The Leader of the Band...Dan Fogelberg

So Long, Dan Folgelberg...

I almost drove off of the road today as the DJ on KGSR radio followed up the playing of Dan Fogelberg's "Phoenix" with the startling news that Dan had passed away at the age of 56 after losing a three year battle with prostate cancer. I know... Dan was considered kind of a cheesy adult pop star in his more radio friendly days, but I loved the storyteller in Dan, and he was such an understated, gentle musician that dared call out the materialism of the 70's and 80' to sing about "The Power of Gold", and to challenge his baby boomer friends who had been activists in the 60's but had settled for playing it safe ("There's a Place In the World For A Gambler). He was also one of the first musicians to use his visibility to speak out about the alarming state of the environment, long before it was cool and trendy to do so. His album "Phoenix" in the early 80's was such a brilliant synthesis of rock, folk, jazz and bluegrass, with a classic ballad thrown in. I quit counting the number of times I was asked to sing "Longer" at weddings (the song "Longer"...nobody really was interested in listening to me longer than was absolutely necessary). But, I guess the other reason I am shocked and saddened by Dan's death, other than the fact that I am 56 as well... is that his song, "The Leader of the Band" pushed me as I turned 30 to take the time to know and understand all that my father had been through... and then, even more importantly, to embrace him and take the first step to reach our to a dad that I had become distant and resentful towards in my high school, college and young adult years. The same father that I have written so glowingly about in the last 20 years (and actually, just a few posts ago), was a stranger to me, both on purpose, and by default. I really didn't care about understanding him. The combination of hearing Dan Fogleberg talk about where his father had been, what he had come through and the choices he had made, along with becoming a father myself, began to transform my narrow uninformed picture of my father.

The last time I saw Dan perform live was in 1993 at the Starplex Ampitheatre (now know as the Smirnoff Music Centre) in Dallas and I remember distinctly feeling like I was listening to an old friend sit around the living room and tell stories with a guitar. In reality I was hundreds of yards a way on a blanket on the berm hillside along with thousands of other admirers, but I sensed that we all felt the same way.

The final words of the chorus of that beautiful tribute to his musician father ring especially true now as we bid him adieu to this earthly venue, "The leader of the band is tired, and his eyes are growing old...but his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul...my life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man...I'm just a living legacy to the leader of the band." May all of my attempts be so poor...And what a wonderful legacy it is...

Pling...Pling...

dg

Bummed About that Gut?

Tired of talking about the Mitchell Report and the steroid issue? Here is a little wisdom from Uncle Peyton...I'm going to go get some new shirts now...

Pling...Pling...

dg

Your Cheatin' (Baseball) Heart...

Everybody cheats...right? You bet your britches, crib sheet breath! Nobody drives the speed limit...except for the lady talking on her cell phone and applying lipstick driving 35 mph miles in the fast lane in the pouring rain on MOPAC this afternoon. And apparently nobody in baseball takes seriously the notion that there should be a level playing field regarding the cheating of mother nature's DNA diaper when it comes to being able to hit or throw a baseball. Oh, we who are artisans, suitors and aficionados of the gentler national pastime have thumbed our noses at the bruisers who 'roid up to smack heads in football, smack down in professional wrestling, or even smack very rapidly when it comes to track and field. Never mind the Black Sox scandal of '29(poor Shoeless Joe), the shameless abuse both Maris and Aaron took when they overtook the legends that preceded them in the career homerun totals, the Pete Rose betting scandal, sign stealing, pine tar and corked bat accusations, not to mention my favorite cheating ploy of all...the spitball. So the Mitchell Report on steroid and HGH use in Major League Baseball that was released to the public yesterday, not only pointed the finger at most of the usual subjects we expected like, Rafi Palmero, Jose Canseco, Gary Sheffield and Barry Bonds...there were also a few startling ones like Roger Clemens and Andy Pettit. Say it ain't so Rocket! So will Roger end up with an asterisk by his name in the record books just like Barry, or will he find a way to prove his innocence and clear his name? The jury is still out on that and the impact this will have on baseball.

I think about the way I was taught to play the game by one of my heroes, my high school baseball coach, Willis Stelly. I remember a preseason game my junior year when we had packed up in the Glen Oaks High School Panthers team bus (it was a 20 year old school bus painted white red and black) early one Saturday morning and drove the 65 miles down old US Highway 190 to Lafayette to play the Sub-varsity team from the USL (University of Southwestern Louisiana...now called University of Louisiana at Lafayette) Rajun Cajuns. In those days freshman were prohibited from playing varsity sports so colleges created these sub-varsity and freshman teams to give them playing time...we were punk high school kids, but we had recently won a state championship so we had a pretty good reputation, and good games were hard to come by for these guys, so it was a win-win situation...they got another game against live pitching and we got to play against college level competition before we started our district schedule against other high school teams. The truth...we rarely lost to these teams...We were well coached and were usually underestimated, for good reason, but in my high school career as a starter at Glen Oaks we lost only once out of 7 games. One year we beat Nicolls State College in Thibidoux, the spring before they were the NCAA Division II College World Series runners up...but that is a story for another day. That Saturday in February, we loaded the bus and made the trek to USL. We ran out several pitchers that day, but they all threw well and we jumped out to a 3-1 lead on a series of clutch hits in key situations (none by me, but the way). USL closed to 3-2 in the 6th (we played 7 innings)and we came up for our turn to hit in the top of the 7th inning. I was scheduled to hit second in the inning. Our leadoff hitter fanned on 4 pitches and the tall, lanky southpaw got ahead of me 0-2 on two scorching fastballs. He made the mistake of trying to fool me with a change-up...he should have known that I was seriously overmatched with his speed and he could just put me away with another fastball. Instead, he tried to get cute, and I banged the change-up into left field for a clean single. I was not terribly fast but I was a smart baserunner, so on the second pitch I gambled thinking that this college catcher with a gun for an arm would love to show off that arm by picking off the foolish high school kid who carelessly wandered too far off of first between pitches. The delayed steal was something we had been taught for such an occasion, and I took a walking lead as my teammate took a called strike. As the ball hit the catcher's mitt I made eye contact with the catcher, feigned a panicked look as he whirled and blazed the ball down to first. The only problem for them was that when I saw that he had committed to throw to first I took off for second and the relay throw from the first baseman to the shortstop covering was late...I had a stolen base. The pitcher lost his composure a little and walked the batter on four straight pitches. Our next batter looking for a fat pitch, jumped on a fastball down the pipe, but was a little out front and hit a two-hopper to the third baseman who fielded the ball cleanly, took two steps to touch third and then pivoted to make a throw to first for an inning ending double play. We had been taught to cleanly breakup double plays at second by sliding hard into the pivot man at second...no spikes, no dirty stuff, just a clean hard slide with the shin up to knock him off his feet or make him leap, disrupt his throw and keep him from completing the double play. As the third baseman gloved the grounder and stepped on third, I was sliding into the base to do what I always did at second...break up the double play...I toppled the third baseman, he never got rid of the ball and the runner at first was safe. I got up to get a high five from my coach when I saw a chagrined look on his face and heard the catcalls from the USL dugout of words I won't repeat here. Evidently, in their estimation I had been a little too gung ho for a preseason game, especially on their home field, with them behind on the scoreboard, and their opponents measly high school kids. Both dugouts emptied for a few minutes...ours more slowly than the college boys...we were brash high school kids but we weren't stupid...at least not about that. I got a 15 minute lecture after the game from our coach (with the whole team listening in) about playing with passion, but also playing with a sense of respect and dignity for your opponent. You don't cheat, you don't kick them when they are down, and you don't purposely humiliate them and make them look bad. You whip them fair and square.

I don't know if all of the players named in the Mitchell Report ever got that kind of speech from one of his coaches along the way, and frankly there have been times in my life when I didn't follow Coach Stelly's admonition either...but somewhere, if the accusations are true, these guys lost sight of the fact that the way you play the game is as important as whether you win...instead they heard, "The end justifies the means"..."you only go around once in life so you have to grab for all the gusto you can"..."winning isn't the best thing...it's the only thing".

I'll bet Coach Stelly would be happy to volunteer to chew their butts out for trying to take a shortcut to winning and disgracing the game. So, step up Barry... you have more homeruns than any player in history, but you could still learn a thing or two from the old Coach...

Pling...Pling...

dg

Pierce Pettis - Loves gonna carry me home

Love's Gonna Carry Me Home...

It doesn't happen frequently, but for me there are distinct times when it feels like my heart swells up, and it moves up so far that it is jamming my Adam's apple up my windpipe...and it moves down so far that it is just sitting like a rhino on the top of my stomach. Sometimes I'm pretty sure it is the Carne Asada plate from Taqueria Arandas down on Burnet(my latest favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican food joint in Austin), but most of the time it has to do with a readily identifiable, yet rarely explicable heaviness about life in the chaos lane. I say rarely because this happens to be one of those instances when I know what watering hole in the jungle this rhino drip-dried out from. I know, in this case, that part of it is very very good. I'll get to see all three of my beautiful daughters in a couple of weeks as they make their way home from Portland, Nashville and Arlington. They are all grown-up, independent women at 20, 21 and 24, so I am a realist about the eventuality of their taking their places in the world geographically separated from where my place in the world is... so, I genuinely treasure the times we can be all together. Like last September when they all came in to attend the Austin City Limits Music Festival, and like this holiday season when they will be home for Christmas and for two weddings shortly after Christmas... Hannah's life-long best bud, Katelin Calvert... and our dear friend and traveling guitar hero, Randy Williams.

I also know the other reason for the heaviness is my prayer and concern for my friends Scott, Sarah and Thomas Bickle. I tried to talk about them Sunday as I shared with our faith community, and had to stop several times to compose myself...Thomas, some of you may recall from earlier posts is two years old and has been courageously battling brain tumors since he was 7 months old...the tumors have the upper hand at this moment. Sarah and I talked today and I know I bored her to tears, but I didn't want to let her off of the phone (which is a shock to many of you who know that I am a terrible phone conversationalist...just don't do well on the phone). Somehow her voice kept me connected to the three of them. They are amazing people...

So anyway...I came across this video of one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Pierce Pettis (also famous in my book for being sweet Grace's dad). Watching and listening didn't budge the rhino, but I kinda reconciled his presence there as a deep heaviness that made me swallow harder, breath freer, and trust a little deeper.

And I really do believe Pierce...LOVE's the only thing that can carry us home.

Pling...Pling...

dg

Missing the "Jack" of All Trades

My dad died three years ago Tuesday (4th), killed instantly in an automobile collision on a dark country road in Mississippi. He was 76. I think about him all the time...not in a morbid way, but in a fond, grateful way for the imperfect picture of compassion and servanthood that he was. I got to spend a rare extended amount of time (almost a week) with my mom in Mississippi last week. She survived the accident, and is doing amazingly well living by herself in the woods...she is a tough little (about 4' 10") Cajun lady who grew up one of nine children in the swamps of South Louisiana. The road ended at her property and the bayou ran beside the tiny white-washed frame house where her family fished and trapped and raised sugar cane to make a living. We talked a lot about dad last week...about his impulsiveness and short fuse when it came to anger, especially when he was young...he got it all honestly from my Italian grandfather who was a ruthless taskmaster who demanded perfection from his children, and was not above verbally abusing those around him to get what he wanted. We talked about how God mellowed him (dad) down through the years and while it never took the twinkle and mischievousness out of his eye, it got channeled into one of the most selfless men I've ever met...period. My dad never finished high school, but quit to join the Air Force where he boxed, raced stock cars and worked on diesel engines and airplanes. They married when they were both 21 and looked like movie stars of the day...she like Loretta Young, and he like Joseph Cotton. One of the unique things about my dad was his name... Joseph Ferd Gentiles. Joseph was his dad's middle name (my middle name, Anthony, was my grandfather's first name... A.J. for Anthony Joseph...and they called him Tony). Ferd was for his great grandfather, Ferdinand, and also for his mom's nickname, Ferdie. But everybody called him Jack. And they called him alot. He could fix anything...I'm not exagerating...anything... especially if it was mechanical and had moving parts. Cars, washing machines, lawn mowers, toasters, radios, watches...you name it, Jack could fix it...so he literally became the neighborhood handyman...He worked shift work (usually 50 hours a week) at a chemical plant outside of Baton Rouge as a maintenance mechanic (what else?), but in his spare time he fixed whatever the neighbors brought over (and they brought over some strange crap occasionally...yeeesh!) and he never charged anyone a dime that I know of... We never had a maintenance crew or a grounds crew at the little neighborhood Baptist church I grew up in...Jack took care of the maintenance on everything from the tractor, to the school buses, and the air conditioning units and the pump on the baptismal pool. He loved working on cars... he really loved working on cars...and was a brilliant diagnostician. He seemed to be able to get to the bottom of a car problem in no time, and then he dove in to fix it and he didn't quit until he had solved the problem. He was very thorough and on the times when I would try to assist him he would say..."If you don't have time to do it right...then when are you going to have time to do it over?" Sadly then and now...I do not have his gift for doctoring machinery. I was the first person on both sides of my family to go to college... Dad wanted me to be a mechanical engineer...I wanted to coach and play baseball. He wrote on my high school graduation card, "Go on ahead to college son and see what you can do...if they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can make something out of you". I'm not sure he was kidding. He tried to help me be a mechanic, but I was destined for other things...and while he wanted me to love fixing cars as much as him, he accepted the fact that probably changing oil and points and plugs was going to be the extent of my talents.

The reason I bring this up is that tonight I was headed out of town to a men's retreat for our faith community. I drive his old 1993 Ford F-150 with 180,000 miles on it. it is the vehicle I drove the 22 hour round trip to Mississippi in last week. It runs like a champ (until tonight)...partly because he took such great care of it. Well, tonight before I got out of town it decided it was going to have some electrical issues, and so, I have spent the last 6 hours making trips to the auto parts store and working under the hood trying to get the old girl back up and running...I'll be back out early tomorrow morning to finish the job. I told my friend Cory, who called to check on me when I didn't show up at the retreat center, that one of the things that was frustrating was that I know that this is a problem that dad could probably have diagnosed and fixed in 30 minutes...an hour tops. But I'm hanging in there...and even though I'm not nearly as good at it as he was...I will get it done...that much I did get from him. Also, one of the cool things that happened between us in the years before he died was that when I was in the middle of working on something on one of my cars, if I ran into a hitch...which I always did...I would call him and ask his advice. He always seemed pleased that he was still "the man" when it came to those things...and he was. There were times when I would literally hold the phone up to the engine and he would listen to the engine over the phone and 9 times out of 10 could diagnose the problem. As I was working on the truck tonight, at one point I instinctively reached for the cell phone...

Influence is a funny thing. My dad was a man of few words. We have a culture that longs for the music of the profound lyricist, the political catchword of the statesman, the moving performance of the movie actor and actress, the brilliant hunch of the financial advisor, the word from God through the high profile preacher...but the kindest, most generous, most powerful man I've ever known was a shade tree mechanic named Jack. I still want to be like him...even if I can't fix his truck.

Pling...Pling...

dg