So Much To Tell

Thought this blog was lost forever in the mists of time and internet. Awakened one night a google search brought me right back here. Probably been 10 years since this was an active interest of mine. For today though this will be but a brief entry with more to surely follow. Need a photo to publish with this to keep the format congruent...hmmm

Once upon a time

I remember being at Les and Opal Roudybush's house watching and listening as Les and Opal would play music. Les on that guibanjo, Opal on the chord organ, their son in law Kenny Prazak on the snare drum, and sometimes Opal's dad Homer Davis on fiddle. It always seemed like so much fun. That's where it started. The guibanjo had 4 strings tunes as a banjo and I could play the chords upside down. As I got a little older I heard my Mom's 2nd husband Tom play guitar and sing Hank and Marty Robbins. By the time I was in high school I'd flunked music and learned to play the guitar I bought at Tempo for $15 with a book on chords. This image is of the IVth Illusion. My very first job in a band. At the time I was the front man. Standing on stage with a 5 piee rock band at my back was a real hoot. It was all magic and convinced me of what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't know it at the time but I was destined to perform on and off for the next thirty years.

When I came home from school just before the end of the first semester of my senior years and told my folks that I had just been asked to join this rock and roll band my Dad's response was, "Who's going to pay to watch you play?" We didn't get paid much at first. barely enough to cover the cost of equipment rental to perform. But we PLAYED!!! By the time I left for the Marines a little over a year later I was making $50 a night. Pretty good money for the late 60's considering I was earning $3.60/hr as a union laborer. A 40 hr week would net $115, give or take a buck or two. So it seems as though there WERE folks who would pay to watch me play...

This period of my life was MAGIC! I had wanted to play music, guitar mostly, in a band of one sort or another in particular. My comrades at the time didn't understand. I remember Gary Peterson asking me at one point, "What's the matter, you too good for us now?". Seems I didn't hang out with those guys too much after I started playing with the IVth ILLUSION. But the thing was...we rehearsed once or twice a week...and I discovered how much fun it was to make friends with people who shared an interest in music...a passion...so to speak. It was something, when we rehearsed, nobody showed up needing to LEARN the song. Everyone already knew the music, reharsals were where we arranged how WE would perform the piece. And these guys were good. I learned so much from them. Imagine my surprise when I discovered over 30 years later I was the only one of that band that really pursued music later in life....

Thing is, the MAGIC did not go away!!

In February 1969 I enlisted in the Marines with Tom. Tom and I had know each other since 3rd grade and it seemed like the thing to do at the time. But the music bug had me. Bought a cheap guitar at Camp Pendleton and draged it around with me till a better one came along. Sat around the barracks with the other guys that could play entertaining those that couldn't...or just had nowhere else to go. After returning home in early '71 I worked at a couple jobs till autumn arrived a construction slowed. A friend from my days in the Scouts and were commenting on the sameness of the dancers and bars one night and I mention the Western Whirlybird Club in Newport, North Carolina. Next day we're on Highway 65 south with our thumbs out. We hitch hiked 1600 miles in three days to find a different bar to drink beer in. The day we arrived at the Whirlybird I was hired as a bartender. The following Wednesday evening two guys came in with a guitar, amp, and trap set. "Did I know any bass players?"..."Well not really", I replied, " but there's a bass and amp in the office. I'm not really a bass player, but would you mind if I set in?" "Let's jam!!" Well, even though a south paw like me had to flip that axe upside down I knew the neck of that old P-bass and every song they played. We'd been entertaining the folks in that bar for about an hour when the guy that owned the bar and the guitar and amp I was playing came. Seeing the bar full of people dancing and drinking to our tunes he told the bartender to send us some FREE BEER!! AND KEEP IT COMING!! Later he asked me if it would make playing that guitar easier if I strung it backwards and that he would pay us each $20 if we could be there Friday nite and another $20 for Saturday and that he could find us work in other clubs as well. The rest, as they say, is history!!!

How in the world is any of this my fault?

Today my Boston Terrier Bandit ate the hell out my only pair of glasses. I've dealt with a lot of frustration and just plain things not going my way in the last couple of months. During January two different times weekends with my family were cancelled either due to funerals or snow. The last week all I've done at work is either move snow or scrape ice off sidewalks. Last week I met with the SPRC and Senior Pastor to try and work something out so when I am scheduled time off..., I get time off. I was told I am no different than any other employee in our area in that since health insurance is being shifted more to employees. I was hired with the promise of a wage a good %10 higher than the going rate for common labor and free health insurance. I understood this to be fair compensation for what I give up....I was agreeing to work every weekend, have in excess of a gazillion bosses, and be happy about doing everthing on the job description and then some. Last Thursday it started to snow in the late morning. By Friday morning there were knee deep drifts and thirty mile an hour winds...it was still snowing. Everybody and their brother had a blizzard holiday.... Not me. I was running a snow thrower around the place opening sidewalks and drive ways. Saturday I cleared the sidewalks at the streets where the plows had plugged them. When done I pushed the drifts out of the parking lot. (Not on the job description). This morning Amy's car was pissin' all over the first day off I've had in a week. Not even pissed at Amy...she's a good kid and was there when we needed a battery for the Blazer. No, this isn't about that... This is about the folks in the picture...and the mark they've left on me. When I couldn't find my glasses this afternoon I had a pretty good idea bandit may have had something to do with their disappearance. When I found them in three pieces in his kennel I was at my wits end. Too much..and I was pissed. That is how I learned young how to deal with things out of my control. Thanks Dad. I know you are lost a lot of the time now, but you've been that way to me all my life. Neither one of the folks in that picture ever really acted as if they ever gave a damn whether I was here or not. I would like to think maybe they might have loved me but I sure as hell nver felt it.

Trouble right here??

It has been months since I last added to this blog. I have been active on other blogsites, but something has been percolating around in the back of my mind. I thought I would like to express some of these thoughts. A while back, soon after Dad had surgery to replace his knee he mentioned that when I was at John Adams Junior High he was at the school all the time because I was always in trouble. I thought he was just mixed up because it was when I was in High School that trouble seemed to come knocking. It was when I became more aware of how he remembers what he remembers and his version of reality of those times that I realized that was how he experienced my youth. That was the kind of kid he thought I was.

I remember when I did my 4th step...it was all about mistakes I had made when I let certain wants I mis-interpreted as needs influence my decisions. Well, I've been 17 years sober as of last weekend. Not saying I haven't made any mistakes in those years, there just haven't been as many or have they been of as great a magnitude. These years have given me the opportunity to learn. To learn something about me. To make observations about how my interactions with Dad and Ann have evolved, or rather haven't really changed all that much. To learn something about how other familes relate to each other by being a part of Roxanne's family. To remember me as a young man with a kinder point of view. To understand that I was young and inexperienced when a lot of mistakes were made. To come to realize that when a loving parent has a young child that does something wrong through inexperience they still love that child and demonstrate that love. That even though the child's behaviors or actions are unacceptable, the child is not. The child will be loved unconditionally. This was not my experience or reality when growing up.

In this picture I had just returned from a Court of Honor where I had just received the Unit Honor Scout award for the year. Not sure which year but from what I remember and my appearance I would guess 1964. During that time when he rememers all the trouble I was in I was very active in Scouting. Den Chief, Staff Patrol Leader, Junior Assistant Scoutmaster...camping and hiking nearly every weekend. I as also on the John Adams Junior High wrestling team. During that time frame I was taking Confirmation classes with the Pastor of my Church, sang in the Youth Choir, and attended Sunday School and Worship. When did I have time to get in all that trouble?

I am not really sure what he remembers. What these therapy sessions, visits with my Dad now, and rembering through the lenses of a new pair of glasses is bringing home is this: I make allowances for when Zachary and Tristan act like children because they are children and that is what children do...for my Dad to have made judgments of my actions and have felt that since my actions were unnacceptable so was I, was absolutely unconscionable. It was on him, not me.

The thing is...it wasn't just him! I remember there was a wreslting match at my Jr. High. I was in the 7th grade. I called home to ask if I could stay after to watch the match as I wanted to wrestle when I was old enough. Mom said ok, what time does it get over? When I asked the school secretary she told me 4:00 so that's what I told Mom...what do I know... I was in the 7th grade. This was in the fall of 1963...I was 13. Thing is, the match started at 4:00. I paid my nickle to get in to watch, the match started, I figure she might be outside but I thought she might come in, but she didn't....she waited outside....becoming angrier and angrier. When the match was over and I got in the car, before I could ask why she hadn't come in to join me she started in railing on me. When we got home and in the house we had no sooner got in the door she started in slapping me. I remember crying and falling on the floor...but she didn't stop, she continued slapping until she got tired of hitting me.....

Yup!! There was throuble right there in River City. That started with 'T'and that rhymed with 'me', but it wasn't.....I was just a kid trying to make them happy and not understanding just how dysfunctional we were, or that I was not responsible for their happiness. I just knew when they were, it got real uncomfortable for me.

Where do I go from here?

Having been months since I've blogged anything there have been many things happen worthy of inclusion. One of the most memorable occured two days ago. My father was check in to the IOOF home. He thinks it will be for a couple weeks. Maybe a month or so then he'll be home again. I don't think so. The meeting I sat in on with the social worker and Ann, my step sister, indicated she is unable to deal with his idiosyncraies any longer. I'm not entirely sure why things have ended up with her in the role of caretaker for this man. I understand back in the 70's and 80's I was not always in town. But a lot of the time I was. Friends, pals, eggs, and shells. That's what we were back in the old days. But I do not understand his behaviors then, nor do I understand his cavalier dismissal of those events with "I had a bit of a temper then".
However, I returned from the Dakotas in 1989. Today is the 23rd of August, 2006. I returned home 17 years, 8 months ago. I have been sober for 16 years, 6 months of that time. So many things in my life have changed. I have been bleesed with so much. I don't think he even knows. I've been trying to reach out to him, but there is no reaching back. In a way it's kind of like talking to a tape recorder. If I don't reach out first, there is no contact at all.
All things taken into consideration, what exactly is to be my relationship with him now. I haven't been often to see him as he see's no importance in even a phone call unless someone is dead or dying. Am I to rush out the nursing home a couple times a week now? Will my boss think less of me if I don't? I've discussed this with Rox a few times. Time to leave her out of it now. I'm not even sure if Ann wants things to be this way. We don't talk. Not about anything as important as FEELINGS. This family is about as dysfunctional as possible without flying different flags and shooting at each other.
Speaking of relationships. What is to be my relationship with her when that old man dies?

The Duke

Ever since I can remember I could not watch a John Wayne movie without seeing my dad in the lead role. He always struck me as being larger than life, like the Duke. Always at work, whether at the cement plant or in his garage working on someone's car. He always had something important to do. Aveteran of the Navy during WWII he returned home and participated in the labor force that was to create the most powerful economic engine on the face of the planet. And like theDuke, just as remote from me.

He never watched me wrestle. Though he attended the ceremony where I received the Unit Honor Scout award, he never participated in the program that was to have such a significant impact on my young life.He would take me to Sunday School and pick me up after Church, but didn't attend with me.

In the movie TRUE GRIT, John Wayne, is portraying a charicature of his movie personna. Tough old man...like my dad. However, when I watched that movie last week I picked up on things that never registered with me before. Though he was a tough old bird that did what was necessary to get the job done, when the girl Mattie was bitten by a snake the concern for her was plain to see. She was his "little sister". Rode a horse to death, then carried her for miles 'till he could hijack a wagon to carry to to safety and medical attention. At the end of the movie when she was showing her the family cemetary and asking if he would allow her to provide a place for him, his voice and face showed real love as he reminded her that place should be for her family, husband, kids, and so on.

When I had stitches in my arm it was Wayne Prazak that stood by me, not my dad. When his dog of 17 years, Herkemer, was taken to the Vet for his trip to the Rainbow Bridge, it was his son-in-law Earl went with Mary Ann, not him.

All my life I could not watch a John Wayne movie without seeing my dad in the lead role. I was wrong. I was seeing my dad through the eyes of a child who was physically abused by a man who admits he had a "temper".
It wasn't him who was like John Wayne...it was me.

A GOD THING

MAP and I go way back. I'm not real sure when I didn't know Mark. I do know that most of our lives we were just a couple "good ol' boys" having a "good ol' time". We'd played music together before but our lives were too focused in different directions until I got out of the Army.

He stopped by my Mother's house as he'd seen me sitting on the front porch drinking beer with my brother. Asked me if I wanted to go drink some free beer at a jam session in Manly. That's where I met Leroy. Leroy played bass for Mark's band. Good bass player, better beer drinker. Decided he'd rather drink beer than play bass. That's how MA and I started working togther again. On and off we played music for the next twenty years...And played it damned good. The only problem we seemed to encounter was when we became better beer drinkers than music players...I got sober first. Then Mark moved to Texas and married his first ex-wife.....then got sober.

So it came as a real surprise to me to get a call from Mark. Seems Leroy was in the hospital in Iowa City dying of cancer. Mark wanted to come home and could I give him a ride to where Leroy was so he, Mark could pray with Leroy.

Mark is still a good friend and HE'S SOBER!!! You bet! I jumped at the chance to spend some time with MA. We played a lot of music together and did it well. A lot of friendships begin with a lot less in common than what Mark and I shared.

When he arrived he was with his sister and we had a short prayer in my back yard before we jumped in my van to begin our adventure. And an adventure is what it became, but not in the fashion either Mark or I could have envisioned. You see it was a long drive, several hours. It was getting rather late when we arrived in Iowa City and though the Hospital Campus was easy to find, it was not that easy to find Leroy. When we did find his room there were two ladies waiting with him. One was his daughter, the other an daughter-in-law, I think. Seems he'd been home until the last day or so when the pain was to great to bear. That was when they brought him in...he was heavily sedated and probably would not awaken again. Not in this life anyway. We talked with them for awhile to let them know who we were and why we were there.

After a bit of time had passed a younger version of Leroy came in, we introduced ourselves and the ladies who had been there left to go home and get some rest. Seems the young man was Leroy's son. I don't recall his name though his name is not important to this tale. What happened over the next few minutes did a lot to reinforce the belief I hold in a Power Greater Than Me. For you see this young man inherited much more than his appearance from his dad. He had been in and out of AA for a few years and was a little shy of two years sober. His dad was dying and one of the ladies who'd been there earlier was his wife. They were having some serious problems and he was stuggling with whether or not sobriety was even worth it. So Mark had flown in from Texas and we had driven down from Mason City not to pray with Leroy, but to hold an AA meeting in the room of a dying man with his son. As we stood in a circle holding hands recitng the Lord's Prayer I had goose bumps and tears. The tears were not for Leroy, they were for this young man who, with the Grace and help of God would not have to live the way his father had. A coincidence? Maybe, but I heard at a meeting once that coincidences were just God performing His Works anonymously.