My First Orphan Thanksgiving

I know I have told you about being alone on most of my birthdays. Not really alone just celebrating with strangers. No family or friends.

This is a story about my first Thanksgiving without the traditional family. Funny thing is as I look at my last 57 turns around the sun. I have only had 26 with a biological family.

This story happened when I was about 17. I had been touring for a couple years and discovered that of all the holidays one of two that NEVER have paid music gigs are Thanksgiving. No one goes to shows. No one books shows. Maybe no one but me is available to do shows.

Anyway I was outside of Dallas TX in a city called Farmers Branch. It was Thanksgiving. Feeling all lonesome and sad since it was my first one without a family, I decided to go to a Arby's and have a turkey sandwich. I got there right after dark and ordered one with a couple potato pancakes.

I sat by myself and started to eat. Looking around the restaurant I had a moment that I have now realized was a awakening of the heart of God.

Across from me to the left was a young woman with two children. A boy and a girl. On their right was a couple about in their 70's. On the right side was a man with his son. Across from him was a young woman. There was another single guy eating a couple stalls from me. I realized we were all eating the same things.

Turkey Sandwiches.

Like me they had no where else to go on Thanksgiving but also like me they were determined to have Turkey. Determined to have a Thanksgiving.

I got up and went to the counter. I asked if the manager could come up. After he did I told him my plan. I wanted 25 Turkey sandwiches kick up the fryer and bring out 20 potato pancakes and also what ever deserts they had at the time.

Oh by the way, he and the 2 other people behind the counter were invited. They were working on Thanksgiving and if any one came through the drive through tell them to come on in because the food was on me.

We we had a feast. They brought out food, trays and trays of food. I couldn't believe how much food. I was mind blowing.

I don't remember the names, I do remember the stories. The reasons we were all alone, but we weren't alone we became a family on that one Thanksgiving. A dozen complete strangers. We laughed and created so much love.

Since then I have had over 30 Thanksgivings with total strangers. Some us us have stayed in touch but most have not. One single day where people can come together and feast and laugh and be a family even if we have never met before.

Tomorrow I get to do it again. I know that most of you will be with family or friends. I will to. I can't wait to see who they are this year. I know one thing, I will walk in and not know most of them. I will walk out loving every one.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

A little story about my honeymoon night with God.

I had been a Christian for about 10 years. I had been baptized and at the time had read both the New Testiment in a year and the entire Bible in a year. 

I believe there are 3 parts to a marriage.

1. Popping the Question
2. The Wedding
3. The Consummation (Wedding Night)

My second wife had asked me to leave the family over a year before. I had set up 2 dates with my son Lance. One was at a conference called East/West and the other was Spirit West Coast. E/W was a training for kids entering High School to hold on to their faith and the other was a Christian Rock concert. My ex said he could only go to one so I got his passes for East/West and he went alone. I had mentioned this to a friend of mine during a meeting at the Melting Pot in La Jolla, Ca. 

She mentioned that she had a campground and an extra pass because a friend of hers had backed out of SWC. I asked her if I could get it and we arranged to meet at her church between services. 

The Church met in Coronado and I drove down on a Sunday afternoon. She had left the passes with a friend in the church office.

When I walked in it was dark but,,, the best way I can describe what I felt was, have you ever walked into a house during Thanksgiving and even though you don't see the food you know there is a feast there somewhere?

I could just feel that the spirit of God was there. This was a holy place, a place of worship. I picked up the ticket but just walking through the sanctuary, even in the dark, I felt drawn to come back. 

I called my friend and asked her if I could come to her church. She said yes. I think she thought it was funny that I asked. I was pretty well known as a Christian and could go to any church I wanted to. 

I have to admit the worship was off the hook. I had been to Pentecostal and other Charismatic churches before and I had always felt that God may have touched them (called revival) and they were repeating the reaction as a way to bring his presents back. Laughing, waving flags and arms, dancing. etc...

Anyway for some reason this didn't bother me here. It seemed right to do it. After about the 3rd or 4th song the guitarist came to the mic and started speaking in tongues. 

Now I had heard of speaking in tongues. It was in the Bible so I believed that it had happened in the past. It may have happened during revival. It had never happened to me and as I understood it there was to always be a interpreter. I had seen it before but had felt they were faking it. Making up gibberish.

This time I understood him. I knew what he was saying, I realized I was the interpreter. 

The man standing next to me had his hands in the air and he started to also speak in tongues. 

I under stood him also. I grabbed his arm to tell him that I understood what he was saying 

and,,,

I was speaking in tongues!!!

It totally freaked me out and I sat down. 

It was to get more twilight zonish. Way more

I had sat in the second row of the the house left side. I was pretty freaked out about what had just happened. God revealed that like a marriage there is 3 parts of becoming a saint.

1. Saying yes to the question. Romans 10:9 Confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord.
2. The public demonstration of your commitment. Baptism
3. The consummation. The anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Anyway I was completely self adsorbed with what had just happened. When I heard the Pastor apologizing the the congregation. 

"Folks,  I had been your Pastor for over 11 years and I know that what I about to do I have never done before." He continued "During this sermon I have had God give me the same message 3 times and I have to deliver it." He closed his Bible and walked off the stage he came to the second row and walked past a few people to get to me. He put his hand on my shoulder, bent over and whispered,

"You DO know it will never be the same?"

I looked up in his eyes and said, still in shock,  "Yeah, I pretty much got that."

He went back up to the stage and continued with the service. 

To say it has "never been the same" was maybe the biggest understatement ever said. I now understand what Paul meant by praying in the tongues of Angels, and Praying the the Spirit. I also know that it is not a salvation issue. You are saved with Roman 10:9 "Confess with you mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in you heart the God has raised him from the dead and you are saved." Period. Like when you except the proposal. Your are now off the market. We still have the public demonstration(wedding/Baptism) and I have to tell you the Honeymoon night is amazingly awesome, but I know not all who are saved get to experience those. I do want to inspire you that if you have not had the anointing of the Holt Spirit, just continue on the journey. I do not know if it happens to everyone but I have no doubt it has happened to me. 

What is the greatest Love you can give?

I went to a Catholic boys school growing up.
I also lived about 4 blocks from my Grandparents.
I think I was about in 4th Grade.
It was spring.
We were celebrating a Catholic holiday that public schools didn't.
We lived in Flourssant MO.
My Grandparents lived behind a Grade School I had to cut through to get to their house.
It had been raining super hard.
Round ice had been falling from the sky.
I remember being very scared.
I was not normally scared with storms but this one did scare me.
I was alone in the house.
My mom worked nights in the ER and may have been there, but I tried never to wake her.
Super thunder.
All of a sudden the rain stopped.
I thought it would be better to be at my Grandparents house.
I think that was where my brother was.
He was in 1st grade.
I left the house and walked/ran to my grandparents.
I remember how fast the clouds where moving.
I wanted to get there as fast as I could.

As I was cutting though the baseball field that separated the school from my Grandparents back yard. I remember two men standing by the double doors of the school. It was so windy. I was trying to tell them that I did not go to their school. They were yelling and looking up in the air. They looked so frantic and scared. They were waving their arms and holding onto the doors.
It was so windy.
I could not hear them because of this loud sound.
I remember thinking it sounded like a train.
I was trying to yell that I didn't go to the school.
I turned to run away from them and to my Grandparents house and saw my Grandpa.
About 10 feet from me.
He was running through the field.
He looked so scared.
He picked me up and that is all I remember.
I was told that was about the time we were picked up by the tornado. He held me in his body and shielded me as we were thrown into a hill on the side of the ball field. He went head first into the hill.
I do not remember anything after the sight of him running to me.
I was told he received a concussion and lost the use of his left side and was in and out of a coma for the next two weeks of his life. I do not remember the hospital. I do not even remember the funeral. My last memory of him was of him running with that totally scared look on his face.
As he saved my life.
The life of a 9 year old kid.

TBT this one is for Kathy...

It is about time that I begin to tell my music story. I was, like so many others, always around music growing up. My dad was a pianist and organist for the Catholic church. His dad, my Grandfather was part of the formation of the Seabees in World War II and helped start the VFW bands on his return. He also was an artist and painted for the St Louis Sign company the makers of the first billboards and I still have a number of his paintings. His Father, it was always told to me, was a member and co-writer with John Philip Sousa.

I remember taking piano lesions at 3 and rehearsal was just part of my daily activities. Like breakfast and potty. I had a baby sitter who lived next door named Kathy Boose. Kathy being cool enough to babysit me allowed me to stay up and watch TV on the weekends. We use to jump around on the furniture whenever someone fun would be on “In Concert,” the show she watched every Friday. People like the Monkeys and Partridge Family. I remember one night Alice Cooper was on. I was 7. I thought he was crazy but his guitar players where the coolest people I had ever seen.

I started that year asking for a guitar for Christmas. I didn’t get it. I then asked for my 8^th Birthday, and that Christmas still was deigned. My 9^th birthday came with only asking for one thing. I should give my parents a break and say I was always sent away for the summers. Either the East Coast or West Coast, to stay with relatives. My birthday is in July so I never had close family or friends only distant family and strangers to celebrate with. A guitar in retrospect would have been difficult to provide.

I have no way of remembering this but I am willing to bet I wasn’t the nicest of children when Christmas rolled around that next year. I had been asking for a guitar for 3 years. A third of my life at that time. Never getting one. So imagine my surprise when that year, under the tree, there was no escaping the shape. 

A guitar.

Now you might think I was excited about it. But it was a plastic guitar with plastic strings. My brother who didn’t even want a guitar got an eclectic guitar and a 5 watt amp. We both got a 32 page Mel Bay How to Play Guitar book and I got a song book with 12 Christmas songs in it.

By 5:00 that afternoon I had gone through every page in the Mel Bay book and had learned every song and was having my first sing-a-long at my Grandmas house. I am really am glad that was before video camera.

I know I was a little snot about the electric thing but by spring I had connived the electric from my brother and had somehow wired speakers all over one of the walls in my room and powered them all with that little amp. I remember my dad also yelling at me not to remove the speaker from the TV. I always had to make sure to have it back in by the time he got home. I mostly did.

I would play to the radio for hours and hours. Most kids at that time where outside or in sports. I was by the radio every chance I got, playing.

I do have one other cool memory from that time. I had stayed the night at my Grandmas one weekend that spring and had watched the movie Kissing Cousins with Elvis. My dad came to pick me up and he asked me what I had been playing downstairs in their basement. I told him it was the title song from the movie. He asked me to play it for him. Which I did. He was amazed and I remember him asking “You learned that song by watching the movie only once?” I said yes, and would he like to hear any others? He asked “What others?”

I said the other songs in the movie.

I had learned them all.

Fifty years later I still remember the look on my dads face as I busted into the soundtrack of the movie I had heard the previous night.

As a side note. 15 years ago I was able to run spotlight at the San Diego County Fair for Alice Cooper. It was about third 3rd song when I realized that watching this band was what started me in the music business. I was now part of the show and couldn't jump around,,, Till Later.,