8 Score and 1 Year ago ...

Today is the 161'st anniversary of the Gettysburg address,  If I had a bucket list, visiting Gettysburg would definitely be on it.  

Last year, during the A to Z challenge, I published this post, which includes a video of the address plus an 8-minute film telling the story behind the movie The Last Full Measure. I included it because The Last Full Measure is a line from the address.  

I just knew that if I Googled the Gettysburg Address Rap, I would find something. I was not disappointed. I have included it here as well to help commemorate the day.

   

Veterans of Grief

 I'm sure I have written a post like this before with a similar title.  I am taking another stab at the subject.  My youngest brother Keith was born on Nov 11th 1970 aka Veterans Day. .  This is the 54th anniversary of his birth. I was born in September of 1964, so I was already 6 years old when he was born. 

. Keith's last Veteran's Day was 16 years ago when he turned 38. He died 5 months later in an Elgin nursing home when I was 44. Since then I've turned 60 and he's perpetually 38. Keith loved math and I'm pretty sure if he was still around he'd call me up today to announce that he had now been alive for  90% of my lifetime. The truth is that he was on;y alive 63.33% of my lifetime time and that number goes down each year I outlive him.   

Now Keith would want me to provide a more accurate accounting of that number by factoring in the 5 months between his 38th birthday and that day in April of 2009 when he shuffled off this mortal coil.  Let's be real, Keith would want me to calculate the percentage down to at least the day, factoring in the leap days as well.  He probably wouldn't be satisfied with even that and want it down to the last minute.  

But That's not what I would want.  What I would want of course, is that his multiple health problems were all resolved and that he was here with us celebrating his full deck plus 2 jokers (that's 54th please try to keep up)  birthday with us.  What I would want is that his children now in their 20s would still have their Dad with them instead of hardly remembering him or not remembering him at all.  What I would want, is that instead of struggling to recall his legendary dumb jokes, there would be another 15 1/2 years worth of them to smile and nod at. But I did not get what I wanted. Instead, I got grief. Now Veterans Day means more than just Keith's birthday to me.  It reminds me that I'm a veteran, a veteran of grief.  

I'm going to spend the rest of this post unpacking the last sentence of the previous paragraph. When Keith died Amy and I had been attending a small group at our church for only a few weeks.  We knew the leader of the small group pretty well because he was the children's ministry pastor and all our children were in the children's ministry at the time and we were both volunteering there.  So when he showed up at Keith's visitation I wasn't too surprised.  What did surprise me, however, was that the couple whose house the small group met at came to the visitation. We had just met them a few weeks before.  They didn't have children, and they didn't attend the same service as we did. It really meant a lot that he came.  He explained to me that a few years before when his father had died, he had a similar experience.  Some people he hardly knew came to the funeral because they had lost someone and knew how important it was having people there not only to pay respect to the person they lost but to also be there for those who had lost someone.  Both the couple who came to Keith's visitation and the people who had gone to his Dad's funeral had one thing in common, they were veterans of grief.

When I think of a war veteran I think of someone who's been through something devastating and life-altering and has been permanently changed by it.  Grief has that same effect on you. There is something else I've learned about veterans they try to be there for each other.  There is a camaraderie, a family bond. It's a community that doesn't require serving in the same unit or even the same war.  The same could be said about a veteran of grief.  I don't know if this is true of all veterans be it war, grief, or something else.  But as I dealt with losing Keith, empathy for those encountering the same thing grew in me.  I was never one to shy away from the funerals of people I knew, but I started gravitating to the funerals of family members of people I knew. As a veteran of grief, I have been able to comfort people and try to help in tangible ways as people begin their journeys with loss and grief.  

Keith is often front and center in my heart and mind during these times.  I have not yet lost someone closer than a sibling and have not experienced what it is like to lose a child, a parent, or a spouse.  I have done my best to comfort those who have lost more significant people in the time since Keith's passing. A dear friend lost his father and wife in short order.  I have to be honest I can't imagine losing Amy.  I know it would devastate me completely and while I know God would bring me through it, I know it's just a drop in the bucket in comparison to losing Keith. Amy herself lost both her parents within a few years of each other.  It broke my heart to see her "orphaned" knowing that her loss was far greater than mine.  Yet knowing how God has helped me through this lesser loss of Keith has helped inform me how I can minister to others as they become more experienced with grief.  

I still miss Keith, especially on days like today.  Tomorrow my remaining brother and I head over to Keith's house to help his widow with some practical needs.  It will be bittersweet just a day after his birthday.  All my siblings have tried to look out for our sister-in-law and our niece and nephew and I think we would all say that we wished we could do more.  In sports veteran players often act as a surrogate coaches to rookies and other new team members.  Grief is not a team that anyone chooses to play for. Isaiah 53:3 prophesies about Jesus describing Him as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  Jesus, His word, and His people have equipped me as a veteran of grief.  I'm not sure if I'm paying forward, or pointing backward but regardless of the direction I'm so glad to try to be there for others when grief has them upside down. 

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All 27 outs of Mark Buehrle's perfect game

15 years ago today, on July 24th 2009. Mark Buehrle pitched a perfect game for the Chicago White Sox.  to commemorate the anniversary enjoy this look at all 27 outs back when White Sox victories were not few and far  between.

 

Z is for the Zenith of the American Revolution

 

For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate. Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day. I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge. At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter. At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in an A to Z keepsake playlist on Spotify. Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.

April 30th 2024 is the 235th anniversary of George Washington being inaugurated the first President of the United States.

George Washington

By Gilbert Stuart, Public Domain, Link

On April 30th 1789 George Washington was innaugurated the first President of the United States of America in Federal Hall in New York City.  Here is the transcript of his address ...

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: 

 Among the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years--a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrust-ful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare hope is that if, in executing this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which mislead me, and its consequences be judged by my country with some share of the partiality in which they originated. 

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow- citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence. 

By the article establishing the executive department it is made the duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which you are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire, since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. 

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain with your judgment to decide how far an exercise of the occasional power delegated by the fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient at the present juncture by the nature of objections which have been urged against the system, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good; for I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience, a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen and a regard for the public harmony will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be impregnably fortified or the latter be safely and advantageously promoted. 

To the preceding observations I have one to add, which will be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself, and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honored with a call into the service of my country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed; and being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself any share in the personal emoluments which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the executive department, and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the station in which I am placed may during my continuance in it be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require. 

Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.

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The song of the day is Zion by Aaron Shust

The A to Z Challenge is complete!  The Spotify Leap of Dave A to Z playlist is complete.  They both have been a lot of fun.  I will be back soon with my A to Z reflections.

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To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

A to Z 2024: V is for Various Holidays

  For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in an A to Z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.

April 25th: Multiple Holidays Abound

Everyday of the year there are a plethora of holidays,  My job for the challenge was to scour through those holidays and find one that somehow relates to the letter of the day.  Since todays letter is V, I thought I might give you a variety pack of holidays, events, and occurrences to celebrate today.

Holidays

National Hairstylist Appreciation Day Held on the 25th April since 2012.  Prior to that it was celebrated on April 30th, but alas, that wasn't it's "permanent" day.

International  Delegates Day - United Nations The current U.S. Ambassador for the U.N. is  Linda Thomas Greenfield.  The last former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. that I voted for for President of the U.S. was Nikki Haley.

World Penguin Day Statred in 1972, April 25th coincides with he day that Adelie penguins begin their northern migration.  It is a little confusing because I thought it was March of the Penguins, not April.  

3 Adelie PenguinsCC BY-SA 2.0, Link

License Plate Day On April 25th 1901 the state of New York made the first law requiring automobiles to have license plates.  Speaking of license plates click here to see the I holiday Indicted Illinois Governors Day.

Born On April 25th

Al Pacino - American Actor 1940- present

Edward R Murrow - Radio and Television Journalist - 1908-1965

Edward R Murrow Public Domain,

David Strathairn As Murrow in Good Night and Good Luck

Guglielmo Marconi - Inventor and Physicist 1874-1937

Died on April 25th

Ginger Rogers - American Actress and Dancer.  Died in 1995 at the age of 83

Rogers and Fred Astaire

By RKO Radio Pictures Public Domain, Link

John Havlicek - Boston Celtics Basketball Star died at the age of 79 in 2014

Bea Arthur- Actress best know for her roles on t.v. shows Maude, and Golden Girls-  died at the age of 86 in 2009 

Happened on April 25th ...

2021 - Chloe Zhao win's Best Director Oscar for the film Nomadland.  Frances McDormand won the Academy award for Actress in a Leading Role for Nomadland, which also won the Oscar for Best Picture.  

1990- Hubble Space Telescope Sent Into Orbit.This hour video show the Space Shuttle bringing the telecope into space and then releasing it into orbit.  

 

This poster shows many of the great pictures taken with the telescope.

By Unknown author Public Domain, Link

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Song of the Day The View From Here Bob Bennet  

There is an entire house concert from 2019 on this video, if I have set this up correctly, the intro to the song should start as you open the video.  There are 22 songs on the A to Z Spotify playlist now. Just like today it houses a lot of variety.

To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!  

A to Z 2024: S is for start of something Major

 For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.

April 22nd 2024 is the 148th anniversary of the first National League baseball game

April 22nd 1876 is a significant date in the history of American sports.  The first game in the newly formed National League took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The event took place 2 1/2 months before the 100th anniversary of another significant American beginning that also took place in Philadelphia. 

The inaugural game took place between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Boston Red Stockings.  With Boston winning 6-5 in a game that took 2 hours to play.

The National League started with 8 teams: Boston Braves(1876-Present) , Philadelphia Athletics (1876-1876), Hartford Blues (1876-1877), St. Louis Brown Stockings  (1876-1877) Chicago Cubs (1876- Present) New York Mutuals (1876-1876) Louisville Grays (1876-1877), and Cincinnati Reds (1876-1879).  Only the Cubs who were known in their first 25 years in the league as the Chicago White Stockings, Chicago Colts and Chicago Orphans  and the Braves who were first known in Boston as the Red Stockings, the Red Caps, Beaneaters, the Nationals, The Bees  and The Doves before settling on the Braves  and then moving to Milwaukee and then Atlanta have survived to the present.  The other 6 teams didn't even make it to the 1880s.  The American Leauge began in 1901 and the AL and the NL started facing each other in the World Series in 1902.  But April 22nd 1876 is when Major League baseball games started being played, something worth being clelebrated. 

Photo caption: Delegates to the Schedule Meeting of the National League and American Association of Base Ball Clubs, Held At The Hotel Rennert, Baltimore, February 25th - 27th, 1897

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Today's Song of the Day is Say Goodbye to Little Jo by Steve Forbert

I usually don't spend any time introducing the artists of the song of the day. Many of them are lesser know than Steve Forbert, but I'm going to make an exception with him in anyway.  My Freshman year in high school  (1979-1980) was in the height of my  Pop music mastery.  I read Billboard magazine every week, focusing on the Hot 100 singles which Casey Kasem culled his American Top 40 radio show from.  I would generally listed to AT 40 every week and would listen to WLS AM in Chicago which was at the time a top 40 radio station.  As a result to this day I can generally  tell you the name of the album that a song from the late mid 70's to the early mid 80's came from.  Steve Forbert's only top 40 hit Romeo's Tune for ,example, came from the album Jackrabbit Slim.  It barely missed the top 10 reaching 11 in 3/1/1980.   Say Goodbye to Little Joe , the 2nd single from Jackrabbit Slim. spent 3 weeks in the top 100 climbing as high as 85  on April 19,1990. 

Steve Forbert and Dan Fogelberg were contemporaries and  they both scored their most popular hit in March of 80 (Romeo's Tune, and Longer respectively).  Fogelberg had the much bigger career until his death in 2007.  Forbert still tours and I came this close to seeing him over Spring Break when he was in Madison, Wisconsin.

  

To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

A to Z: 2024 K is for космонавт (cosmonaut)

For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.

April 12th Yuri Gagarian is the first man in space

63 years ago today the Russians beat the U.S into space again.  This time, Yuri Gagarian became the first person in space.  This You Tube video shows some footage from the event.  

 

Just in case you don't read Russian, the text  below the video translates into English as:

 On April 12, 1961, the Vostok spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the first time in the world, with pilot-cosmonaut Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin on board. For this feat, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and starting from April 12, 1962, the day of Gagarin's flight into space was declared a holiday - Cosmonautics Day. On September 27, 2010, by decision of the 65th session of the UN General Assembly, April 12 was proclaimed the International Day of Human Space Flight, which will be celebrated annually at the international level.

I decided to copy a couple of the you-tube comments and show them in Russian , and then in Russian printed phonetically in English and  then finally translated by google translate into English.  

The first comment is from @elenadushyna8975 from 1 year ago

Все молодцы!! И Королев! И Гагарин! И все остальные неизвестные, кто причастны к этому великому событию!!! 

 Vse molodtsy!! I Korolev! I Gagarin! I vse ostal'nyye neizvestnyye, kto prichastny k etomu velikomu sobytiyu!!! 

 Well done everyone!! And Korolev! And Gagarin! And all the other unknowns who are involved in this great event!!! 

The second comment is from LarussaShudrova from 8 years ago

 Спасибо за воспоминания! Спасибо! Помню, какую испытала гордость за страну, когда передавали по радио сообщение о полёте человека в космос. В душе всё пело.

 Spasibo za vospominaniya! Spasibo! Pomnyu, kakuyu ispytala gordost' za stranu, kogda peredavali po radio soobshcheniye o polote cheloveka v kosmos. V dushe vso pelo. 

 Thank you for the memories! Thank you! I remember how proud I felt for the country when they broadcast a message on the radio about man’s flight into space. Everything was singing in my soul.

What strikes me about the coverage and the comments is the great sense of accomplishment.  I lived in Russia for 2 years from 1992 to 1994 right after the Soviet Union was dissolved.  It became clear to me fairly quickly is that people are very similar regardless of what country they are from and being proud of your country is certainly not something the U.S. has a monopoly on.

By Mil.ru, CC BY 4.0, Link

April 12th Yuri Gagarian is the first man in space.  

Gagarian died almost 7 years later in a routine training flight.

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The song of the day is Keep Me Running performed by Ashley Cleveland

Randy Stonehill wrote and performed the song on his 1976 album Welcome to Paradise.  The below video features a young Stonehill performing the song.

 

 Stonehill turned 72 earlier this year and I made this post to celebrate.

To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

56th anniversary of Mickey Mantles 500th home runs.

Happy Birthday Randy Stonehill! A 71 song salute.

On this Day March 12th, 1951 fellow baby boomer and my favorite singer   Randy Stonehill was born in California. He turns 71 today and to celebrate I will link 71 of my favorite songs (and yes, I have that many)  of his here on this very happy birthday post.  Many of these songs can be found on Spotify.  All of these songs are available for purchase at Bandcamp. Note: Songs are listed from the album they originally appeared. The song is not always being played from that album.

1. Never Can Repay - Born Twice

 

 2. Faithful - Until We Have Wings 

   

 3. Get Me Out of Hollywood- Get me Out of Hollywood

4. Starlings - Return To Paradise 5. Christmas Song For All Year 'Round - Welcome To Paradise  

 6. I Love You - Born Twice  

 7. Norman's Kitchen - Born Twice

8. Bad Fruit -The Sky Is Falling

   

 9. Still Small Voice - Celebrate This Heartbeat  

 10. Christine - Between The Glory And The Flame

 

 11. Can Hell Burn Hot Enough - Until We Have Wings

   

 12. Light Of The World - Equator

   

13. First Prayer - Welcome To Paradise

14. Keep Me Runnin' - Welcome To Paradise

 

15. Stop The World - Celebrate This Heartbeat  

  16. Sunday's Child - Mystery Highway

17. Love Beyond Reason - Love Beyond Reason 18. Ramada Inn (Live) - Until We Have Wings 19. Everything But Love - Stonehill 20. Didn't It Rain - Until We Have Wings 21. One True Love - The Sky Is Falling 22. Until Your Love Broke Through- Love Beyond Reason 23. Celebrate This Heartbeat - Celebrate This Heartbeat 24. The Hope of Glory - The Wild Frontier 25. Modern Myth - Celebrate This Heartbeat 26. Can't Buy A Miracle - Can't Buy A Miracle 27. Leonard Has A Toaster - Lost Art Of Listening 28. Glory And The Flame - Between The Glory And The Flame  

 29. Stand Like Steel - Return To Paradise 30. Hand of God - Thirst

   

 31. Barbie Nation - Wonderama

32. Old Clothes - Until We Have Wings

33. Charlie The Weatherman - Stories 

34. Try Havin' Some Faith - Spirit Walk

35. Turning Thirty - Equator

36. Lazarus Heart - Lazarus Heart

37. This Old Face - Lost Art Of Listening

38. Baby Hates Clowns - Thirst

39. Strong Hand Of Love - Welcome To Paradise

40. Curious - Uncle Stonehill's Hat

41. Die Young - Between The Glory And The Flame

42. Who Will Save The Children - Celebrate This Heartbeat  

43. We Were All So Young - Edge Of The World

44. King Of Hearts

45. That's The Way It Goes (Live) - Edge Of The World

46. Shut De Do (Live) - Equator

 

47. Jesus - Breath Of God  

48. Big Ideas (In The Shrinking World) 49. The Gods Of Men - Love Beyond Reason

50. Broken Places - Spirit Walk 51. Hymn - Love Beyond Reason

52. Billy Frank - The Lost Art Of Listening

 

53. Venezuela - The Sky Is Falling 

54. What Do You Want From Life? - The Wild Frontier

55.Brighter Day - Can't Buy A Miracle 56. Get Together - The Wild Frontier

57. Ready To Go - Welcome To Paradise

58. Sing In Portugese - Wonderama

59.In Jesus Name - Lazarus Heart 60.Last Time I Saw Eden - Spirit Walk 61. Everything You Know (Is Incorrect) - Thirst

62.I've Got News For You (Paradise Sky Version) Welcome To Paradise -

63. Awfully Loud World - Can't Buy A Miracle 

64.When I Look To The Mountains - Celebrate This Heartbeat

65.Mercy In The Shadow Land - Lost Art Of Listening

66. Backwards On Her Bike - Mystery Highway 67.Cosmetic Fixation - Equator

68.A Promise Made Is A Promise Kept - Lazarus Heart

69. The Keeper Of The Bear - Thirst

 

70. I Don't Ever Want To Live Without You - Return To Paradise

71. Finish Well - Spirit Walk

Happy Birthday Randy! I encourage anyone who spends time listening to these songs to buy some or all of them on Bandy Camp and give Randy a gift for the wonderful music he's been giving to us for a half-century.

23 23 Aziz Ansari

Today is the 23rd of February. It is also the year 2023. Starting on January 23 (Actually, I started today read more about that by clicking here.)    I began making posts about people born on the 23rd of the current month.

Today I am featuring Aziz Ansari who played Tom Haverford on the NBC comedy Parks & Rec.

                  A Typical Tom Haverford Pose

Ansari was Born on February 23rd, 1983 in Columbia, South Carolina.  I was born on the23rd of September in 1964.  I graduuated from High School in 1983, and I lived in Columbia for 2 years from 1996 to 1998.  If you are not familiar with Park & Rec, the  scene below  is a really good intro to the Tom Haverford character,

The # 1 song in the United Kingdom on February 23rd, 1983 was Too Shy by Kajagoogoo. 

Keith Roller Played With a Full Deck and the Cards He was Dealt.

 My brother Keith was born on this day in 1970.  He passed away in April of 2013 at the age of 38 from a heart attack while in a nursing home in Elgin.  He died a few weeks  before he was scheduled to return home to his wife and kids. 

Today, he would have turned 52.  There is really very little significance to a 52nd birthday, but a few years ago I manufactured a little significance by referring to it as the full deck birthday.  This is because a card deck traditionally has 52 cards.  Today would have been Keith's full deck birthday.

My brother had social, emotional, physical, and mental health challenges on his brief time here,  One could say that the deck was stacked against him.  To judge him for his challenges, as many did,  would be not only unfair but would rob you of knowing one of the kindest, smartest, funniest people you would ever encounter.

In his short life, he graduated college, fell in love, married and fathered 2 children who he showered love on.  While it seems cruel that they hardly remember him, his legacy of kindness, passion, and creativity continues in them. 

I was an older brother to Keith, I was also his youth group leader when he was in high school.  I guess I was something of a model and an example to him.  In many ways he was an example and even a teacher  to me and although his life on earth is over the memories and the lessons continue. 

 

Earlier this year,  I started 2 sonnets with the same line: The time were given is quite brief.  It started as just an exercise,  It became much more than that when the 2nd poem became about Keith.  As today is not only Keith's birthday but also Poetry Friday.  I thought I would share it again here.  

Death of a Brother

14 lines after 13 years

The time we're given  is quite brief

For some, it's much too short

One April morn I got the report

I'd lost my brother Keith

Such news was so beyond belief

That I had no retort

Of snappy comebacks, I'd fallen short

So anguished by my grief

My brother died in a nursing home

At the age of thirty-eight

While he was watching M*A*S*H

13 years later as I write this poem

Though my grief is not as great

My heart still bears the gash

Buffy Silverman is hosting this weeks Poetry Friday.

Keith Green and Rich Mullins celebrate another posthumous birthday.

In the world of Contemporary Music their are few bigger names than Keith Green and Rich Mullins. Admittedly, there are literally  bigger names as the aforementioned take up only 5 combined syllables and fit comfortably  on the 1/3 of the first line of this text.  Their actual names may be small but their impact on the lives of believers has been great indeed,

Keith Green share many of the same attributes including the same birthday, today, October 21st (Keith in 1953, and Rich in 1955). They were both gifted musicians and lyricists.  They both were outspoken in their faith and counter cultural in their approach to ministry.  They also died very young in vehicular accidents.  

Due to a plane crash in 1982, Keith Green did not live to see his 30th birthday and Mullins who covered a Green song on the 1992 tribute album No Compromise died in a car crash in 1997, just over a month before his 42nd birthday.  

  

Green before his conversion to Christianity was headed to a career as a rock and roll teen sensation.  The below footage is from a guest appearance on the panel show I've got a Secret when he was 11 years old.  After revealing his secret The youngster performs one of the songs he composed.  

     

It is no secret that the music, the vulnerability, and the passion of both Green and Mullins has informed my own journey.  It is fitting that they shared the same birthday , the same passion for Christ and the same method of expressing that passion.  They also share a place in my heart for how their music and ministry still inspires me to this day.

On this date 1968