javen.bear.

The Man in Black

This is a research essay I wrote for Ms. Boyter during the final days of my first semester.

The picture was taken with a 35mm film camera and a self timer.

Javen Bear

Professor Boyter

English Composition 101

12 December, 2017

Atop the Shoulders of the Man in Black

The shoulders of Johnny Cash were strong; they were strong because they held him up under the weight of all the trouble he walked into. And they were strong enough for the thousands of people who needed a bridge and walked across by way of the man in black. There was by no means one choice or one decision that propelled him to the place that he holds in history. But after fifty years of doing what he believed he was put on the earth to do, be a singer, he has a corner in the halls of fame and in the hearts of the Americans who heard his deep baritone come up from the records and out of the airwaves and down from the stages on which he sang.

Johnny Cash wrote songs he believed in. From love songs like, “I Walk the Line” to commentaries on society like “What Is Truth” to songs that pleaded the case of the downtrodden like “Man in Black”, he sang about something bigger than himself, something he believed the people needed to hear. In an interview Cash said, “Country music to me is not beer drinking, you done me wrong, darling, I’m gonna bust your head kind of songs. It does have a social conscious. My songs do. It’s the music of the people. So it’s got to point out, from time to time, some of the problem of the people.” (I Am Johnny Cash) These songs that he spoke of live on to be learned by new generations years after he is gone from us. Some of them seem almost more than country western songs written by a boy from the farmlands of Arkansas. Like Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, they feel like anthems that he was born to give to us.

J.R. Cash was born on February 26, 1932 in Kingsland Arkansas to Ray and Carrie Cash. He was fourth in the line of seven children that lived and worked on the Cash farm where they picked cotton and lived poor. Music, gospel soul music, was with Cash from the time he was born. He later said, “The music and the songs were what carried us up and above the drudgery of the cotton fields. It took us away. It carried our spirits away, away from the hard work, away from the pain, away from the grief. If we couldn’t sing, I don’t think we could’ve made it.” (I Am Johnny Cash) His father Ray was a very hard-working man who expected nothing less from his children. Things like listening to the radio didn’t strike him as very productive or worthwhile. In some ways Johnny’s older brother Jack mentored him and wrapped his arms around him in a way that his father was never able to do. And it was one day when he was twelve that Johnny’s father drove up beside him, picked him up, and broke to him news that would imprint his young life with a sorrow he would have to carry for a long time. While he was fishing that day, Jack was working in the school’s woodshop. Jack fell into the saw blade he was using to cut lumber and opened himself up almost from his belt to his neck. In the days that followed, Ray could only say that the wrong son was taken, that it should have been Johnny.

In 1950, at the age of eighteen, Cash joined the Air Force. He wasn’t allowed to enlist with his initials J.R. as his first name, so he changed his name to John R. Cash – the name the world would someday know. During his stay in the Air Force, Cash and his girlfriend, Vivian Liberto, exchanged volumes of love letters. In August of 1954, a few months after his return from the Air Force, the two were married. Johnny had been playing music for several years around the Air Force base, but it was in 1954 that he took the first real steps towards a career in music. According to an article published by Sun Records, the small label where Cash first approached a producer about cutting a record,

In 1954, the Cash [sic] moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he sold appliances, while studying to be a radio announcer. At night, he played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant. Perkins and Grant were known as the Tennessee Two. Cash worked up the courage to visit the Sun Records studio, hoping to get a recording contract. After auditioning for Sam Phillips, singing mostly gospel songs, Phillips told him to “go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell.” Cash eventually won over Phillips with new songs delivered in his early frenetic style. His first recordings at Sun, “Hey Porter” and “Cry Cry Cry,” were released in 1955 and met with reasonable success on the country hit parade. (Sun Records)

Some say that Sam Phillips never mentioned anything about going home and sinning. It is clear though that Cash showed up at the studio hoping to become a recording artist performing the kind of gospel music that he grew up on: black southern gospel, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and the Carter Family. His own songs though were what grabbed the interest of the label. Johnny Cash formed a band called The Tennessee Three, and they played their first concert as an added attraction to an Elvis Presley show in Memphis. Later Sun Records cut his first record, “Johnny Cash With His Hot and Blue Guitar”.

Songs from his first album, “Johnny Cash With His Hot and Blue Guitar” included: “Cry Cry Cry”, “I Walk the Line”, and “Folsom Prison Blues” which was a song Cash was inspired to write after watching a documentary about Folsom Prison while in the Air Force. He stole the opening melody lines and words from Gordon Jenkins’ song, “Crescent City Blues” and crafted something he would continue to sing his whole career. “I Walk the Line” was written backstage one night in Gladewater, Texas and stayed at the number one spot on the charts for six weeks.

It’s important to realize that Cash’s life and career, like that of the vast majority, were not catapulted into stardom as a result of one right decision. It was, as it often is, a string of hard work and choices a hundred miles long that took the boy from the Arkansas delta country to Country Music Hall of Fame. The Tennessee Three featured Luther Perkins on the electric guitar, Marshall Grant on the upright bass, and Johnny Cash playing acoustic guitar and singing. The famous sound that emerged from the three men playing together, often referred to as the “train-track bass”, came not from ingenuity but from lack of a drummer. Much in the same way that Ringo Starr of the Beatles originated unique drum patterns because he was left handed and to play a right-handed kit, so the Tennessee Three stumbled upon an iconic sound that would be recognizable fifty years later.

After the huge commercial success of his first album, Cash took to the road to tour his songs. And while “I Walk the Line” was enjoying its time on the charts, Johnny’s wife Vivian was at home growing more and more worried about the life her husband was being pulled into. Being a successful touring musician meant long absences and brutal schedules. Her doubts were not unfounded. Somewhere along the way, someone introduced Cash to amphetamines; they were a way that he and many other performers in the late fifties managed to keep going on the road. For Johnny Cash it was a step down a very dark road, a step that would leave scars on him and the ones he loved. It was said that, “Ordinarily with an amphetamine you take one tablet. Johnny was taking a hundred tablets a week, sometimes more. Sometimes he wouldn’t sleep for three days. And then the fourth day he’d have to take a downer of some kind, maybe sleep for eighteen hours. He was ruining his life.” (I Am Johnny Cash)

By the time Cash signed with Columbia records in 1958, where he’d stay for twenty-six years, he was seriously addicted to the drugs. He had lost weight and earned lines down his face. But up on the stage, away from the noise of the road and the guilt of a marriage going wrong, he was free and on fire. His daughter Rosanne said, “The way he related to an audience when he was on stage was his best self.” (I Am Johnny Cash) It was clear, regardless of the hell that he had walked himself into, Johnny Cash was born to perform – the stage was his element. Yet despite his deft stage presence, his life was in shambles. Johnny Cash during the sixties was truly something to behold.

Although he was in many ways spiraling out of control, Johnny Cash’s frenetic creativity was still delivering hits. His rendition of “Ring of Fire” was a crossover hit, reaching No. 1 on the country charts and entering the Top 20 on the pop charts… In June 1965, his camper caught fire during a fishing trip . . . in California, triggering a forest fire that burnt several hundred acres and nearly killed Cash. When the judge asked Cash why he did it, Cash said, “I didn’t do it, my truck did, and it’s dead, so you can’t question it.” The fire destroyed 508 acres (206 ha), burning the foliage off three mountains and driving off forty-nine of the refuge’s 53 endangered condors. Cash was unrepentant and claimed, “I don’t care about your damn yellow buzzards.” (Patrick)

Then on October 4, 1965 Cash was arrested in El Paso, Texas after crossing the boarder and buying about one thousand amphetamines which he stuffed into the sound-hole of his guitar.

When he was a little boy, he heard the Carter family sing on the radio, and he said that he was going to grow up and marry June Carter. And as he began to come in contact with June in the touring world, the two fell in love. Both were already married, but they were magic on the stage together. His first wife Vivian could see that she had lost Johnny to the road and to another woman, and in 1966 she filed for divorce. In 1968 Cash and Carter were married, and the two stayed together till death.

Somehow through the addiction and insanity of touring life Cash was able to continue to stay at the top of his game musically. In 1968 he recorded his live prison albums in Folsom and San Quentin Prisons. These albums took him from a country music star to an international celebrity. “At Folsom Prison” won the CMA’s album of the year, and in 1969 Johnny Cash sold more albums than all other Columbia artists combined.

It is quite hard to know at what times in his life Johnny Cash was addicted to drugs. As he wandered through the endless cycles of rehab and relapse, it’s doubtful whether he knew himself. Sometime though, near the end of the sixties with the help of his wife, he was able to get clean for a period of time. Maybe it was not in spite of but because of the fact that he knew what it was to be a slave to substance and live in constant sorrow that he was able to be such an advocate and catalyst for people whom he saw needing change. In his song “Man in Black” Cash sings,

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,

Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,

I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,

But is there because he’s a victim of the times.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,

For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,

I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been,

Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,

Believin’ that the Lord was on their side,

I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,

Believin’ that we all were on their side.

Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day,

And tell the world that everything’s OK,

But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,

‘Till things are brighter, I’m the Man In Black. (Man in Black)

You cannot say that Johnny Cash had a dark side and a good side, for he had a thousand sides. He was an incredible songwriter, a wavering husband and father, a devout Christian, a drug addict, and certainly a man with a strong back. He had a fierce love and passion for the people he seen that were downtrodden and couldn’t get back on their feet, and for many years he lobbied for prison reform and on behalf of Native Americans. His daughter Rosanne said,

He made me feel really safe. Like there was this person on the earth who really understood who I was. When I was twelve years old, I wrote him about how I wanted to do something big and important with my life. How I longed to do good things and great things and that I loved poetry and music. And he wrote back, “I see that you see as I see.” His capacity for love was really deep. (I Am Johnny Cash)

In 1969 ABC gave Cash an opportunity to host a television show. It was called The Johnny Cash Show, and featured Johnny and June Cash along with many other musicians who were chosen as special guests. The show, which was mostly filmed at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, was a great success over its three years of run time. It gave Cash a platform which he used to promote artists who otherwise would have never gotten air time. For many people like Bob Dylan and Glen Sherley, it was a medium which showed their faces to America and propelled their careers.

Richard Nixon invited Cash to perform at the White House in 1972 and requested that he perform “Welfare Cadillac” and “Okie from Muskogee”. Cash wasn’t comfortable with singing songs that poked fun at the poor and instead played for the President songs of a very different nature including, “What Is Truth”, “Man in Black”, and “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”. Each of these songs spoke on behalf of those whom Cash seen as marginalized during Nixon’s presidency.

In the late seventies Johnny Cash’s renown started to wear off. His record sales dipped drastically and, come 1986, Columbia decided to drop him from the recording label. Cash took to the road again. But this time it was for lesser crowds in smaller venues. Cash was fifty-four years old at this point, and it wasn’t until Rick Rubin of American Recordings approached him with the idea of a new record that Cash gained the attention of America again. It was the eighty-first album of Cash’s career and was composed mostly of covers and songs he’d written years earlier. The stripped down, man and his guitar sound were received well, and the album received critical acclaim.

Then in 2002, the year before his death, Cash made a music video in which he covered “Hurt”, a song written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. It would be one of his most important works. Speaking of the music video which would win 2003 music video of the year, A.J. Samuels said,

The track serves as epithet for a man whose life was equally brilliant and tormented. Pain – “the only thing that’s real” – was more often than not Cash’s reference material. Whether it was his own, or that of others (Cash is often credited for giving voice to the voiceless: prisoners, the poor, the hungry, and the old), Cash’s willingness to bare his fallibility for all to see ensures we believe the stories he chose to tell us, and keeps us carryin’ on, listening. (Samuels)

There is a line in Thorton Wilder’s play “The Angel That Troubled the Waters” which goes, “In love’s service only wounded soldiers can serve.” (Wilder) Johnny Cash was a man who got beaten down time and time again, often by his own choosing. He ran to the wrong places for love and sinned grievously against what he believed in. But now, years after he is dead, we look back and try to come to terms with what his life meant. For Vivian his first wife, he was a broken dream. For the men at San Quentin and Folsom Prison, he was a brother who shone a light of hope on them. For the Native Americans trying to find their place, he was an advocate. For all those whom he promoted on ABC, he was a guidepost. And perhaps for everyone else, he is what it looks like to get beaten down, get back up, and go on. He is both the prodigal son and the defender of the quartet of the vulnerable. He is forever Johnny Cash, the man in black.

Works Cited and References:

“I Am Johnny Cash (Full Documentary).” Youtube, 22 March 2017,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phjxntuErsw.

“Johnny Cash.” Sun Record Company, http://www.sunrecords.com/artists/johnny-cash.

Patrick, Neil. “Johnny Cash accidentally started a wildfire that destroyed over 500 acres and killed 49 endangered condors.” The Vintage News, 4 Oct. 2016, m.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/05/priority-johnny-cash-accidentally-started-wildfire-destroyed-500-acres-killed-49-refuges-53-endangered-condors/.

Johnny Cash. “Man in Black.” Man in Black, Columbia, 1971. MP3.

Samuels, A. J. “The Good, The Bad, And The Real Johnny Cash.” Culture Trip, 26 July 2013, theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/arkansas/articles/the-good-the-bad-and-the-real-johnny-cash/.

“The Angel that Troubled the Waters.” The Official Website of the Thornton Wilder Family. http://www.thorntonwilder.com/drama/playlets/the-angel-that-troubled-the-waters/.

Whiteside, Jonny. “The Time Johnny Cash Set Fire to a National Forest.” L.A. Weekly, 6 Apr. 2016, http://www.laweekly.com/music/the-time-johnny-cash-set-fire-to-a-national-forest-4777925.

Johnson, Brett. “Johnny Cash’s first wife tells of romance, heartbreak.” Ventura County Star, Ventura, 21 July 2017, http://www.vcstar.com/story/entertainment/2016/10/26/johnny-cashs-first-wife-tells-of-romance-heartbreak-june-carter-vivian-cash-/92772320/.

Demain, Bill. “The Time Johnny Cash Met Richard Nixon.” When Johnny Cash Met Richard Nixon | Mental Floss, 14 July 2014, mentalfloss.com/article/30142/when-johnny-cash-met-richard-nixon.

Diehl, Matt. “Remembering Johnny.” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 16 Oct. 2003, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/remembering-johnny-20031016.

Dawson, George. “Johnny Cash On Doctors And Chronic Pain”, 1 Jan. 1970, real-psychiatry.blogspot.com/2015/06/johnny-cash-on-doctors-and-chronic-pain.html.

Cross, Alan. “Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” – The Saddest Music Video Ever Made.” A Journal of Musical Things, 16 Apr. 2017, ajournalofmusicalthings.com/johnny-cashs-hurt-saddest-music-video-ever-made/.

Time Takes Its Toll On Us

Ms. Boyter assigned us a cause and effect essay.

Javen Bear

Professor Boyter

English Composition 1

10/11/17

Time Takes Its Toll On Us

From essays to songs to cinematic dramatizations to social media, we are lovers of art and stories. It has been this way for a very long time. I’ll bet from the first day Eve met Adam she was hearing stories from the only lips that could tell them. A story takes us somewhere; it moves us. Whether we’re hearing the reiteration of a historical event or a depiction of what goes on in a fictional reality, the story is the device someone uses to allow you to see or hear or feel as they have. Jon Foreman of Switchfoot said that songs are vehicles used to get from one place to another. Maybe the songwriter is the only one in the car, or maybe there are twenty-thousand screaming people all riding in the backseat. Either way, the song, the story, the art is what picks us up and takes us.

Artists create out of their storyline. When the storyline changes, the things they make also change. In light of this, it’s interesting to observe an artist who has had a long career, an expanded storyline. The songs that bands were writing when they were in their twenties often look and sound very different than the records they’re making in their forties. If the art is honest, then the changes that necessarily act on an artist will effect a change in the art being made.

In 1993 Derek Webb dropped out of college to join a band called Caedmon’s Call. In 2001 he married Sandra McCracken. Around 2003 Webb parted ways with the band to pursue a solo career. Then in 2014, after thirteen years together, Webb and McCracken divorced when it became apparent that he had been unfaithful to his wife and had gotten caught.

About two weeks ago my sister, two friends, and I drove down to Decatur, Georgia to hear him play at a small venue called Eddie’s Attic. He was shorter than I’d imagined and had tattoos covering a large portion of his arms. During the set Derek described what it’s like to play songs that he wrote twenty years ago. He said that it’s more like he’s covering another man’s songs than singing his own. He went so far as to claim that you shouldn’t trust anyone who still sees the world the same way they did even five years ago. The making of art, the writing of songs he said, is like two separate, oscillating objects observing and interacting with each other – the world and the song writer describing it. Over the course of time both certainly change. And thus the content and tone of the art are likely to change too.

As I sat and listened to him playing songs from his newest album on a nylon string guitar, I couldn’t help but think about the Derek Webb who played with Caedmon’s Call back even before I was born. I almost had to agree with him; the man standing there in front of me didn’t sound a whole lot like the man who made it big on the Contemporary Christian Music scene in the late nineties. I remembered the man who wrote lines like:

Peace of conscience peace of rest,

Be obtained through Jesus’ blood,

Jesus’ blood speaks solid rest,

We believe and we are blessed,

We believe and we are blessed, (She Must and Shall Go Free)

And then I heard him sing lines from his new album like:

I either sin as I resist you,

Or I do it as I’m doing my part,

So all my empathy,

To Judas and the Devil,

They were yours as much in light as in the dark, (Chasing Empty Mangers)

It seemed like the man I was watching on the stage was indeed a different man. It looked as if the last ten years had taken a hard toll and had a powerful effect. In the last ten years the world had shifted, and Derek Web had too. There is no way to live in this world and not be changed by the things that go on here. The world is always changing, and it’s children are always changing too. It follows that, for better or worse, the things they create will also have to change.

Switchfoot is a band that has been around for about as long as Webb has. They too formed at least partially as a result of the lead singer dropping out of college to pursue music. While the ideology of the songs that Jon Foreman and Switchfoot have been writing for the past twenty years hasn’t changed too much, the tone, feel, and quality certainly has. It took the band about four albums to find their voice, and since then they have consistently written songs that deal with real life and often sing like anthems. While there hasn’t been a noticeable shift in the beliefs the band holds, you can track the different seasons they have lived through in their records. Albums like Nothing Is Sound and Oh! Gravity earned Switchfoot a name for playing post grunge, rock and roll songs with passion. In 2012 the Vice Verses tour took them all over the world. During this time they wrote songs and filmed a documentary which would be called Fading West. The album has an energetic, joyful vibe that was undoubtedly influenced by the sounds of other cultures. Their latest album deals with the turmoil the songwriter sees both inside himself and in his country. Even twenty years in, the guys at Switchfoot are still figuring out who they are and what they want to sound like.

Who we are and the things we make change when our storyline changes. I’ve never heard it put better than when Pearl Bailey speaks through Big Mama, the motherly owl in The Fox and the Hound, and says, “Forever is a long time. And time has a way of changing things.”

Bibliography

University of California Television. “Switchfoot Unplugged 2008.” (video file), Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rcZI8xFlqY [13 October 2017].

Derek Webb. “She Must and Shall Go Free.” She Must and Shall Go Free. INO, 2003. MP3.

Derek Webb. “Empty Mangers.” Fingers Crossed. Derek Webb, 2017. MP3

Switchfoot. The Legend of Chin. Rethink. 1997. MP3

Switchfoot. The Beautiful Letdown. Columbia/Sony BMG, 2003. MP3

Switchfoot. Nothing Is Sound. EMI, 2005. MP3

Switchfoot. Oh! Gravity. Columbia/Sony BMG. 2006. MP3

Switchfoot. Hello Hurricane. lowercase people. 2009. MP3

Switchfoot. Vice Verses. lowercase people. 2011. MP3

Switchfoot. Fading West. lowercase people. 2014. MP3

Switchfoot. Where the Light Shines Through. Vangaurd. 2016. MP3

The Fox and the Hound. Dir. Richard Rich, Ted Berman, and Art Stevens. Perf. Kurt Russell, Mickey Rooney, Pearl Bailey, Jack Albertson, and Jeanette Nolan. 1981. Film.

Bebo Norman. “Time Takes Its Toll On Us.” Between the Dreaming and the Coming True. Essential, 2006. MP3

Old Friends

7/19/17

12:45 p.m.

Between Red Mesa, Arizona and the Grand Canyon

On Friday the fourteenth we drove from Post, Texas to Canon City, Colorado where the long lost Stoltzfus’s live in a nice house with a great view and a gravel yard. They kindly put us up for about four days. For some reason all three of us had crazy dreams while we slumbered on their couches. On Saturday we went to the Royal Gorge. On Sunday we went to church and then to the river. I’m not really sure what the others did, but Patrick and I traipsed off down the road and caught a slew of tiny panfish in a mucky, overgrown pond. We took one poor victim back down the trail as proof of our success, of course stopping to let him breathe every now and then. Ashton gave us the grand tour of the thrift store on Monday morning. It pretty much puts every other thrift store I’ve been in to bitter shame. We scored some cool books by Donald Milller and Louis L’amour and Longfellow along with a pair of sweet green Nikes. Ashton will probably getting home about the same time we do. She and Katie took us out to their favorite Sushi place Monday night. After battling chopsticks the duration of an exquisite meal, we met Randall and Patrick and the theater, which shows the same movie for a week straight on its single screen, for the finale of the Planet of the Apes trilogy. That’s a pretty awesome series.

As I type this I feel like a cowboy riding a crazy horse, which is a pretty good description of Talulah trouncing and jerking while Colson pilots her over, around, and through everything between us and that huge crack in the earth. The rain and hail have begun to beat mercilessly upon our graffitied steed. We have two leaks that we know of: the emergency hatch and the back door. But she rolls on faithfully.

Yesterday morning around ten we left Mahlon’s place. It was really great to see all of them again. The night before we left Randall said that it’s always good to see friends from your childhood because it seems like you can never make that kind of friend again. I think that’s true. It’s almost like all the growing up you do together in your youth binds you together. We left, returning shortly after to retrieve my forgotten cosmetics bag and hat, and drove to Four Corners and then finally set up shop in a pull out somewhere around Red Mesa, Arizona. Last night was the first that it’s been bearable enough to sit outside and make a meal. We heated three cans of soup over a propane burner and dined in the desert. It was awesome.

Javen.

New Orleans

7/12/17

5:21 p.m.

Mobile, Alabama

Mobile is, as it turns out, the hometown of Forrest Gump in the novel – but not in the movie.

Colson is the d.j. as we head south and west towards New Orleans. I’m sitting on the bed we framed into this van as we roll down 65 to the the likes of Don’t Stop Believing and Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now. We have discovered to our dismay that the air conditioning unit we had such high hopes for is not able to keep up while we drive, at all. So we just open all the windows and let the warm wind blow. This baby is a far cry from air tight even with the windows closed. It’s fairly bearable, but we’re driving west towards thinner air with great anticipation. Last night was our first night inside of Talulah; it was hot as beans. We neglected to fill the gas can before we got to Walmart for the night. So when the generator ran dry about four this morning it became stifling. At about eight we could bear it no more and headed out.

We began the trip last night around nine p.m. in the wake of a great send off party. Party as in group of people, it wasn’t really a party. Our parents and a few other of my relatives gathered at Allan Steiner’s as we made the last minute preparations. And surprisingly, it’s day two and we haven’t even thought of many things we forgot to bring.

Despite the fact that I’m sitting above two totes chock full of vittles donated to us by friends and parents, we have eaten breakfast and lunch at Dunkin’ Donuts (where ‘Karen’ made me an ice coffee that was about the closet thing to battery acid I’ve ever tasted) and Taco Bell respectively. The prospect of grilling pork chops under the blazing Alabama sun hasn’t been appealing thus far. After lunch we got $5 tickets for the one o’clock showing of the new Spider Man movie. Traveling in the daylight is hot, and we’ll easily make it to New Orleans this evening. Spider Man seemed the best option for killing air conditioned time. It was somewhat disappointing, but a lot of stuff blew up and there was one plot twist we didn’t see coming. It’s a yes we can, no we can’t, yes we did plot the whole way through with some suspense at the end that begs you back for the next movie. I thought the girl who liked him but he didn’t like her was a cool character…as well as Peter’s aunt.

This evening we ate at a place called Morning Call Coffee Stand which is in the New Orleans City Park. It’s a pretty cool looking place that serves everything from coffee drinks to Cajun food. We had the jambalaya, gumbo, and crawfish etouffee. It didn’t quite live up to the lore…but it was pretty cheap. I guess it would be like coming to America to try the infamous burger and doing so at McDonald’s. The waiter wanted us to give him his tip while he was standing there so that the money we left wouldn’t get snatched. I was telling the other guys it would be really great to have a local show us around. It seems like a city that’s teaming with culture and life – but not one that makes you feel really safe when your inside its boundaries. The pot holes and flooded roads alone are enough to unnerve a man. After supper we jaunted around the park and then headed outside the city to a truck stop where we’re parked for the night. Tomorrow we hope to make San Antonio and the Alamo.

Javen.

The Dawning

This page was created as a medium to keep friends up to date with what was happening in my life while I was away from home. And now July has come, I am home at long last, and its purpose has been fulfilled. Moving forward I’m not sure if I’ll use it anymore or not. If I do, you won’t be getting the updates in your inbox as you did before, unless you follow the page and sign up for the emails that way.

I would post pictures of the last days. But alas, I moved away from the computer that had the file resizing program and tomorrow, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I’m taking off with a couple friends in an old van for about a month. There is a page on Facebook called Fading West – Our Manifest Destiny which you can find if you wanna see where our white-walled tires roll us.

It’s good to be home. It was the thing that sometimes looked so far away I barely dared to think about it. But the days all gave way to each other, and tonight I’m sitting on my bed in our new house in South Carolina, suitcase packed again. When I stepped off the bus in Kansas it felt like I was indeed getting close to home. The summer air east of the west just kind of wraps you up in a smothering hug like that old lady at your church and doesn’t let you go. The muggy air was my first welcome home. While the rest of the team played a concert in Hutchinson, Kansas, I caught a ride with the Stoltzfus’s who were eastbound from Canon City and made it home in time for the funeral. I was convinced of these words this past weekend. It is a heavy thing to behold the cutting short of a life well lived.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that day of death is the end of every man, and the living will take it to heart and solemnly ponder its meaning. – Ecclesiastes 7:2 (AMP)

Everyone seems to want to know ‘How has the past year been for you’. It seems kind of like someone asking ‘So how has your marriage been‘. There is too much to tell without some coffee. It’s a blivet. I think I learned a whole lot – and maybe un-learned a few things too. I told someone the other day that in five years I’ll be able to tell you the ways I grew up and how I changed in the last year. Someone asked me recently if I regretted going. And no, I do not regret it at all. I’m quite glad that I moved to Oregon with a whim and a prayer and a guitar. I do regret the fact that I know I left some things unlearned and unsaid and undone. Such is living. It does seem a little like cutting yourself up and leaving a piece behind. Come June there were friends out there I had to part ways with to get back where I belong. Anyway, all to say I’d love to tell you about it all sometime if you’ll buy the coffee.

Tomorrow we plan to leave in ‘the van’ named Tallulah headed for the west coast. For the past several days we’ve been building beds and buying mattresses and spray painting flowers and frequenting mechanic shops and finding a spare tire and becoming steadily poorer in preparation for an unforgettable adventure. And adventure that we will greatly embellish and recount to our children in the days to come.

While I’m thinking of it, I think one thing I’ve been learning lately had to do with cleverness. I tend to get caught up in the romance of being clever, of saying something in three sentences that could have been said in one. It’s the same thing I think that wills us strive for answers and methods that no one else has ever found or tried, to our own glory. I’ve been realizing that sometimes everyone does something a certain way because it is indeed the best way, regardless of how clever it is to do it another way; and regardless of how tired the method may seem. Just because something is mainstream and widespread doesn’t mean it isn’t worth your time. The masses love Nike and the NIV and Coldplay…and really all of those things are quite good. Being clever really doesn’t give you access to joy barred from everyone else. Hating mainstream or orthodox stuff for its own sake is a waste of time.

“There are some very clever people who cannot enjoy the joy unless they understand it. There are other and even cleverer people who say that they lose the joy the moment they do understand it. Thank God I was never clever, and could always enjoy things when I understood them and when I didn’t. I can enjoy the orthodox Tory, though I could never understand him. I can also enjoy the orthodox Liberal, though I understand him only too well.” – G.K. Chesterton

Cheers,

Javen.

There and Back Again, One More Time

Javen.

Montana

Leaving home and volunteering with a ministry which focuses on traveling, I get pretty good at, or used to, saying goodbye to places and people. Goodbye room.

This trip was a banquet tour, which means that most of what we did was put on banquets instead of going into prisons. These banquets raise support and get the word out about what Gospel Echoes is doing. We were in Montana for the majority of the two and a half weeks. Big sky country.

Eating is one routine that traveling for weeks at a time really distorts. Travis takes it to a whole new level though. In the span of about an hour he subjected his just awakened stomach to canned oysters, raw carrots, doughnuts, and coffee. I only happened upon a really bad tornado and a free air guitar. (We didn’t even have to buy the pint.)

the oysters

the krispy kreme

the tornado

Our first stop was in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. We played at the church where Steve and Jan used to attend and an awesome guy named Ben took us up the hill and let us try out the camp’s rope swing. Pretty intense.

the church

the gym

they kindle gave us a vehicle to drive around

We did a banquet in Thompson Falls. The highlight was chucking around ‘tape balls’ with the Baker kids. A tape ball is made by wadding up all the black gaffer’s tape used to hold cords down during a service. Chaplain Bill Babb from Indiana joined us for a few days. He was the speaker at a couple of the banquets.

mr. babb

me – a.j. – travis

travis bowling

a.j.

tyler

the pin

the stuff

Eureka, Montana and doing laundry.

In Fairfield we got to park the bus and hang out at the home of Craig and Marita Swartzentruber. That was a highlight of the tour for me. They let us ride their horses and took us to see a Lewis and Clark Museum which is right by the Roe River, the nation’s shortest river. Joanna happened to be visiting Matt and Elaina, so I got to talk to her for a little bit.

mr. babb

travis and lars

travis and a.j.

the roe river

Libby, Montana was a pretty cool stop. There’s a community there who’s people build pretty much all of their stuff out of logs. They have a mill where they prepare the logs. We got to go on a swinging bridge (they told us a young man drowned there a few days after we were there). I’m told that this is the section of the Kootenai River that Pat McManus wrote about in his story called ‘Whitewater Fever’ in the book ‘The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw’.

This is the church, which they call ‘the community building’, the general store, the construction operation, and the one guy’s house. The big valley where the church sits is said to have been cleared because a World War II B-52 landed there when he ran out of fuel. The field had to be lengthened to give him enough room to take off again.

In Kalispell we did a banquet with Sister Lynn as our speaker. She’s a really cool lady, and she explained to us the differences between sisters and nuns. The attendance was meager, in fact attendees outnumbered personnel by about twelve or fifteen. It was that night that we played Crowder’s song Come As You Are with Sister Lynn – that was really fun.

Plains, Montana is actually quite mountainous as it turns out. We sang at the Grange Hall, whatever that means. The Beiler’s kindly let us chill at their place afterwards.

Then we came home.

That was a lot of pictures. But I figured that if I took the time to take them, sift through them, and edit them, then someone else might as well see them too.

We’ll be heading out on summer tour June 15th. I’ll be taking my possessions with me on the bus and moving them into our new house sometime in July when we get to South Carolina and I get home.

I found the animated Tarzan movie at a Goodwill one day. After watching it the P.S. 1 game makes so much more sense. Phil Collins wrote some great songs for it, but this one in particular is just wonderful.

Lately I’ve been enjoying reading Lemony Snicket and the 50’s chapters of Isaiah. Today after work I went to the river and practiced casting. Luckily no fish broke my concentration. Tomorrow I’ll be working with the pastor, Kevin, doing construction. And the next day..who knows.

Cheers,

Javen.

Jawbone Flats

Some weeks ago, about three, I got to go hiking with some friends. We walked about seven miles total and saw lots of lovely things. This is what it looked like from the point of view of the guy always trailing behind and clicking away.

Ben’s Honda Civic traversed several miles of the most pot-holed gravel road I think I’ve ever seen to get us to the trail head. People with nice cars, you would have cared…

We found some snow to chuck at each other. After Jenny threw some in Emily’s boot she was kind enough to help get it back out.

A lot of this hike is by the river – which is nice.

I don’t remember hearing why the place is called Jawbone Flats. Maybe there was an incident where Samson or someone like him was involved.

There were a lot of very old vehicles sitting beside the trail.

And some coal cars.

Apparently some people live back there. Maybe they maintain the area or something.

At one point Ben jumped into the a pile of drift and made a snow angel, but he was back up before I could take a picture of it. And that’s pretty much it. I’d recommend this hike; it’s not very difficult – except that it’s a fairly long loop. And watch out for the pot holes.

Javen.

A Million Miles in a Few Minutes

Greetings friends and strangers and those in between,

Yes I totally ripped off Donald Miller in the title. Because A, you should read him. And B, it feels like there’s a ton of things to show you this time. And C, naming things is hard – I wonder what must have come over Adam.

Travis and I were given the assignment of building a playhouse to be sold at the auction. A guy named Doug bought it for his little niece (I think). She was quite thrilled, as most little girls would be, with her miniature house – made mostly of cedar.

The Harvest team (Glendon and Lorna, Delbert, and Titus) from Goshen, Indiana flew out to help us out with a banquet and the annual Gospel Echoes Northwest auction. We really enjoyed having them around, even if it meant someone had to ride in the bus shower at times.

setting the stage

lots of inputs

tyler the auctioneer

the squad

this was about two seconds before she ran into me..

This banquet was in Ellensburg, WA. The people were so nice there. If you ever go through you need to swing by the Daily Bread and Mercantile, which is basically a real nice bakery, and see Matt and Dana Wise. This place even sells KISS soda in glass bottles; I respect that.

Titus (left) and I conversing after the banquet

delbert in the shower

Glendon and Lorna

bethany’s preparations

Volleyball in the parking lot is the preferred pastime on the road.

One of the great prison chaplains we worked with

Whenever people from across the country come out we try to take them to the coast. It turned out to be a beautiful day for such things.

lars and titus

After being on the road for about four days we welcomed ourselves home with a great feast of Biblical proportion. Since I’m from down where they aren’t afraid of sugar, I made the tea.

The auction brought in around $115,000 this year – I thought that was pretty incredible. This allows Gospel Echoes to supply Bible study courses for the five states it serves and also pay the help and such.

getting ready

the desert auction

a.j.

the server room/last minute detail place

the people

the harvest team

abby’s cheesecake

the auctioneer

It was very special to have my dear mother and sister around for a few days. They flew in on Thursday and stayed about six days..but it felt like much less time than that. One night Mom and I went and seen Hidden Figures together. We had a really nice evening and I would have to recommend the movie. I’ll admit it goes a little over the top to make its point, but it’s worth seeing.

They were also taken to the coast. I wish I had more pictures of the things we did. It was so nice of them to fly out and see me and the place where I live.

Mom and Aleah flew back home on Thursday (I think).

We had two church services to sing at on Sunday. But before we left on Saturday, our good friend Ben took us on a nice hike. The route to the trail took us through a bunch of switchbacks and winding curves. I had been dozing in the backseat of Ben’s Civic, which is only cooler than mine because it has no muffler, when I was awakened by a sudden spraying of gravel, four G’s of forward force, and the raising of voices. We had arrived – and nearly missed our turn. We stepped out into the fomistain (fog, mist, and light rain) and shortly another vehicle pulled up. A lady got out and proceeded to inquire if the bridge just ahead would hold her and her friend if they walked across. I sized up the wooden structure and concluded you could probably drive a military tank safely over it. “Yeah you should be good.”

Somewhere along the way I smashed my camera lens cover. I feel like this was a real milestone in my photography career.

The first service was at the Rock of Ages retirement village/community which presents the best view I’ve ever seen from a pulpit. It was here that we witnessed Oregon lose a heartbreaker to North Carolina…gotta box out.

The service that evening was in Sheridan. It was an a cappella gig which always makes things interesting.

the view from right outside the church door

I seen this saying somewhere. I’m not too sure what to think of it; I wonder if maybe salvation is in fact all of those things. It does rhyme quite nicely anyway.

Mike sold his chicken coup on Craigslist. It was an adventure getting it on that poor truck. Somehow it quite reminded me of where I come from.

We got to see the Newsboys in Salem two nights ago. It was a good show. I was waiting for Peter Furler to emerge from the wings..but alas, we settled for Michael Tate’s rendition of He Reigns. The silver lining was that Michael Tate was there to sing Jesus Freak.

I recently finished The Kite Runner. I think it’s a story worth the time it takes to hear it. I also stumbled across Evan Koons and Letters to the Exiles the other day. He’s even cooler than Ben’s car. Here he’s talking about the poem that I have on my guitar case. I had my painter friend write it out and laminate it so I could plaster it on. I bet I’m about the only guy with Gerard Manley Hopkins on his guitar case – that has to make me cool.

Take care my friends,

Javen.

Washington

Hello my friends,

We recently, sort of..it’s been at lest a week, got back from a twelve day tour to Washington, which is somehow even rainier than Oregon I think. The winters out in this part of the country are just relentlessly wet. The other day it rained as we walked into church, snowed briefly while we were inside, got sunny for few minutes while we ate lunch, rained again, and then snowed pretty hard during the evening service. Quite moist. We keep a passing vigil on the lake that’s gathered itself on both sides of Seven Mile Lane, which gets us to the office and such, and wonder if it will overtake the road. How high’s the water mama? She said it’s five feet high and risin’. Here are some pictures of our trip.

We sang a few songs at this beautiful church with a white cross on top. I think this was the first time I’d ever visited a Methodist church. The inside was so cool..by the time I went back to take some pictures it was locked up. You’ll have to take my word for it 🙂

And as with most churches, we borrowed some of their water.

We sang at this church located in the Pugent Sound area. The Pugent Sound is basically that part of Washington where the coast looks like it got shattered into a thousand pieces just so more people could have bay-front views. It’s really a neat place. This church hosted us for a concert and a ‘pot-providence’..there’s nothing lucky about it.

We went way up up to Neah Bay to play at a small church that sits just off the ocean.

Getting all the equipment up the stairs and into the sanctuary was no small task. After we had muscled the ‘coffin’ out of the bus, through the rain, and up the narrow passageway, we heard the pastor say, ‘Oh I could open up the door to the ramp for you guys.’ Ah yes the ramp. Ultimately it was Travis’s mighty brawn and high-lifting capabilities that solved the problem.

Along the way..

We stopped at this place to get water..some things happened.

I was, for a few seconds, the northwesternmost person in the continental USA. This is Cape Flattery which is a part of the Makah Reservation. Those mountains in the distance are part of Canada. Standing out there I felt like Lewis and Clark..but probably more like Clark because Lewis may or may not have committed suicide.

More scattered pictures.

Brent and Rita (Gospel Echoes directors) invited Travis and me to travel with their family out to the coast where Bryant, their son, was playing in the 3A state high school basketball tournament. The discovery was made that National Treasure was among the collection of movies at the rental house. What an epic tale – it’s a bit cheesier than I remembered..but still awesome. We had a grand time, and the guys took third place in the tournament. After the last game we drove back home and hung out at the Krabill family gathering. Arlen and Sharon Krabill are back from Grenada for three weeks; theirs is the house we live in. But I don’t have any pictures of the gathering or of them.

I would like you all to know what a good day I had today. It stated being good when I woke up to pure, unclouded sunshine for the first time in weeks I think. Winter is a long time of waiting for the sun – so a reminder it’s coming is good every now and then. Then about ten o’clock Travis got a text on his phone that said that my phone and wallet had been found. We played basketball at a gym the other night, and I was sure I didn’t take them in with me..I was wrong. When the guy told us he had found them, I told him that was about the best news I’d heard since the gospel. It felt really good to have God answer my prayer to lead it back to me. I remember whispering a plea while taking a sip of Gatorade telling God that I’d really love it if he’d let me find it, but also that I knew his goodness didn’t depend of anything I could or couldn’t find. It’s strange how easy it is to forget that. Anyway, he did let me find it – the reunion was beautiful.

Another thing that happened today after the finding of the lost items: Travis and I are trouncing along the streets of Albany in my little Honda Civic looking for a business where we’re supposed to pick up some stuff for the auction. I was driving, he was navigating, and we were talking and laughing about something as we pulled up to a four way stop. I heard the voice of his navigation app say something about a left turn, so I put on my blinker. There are three cars that have pulled up to this intersection, me, an SUV to my left, and a lady in a car straight across. Everyone’s got their blinker on. The guy on the left got there first so he makes his move. Then me and this lady are left to figure out who’s supposed to go next. Travis sees my hesitation and motions for her to come on out, ‘after you‘. She begins motioning something back. oh she’s gonna let me go ahead, how thoughtful. Then it became quite apparent she was doing far more gesticulating that what was required to say you first. So I sit there turning my head from this lady to Travis and back to this lady, all of the communications going over my head. I was tempted to just start flailing like an idiot..see i can do it too. Eventually her frantic message began to take shape in our minds, you should probably not make that left turn since it’s a one-way street. Ah yes an excellent point. I gave her the oh ok I’m tracking with you now international symbol: it’s where you put your first finger and thumb together and make an ‘o’. Then I proceed to wave at her to tell her that she really can come on out now that we’ve been sufficiently warned and have altered course. But apparently I had arrived at the crossing first..so she waved at me oh no, after you. I hit the gas, let out the clutch, and rolled on across all the while whacking my palm against my face. There’s a chance I’ll study communication in college, but I doubt any class will attain to this level of complexity.

Our friend Ben got tickets for me and Travis to go with him to see a Trailblazer’s game tomorrow – which is actually today since it’s two in the morning.

Here’s a riddle for you. The answer is up in the second paragraph, twelfth word in.

The hottest of hot,

The coldest of cold,

The mother of pearl,

The bride of pure gold,

The shoes of the young,

The crown of the old,

And here’s my new favorite song. The Rainbow Connection – The Muppets, I think the last verse is simply brilliant.

I recently finished reading All the Light We Cannot See and Silence. Both are stories that give you a lot to think about and pull questions out of you that you didn’t know you had.

After hearing this song I think I need to read The Grapes of Wrath. I think it’s funny how so many people think of Springsteen as a redneck rock and roller who did nothing but scream about how he was born in the USA. I’m finding he was actually a wonderful poet who told the stories of many many people in a way that made you want to hear them, and know them. A book by its cover and all that…here are some thoughts on that subject.

Anyway, enough with the underlined words. I hope you all can wake up to as good a day as I did. But he is faithful either way.

Take care,

Javen.