Sunday, August 15, 2004

Finally .. Or not

Well .. Here goes .. I don't know if anyone is reading this or not, but that is not important (a lie). You know, the important thing is that I get my feelings and words out of my head (ok, almost a lie). Things get a little jumbled up in my head at times and it is better to slap it down on cyber-paper than to just leave it up there to interact with other nonsense and serious thinking stuff. Since this is the first post here, I will allow y'all a brief glimpse into my head. It might be scary. It might be enlightening. It might be like trying to swim in the shallow end of the pool. I am not sure that I think on a deep level all the time. I might be drowning in my own thoughts, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are deep. Right about now my deepest thoughts are how I begin a new paragraph. 'Enter' does not seem to work.
My sister, now approaching 50, skipped school once while she was in High School. She went with some friends to Boonesboro 'beach'. OK, in Kentucky, we don't have real beaches, but we call this sandy spot on the side of the Kentucky River a beach. Sue us ! Anyway, she was enjoying her day away from school, splashing around in the water, when she fell. Underwater, she went. She came up, gasping, and down she went again. Once more, she broke the surface, gasped for air and dropped into the murky deep. She was drowning (a curse from God for her sin of skipping school). She was going down for the last time when a kindly gentleman walked over to where she was dying, and told her to stand up. She was drowning in water that was knee deep.
That could be the case in my head and in my thoughts. My drowning in them and the depth of them are not necessarily related. I promise I will try not to drown in the knee deep thoughts of what color the bathroom should be painted or which side of the roll the toilet paper should unroll (the back/wall side or the front side). This is not to say that these things are not important to someone on some level, just not blog material, or so I think.

Oh yeah, and I figured out the new paragraph thing.

So, lets go for a ride in my head. The basis for much of my thinking will originate from my upbringing and outcoming. My father was a church pastor from the time I was 3 years old until a few years ago. I am running headlong now toward 50 myself. I do have the brief stops at 47, 48, and 49 to go. My mother is a full blooded German mom. Dad was stationed in Germany during the Korean conflict, where they met, fell madly in love and were married. They have been married just over 50 years now. I was a rebellious teenager in my own head, even though I have only smoked one pack of Marlboro's in my life (around the time I was turning 16), I have never (yes, never) been drunk, and I have never been high (heck, I never smoked the wacky backy).
I got married at 19 after dropping out of college. I joined the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and began my apprenticeship a month before the wedding. My pay dramatically increased from $2.65 to $4.25 per hour. Around 21, I 'accepted' the call to preach and began working in the church pastored by my father. My father worked as an electrician and pastored the church as well. Until he was in his 50's, he never accepted any salary from the church. What is interesting is, when I was a boy, dad would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. My answers varied, but the one thing that remained constant was that there were two things I never wanted to be. Those were an electrician and a preacher. How funny life is can only be topped by how funny life is.
Twenty years, three beautiful daughters (Audrey 24, Chasity 21, and Heather 16), and miles of water under the bridge, after Kaye and I were married, we divorced. We remained friends (mostly). My daughters are grown and growing. Two of them are married and have children of their own. Now is when I learn if those parenting skills (or lack thereof) actually worked. The divorce was 6 years ago. Kaye remarried, divorced, and remarried again since then. About 28 months ago I met Tammy, a beautiful lady who eventually (Oct 2003) became my wife. She and I, and her four children make our home in Lexington, KY.

That is the shallow end of the pool. Later we might venture into deeper waters, but for today, I think I will retreat to the safety of my cozy beach towel in the warm sand. Try not to block my sunlight while ya read.

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