Some even said they liked the song. She then proceeded to tell me in front of everybody she thought I had some really great writing and analysis skills which I should pursue and develop. Her teaching and encouragement changed the way I looked at English and writing forever. At that time I would have never guessed I would never again see Mrs. Johnson, or Miss Thirty-something-slutty-Social-Studies teacher, the latter being, I suppose, by the Grace of God. I would like to have taken another class with Mrs. Johnson, but it wasn't meant to be. Dad was to get a promotion that would move us away later that summer.
In the early summer I met a guy at church who had just returned from two years of missionary service in France. He was 21 or 22. The bishop asked him to work with the young men in our ward in the lay priesthood organization. For some reason he took an interest in me, taking me on a couple of outings, just the two of us. I guess he could tell I was struggling with trying to figure out who I was or wanted to be. One trip we drove in his Corvaire to Sausolito on the other side of the bay. We spent the day walking through all the artsy shops and talking about life. He was a great listener. When he talked, I listened to him with great interest. Some of his stories were about his mission experiences, some were about the remarkable change in his life prior to his mission. Let's just say he was well on the road to destruction when someone took an interest in him and invited him to church. There he found the strength and resolve to overcome his destructive behaviors, eventually becoming worthy and able to serve a mission. Sometime I will say more about the profound effect dedicating two years at my own expense to doing nothing but serve God had on my life. Walking through Sausalito he made sure I knew he had a firm testimony of Christ, and that his mission was one of the greatest experiences of his life. He asked me if I liked classical music. My reply, "I dunno, I guess...", was one of those profound utterances frequently escaping my lips. "Have you ever really listened to it, I mean really listened to any of it?" My response "yeah, well I s'pose it's just not my thing." Then he challenged me. "Have you ever listened to Debussy?" My reply was probably something like "De-who?" I liked John, and so when he offered to loan me his Debussy album and made me promise to listen to it when I could sit or lay down and just listen by myself without any distractions, I just had to say yes. So that night, after all my siblings had gone to bed I turned the lights down in the living room, lifted to heavy lid to the record player compartment of our stereo-a five foot long cabinet that was as much furniture as music system-and lay down on the shag carpet to listen to Clair de Lune for the first time. I have to say, from that point on, music was never the same for me. I was lifted up, swept away by emotion and wonder, the beauty of the chords and moving melody captivating my senses in a way that music had never done before. I couldn't wait to tell John! The next afternoon as soon as I thought he might be home from work I called to share my experience with him Two weeks later when I told him my dad had received a promotion and we would be moving to Oklahoma he groaned, then said "You can't, you've just begun to discover culture and what it has to offer, and now you're moving to the cultural equivalent of the dark side of the moon!"
(to be continued)
I had the good fortune of attending High School in California, Oklahoma, and Utah. Oh, yeah, talk about different. At the time, San Ramon High School "Lobo's" were comprised of grades nine through twelve. I had moved from Utah, Salt Lake City's East Bench, to the San Francisco Bay area, San Ramon to be exact. I went from completing the eighth grade at Butler Junior High School where boys were routinely sent home for coming to school with 'frayed' jeans, that is with the hem on the bottom of their pant legs let out showing frayed ends. To complete the coolness you also had to split the seam on the outside about an inch, allowing the bottom of the pant leg to sort of bell out around the top of your shoe. If you pulled your shirt out and tried to walk around with the shirt tail out you would be told to tuck it back in. But if you showed up at school with 'frayed' jeans, well, the only remedy was to go back home and not come back until you had on pants that met the BJHS dress code. The girls' dress code was even more strict, but I don't remember too much about the details, other than to say what I was to have my eyes opened up to in San Ramon was a world apart from what I was used to. I don't remember seeing any girl at BJHS wearing a skirt any shorter than her knees, not for long anyway. But in San Ramon, oh boy, I'm not even sure there was a dress code. If there was, it must have included NOT wearing anything LONGER than two inches above the knee, shorter was apparently encouraged. I wore glasses in the ninth grade and I imagine them fogging up the first day of school, seeing a very healthy, well developed young lady wearing bib overalls cut off just below the crotch and a tube top exposing a perfect view of her midriff from the side. I wasn't sure if I had arrived in some sort of heaven or hell. The view was great, but for a skinny, nerdy teen like me the prospect of fitting in to this ultra-cool high school society was about as out of reach as the idea of being discovered bleating a few notes on my trumpet and becoming an instant rock star. The bad thing about being the oldest child is your parents don't have any frame of reference from the current century to know how to help you fit in with other kids your age. Their ideas at the time about what might be cool were stuck in a malt shop somewhere twenty years prior. So to help me fit in and make friends they signed me up for bowling league with the nerdy kid next door, whose idea of fun and being cool was well, participating in bowling league Saturday mornings. Actually, I enjoyed learning the basic how-to's of keeping the ball out of the gutter and even hitting some pins occasionally, but I could see this was never going to be the doorway to popularity at school, let alone shedding any of that golden light on me that can bring a nobody kid out of obscurity into the fabric of those accepted as 'normal' by the peer groups that mattered. In California, everything was so...different. The weather, the landscape, even the sky seemed different. The doors to all the classrooms opened not into hallways, per se, but into a covered outdoor walkway. In Utah, you had to leave the building to get outside. Here I could step out of the classroom, take four strides across the walkway and step on to the grass between the classroom buildings. Lockers lined some of the walkways, and they, too, were outside. I had a Social Studies teacher who would routinely bring the class out of the classroom to sit on the concrete walkway cross-legged, her with her back against the wall and knees pulled up straight so that any unfortunate boy juxtaposed in just the wrong place could not look at her during her lecture without being forced to see her not so great looking thirty-something legs and what would have been the holy grail for many of us teenage boys had her white cotton panties not been covering what, to us was an old-lady butt and it's accompanying accoutrements. Yes, even the teachers were different here in California.
Take my English teacher, for example. I don't remember her name, let's just call her Mrs. Johnson. At her age if she didn't have tenure, she was never going to. Somehow, I think she had it, though, because she did and said things that were unconventional, as though she didn't care what parents or administrators would think. She called us all wombats, for example. I wasn't even sure what a wombat was, but it didn't sound like a compliment. Yet, she said it in such a way as to make it sound at once like an affront and at the same time an endearment. She wasn't just there, either, she really enjoyed teaching a bunch of wombats a few things about the English language, and writing in particular. Her love for literature was infectious. So when she gave us the assignment to pick a popular song and write about it, I felt from the outset that here was one of those uncommon assignments I might actually enjoy. I don't know why out of all the music being played on the radio that night "Country Roads" by John Denver surfaced as the one I should write about. The melody is catchy, and the lyrics have a 'take me somewhere better' theme, which I suppose appealed to the romanticist in me. Or maybe it was just the fact that I could understand the words, and, oh yeah, I could understand the words. So I wrote down what I thought the song was telling me and what I thought it might mean to others. Then, horror of horrors, Mrs. Johnson said we had to tell the class, I mean stand up in front of the record player and read what we wrote and explain it. (For the non-ancient reader, a record player was a device which used a stylus, or 'needle' as we called it, attached to a long plastic arm which, when placed on a turning record, that is a round, flat vinyl plate-like thing with tiny grooves, would pick up the vibrations from the tiny grooves and amplify them to reproduce recorded music, etc., in fact, these days DJ's use them on a stationary turn table, moving the record back and forth to produce that 'scratch' sound. Record albums are something of a collector's item these days, but you might find a record player in a museum, or some older person's house that is sort of museum like.) When I stood up and played "Country Roads" and read my paper, then explained spontaneously why I thought I wrote what I did my heart must have been pounding 200 beats per minute. I had to remember to breathe while trying not to show my nervousness on the outside. Mrs. Johnson risked pushing me into cardiac arrest when she turned to the rest of the class and asked "what do you wombats think?" You ever notice how when it seems you most need a rock to crawl under, there never is one handy? Well, I'm not sure if Mrs. Johnson actually used the term 'wombats' that time, but to my surprise, those wombats had nothing but good things to say about my presentation. Some even said they liked the song. She then proceeded to tell me in front of everybody she thought I had some really great writing and analysis skills which I should pursue and develop. Her teaching and encouragement changed the way I looked at English and writing forever. At that time I would have never guessed I would never again see Mrs. Johnson, or Miss Thirty-something-slutty-Social-Studies teacher, the latter being, I suppose, by the Grace of God. I would like to have taken another class with Mrs. Johnson, but it wasn't meant to be. Dad was to get a promotion that would move us away later that summer.
In the early summer I met a guy at church who had just returned from two years of missionary service in France. He was 21 or 22. The bishop asked him to work with the young men in our ward in the lay priesthood organization. For some reason he took an interest in me, taking me on a couple of outings, just the two of us. I guess he could tell I was struggling with trying to figure out who I was or wanted to be. One trip we drove in his Corvaire to Sausolito on the other side of the bay. We spent the day walking through all the artsy shops and talking about life. He was a great listener. When he talked, I listened to him with great interest. Some of his stories were about his mission experiences, some were about the remarkable change in his life prior to his mission. Let's just say he was well on the road to destruction when someone took an interest in him and invited him to church. There he found the strength and resolve to overcome his destructive behaviors, eventually becoming worthy and able to serve a mission. Sometime I will say more about the profound effect dedicating two years at my own expense to doing nothing but serve God had on my life. Walking through Sausalito he made sure I knew he had a firm testimony of Christ, and that his mission was one of the greatest experiences of his life. He asked me if I liked classical music. My reply, "I dunno, I guess...", was one of those profound utterances frequently escaping my lips. "Have you ever really listened to it, I mean really listened to any of it?" My response "yeah, well I s'pose it's just not my thing." Then he challenged me. "Have you ever listened to Debussy?" My reply was probably something like "De-who?" I liked John, and so when he offered to loan me his Debussy album and made me promise to listen to it when I could sit or lay down and just listen by myself without any distractions, I just had to say yes. So that night, after all my siblings had gone to bed I turned the lights down in the living room, lifted to heavy lid to the record player compartment of our stereo-a five foot long cabinet that was as much furniture as music system-and lay down on the shag carpet to listen to Clair de Lune for the first time. I have to say, from that point on, music was never the same for me. I was lifted up, swept away by emotion and wonder, the beauty of the chords and moving melody captivating my senses in a way that music had never done before. I couldn't wait to tell John! The next afternoon as soon as I thought he might be home from work I called to share my experience with him Two weeks later when I told him my dad had received a promotion and we would be moving to Oklahoma he groaned, then said "You can't, you've just begun to discover culture and what it has to offer, and now you're moving to the cultural equivalent of the dark side of the moon!"
(to be continued)
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