Down the Gravel Road

Johnny Cash Is My New Homeboy

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 08:35:09 -0600

On a recent road trip to Minneapolis, I listened to the NPR interview show Fresh Air, which rebroadcast an interview Terry Gross did with Johnny Cash in the late 1990s. He was in the news because 1) February 26 was the anniversary of his birthday, and 2) the last in his American Recording Series, Ain't No Grave, was released to coincide with his birthdate.

I wasn’t a country western fan in my youth, and my generation spent more time ridiculing Johnny Cash than listening to him. But Gross’s interview with the aging singer and his obvious love of music made the interview a delight. You can listen to it or download the transcript by clicking here.

After the rebroadcast, Gross interviewed Rick Rubin, the record producers who collaborated with Cash on the American Recording Series. Gross and Rubin spent much of the interview talking about the CD in the boxed set which is all Cash singing his favorite hymns and spirituals solo. In the interview, Rubin describes the impact of Cash’s witness through an everyday moment. To hear what Rubin said or download that transcript, click here.

Once you listen, you may understand why Johnny Cash is my new homeboy.
Thanks, man in black.

Life is Good When...

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 09:56:35 -0600

For the past month and a half, my cousin has been forwarding emails from her daughter, Lara, who is studying in Spain this semester. Lara is four days older than my daughter, and like Anne, she’s a junior in college.

Reading Lara’s adventures has been pure delight. She’s learned to live with cold showers, cook with butane fuel and purchase new fuel when the tank runs dry. She’s been befriended by a family of Bolivian immigrants, eats weekend meals and goes to church with them, and bakes them banana bread. She’s climbed mountains, ridden trains, taken taxies, and to make the most of this opportunity, forces herself to speak Spanish instead of English to fellow students to improve her language skills.

The wisdom of a comment she made in a recent email makes me smile whenever it comes to mind. After Lara describing a busy weekend with the Bolivian family, washing laundry and cooking meals together, she said this. “You know life is good when doing mundane, everyday activities is nice.”

Her insight delighted but didn’t surprise me. She’s part of the pack of girl cousins (Anne, my brother’s two girls, Lara and two of her cousins) who were born in a span of four years. They spend as much time as possible crammed together like puppies, playing games, talking, sharing clothes, writing stories. When they aren’t together in body, they connect on Facebook, joyfully sharing their “mundane, everyday activities.”

I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t predict the joys and sorrows in Lara’s future or those of her pack of puppy cousins. But these young women already know what Dorothy had to learn over the rainbow and what many people spend their whole life never learn: life’s greatest pleasures are the small things, the ordinary days, and the people who experience them. They have what they need to appreciate the joys and weather the sorrows sure to come.

They’re ready to face the world.

Greek Salad

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 08:45:51 -0600

The produce section of the grocery store is a depressing place this time of year. The vegetables look downright exhausted, and the out-of-season fruits look like parodies of what’s available in summer and spring. Finding fruits and vegetables with crunch, flavor, and texture is often an exercise in futility.

To keep from succumbing completely to frozen and canned vegetables, I rely upon a couple never fail side dishes. One of them is Greek salad, which uses vegetables available and crunchy year round. It’s easy to make and so healthy you’ll feel increasingly virtuous with every bite.

Greek Salad

1 Romaine heart, chopped or torn into bite-sized pieces
1/4 medium sweet onion, thinly sliced
1/4 sweet red pepper, thinly sliced
1/4 cup kamara olives, pitted and halved
1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon coarse black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
feta cheese

Combine vegetables in a salad bowl. In small bowl or curet, mix vinegar, oil, salt and pepper. Pour over vegetables immediately before serving and toss well. Sprinkle with feta cheese.

I Miss You, Dad

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 09:22:33 -0600

My father died thirteen years ago this day, though it’s more accurate to say he drew his last breath on March 4, 1997. The vibrant, extroverted leader who was my father spent thirty-eight years dying after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age twenty-nine.

The course of Dad’s disease was cruel and merciless, swiftly cutting him down in the prime of life and then allowing him to linger for decades, slowly sapping him of strength and then of his ability to think, speak and remember.

For all the tragedy he experienced, and there is no kinder word with which to sugarcoat what he endured, my father’s presence was the delight of my childhood. How can I describe this complex man? Depression stalked his lonely days while we were at school, but he refused to burden my sister, brother and me with it. But if he didn’t hear us come home, we would see him staring at the wall, his face all blank despair, his thumbs twiddling aimlessly.

The minute he saw us, a grin split his face, and he was all joy. He wheeled his chair to the kitchen table and asked us to heat up his coffee, light his pipe, pour ourselves some milk, and grab the cookie jar. He cracked jokes so funny we snorted milk up our noses. Then he turned a blind eye while we watched the after school cartoons Mom declared off limits. He waited until we were absorbed in the show to wheel up behind us, then poke and tickle us mercilessly. When Mom’s car pulled up, the TV went off, the homework came out, and Dad went along with our charade with a wink and a smile.

By the time we all married and moved away, he was mostly bedridden. When I came home to visit, and then when he had moved to the nursing home, I would stand in the doorway of his room a minute. Dad would lay there, wide awake, staring at the ceiling, his face blank and despairing, his thumbs too weak to twiddle.

“Dad,” I would say, “It’s Jo. I’m home.”

In an instant, the despair was gone and joy wreathed his face. His eyes sparkled, even in his last years, when he barely spoke at all. Though we were adults ourselves, he refused to lay upon us the weight of his constant loss.

My father spent thirty-eight years dying until he drew his last breath on March 4, 1997. But in those decades of disease and loss, he did so much more than die. He showed us how to live with dignity, find joy in the midst of sorrow, and love with undying faithfulness and sacrifice.

I miss you, Dad.

In memory of Harlan John Stratton: May 11, 1929 - March 4, 1997

Anybody Else Think It's Time to Retire the Hummer?

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:14:14 -0600

Man, I was happy last week when GM announced the Hummer brand would soon bite the dust. To me the vehicle was one of our country’s biggest embarrassments. It was so out there, a rolling embodiment of consumerism, me-centeredness of Americans, and lack of respect for creation.

What possessed GM to build this albatross in the first place? And why do people need to drive on paved, safe streets and roads in vehicles designed for the army? Does the ability to impress friends and neighbors justify gas guzzling?

I’m not a rampant environmentalist. I’m not a tree hugger, a member of PETA or of the Sierra Club. But I do recycle, use cloth shopping bags, buy local when possible, and drive a car that gets great gas milage. But every time I see a Hummer on the road, I get spitting mad because the person driving it has just cancelled out all my ecological efforts with one trip to the grocery store.

So the GM announcement about the Chinese business reneging on their bid for the Hummer brand made me smile. Maybe there’s hope, I thought. Twenty-four hours later, that hope dimmed a bit when the car company announced other undisclosed suitors were waiting in the wings.

Apparently the suitors are embarrassed to admit their identity. They should be. Hummer needs to die, and it needs to die soon. Until it does, we’re painted with the brush of excessive consumerism and lack of foresight. I’d like to get rid of that image. Wouldn’t you?