The Same Black Line

One more repost from Facebook. Something that is interesting about this one is that I refer to the song "The Same Black Line" as being by The Gin Blossoms. Of course, it's not, it's by the Wallflowers. Duh! I even posted the YouTube link and never noticed that I had gotten that wrong. If anyone who commented on Facebook noticed my error, they didn't mention it.

The Same Black Line

by Steve Fouse on Sunday, September 18, 2011 at 3:37pm

Sometimes it seems that events in my life conspire to cause me see things in new ways. This has been the case the last few days, and some thoughts that have rattling around in my brain have congealed in new and meaningful ways for me.

The first event was the other night when Dana and I decided to watch a movie. I had put one on my Netflix queue that I was interested in because of someone I know. The movie is The Woodsman, starring Kevin Bacon, who plays the subject of the movie Walter, and Kyra Sedgwick, who plays his girlfriend Vicki. At the outset of the story, Walter has just been released from a 12-year term in prison and has returned to his hometown. He rents an apartment from the only landlord in town who will rent to him, and he is able to return to his former job, at a lumber yard, where he eventually meets Vicki. Walter is obviously a very troubled, unhappy man, filled with self-loathing and fear. He is estranged from most of his family because of what he did. He especially wants to see his sister, whom he loves dearly, and her daughter, who was just a baby when Walter went to prison. His sister won’t see him, but her husband Carlos is friendly with Walter and visits him and shares news of the family with him.

The reason I was interested in this movie is because of the crime of which Walter was convicted. Walter is a pedophile. He was convicted of molesting little girls. When he confesses this to Vicki, he says, “It’s not what you think. I never hurt any of them. I liked smelling their hair.”

As I said, I was interested in seeing this movie because of someone I know. I have a friend whom I have known literally all my life. Our mothers, who were neighbors, were pregnant with us at the same time. I was born about a month before he was. We were childhood friends and buds in high school. I was best man at this wedding. Last year he was convicted of molesting his grandson. His sentence is 10 years in Howard McLeod Correctional Center in Atoka, OK. With time served prior to his trial, his projected release date is April 1, 2019. Then he will be on probation until May 2034. He and I will turn 78 that year.

The crime of pedophilia is a heinous act, destructive to helpless children. In Oklahoma, those convicted of this crime must register as sex offenders for life, cannot live near schools, daycare centers, or parks, and are generally outcasts from society. I have heard that mental health practitioners and the courts consider pedophiles as beyond rehabilitation. Once a pedophile, always a pedophile.

For awhile I thought that my friend couldn’t have done such a thing, that there must be some huge mistake. However, the local paper said that in court, when he plead guilty to avoid going to trial and bringing further pain to his family, the judge asked him what he was guilty of. He said, “I touched my grandson’s penis.”

The Woodsman was a powerful movie, despite the difficult topic and the misery Walter lives in. Walter fights his demons and, with the help of a therapist and Vicki, struggles to become what he calls “normal.” But when he is persecuted by some co-workers who discover what he did, the stress Walter feels becomes too great, and he seeks relief in his old habits. He follows an 11-year–old girl Robin, whom he has previously befriended. He talks to her in a secluded area of park, eventually asking her to sit on his lap. The girl’s reaction becomes a turning point for Walter.

She tells him she doesn’t really want to sit on his lap, that her father asks her to do that when they are alone. She says that when she sits on her daddy’s lap, he moves his legs around in funny ways. She says it makes her feel nervous. But because she likes Walter, and because she is an innocent little girl, she tells him she will sit on his lap if he really wants her to.

In that moment, Walter’s focus changes from his own pain to Robin’s pain. He gets an inkling of what her father has done to her and of the pain he has caused her, and, therefore, Walter has an understanding of what he has done to his victims. He tells Robin to go home. The movie ends with some hope. Walter and Vicki move in together, and Walter seems to have moved past his fear and self-hatred. It seems that he believes he has changed.

The second event that moved my thinking along was a profound Facebook Note yesterday from my friend Donna Pratt Ridge, titled “I SEE You.” In this note, Donna talks about the labels we put on other people, and how those labels separate us from people different from ourselves. She concludes with this: “At our core we ALL want to be acknowledged. To be loved. To be accepted. To know we matter to someone. Because I have been challenging myself lately in this area, I also challenge you to become aware of your tendency to label and purposely catch yourself doing it. Then push past that and SEE the person you would have otherwise written off. Talk to them. Get to know them. Engage them. And in so doing you will find the beauty. SEE them. Namaste. The divine in me honors the divine in you.” Thanks, Donna.

The third event was this morning, when I was working on stuff for my job at our kitchen table and listening to Pandora radio. A song came on that I had heard many times, but never paid much attention to. Music often speaks to me in powerful ways. The song is “Sixth Avenue Heartache,” written by Jakob Dylan and performed by the Gin Blossoms.

The song is about something that Dylan experienced when he was younger. There was a homeless man in his neighborhood who was always just there. Jakob never spoke to him and didn’t really know him. The old guy played guitar like Jakob did. One night Jakob heard a gunshot and a scream. The next day the homeless guy is gone from his usual spot, although his guitar and his other stuff are still there.

The chorus of the song says

“And the same black line that was drawn on you

Was drawn on me

And now it's drawn me in

6th Avenue heartache.”

I don’t know for sure what Jakob Dylan means by “the same black line.” For me it stands for our connectedness as humans. Jakob woke up to the fact that, although the old man was just some homeless guy, a stranger, he and Jakob were not that different. God made the homeless guy the same way he made Jakob. He is saying that all of us live with something, some pain, something that isolates us to a degree, something we hate ourselves for. I think he is saying that the next guy’s heartache is the same as mine. Indeed, the next guy’s heartache is MY heartache, if only I will realize it.

If you have stuck with me this far, thank you. The point I am getting to involves my new approach to living, to following Jesus. In my former life, without ever realizing it, I denied the black line that was drawn on me. Because I am a Christian, because I am not a sex offender, or a homeless guy, or any of a thousand other things, because I am a gainfully employed, responsible citizen, I was separate from the part of humanity that lives in misery and degradation. Now I know that we are all connected by our humanity, no matter what our circumstances, or what we are guilty of.

My friend’s crime and subsequent conviction has affected me in profound ways. I think about him almost ever day. I have been at a loss as to what, if anything, I should do about it. Should I reach out to him? At times, I have hated him for what he did. However, having known him for so long, I have some insight into the pain that drove him. I don’t excuse his actions, but I think that, seeing his pain, I can understand somewhat.

Understanding can be a beginning. When Walter understood Robin’s pain, it brought the beginning of a change in him. As Donna says, when we SEE someone, or understand them, we aren’t as likely to isolate ourselves from them.

I’m with Jakob Dylan. The same black line that was drawn on you was drawn on me.

What’d You Say My Name Was…?

Another Repost from Facebook.....

What’d You Say My Name Was…?

by Steve Fouse on Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 4:49pm

Lately, I’ve been noticing more than a few side-effects of reaching the time of my life when my age is a speed limit. Seems like my joints ache more and I get tired easier and stay tired longer. Also, I’ve noticed a few little memory lapses that are annoying. These are not completely new, but they seem to be occurring more often.

I had an example of this last week. I was trudging away on the cross-trainer at the Y on Friday morning, watching Fox and Friends on TV. A young man came on to report on the quake in Japan. He identified himself as Peter Doocy. Familiar, I thought. Oh, yeah, one of the anchors of Fox and Friends is named Doocy. This must be his son, I thought. He’s probably working as a college intern. I was sure that this was the case, because he also looks like his dad. I just couldn’t remember his dad’s name. Mike or Bob, or something like that, one of those single-syllable man names. But I knew it wasn’t Mike or Bob… What was that guy’s name? I knew that I knew his name.

It’s not really a big deal that I couldn’t remember Mr. Doocy’s first name, but it annoys me because I have always had a great memory. I still do if you ask me about something that happened sometime back in the last millennium. 1974 I remember like it was yesterday. (Seems like it was.) The last ten minutes is sometimes a mystery to me.

I have always been the family historian. Being an army family, we moved a lot and I have always kept a list in my mind of when we move here and when we moved there. I could figure out how old I was when something happened if I remembered where we were living at the time. My parents would ask me the names of neighbors from the 1960s and I always knew.

My talent for this was always particularly useful to my dad, who was never that great at remembering even when he was a young man. He was particularly bad with people’s names. He sometimes slaughtered the pronunciation, so that Capt. Bonial (“bone-ee-ul”) became “Capt. Bonnell,” and Sgt. Mirabella (Italian for “beautiful view, “ so it was “Meera-bella”) became “Sgt. Marrbella.” Other times, he didn’t mispronounce the names, he just didn’t get them quite right. My favorite example of this is Mary Hazel Head.

Mrs. Head was our neighbor when I very young, about five or so, and during part of the time we lived next to them, my dad was in Korea. Maybe that explains why he could not remember Mary Hazel’s name. The Heads were good neighbors and my mom was fond of them. Their son John and I were playmates. The dad was Kenneth. John and Kenneth and Mary Hazel Head. It seemed impossible to me that anyone would ever forget this.

Anyway, the Heads moved from our neighborhood and then we left Lawton, first for Kansas, and then for Germany. When we moved back to Ft. Sill, Mom invited the Heads over for a cook-out. Dad had no trouble with John and Kenneth’s names, but he kept calling Mary Hazel, “Mary Ann” or “Mary Ellen” or “Mary Beth.” It seemed to me that he called her every Mary name there was except Sister Mary Elephant. All the adults were embarrassed by this, because it is the ultimate Faux Pas to forget a friend’s name. It only amazed me, because I had no frame of reference for forgetting a name. I can’t say that anymore.

As Dad got older, his issue with names only got worse, and he often called on me to identify someone whose name he was trying to think of. When he was young, it didn’t seem to matter to him much if he knew someone’s name, but as he aged, he often seemed desperate to think of whatever elusive thing he knew that he knew, but just couldn’t quite remember. Now I know how he felt.

He would say, “Hey, what’s that ole boy’s name at church?”

“Which ole boy, Dad?”

“You know that ole boy and that old gal he’s married to…. They sit up there by that fat old guy, what’s his name?.... Oh, you know who I mean; they sit over there by the organ. Always shouting ‘Amen.’ You know who I mean… His cousin used to be married to what’s-her-name’s sister.”

“You mean Eddie Worthington?”

“No, hell, I know Eddie Worthington. It’s that other ole boy. He’s always wearing those pants.”

“Mr. Miller?”

“No, why would I be trying to that think of that bean brain? You know who I mean; they’ve been going there for years. “ He would snap his fingers really loud, the way he always did when he was trying to think of something, as if that would help me remember.

“Do you mean Bob Swanagon?”

“Yeah, that’s him. What’s his wife’s name?”

“Vi. What about them?”

“What?”

“What were you going to say about them? Why were you trying to remember the Swanagons’ names?”

“Oh, hell, I don’t remember. Something your mother brought up, I guess…"

Like so many other things about getting older, it never occurred to me that I would ever be plagued with anything like my Dad’s issues with memory. But now it happens pretty often, although I don’t think I’m quite as bad as Dad used to be. Earlier today Dana said, “What were you going to say?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Yes you were. You said, ‘Hey, Listen.’ Then you were distracted by something on Facebook. What were you going to say?”

“I don’t have a clue. I don’t even remember saying ‘Hey, Listen….” Another train of thought jumps the track. I call this not being able to remember that you forgot something. It always makes me wonder what else I’ve forgotten that I can’t even remember I forgot.

So, anyway, back to Mr. Doocy. I have a few memory tricks I try when something escapes me. One of them is to try not to think about what I want to remember and just wait until it “bubbles up.” This often works well if I am not desperate (like my Dad to used to be) to think of what I forgot.

But if I really want to know now, there are other things I try to use to jar loose those stubborn memories. One is to think of things associated with the thing I am trying to remember. Logical, right?

So, I tried to remember the other anchors on Fox and Friends. Gretchen Carlson, the pretty blonde, came to me right away. Then I remembered that the guy that’s not Doocy has an Irish name… Brian something! Yeah, Brian Kilmeade!

So, by now I was feeling a lot less lame, because, after all, I had identified two out of three of the Fox and Friends people. I had begun to feel pretty smart until I finally did remember Mr. Doocy’s first name.

I had been on the right track with the one-syllable man name idea. I was also right to feel sure that I should have known Mr. Doocy’s first name.

That’s because his name is Steve Doocy.

Game Changers

I've been thinking I want to start blogging more seriously, but I want to consolidate some stuff I've written on Facebook with my blog. Here's one of those:

Game Changers

by Steve Fouse on Friday, March 12, 2010 at 4:42pm

I have been thinking a lot lately how suddenly a person's life can be radically changed by a single occurrence. Something happens, and everything after that is different. If that something hadn't occurred, things might have gone on as usual for a long time.

A great example of this on a national scale occurred on September 11, 2001. I remember thinking on that day that those acts of terrorism had changed everything. While that might have been an exaggeration, it is true that life is very different now from what it was before that.

Sometimes things happen in life that are so unexpected, so shocking, that they take your breath away. And after that, the future is changed.

I started thinking about Game Changers again several months ago when I learned that a guy I have known all my life, and who at times has been my best friend, had been arrested and was in jail awaiting trial for a most heinous crime. He eventually plead guilty, so it's hard to believe that he didn't do it, although for awhile I tried to imagine scenarios in which the whole thing was just a big mistake, a misunderstanding, and that everyone would realize that soon, and then things could go back to the way they were.

That didn't happen, of course, and now he is in jail because of something he did that changed everything. It changed the way he is seen by everyone who knows him, it changed his ability to make a living, it changed everything about his future. In some ways, it even changed the past for me, because if he could do THAT, then maybe he never was who I thought he was. Sometimes the stark reality of this Game Changer is still more than I can grasp.

More recently, a guy I had worked with for about ten years suddenly lost his job. He was a competent, hard-working guy whom I enjoyed knowing and working with. Suddenly, though, a real misunderstanding from his past precluded his continued employment. One day he was there; the next day he was gone. This was only a couple of weeks ago, so I still sometimes forget that this has happened. Then when I remember , it shocks me again. How is he going to make living? If not for this one thing, he would have continued working for years to come probably. If this freaks me out, imagine what it must do to him.

In July of 1991 or '92, I participated in a 5K race. I had been running for awhile, but I had never run in a race before. My goal for the race was not to finish last. Since it was July in Oklahoma, it was HOT. The result of that race was that I suffered a heat stroke and was in the hospital for several days. My wife (who is an RN and knows about these things) tells me that I could very well have died that day. I am grateful to God that I did not die that day, but I often think about the fact that I could have. It makes me thankful for every day since then, during which I have gotten to live a wonderful life with Dana, to see our children grow up, to get to know their spouses, and to know our grandsons.

Before this becomes too maudlin, let me get to the point. Nothing is certain. One unforeseen, completely unexpected event can change everything that comes after it. We worry about things that might happen all the time, but the things that really blow us away are the ones we never see coming.

Knowing this makes me resolve to better appreciate each day, all its blessings, and the challenges it brings. Tomorrow may bring a Game Changer.

Fire and Light

Trinity Baptist Church in Lawton burned a few days ago. It made me sad.

My friend Shari reminded me that First Baptist Church here also burned back when we were in high school. Bobby Pittman and I skipped fifth hour to go downtown to see it. I didn't have much of a connection with FBC, so I don't recall that it had a lot of profound impact on me when it burned, other than it was kind of exciting to a couple of 17-year-old boys.

But the fire at Trinity really did make me sad. It is not my home church, but I have connections there. My friend Kevin and his family were long-time members. My wife Dana and I attended there when we were first married. Dana was baptized there. Brother Andy from Trinity married us. And my Mom reminded me the other day my Dad was also baptized there when they were first married. Also, Trinity has been a part of the Lawton landscape for as long as I can remember. It has always just been there on West Gore Blvd. as I zipped by, going to work, or to the Y, or wherever. It was just a familiar sight, part of my hometown and my past, something I didn't really think about too much. And now it is gutted by fire and will likely be razed so a new building can be built.

I guess this is disturbing because it was so unexpected. Without really thinking about it, I guess I just assumed that Trinity would always be there, just sitting there on Gore Blvd., where I expected it be, just like it always had been, as I zipped by. But I was wrong.

I told my friend that churches burning are a stark metaphor. (Both of us were English majors.) A burning church reminds me that things in this life are not as permanent as we might think they are. It reminds me of my own mortality. It says that the places and things in this world that we hold dear will not last forever.

But, as the pastor of Trinity said after the fire, the church does not consist of just the building, but of the people of the church. Likewise, our lives do not consist of just the temporal, familiar things we see around us, but in the hope we have in the One who established the Church.

The Apostle Paul wrote, "We have this treasure in jars of clay...." The fire at Trinity reminded me that I am a jar of clay with a treasure hidden inside.

Realizing that, I know that this life will include the loss of lots of places and people that I hold dear. If I were without hope, this would be more than I could bear, probably.

But Paul also reminds us: "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Merry Christmas, y'all.