Sayings (part one)

  My mother kept a baby book for me.  It has pictures and announcements from when I was born.  There are also letters and memories of our time together.  I cherish this book, and sometimes it brings tears to my eyes.  One thing she wrote down were some wise or funny things I said as a child.  For the next couple of stories, I will impart my wisdom on you.

 After watching the family celebrate Mother's Day, and hearing a Mother's Day sermon at church, I asked, "When is it going to be Boy's Day?"  I was three.

 When asked by my mother to tell her what his Sunday School lesson was about, I said, "It was about Zacchaeus.  Jesus told him, "Come down out of that tree and let's go to your house and drink some beer."  I was four.

 At Glorieta, New Mexico, I asked my mother the name of a tree.  She said, "Aspen".  I said, "Bayer or St. Joseph's?"  I was five.

 My mother asked my daddy to paint the porch furniture.  I looked dismayed.  I said, "Now I'll have to tell all my friends that my daddy is a preacher and a teacher and a painter!"  I was five.

 At my grandfather's funeral, I looked at the figure in the casket and asked, "Mother, is that the REAL granddaddy?" I was 4.

 More to come next week.

Banquet

  Back in 2015, the Midlands Transit Riders Association (MTRA) was getting some notoriety.  As president of the association, I was interviewed for TV and newspapers.  We were the voice for the bus riders in Columbia.  We were also recognized by government bodies both locally and nationally.  Our Board of Directors made most of the decisions pertaining to the MTRA, except for some route designs that I did.  Some of our directors didn't like that I was making autonomous decisions, but it had to be done if there was a time constraint.

 Word got to me that one of our members, who was not on our Board, had reached out to the Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation inviting him to speak at a banquet honoring the MTRA and the Comet for their work to make better bus service for Columbia.  I saw the letter, which stated that there would be a banquet at the Columbia Convention Center.  The attendees would be from the Comet, the MTRA, mayors of the affected communities and other political figures.  There was just one problem.  The writer had not consulted with us or anyone else about this banquet.  I called the Convention Center and asked them if they had a banquet on their calendar.  They said no.  I talked to the public relations person at the Comet, and she said she didn't know anything about it.  So, I wrote to the Department of Transportation in Washington to ask Secretary Anthony Foxx not to come to the banquet.  He had been the Mayor of Charlotte before going to DC, so he would have known about Columbia.  

 The letter was an embarrassment to me and to the MTRA.  When I called around to places asking if there was going to be a banquet, I felt stupid for myself and for our association.  There was never going to be a banquet.  We were a non-profit and couldn't afford such a thing, even if we wanted to.  To this day, I don't know why the man wrote the letter and concocted a story about a banquet.  I guess he wanted to be important, like the rest of us were, in the community.  It hurt our credibility for a couple of weeks.  We passed it off as a joke, but it wasn't.  

Hall

  As I have written before, I have gotten several awards for stuff during my life.  There have been awards for drama, writing, leadership, advocacy, and even sexy legs.  However, there is one award that has eluded me.  An induction into a Hall of Fame.

 Back in the 2000's, I saw an ad for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  You could send in some money, and they would send you a t-shirt.  I could also get 10% off in their giftshop, if I was ever in Cleveland, Ohio. I really just wanted the shirt.  On the front, it said, "Rock Your World", and on the back it said, "Member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum".  There was a key word on the back--"Museum".  I was a member of the museum, but not the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I could get into the museum at a discounted rate to see memorabilia from inductees.  

 One day, I was wearing the shirt.  A guy saw the back and misread it.  He got very excited and asked me what band I was in.  At the time, I was writing songs for a band called The Cobbwebs.  We had a very popular cd in Europe called "Magic Boat" in 2002.  The guy had never heard of the band but figured that I was in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I should have corrected him, but there was no need.  He went away happy that he had met a famous person.  I'm glad he didn't ask me for my autograph.  I probably would have signed it with a real inductee's name just for a laugh.  Sometimes, you just have to have fun with people.  I'm still waiting for the call from a Hall of Fame.  Maybe one day.

Sin

  As I have said before, I loved to go to the movies.  I had gotten my driver's license, so my parents trusted me with the car.  I was a safe driver at first.  Years later, I discovered the need for speed.  In the early days of my driving, I just wanted to get from Point A to Point B without having a wreck or a ticket.  I got a ticket but no wrecks early on.

 One place my parents trusted me to go by myself was the Sunday night service at my church.  The church was downtown, so they could check the mileage and find I had been there.  The thing was that I didn't go to church.  I went to the movies.  There were several movie theaters downtown.  Some might show movies I wasn't supposed to see at that age, but I had a fake ID.  I would time it out so that I would get back home after the approximate time that the church service would have been over.  That meant that I might not see the entire movie, if it ran longer than 90 minutes.

 When I would get home, my parents would ask me what the preacher's sermon was about.  I would just make up something and go to bed.  My parents were getting a little suspicious of my nightly activities every Sunday.  They had asked some people at church if they had seen me.  Their answers were either no or not sure.  One night, I told my parents that the sermon was on Sin.  I thought that was a safe answer, since almost all sermons had to do with sin.  Except this one.  The next day, they called our pastor and asked him what the sermon on Sunday night was about.  It wasn't Sin.  BUSTED!!

 After that revelation, my parents started looking for a church to join that was closer to our house and nowhere near a movie theater.  As far as they were concerned, 1969 couldn't end soon enough, because the first Sunday of 1970 was a change.  We joined Kilbourne Park Baptist Church, and my life changed for the better.