Get Satisfaction

In 1964, I turned 13 years old.

Like most kids in those days, I was listening to a lot of popular music on a transistor radio.
My first hearing of the Beatles happened  one night while laying sleepily in the dark, in bed.
I’ll never forget that moment. Perhaps you have had one like it.
Their sound was absolutely unique, new, and fresh. Paul and John’s two-voiced harmony rang so clearly through my juvenile brain:

Well, she was just seventeen;
You know what I mean, 
and the way she looked 
was way beyond compare. 
Now I’ll never dance with another
since I saw her standing there. . .
My heart went boom
when I crossed that room 
and held her hand in mine!

Along about that time, there were some other groups knocking out their raucous vibes over the airwaves. I remember one joker came along ranting:

I can’t get no I can’t get no I can’t get no satisfaction!
When I’m traveling ‘round the world
and I’’m trying to make some girl . . .
who tells me baby you better come back next week
cuz cant you see I’m on a losing streak.
I can’t get no I can’t get no I can’t no satisfaction!

Yeah, yeah, whatever, man.
Not my cup of tea.

Years later, I began wondering just what kind of trip the music industry was trying to put on me and my g-g-generation. Well, that’s a profound question, and it goes much deeper than just “the music industry.”
As years passed by, I had a lot of great experiences, and  of course a few bad ones.
Now it’s 2020 and I’m sitting around the house wondering where the Covid is going to take us before it plays out its invisible death scenario among us. And I have some time to reflect on the meaning of life and all that . . .

Today, while strolling in the sunshine on a park trail, social distancing,  I realized that—looking back on it all— I have discovered, thank God, what satisfaction truly is. I'm not kidding.
Forty years ago, I met the love of my life, married her; she gave birth to our three children who are now grown and living productive, happy lives.

And we have managed to get through that very long “gotta make a living” phase of life—forty years of it. Well, she’s still working . . . ICU Nurse in this time of Covid, while I have made it to that classic, gold-tinted “retirement” state of mythical bliss.
And it will not be so very long before I pass on . . . into that eternal life with the Lord who created us and guided us through these paths of fulfillment.
So I’m approaching that great, big open door that will be like nothing else this life has shown me so far.
They say . . . as one approaches that final  stage, one may become feeble, losing a few neurons along the way and finding some of those ole dependable body parts unable to do what they used to do.
And . . . and yet . . .

this person who is beside me as we approach this unfamiliar juncture . . . this person who has been with me since . . . forty years . . . this woman who has made my house a home, guided my children through better paths than I could have done alone . . . this woman who is still with me as we draw near to that last sunset, whenever it comes . . .



I have found it! The Satisfaction! . . . the meaning of life:
To have one person who does this long journey with you all the way through, and is there—so familiar and comfortable and caring— all the way to the end, when the sparks start to fall short.
That's what it's all about! Whoever thought up this plan—my hat’s off to Him!

Now I realize this personal revelation that I have described may not be your cup of tea. I get that. It takes all kinds to make a world. But I do want to leave you with this little piece of advice.
If you have one person to love—and who loves you—stay with that person. The sacrifice of loving one mate all the way through the journey is definitely worth all the .  . . whatever it takes.

Chances are,  you don’t fully appreciate the full significance of faithful love until you approach the final stages. That's when the deepest reward is realized. Today is the day I have understood this most clearly.

Glass half-Full

Gold I Have Seen

On the Periodic Table of earth elements, gold is found in the middle of pack, at number 79. So while the shining yellow metal is just another lump or two in the great planetary array of substances, it is, and has always been, coveted and collected by us humans.

Gold has a curious effect on us. Through the ages, people have assigned many meanings and uses for the lustrous stuff.

I have seen gold on a few occasions in my life.  Like most folks, I am fascinated with the sight of it.  Here are a few pics of the bright metal I have collected. While pondering what gold represents, I made a list. For what it’s worth, here’s my take on what gold means to us.

~~~Gold as Wonder

Amazing how . . . ?

~~~Gold as Beauty

~~~Gold as Value

~~~Gold as Religious Ceremony

An altar in a Catholic Church in Rome

~~~Gold as Authority

This gold-tipped mast and dome is seen at the top of San Francisco City Hall.

~~~Gold as Power

In this room, the last emperor of the Hapsburg empire, Karl I of Austria, renounced all claims of royal authority over nations and empire. The renunciation took place November 11, 1918, the last day of World War I.

World War had begun in 1914 after his uncle, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo, Serbia, which was at that time a part of the Hapsburg Austrian empire.

From that point and time in history, the many families, dynasties, kingdoms, and empires of royal authority who have ruled the world for so long . . . began their slow, modern slipping into mere ceremony, and —many would say—irrelevance.

This room in the Schonbrunn palace, near Vienna, is now property of the Republic of Austria.

~~~Gold as Precious

a golden moment of precious repose, reflection and contemplation

~~~Gold as Fidelity

Good as gold. . . in our case, 39 years and continuing.

~~~Gold as Heaven

“. . . and the street of that city was pure gold.”  (Revelation 21:21)

I haven’t seen this one yet, but one day I will, thanks to Jesus, who was resurrected after being nailed to a cross.

King of Soul

Fidelity

Marriage is the best.
I believe it’s better than all the rest,
safer, more satisfying, more productive than the horde
of various pairings, trysts, hot encounters this fast life may afford.
While Frank did croon back in the bygone time
of old love affairs being like fine old wine
I find fidelity to be the best kind.
Sleepin’ around aint worth a dime.
I’m entitled to my opinion, you know,
‘cause our Constitution says it’s so.
I know you may disagree with me,
and that’s your right, as it should be.
I’m just sayin’ one man one woman is the way to go.
Since way back when and long ago.
I mean I know in our g-generation
we thought we had some great revelation
that it was all about free love and blahblahblah,
but when the dust settled, race was over and last hurrah
’tis best to settle down with just one mate
and plant your seeds, your vines, and you know—procreate.
I find that children are where it’s at;
watching ‘em grow—nothing better than that.
Long time ago
in the big flowerpower show
Steven sang to love the one you’re with
and while it seemed a cool idea, it’s really just a hippie myth.
I’m glad I found the grace to settle down
instead of baying like some heated hound
at every pair of flashing eyes and bouncing breasts.
I’d rather have our shared memories in the old hope chest.
Judy blue eyes, joking, compared Steve to a dog;
the audience laughed, re-visiting their summer-of-love fog.
But where have all the children gone,
long time passing,
where have all the children gone
long time ago?
Where have all the children gone?
Gone to divorce, so many of us,
spirited away by lust, mistrust, diamonds and rust.
When will they ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
I mean I know its the cool thing to say
to let us all be trans and bi and gay
but give me marriage straight any day
and time will reveal it’s the best way
‘cuz when you get old and gray
you’ll have a mate with whom you stay.
Yes, Virginia, a lifetime of shared fidelity
is more precious and productive than wild revelry.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it,
‘though you are free to live however you want to do it.
You go your way and I’ll go mine.
Just give me my wife for the rest of my time.

King of Soul

Consummation to Coitus to Coercion

I was born in 1951 and so I have seen a few changes in my lifetime. One major change is the difference between how we thought about sex back in those rose-colored 1950’s and how we think about it nowadays.

Back in the day, a man and a women would marry and and try to make a go of it— a lifetime of extreme one-on-one intimacy and— if they were good at it and lucky enough— parenthood.

Nowadays, not so much.

Seems now everybody’s hung up on the sex part of it. Who’s screwing whom, whether he was raping her, who’s consenting, or not, to whom. And who’s coercing whom into sexual acts. Socialmedia world is all about what he did to her, or he did to him. Whereas it used to be about mama and daddy retiring to the same bed every night, then something mystical happening between them, which would result in a new human  entering into this wonderful life.

But now that long-lost world of lifetime love and fidelity is going the way of the buffalo— which is to say. . . near extinction.

Mom and Pop are hardly even a part of it any more. The public obsession that’s been drummed up is all about what Harvey whoever did to so-and-so how many times on his studio couch, or about Roy’s groping the girls, or Kevin’s coercing the boys or even Prez pants-down Bill’s spurting on a blue dress in the very shadow of his privileged oval office hegemony.

Now some of us ole geezers are wondering how the hell did we get here. What happened? Funny thing happened on our way to the millennium, we lost something along the way.

We lost some healthy constraint somewhere; we forsook some beneficial bonds on our way to tearing down all those old taboos, pushed the envelope beyond beneficence.

It seems we Boomers overdid it in our campaign for Free Love.

As it turns out, free love is not much more than cheap lust.

And mere rape, be it sardonic, sadistic, or sodomic.

I think it’s time we blaze a path back to where we were before we lost our way in the wilderness of wantonness.

King of Soul 

The Snowbird Lesson

When I was a child in Mississippi, we had a book about birds of North America. For some reason, I know not what, I became fascinated by a certain bird that was pictured therein. It was the snowbird. Being a boy from the deep south, I had not seen much snow, which was a rarity where I come from.

Perhaps that rarity factor is the reason I was fascinated by the picture of the snowbirds in my little book.

Now I'm sixty-five, and living in the Blue Ridge mountains, which can be quite snowy this time of year.

Early this morning, December 30, we did discover the first snow of the season, and I have to tell ya-- along with the whitey flakes the snowbirds made their visit known to us.

Later in life, When I had become young man, I became fascinated with a song called "Snowbird" that was a hit on the radio at that time, 1960's. It was a tear-jerker tune, sung perfectly by a lady known as the Canadian songbird, Annie Murray.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq9bHd58-LA



"Snowbird" is a sad song about unrequited love.

"When I was young, my heart was young then too. Anything that it would tell me--that's the thing that I would do.

But now I feel such emptiness within for the thing that I want most in life's the thing that I can't win. . .

and

"The breeze along the river seems to say, that she'll only break my heart again, should I decide to stay.

So little snowbird take me with you when you go to that land of gentle breezes where the peaceful waters flow."

. . . and yet, beneath the poem's cold mantle of forlornness there is a trace of hope, a mention of "flowers that will come again in spring.



As it turned out, in my life the flowers did "come again in spring." Those misadventures in love that later became a flood of heartache ultimately were buried in the fertile ground of life's demands. Not only were seeds of new love sewn providentially into my life, but those seeds have yielded new flowers and more seeds.



Yet still, "the snowbird sings the song he always sang, and, as it turns out, eats the seeds always needs.



The snowbirds visited our house this morning, and wow! did they have a feast!

Those little critters are much like the two humans--my wife and I--who find much joy in providing seed for them during this snowy season. There's Snowy on the ledge, and his wifey down in the tree:

Thanks to love and marriage, which go together, you know, like a horse and carriage, or like . . . snowbirds and snow, my life has turned out to be a love feast instead of the festival of the broken-hearted that might have been, had not a wonderful loving woman come in and changed all that lovesick blues to pure white marital love, 37 years of it.

I wouldn't trade marital love for anything in the world. It's so much better than the broken heart that might have been. Thank God for true love that is lasting and faithful.

Here's another version of the song, "Snowbird," as recorded by the songwriter, Hank Snow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBwqqH0LTyI

And here's a parting pic of little Snowy with his Finchy friend.

Glass half-Full

When the green buds they were swellin'. . .

Spring rushes in; the world is turning;

every impulse sends forth new yearning.

Green sprigs sprout up fresh and tender;

passion's pangs of love they render.

Some folks find love and cultivate;

they come together and procreate.

Others yearn and burn and go to town;

instead of loving they just screw around.



For some love works out really well

the passion swells deeper than I can tell.

But some yearnings get nipped in the bud

when careless affairs turn to crud.



While spring is new, passions are old.

In the annals of song a sad love tale is told

of love that budded but ne'er did bloom.

Herein begins the ancient Barb'ry Allen tune:



" 'T'was in the merry month of May

when the green buds they were swelling,

Sweet William on his death bed lay

all for the love of Barb'ry Allen . . . "



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqHJ4V893e0



But despair not; some lovers pair faithfully.

Swelling with commitment, they grow up gracefully,

even through ordeals and terrible times;

true lovers do generate inspiring rhymes:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lnJSW-OUyM



"This couple they got married,

so well did they agree.

This couple they got married;

so why not you and me?

Oh. . . so why not you and me?"



And this this works out well.

Glass half-Full

Afterglow

One man, one woman

become one.

Host of family and friends

from near and far

gather.

Joy, celebration, love;

heaven comes down

to us

while we witness,

in bright sunshine,

nature's original intent

for him and her. . .

sacramental coupling more

mysterious and sweet than

we could have anticipated, so that the

coital coupling to come will conceive pure

love.

A miracle of unity, this event transforms

all who are present and willing

to enter into their sacred intent toward each other,

in faithfulness, fidelity, finality.

Rare, but true.



John speaks of love and sacrifice, while

celestial grace streams from

blue sky.

Wisdom gets multiplied by two, and

Joy

far greater than we could have mustered,

erupts from the fearless conviction of their vows,

spoken boldly, with certainty, and yet lit up

around the edges, like this entire celebration itself,

with a slightly naughty mirth.

Such brave intent we see, in spite of the dissolution of all things holy that's

going on out there in, you know. . .

the world, and all that other crap we hear about from time to time.

But now. . .

Their vowful miracle becomes

a blessing to us who witness, even

as they speak the gift into existence, pronouncing to

each other.



And then they skip away.

And so amazed are we

while we wonder at the the scene. We

had wandered in; now we float

out, in sacramental awe.

We eat, drink, dance, celebrate into the night until. . .

as suddenly as they had entered in,

bride and groom are gone.

To discover the greatest mysteries of life.

This Afterglow

bequeaths us traces of infinite, unpredictable

fulfillment,

with glintings of eternal grace.

This moment, remembered, shall inspire us

to consecrate today's exchange, while

these two young ones are continually equipped,

in time,

to become one.

They'll discover, as days and nights ripen,

that pleasure which is, in all of life, the most precious of all:

to behold, as days slip into years, that smile on the face

of the one you love.

They'll come to savor it, like the finest wine, as Mom and Dad have,

and their Mom and Dad before them.

That unfathomable depth of joy will fortify

the life they share with invincible companionship.

While meanwhile, back at the ranch, parents bask in

afterglow.

Fidelity is the way to go

A man cannot

love all the lovely women of this world.

What's best is to choose

one,

and love her well.

Then she is satisfied, and he is taken care of,

while God is pleased and

society hums along more contentedly.

Oh and btw,

along the way

children are born: this is the real

miracle.

The sacrifice the man makes, being faithful and

fatherly,

becomes a tribute and preserver to his own ongoing

sanity

and the children's

stability. It is a win-win

for everybody.

You see, the man would go crazy trying to love all those beautiful

women out there. Really,

The only way to love all the women of this world is

to love one woman well, and smile at

all those others. Then say to them:

Peace be with you.



Glass half-Full

True Love

If a man chooses a woman as his wife, he should stay with her. He should be faithful to her, because when he is old, who will care for him? And she should remain faithful to him, because when she is old, who will care about her?

This is not easy, although in the long run, in the big picture of life, it is the best way. And when you get right down to it, during the time of approaching old age, it is not only the best way, it is in fact, the easiest way.

The way of fidelity is the best and easiest because, although the man gets old, and his functions diminish, and maybe he takes the little blue pills to help him and his wife along, the old triggers of youth remain. They do not go away. The old visual stimuli that motivated him as a youth and cornered him into tight places of desire and release do not just disappear.

So this is something that the man and wife deal with in their latter years. And it is better that they address the issues of waning masculinity and withering femininity together, because that is better than being alone.

Of course, ultimately every man is alone at the very end, and he must deal with it--a matter between himself and his Creator. Same for the woman, though her worries and fears are, I believe, different. There is a difference, you know, between the man and the woman.

But insofar as it is possible, a man and woman who have committed themselves to each other should remain committed for life. In the long run, this is the best for both of them. Trust me, from my beach perspective here on the island of Maui, I can see a multitude of directions that a man could pursue, but where would they lead him?

My fading memory of such libidinous pursuit in the early days tells me that those random paths of desire would lead, after perhaps some momentary release, to frustration and disappointment. So it is better that the man remain faithful to his woman, and she to him.

The Creator has designed life this way. By the time a man is old, he is cornered by God, bound by his own diminishing prowess. He has no truly viable choice but to remain faithful to that woman who has stayed with him all along the unpredictable twists and turns of this life's journey. The same is true for the woman, I suppose. Or at least I hope so.

CR, with new novel, Smoke, in progress