My latest in the Musical Tribute post series. A tribute to the group that started the popularity of folk music in post WWII America. Videos included. At my mirror Open Salon blog.
http://open.salon.com/blog/monte_canfield/2010/08/02/the_weavers_a_musical_tribute
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Obama: Will He, Can He, Be the One We Thought We Elected?
I don't write about politics much anymore, but this nation is at a cusp in its direction and we ought to think about and discuss something that can determine the direction of the nation for the next decade.
Try as one might, it is not possible even for a President to be all things to all people. Nor is it possible to be the President of all of the people, if one insists that “all the people” includes giving to the rich, the spoiled, the pathological, the amoral and the immoral what they believe they deserve.
But President Obama is trying to do precisely that. And in the process, the nation, which lost its moral compass under the Bush Administration and has since been wandering in the wilderness, is in the process of reclaiming the dubious title of the “United States of ME,” forgetting that America is about “WE the people,” not “ME the greedy.”
But the President seems to have forgotten this. Rather, he is content to be the one who tries hard not to offend, or to be offended, regardless that he should find some things disgustingly offensive and should be mightily offended by others. He seems more content to be the professor who calmly discusses the subtle nuances of the many shades of gray as a black cloud descends over his Presidency.
Yes, this is the same man who showed us one side of himself during the campaign, the side of the progressive, center-left liberal who championed the rights of the poor, the disenfranchised, the working folk, and, yes, the middle class who, we were constantly told, were the 97% plus of us who made less than a quarter of a million dollars a year.
This is the man those of us who cared about America as a nation of all the people could get behind; a man who offered a clear alternative to everything Bush and his tools stood for. [With the shameful exception of continuing the war in Afghanistan.]
And what was his first act of consequence? To pass a Stimulus Act skewed almost entirely to bailing out Wall Street, a bill that offered but a trickle of funds to those who needed it most, the working people of America. Rather than complain about bailing out institution after institution that was “too big to fail” the Administration threw itself at the feet of the rich and invited them to take what they needed, after first inviting the financial foxes to run the chicken coop.
Then he said nothing in response to Republican complaint about bailing out the auto industry, an industry where real people were employed and where the government exposed a few tens of billions, a subsidy which is working and will be paid back, kept people employed, saved an industry that actually adds jobs and value to the GDP, rather than a Wall Street house of cards that adds phantom value through the trading of paper and the goosing up the “value” of worthless derivatives.
But he was not done. While urging passage of the most comprehensive overhaul of health care in the history of the nation he turned around and did not fight for a public option and did not insist on coverage of the now 45 million uninsured, settling for 36 million and then offering them only “high risk” pools run by, of course, the very insurance companies that ran our health care into the ground in the first place. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Now we are down to a basic political issue: will the Presidentt quit thinking about whether he personally can win in 2012 and start now calling out the Republicans for their obstructionism, their incessant “just say no to everything” campaign? Or will he be left with a Congress that cannot actually get anything done in the remaining two years of his first term? Will he, convinced that he can compromise with Republicans, in spite of the clear and unequivocal fact of perpetual Republican negativism, try to reason with the unreasonable for the next two or six years?
In the next couple of weeks he will have a chance to prove which Obama we will see: the moral leader of the nation, or the weak, deal cutter who negotiates from timidity.
The tax cuts expire soon. A Democratic bill has been introduced in each house to extend them to all but the top 2-3% of earners in this country, those making over $250,000 a year. That windfall to the rich would be allowed to expire and the income from their paying a few percentage points more taxes could be used to fund the programs that we desperately need: including feeding the poor and helping the states avoid going bankrupt.
The Republicans already have told us that they will vote against any extension that does not include all of the original tax cuts, including those to the rich. They will argue, using the usual smoke and mirrors, that the economy demands that we treat everyone “equally.”
The counter argument is simple: The top 3% don’t need the tax break. The lower 97% does. The top 3% will hardly feel the increase. Large numbers of the bottom 20% are literally starving, and/or out of work, without health care, without hope, and hurting beyond comprehension.
There is only, literally, one man in American who can effectively and convincingly make the only argument that is ethically correct, sway the voting public, and expose the Republicans in Congress for the morally corrupt puppets of big business that they are. That man is the one who ran for President two years ago. The one we have watched in the White House these past 18 months cannot and will not take aggressive action.
Time is surely running out, not just on this Congress, and not particularly on this President. But it is running out on the chance for this country to honor its moral obligations to its people. Who really wants even two more years of what we have now? Its time for our President to remember where he came from, who put him in office and why.
This country is hurling toward yet another decade of moral bankruptcy. We have lost our way. Have we forgotten all that America means? Have we forgotten what “and justice for all” means?
Which President will emerge now?
Monte
Try as one might, it is not possible even for a President to be all things to all people. Nor is it possible to be the President of all of the people, if one insists that “all the people” includes giving to the rich, the spoiled, the pathological, the amoral and the immoral what they believe they deserve.
But President Obama is trying to do precisely that. And in the process, the nation, which lost its moral compass under the Bush Administration and has since been wandering in the wilderness, is in the process of reclaiming the dubious title of the “United States of ME,” forgetting that America is about “WE the people,” not “ME the greedy.”
But the President seems to have forgotten this. Rather, he is content to be the one who tries hard not to offend, or to be offended, regardless that he should find some things disgustingly offensive and should be mightily offended by others. He seems more content to be the professor who calmly discusses the subtle nuances of the many shades of gray as a black cloud descends over his Presidency.
Yes, this is the same man who showed us one side of himself during the campaign, the side of the progressive, center-left liberal who championed the rights of the poor, the disenfranchised, the working folk, and, yes, the middle class who, we were constantly told, were the 97% plus of us who made less than a quarter of a million dollars a year.
This is the man those of us who cared about America as a nation of all the people could get behind; a man who offered a clear alternative to everything Bush and his tools stood for. [With the shameful exception of continuing the war in Afghanistan.]
And what was his first act of consequence? To pass a Stimulus Act skewed almost entirely to bailing out Wall Street, a bill that offered but a trickle of funds to those who needed it most, the working people of America. Rather than complain about bailing out institution after institution that was “too big to fail” the Administration threw itself at the feet of the rich and invited them to take what they needed, after first inviting the financial foxes to run the chicken coop.
Then he said nothing in response to Republican complaint about bailing out the auto industry, an industry where real people were employed and where the government exposed a few tens of billions, a subsidy which is working and will be paid back, kept people employed, saved an industry that actually adds jobs and value to the GDP, rather than a Wall Street house of cards that adds phantom value through the trading of paper and the goosing up the “value” of worthless derivatives.
But he was not done. While urging passage of the most comprehensive overhaul of health care in the history of the nation he turned around and did not fight for a public option and did not insist on coverage of the now 45 million uninsured, settling for 36 million and then offering them only “high risk” pools run by, of course, the very insurance companies that ran our health care into the ground in the first place. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Now we are down to a basic political issue: will the Presidentt quit thinking about whether he personally can win in 2012 and start now calling out the Republicans for their obstructionism, their incessant “just say no to everything” campaign? Or will he be left with a Congress that cannot actually get anything done in the remaining two years of his first term? Will he, convinced that he can compromise with Republicans, in spite of the clear and unequivocal fact of perpetual Republican negativism, try to reason with the unreasonable for the next two or six years?
In the next couple of weeks he will have a chance to prove which Obama we will see: the moral leader of the nation, or the weak, deal cutter who negotiates from timidity.
The tax cuts expire soon. A Democratic bill has been introduced in each house to extend them to all but the top 2-3% of earners in this country, those making over $250,000 a year. That windfall to the rich would be allowed to expire and the income from their paying a few percentage points more taxes could be used to fund the programs that we desperately need: including feeding the poor and helping the states avoid going bankrupt.
The Republicans already have told us that they will vote against any extension that does not include all of the original tax cuts, including those to the rich. They will argue, using the usual smoke and mirrors, that the economy demands that we treat everyone “equally.”
The counter argument is simple: The top 3% don’t need the tax break. The lower 97% does. The top 3% will hardly feel the increase. Large numbers of the bottom 20% are literally starving, and/or out of work, without health care, without hope, and hurting beyond comprehension.
There is only, literally, one man in American who can effectively and convincingly make the only argument that is ethically correct, sway the voting public, and expose the Republicans in Congress for the morally corrupt puppets of big business that they are. That man is the one who ran for President two years ago. The one we have watched in the White House these past 18 months cannot and will not take aggressive action.
Time is surely running out, not just on this Congress, and not particularly on this President. But it is running out on the chance for this country to honor its moral obligations to its people. Who really wants even two more years of what we have now? Its time for our President to remember where he came from, who put him in office and why.
This country is hurling toward yet another decade of moral bankruptcy. We have lost our way. Have we forgotten all that America means? Have we forgotten what “and justice for all” means?
Which President will emerge now?
Monte
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Favorite Country Music Vocal Duets, Tribute Series
Link Here to Listen to Great Country Music Duets on my Open Salon Blog:
http://open.salon.com/blog/monte_canfield/2010/07/22/favorite_country_music_vocal_duets_tribute_series
Enjoy!
Monte
http://open.salon.com/blog/monte_canfield/2010/07/22/favorite_country_music_vocal_duets_tribute_series
Enjoy!
Monte
Monday, July 19, 2010
I am an Alcoholic, Part Three, Final, "To the Bottom"
I have struggled with how to wrap up this brief series. I do not want to go into detail because most of the people who were friends, some of whom were also alcoholics, are still living and I have no right to expose them, even disguised, in this series.
So rather than discuss details that involve particular individuals beyond my immediate family, I would like to reinforce a couple of the truths and to dispel a myth about alcoholism by using myself as the example. Challenging the myth requires a bit of “tooting my own horn,” which makes me uncomfortable. But I also cannot expect you to take my word for the myth's lack of validity.
The simple fact is that the essence of my addictive behavior was set within the first years of my drinking. I drank for the feeling that alcohol gave me: it lightened my burdens, reduced my anxieties, and made me feel mellow, while usually making me happy and extroverted. At times, though, it would unleash my fear, anger or self pity; and that was when I could hurt others the most. Under the influence of alcohol your cognitive ability to control emotions is greatly reduced while your emotions are heightened. And there is no question that alcohol fed my already rather large ego, which made me during those times hardly the epitome of the well adjusted person.
I did not drink periodically, nor did I drink in moderation. I drank daily and to excess. But I did not feel or appear “drunk” until I had many drinks. I had a “high tolerance” for the drug. I can only remember twice when I was “fall down” drunk, and alcohol never stopped me from remembering what I did and did not do. Rather, I was a highly productive “functional alcoholic.”
People who did not know me well did not know how heavy a drinker I was. This pattern never changed until the last year of my drinking when I gave up trying to have a life beyond drinking. Toward the end I was drinking literally from the time I got up until I went to bed, and I really didn’t care who knew it. I was at my bottom. But for the first 34 years I was nowhere near that bottom. The final fall was off a cliff, not down a sloping hill.
One of the truths of alcoholism that I want to reinforce is that I hurt mostly those who most cared about me, my loved ones. I was not an awful husband and father, but I was surely not a good one, even by my standards in those days. I was too often indifferent, unloving, overly strict, suspicious, jealous, tired, short fused, angry, and self absorbed. Those whom I loved did not come first. I did. Or perhaps I should say alcohol and my career came first.
Another truth of my alcoholism is that deep down I knew the damage that I was doing to those who loved me and yet I did nothing about it. If there was a choice between booze and them, and there was, I chose booze, all the while telling myself it was a “false choice,” and that they did not really understand me and the important things I was accomplishing. Yet I knew that was a lie when I left my family after 12 years and sought a divorce, but, even then, I told myself they were better off without me. Perhaps that was literally true, considering that I had no intention of stopping drinking. I will never know. But I know that the wounds from that divorce have never healed in my children.
The myth I would like to dispel is that alcoholics are not as productive, creative, smart, inventive, imaginative, and morally driven as are nonalcoholic members of society. While we all can easily identify alcoholics in history who disprove that myth, social propriety insists that alcoholics are wastrels and worthless.
I fervently believed that when I finally got sober. I believed it because for many years after I quit drinking I came to two conclusions about myself that supported the myth because I was afraid that if they were not true then I would go back to drinking.
The first conclusion about my self was that I had stepped all over others in my career in order to get to the top as quickly as I did; that I was egomaniacal and ruthless and let nothing stand in the way of my personal success.
And the second conclusion was that I would have gotten much further and been more successful than I was had I never been a drinker.
I no longer think that either of those conclusions is true.
It is true that I may have stayed longer in the government part of my career and may have, given time, advanced to higher positions, which would have involved accepting political appointments. But I was a career civil servant and proud of my nonpartisan role in government, and it is highly likely that I still would have tired of working for the government and would have moved on in any case.
And I can not remember one time when I was given a promotion that I had not earned. I believed fervently in meritocracy. Nor did I ever do anything that would have otherwise stood in the way of someone else getting the same job as I got, or a better one.
To help put the lie to the myth, let me give a sketch of my life as a practicing alcoholic.
After the first three semesters of college at Washburn U. in Topeka, I got married on my 19th birthday. I dropped out of school for a semester to earn enough money to go back, and I went to Wichita U the following Fall. I had decided to study and completed my course work with a 4.0 average, taking extra courses, while working full time. I graduated in 1960, BA, cum laude, in Political Science.
I then accepted a post graduate teaching assistantship at Colorado U. at Boulder. I completed the MA course work, 30 hours, in two semesters, 4.0 average, while teaching two American Government undergraduate courses and a senior seminar in Constitutional Law.
I left Colorado for Cornell U. on a post-graduate fellowship at the end of that year to work on a doctorate. However, I was deeply in debt from school loans, had by then three children to care for, and decided to quit after one year.
I went to work for Gov. Nelson Rockefeller at Albany in the NY state Executive Development program. During that year I wrote my Master’s thesis (political theory) for Colorado U. I took the Federal Management Internship Exam the following Spring, scoring in the top 1% nationwide. I received offers from many federal agencies and chose to go to the Bureau of the Budget, Executive Office of the President. I was 23.
I moved up annually from GS 9, to 11, 12, 13 and 14. I wrote and reviewed proposed legislation, and was responsible for reviewing the budgets of the Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Land Management, US Geological Survey, and Federal water resources management programs.
When President Nixon came into office I moved to the Bureau of Land Management, as Director of the Division of Energy and Minerals, GS 15, responsible for management of the Government’s programs under the Mining Law and the Minerals Leasing Act, including Outer Continental Shelf Oil Leasing programs. I was 29.
Three years later McGeorge Bundy, then at the Ford Foundation, asked former TVA Chairman, David Freeman, to launch a high profile study of US energy policy. I knew Dave from working with him when he was on the White House staff under LBJ. He asked me to come to the Ford Foundation with him. Dave became Director of the Energy Policy Project and I was Deputy Director. We published a library of 23 books on US energy policy. I co-authored three of those and edited others. I also designed a new methodology for the Project into which all of the research flowed: “Alternative Scenarios Analysis.”
During this time I gave speeches throughout the US and in Europe, appeared on numerous panels and wrote and co-authored several professional papers and journal articles. I also taught at George Washington U., the Aspen Institute, the Federal Executive Institute at Williamsburg, and appeared on TV and radio in support of the recommendations of the Project.
After the completion of the Project, Elmer Staats, Comptroller General of the US, asked me to come to the General Accounting Office as Director of a new Office of Special Projects where I would implement policy analysis within the GAO using the scenarios analysis methodology. I went to the GAO at GS 17 and the next year, they created the Division of Energy and Materials and appointed me head of that Division at GS 18, the highest level civil service appointment. I was 35.
During the time at GAO we wrote between 30 and 50 reports to Congress a year, and I testified many times before congressional committees, was interviewed often by newspapers, magazines, TV and radio, particularly National Public Radio.
By age 38, I was burned out and tired of offering the same solutions to the energy crisis over and over and seeing essentially nothing happen. So I moved on to NYC as VP of a chemical company, ending up in St. Louis as CEO of a subsidiary of the company. After turning it into a profitable operation, I was out of a job, but with enough of a parachute that I was able to buy a small retail energy conservation company in St. Louis, which I owned for the next ten years.
All of this time I was drinking continuously and heavily. I was smoking 3 plus packs a day and getting about 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night. I was working 60 to 80 hours a week, usually 6 or 7 days a week. I was a successful, productive “workaholic alcoholic.” That I might have gone higher, further, faster is to me, looking back on it today, highly doubtful. At every turn I was the youngest ever to hold the positions I held, or positions were created for me to fill.
In terms of my public service career, I was an effective, competent, and innovative thinker in my areas of expertize, and was recognized as such by my peers, and by the academic and political communities that counted. And I was an alcoholic.
But, I was not a success as a husband and father, and there is no one but me to blame for that. That I could have been a much better father is, without a doubt, true.
In the end after my life all crashed down on me, I was saved, and not by my own doing. I do not know “why me?” But I know how and by whom.
Most of all I was blessed, after being alone for over 10 years, to have met Sue, who saw enough in me to love me in spite of my drinking and then to make me face a choice when I hit bottom: her or the bottle. And for the first time in 35 years I chose correctly. It was the best decision I ever made, and all of my academic and career successes pale into insignificance in the light of that decision.
And there is one thing I am sure of about that decision. When Sue forced that decision on me I was in no condition to make it on my own. I owe that to God. God gave me her and then God put Jim White into my life to show me the path to sobriety at exactly the time I hit bottom. Jim took me to my first AA meeting and stood by my side for three years until he was too frail to continue as my sponsor.
That is why I know that my 20 years of sobriety is a miracle. All we have left are miracles when we have no capacity to create for ourselves a future, when we are beaten down, consumed by something that we have no strength to resist, nor the will to try. Some higher power has to reach into us from the outside and lift us up out of the pit of despair.
God did that for me. While I had been a religious person all of my life, even when I was drinking, I know now that God was not then my higher power. Alcohol was. But when I got sober I dedicated the rest of my life to God, and to the service of others in God’s name. I have never once come close to regretting that.
It has been my intention with this series to show how this one alcoholic has, by the grace of God, achieved the reprieve of sobriety. I am not cured; but I am in remission, one day at a time.
I do not think of myself as unique. Rather, just the opposite. While the details differ there are common things that bind all the addicted. We have many more things in common that we have differences.
I also know this: If I can make it, so can others who share my addiction. And I will continue to reach my hand out to any who will take it. I will help them to walk the path I have been blessed to walk these past 20 years. We can walk it together.
God bless you all.
Monte
Author tags:
health, 20100719, addiction, my story, habits off alcoholism, alcoholics anonymous, alcoholic, alcoholism
So rather than discuss details that involve particular individuals beyond my immediate family, I would like to reinforce a couple of the truths and to dispel a myth about alcoholism by using myself as the example. Challenging the myth requires a bit of “tooting my own horn,” which makes me uncomfortable. But I also cannot expect you to take my word for the myth's lack of validity.
The simple fact is that the essence of my addictive behavior was set within the first years of my drinking. I drank for the feeling that alcohol gave me: it lightened my burdens, reduced my anxieties, and made me feel mellow, while usually making me happy and extroverted. At times, though, it would unleash my fear, anger or self pity; and that was when I could hurt others the most. Under the influence of alcohol your cognitive ability to control emotions is greatly reduced while your emotions are heightened. And there is no question that alcohol fed my already rather large ego, which made me during those times hardly the epitome of the well adjusted person.
I did not drink periodically, nor did I drink in moderation. I drank daily and to excess. But I did not feel or appear “drunk” until I had many drinks. I had a “high tolerance” for the drug. I can only remember twice when I was “fall down” drunk, and alcohol never stopped me from remembering what I did and did not do. Rather, I was a highly productive “functional alcoholic.”
People who did not know me well did not know how heavy a drinker I was. This pattern never changed until the last year of my drinking when I gave up trying to have a life beyond drinking. Toward the end I was drinking literally from the time I got up until I went to bed, and I really didn’t care who knew it. I was at my bottom. But for the first 34 years I was nowhere near that bottom. The final fall was off a cliff, not down a sloping hill.
One of the truths of alcoholism that I want to reinforce is that I hurt mostly those who most cared about me, my loved ones. I was not an awful husband and father, but I was surely not a good one, even by my standards in those days. I was too often indifferent, unloving, overly strict, suspicious, jealous, tired, short fused, angry, and self absorbed. Those whom I loved did not come first. I did. Or perhaps I should say alcohol and my career came first.
Another truth of my alcoholism is that deep down I knew the damage that I was doing to those who loved me and yet I did nothing about it. If there was a choice between booze and them, and there was, I chose booze, all the while telling myself it was a “false choice,” and that they did not really understand me and the important things I was accomplishing. Yet I knew that was a lie when I left my family after 12 years and sought a divorce, but, even then, I told myself they were better off without me. Perhaps that was literally true, considering that I had no intention of stopping drinking. I will never know. But I know that the wounds from that divorce have never healed in my children.
The myth I would like to dispel is that alcoholics are not as productive, creative, smart, inventive, imaginative, and morally driven as are nonalcoholic members of society. While we all can easily identify alcoholics in history who disprove that myth, social propriety insists that alcoholics are wastrels and worthless.
I fervently believed that when I finally got sober. I believed it because for many years after I quit drinking I came to two conclusions about myself that supported the myth because I was afraid that if they were not true then I would go back to drinking.
The first conclusion about my self was that I had stepped all over others in my career in order to get to the top as quickly as I did; that I was egomaniacal and ruthless and let nothing stand in the way of my personal success.
And the second conclusion was that I would have gotten much further and been more successful than I was had I never been a drinker.
I no longer think that either of those conclusions is true.
It is true that I may have stayed longer in the government part of my career and may have, given time, advanced to higher positions, which would have involved accepting political appointments. But I was a career civil servant and proud of my nonpartisan role in government, and it is highly likely that I still would have tired of working for the government and would have moved on in any case.
And I can not remember one time when I was given a promotion that I had not earned. I believed fervently in meritocracy. Nor did I ever do anything that would have otherwise stood in the way of someone else getting the same job as I got, or a better one.
To help put the lie to the myth, let me give a sketch of my life as a practicing alcoholic.
After the first three semesters of college at Washburn U. in Topeka, I got married on my 19th birthday. I dropped out of school for a semester to earn enough money to go back, and I went to Wichita U the following Fall. I had decided to study and completed my course work with a 4.0 average, taking extra courses, while working full time. I graduated in 1960, BA, cum laude, in Political Science.
I then accepted a post graduate teaching assistantship at Colorado U. at Boulder. I completed the MA course work, 30 hours, in two semesters, 4.0 average, while teaching two American Government undergraduate courses and a senior seminar in Constitutional Law.
I left Colorado for Cornell U. on a post-graduate fellowship at the end of that year to work on a doctorate. However, I was deeply in debt from school loans, had by then three children to care for, and decided to quit after one year.
I went to work for Gov. Nelson Rockefeller at Albany in the NY state Executive Development program. During that year I wrote my Master’s thesis (political theory) for Colorado U. I took the Federal Management Internship Exam the following Spring, scoring in the top 1% nationwide. I received offers from many federal agencies and chose to go to the Bureau of the Budget, Executive Office of the President. I was 23.
I moved up annually from GS 9, to 11, 12, 13 and 14. I wrote and reviewed proposed legislation, and was responsible for reviewing the budgets of the Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Land Management, US Geological Survey, and Federal water resources management programs.
When President Nixon came into office I moved to the Bureau of Land Management, as Director of the Division of Energy and Minerals, GS 15, responsible for management of the Government’s programs under the Mining Law and the Minerals Leasing Act, including Outer Continental Shelf Oil Leasing programs. I was 29.
Three years later McGeorge Bundy, then at the Ford Foundation, asked former TVA Chairman, David Freeman, to launch a high profile study of US energy policy. I knew Dave from working with him when he was on the White House staff under LBJ. He asked me to come to the Ford Foundation with him. Dave became Director of the Energy Policy Project and I was Deputy Director. We published a library of 23 books on US energy policy. I co-authored three of those and edited others. I also designed a new methodology for the Project into which all of the research flowed: “Alternative Scenarios Analysis.”
During this time I gave speeches throughout the US and in Europe, appeared on numerous panels and wrote and co-authored several professional papers and journal articles. I also taught at George Washington U., the Aspen Institute, the Federal Executive Institute at Williamsburg, and appeared on TV and radio in support of the recommendations of the Project.
After the completion of the Project, Elmer Staats, Comptroller General of the US, asked me to come to the General Accounting Office as Director of a new Office of Special Projects where I would implement policy analysis within the GAO using the scenarios analysis methodology. I went to the GAO at GS 17 and the next year, they created the Division of Energy and Materials and appointed me head of that Division at GS 18, the highest level civil service appointment. I was 35.
During the time at GAO we wrote between 30 and 50 reports to Congress a year, and I testified many times before congressional committees, was interviewed often by newspapers, magazines, TV and radio, particularly National Public Radio.
By age 38, I was burned out and tired of offering the same solutions to the energy crisis over and over and seeing essentially nothing happen. So I moved on to NYC as VP of a chemical company, ending up in St. Louis as CEO of a subsidiary of the company. After turning it into a profitable operation, I was out of a job, but with enough of a parachute that I was able to buy a small retail energy conservation company in St. Louis, which I owned for the next ten years.
All of this time I was drinking continuously and heavily. I was smoking 3 plus packs a day and getting about 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night. I was working 60 to 80 hours a week, usually 6 or 7 days a week. I was a successful, productive “workaholic alcoholic.” That I might have gone higher, further, faster is to me, looking back on it today, highly doubtful. At every turn I was the youngest ever to hold the positions I held, or positions were created for me to fill.
In terms of my public service career, I was an effective, competent, and innovative thinker in my areas of expertize, and was recognized as such by my peers, and by the academic and political communities that counted. And I was an alcoholic.
But, I was not a success as a husband and father, and there is no one but me to blame for that. That I could have been a much better father is, without a doubt, true.
In the end after my life all crashed down on me, I was saved, and not by my own doing. I do not know “why me?” But I know how and by whom.
Most of all I was blessed, after being alone for over 10 years, to have met Sue, who saw enough in me to love me in spite of my drinking and then to make me face a choice when I hit bottom: her or the bottle. And for the first time in 35 years I chose correctly. It was the best decision I ever made, and all of my academic and career successes pale into insignificance in the light of that decision.
And there is one thing I am sure of about that decision. When Sue forced that decision on me I was in no condition to make it on my own. I owe that to God. God gave me her and then God put Jim White into my life to show me the path to sobriety at exactly the time I hit bottom. Jim took me to my first AA meeting and stood by my side for three years until he was too frail to continue as my sponsor.
That is why I know that my 20 years of sobriety is a miracle. All we have left are miracles when we have no capacity to create for ourselves a future, when we are beaten down, consumed by something that we have no strength to resist, nor the will to try. Some higher power has to reach into us from the outside and lift us up out of the pit of despair.
God did that for me. While I had been a religious person all of my life, even when I was drinking, I know now that God was not then my higher power. Alcohol was. But when I got sober I dedicated the rest of my life to God, and to the service of others in God’s name. I have never once come close to regretting that.
It has been my intention with this series to show how this one alcoholic has, by the grace of God, achieved the reprieve of sobriety. I am not cured; but I am in remission, one day at a time.
I do not think of myself as unique. Rather, just the opposite. While the details differ there are common things that bind all the addicted. We have many more things in common that we have differences.
I also know this: If I can make it, so can others who share my addiction. And I will continue to reach my hand out to any who will take it. I will help them to walk the path I have been blessed to walk these past 20 years. We can walk it together.
God bless you all.
Monte
Author tags:
health, 20100719, addiction, my story, habits off alcoholism, alcoholics anonymous, alcoholic, alcoholism
Monday, July 12, 2010
I am an Alcoholic, Part Two
I have long felt that a key sign of maturation is the willingness to appreciate and live with delayed gratification. A practicing alcoholic has no concept of that. The alcoholic understands only that booze solves the immediate, felt problem. If it hurts the booze anesthetizes the pain; if there is sadness, the booze can, for a while, make you feel, if not happy, at least indifferent and mellow.
I started drinking because I was hurt and angry. I felt trapped in a life I could not control. I was 15. But it was not my age that drove me to drink; it was my feelings, and my inability to “control” my life. Control is a big issue for the alcoholic, practicing or otherwise. And, while booze actually takes away your control, and releases your inhibitions, when drinking you feel like you are “in control”, right up to the point where you start the slide toward hitting bottom.
One of my strongest memories of my early drinking was leaving the house after my mother had beaten me with whatever she could get her hands on. It happened so often that I don’t even remember what she was screaming about, or beating me with.
I vividly remember sneaking out of the house after she went to bed, and going over to my friend’s house, which was on the property of a cemetery where his father was the caretaker. My friend and I went out to the maintenance shed, got a couple of six packs from an old refrigerator, and walked out into the cemetery to drink. He had several older brothers and his Dad let them keep beer in that fridge so it was easy to slip our beer into it and no one was the wiser.
We sat, leaning up against a couple of tombstones and drank, talking about everything we hated about our lives and what we were going to do when we were free to do what we wanted. We had big plans and ideas about how everything would be different, how we would make our marks on the world and show our parents that we were not losers.
After high school I went on to college, but he ended up working for his Dad in the cemetery. Some years later, I learned that he he had joined the Army and gone to Viet Nam. He came back dead. Some plans don’t work out.
But I remember thinking many times when I was climbing the success ladder in DC and NYC that, “This one’s for [him]” as I lifted my scotch in a silent toast. I was determined to prove that we were both right all those years before when we laughed and dreamed big dreams under the stars in that cemetery.
By the time I was in college I was a full blown alcoholic, but it never crossed my mind. That is not unusual in any way. Most alcoholics not only don’t know they are alcoholics in the early years of their drinking, but they look around and see others who drink too much and think that they are glad that they are not like this one or that one. The ability to lie to oneself is limitless.
I was 17 when I was kicked out of my house the month before my high school graduation. I went to live with my uncle for a while and then got a basement room I shared with another student near the college campus. I lived there for three semesters.
During that time I drank every day, went to school, and worked long hours first in a gas station and then a grocery store. Since my mother had taken, literally, all of the money I had saved for college by working construction the summer before my senior high school year, I had no choice but to work to have enough for tuition. Work was not new to me and I didn’t mind working since I had been working 30 to 40 hours a week since I was 12, turning most of my earnings over to my mother. That may seem harsh but I never noticed that part of it. To me it was pretty normal for a large poor family.
The summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college I joined the laborer’s union, and worked as a hod carrier for an brick mason who was a heavy drinker. We were helping build a Frito Lay plant on the edge of town. He always drank his lunch at a nearby bar and I went with him and did the same. I got into his habit of drinking beer with tomato juice in it for lunch along with eating a couple of boiled eggs. He called the drink a "working man’s bloody mary."
Carrying bricks up a ladder in sweltering heat was hard, dirty work but I actually enjoyed it. By then I was 6’2” and a wiry 160 pounds and was developing muscles I had no idea existed. The booze helped me feel adult, self sufficient, strong, resourceful, and able to conquer the world. And, at that point, I was still not feeling any really bad effects of my drinking. I had become a pro and knew both how much booze I needed to feel mellow and how much would make me feel bad the next day. I had begun my booze balancing act, at the age of 18.
College was something I had intended to do from the time I was a small boy. I always knew I would have to do it on my own because it was all my Dad could do to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. But college course work took second to trying out my wings in the world. I was on my own.
And I really didn’t study much during that first year and a half of college. It was easy to slack off because learning has always come easy to me. I managed As and Bs in all my courses just by attending and listening, taking notes, and crashing the books the week before finals. At that point in my life, to me and my buddies booze and hanging out together were more important than good grades. I later changed my mind about that.
Looking back on those earliest drinking years some things seem clear to me when I think now about young drinkers.
First, Young drinkers always offer a “reason” (excuse?) for their drinking. The need to justify seems almost universal. Yet, in spite of what they may tell you, they seldom if ever start drinking for the “taste.” The fact is that I know few who actually thought that the first taste of beer was really wonderful. Beer is basically a bitter drink and taste for it, and most other forms of alcohol, is acquired. Yet I soon did come to like the taste of beer and quickly learned what brands I liked and did not like. But, even from the beginning, I think that if a Pepsi had the same alcohol in it as a beer I would have never popped the top on a can of beer. Beer was the drink that was easily available to an underage drinker. And it was cheap.
And, in spite of what they deeply believe is true, chances are about a million to one that no one “made them start drinking,” or “caused” them to drink. Yet there is a strong desire to blame their drinking on someone else, especially if it is excessive from the beginning. As you know, I blamed my drinking on my home life, and particularly on my mother who was abusive and had serious psychological issues.
But there is a truth that lies under all of these self delusions, and the attempt to delude others. The bottom line is that we start drinking for the effect that alcohol has.
So if someone tells you that they started drinking because wine tasted so good, or the bourbon was so smooth, or the scotch was so smokey on the tongue, well, I am sure that they believe that. But the truth is that if there were no buzz, they would not drink it. Likewise, if they tell you that someone or something “drove” them to drink, you know that most people deal with similar issues to theirs without pouring themselves into a bottle.
Second, whether they know it or not, they drink to escape, to change their “now.” They cannot see gratification coming soon, if ever, and they have no concept that delayed gratification can be worth the effort to wait. The pain is now. The hurt is now. The anger is now. The hatred is now. And alcohol offers a “now” solution.
Third, once they start drinking, pressure to continue drinking from drinking friends is enormous. It is not by accident that those who actually stop drinking must, to have continued success, not only give up the booze, they must give up their playmates and their playpens. It may work for a while to go back to the same old haunts and run around with the same old drinking friends, drinking Coke or Pepsi while your friends drink beer, wine and liquor, but, if you make a habit of that, you are playing with fire and you will get burned.
Fourth, as important as control of one’s life is to an alcoholic, once alcohol takes hold there is no “control” left when it comes to drinking. An alcoholic can no more control his drinking than he can control the amount of air he decides to breathe. Having one or two drinks is a foreign concept, not because the alcoholic does not want to only drink one or two in a social setting, but because s/he can’t drink only one or two.
The great desire for control can happen in other aspects of the life of a drinker. And that can go on successfully for decades. I could “control” how well I did in school, how well I did later in my career, how and where I worked, and most all other aspects of my life. But, from the first drink, while I was sure I was controlling my drinking, while I was balancing on that tightrope, the truth was I was slowly losing my balance and would eventually fall. Alcohol is patient and cunning and willing to wait for the fall.
To be continued.
Note: a number of readers who are not members of Open Salon have asked how to contact me. You can send an email to montecanfield@gmail.com.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
I’m an Alcoholic. Part One
“Hello, I’m Monte, and I’m an alcoholic. It has been 20 years since my last drink.”
On June 28, 2010 I celebrated 20 years of sobriety, one day at a time. I had forgotten the date until Sue came to me and put her arms around me and said, “Congratulations. Its your anniversary.” I dug into my billfold, and pulled out a faded old wallet card from Alcoholics Anonymous of St. Louis, signed by my beloved sponsor, Jim White. Sue was right. It has been 20 years.
Jim has since passed on and I have gotten old. Old and sober. Had I not gotten sober I have no doubt alcohol would have killed me long before now. I believe in miracles and my sobriety is a miracle.
Jim White was 70 years old and 26 years sober when he took me under his wing. So I figure that after 20 years of sobriety and at the age of 71 maybe it is time to tell my story to someone other than the friends gathered around the table at the AA meetings I have attended, and the many dear friends I have sponsored, mentored, counseled and loved who also share my addiction. It is time to share it with you.
And, with the grace of God, perhaps I might reach one or more drinkers who will find something in my story that will resonate with them, something that will tell them that their kind of drinking is far more than just an occasional social indulgence, and that will encourage them to find the strength to walk away from the closest friend they have ever known: alcohol.
I would like to set the stage for my story by talking about some of the fundamental habits of my alcoholism. There is nothing particularly unique about my alcoholism. These habits, along with a string of others I could mention, are generic and are exhibited by most alcoholics. They are the habits of addiction.
Without understanding some of the basic habits of the addictive personality it is not easy to see the "logic" that we who suffer from addiction see in our actions. That those actions are not "normal" does not occur to us until after we are "clean and sober."
I started drinking when I was 15. My home life was a mess. My mother had serious mental problems and was abusive. I was nine years older than the oldest of my four brothers and I was expected to help care for them, keep the house clean, go to school, and work a full time job, turning most of the money over to my mother. Beer took me away from all of that, if only for a few stolen hours late at night. Soon it was every night.
I never met a beer I didn’t like, and I never could have only one. In beginning I never drank anything but beer. My friends who were 18 could buy beer for me, but not liquor so it was the natural choice. In those early years I seldom had hangovers, even if I drank a couple of six packs.
Later, that would change. When I turned 21 and could buy liquor, beer stopped being the drink of choice and then came headaches, hangovers, and, toward the end, severe panic attacks and the fear of spending any time in public. It was stock up on booze, stay home and drink. Alcohol was closing in for the kill and I was an active party to my own destruction.
I didn’t notice it but very early on there were habits developing that I would carry with me for the entire time I would drink.
– Lying.
Lying is essential to the alcoholic. First you lie to yourself and tell yourself that you are not drinking too much, that you deserve to drink, and that you can stop any time you want to. Then you lie to everybody else. You say that you only had two drinks when the two drinks were six ounces of scotch each with a spritz of club soda, that you have not had a drink at all when you have been drinking vodka to cover the smell, that you are sick or tired or busy or sleepy or whatever other thing you can think of to cover your drinking.
The more and longer you drink the more you tell yourself that your lies are working, and the less they actually are. In the end you are the only one who thinks that nobody knows you are a drunk.
– Protecting the supply.
From the beginning you are hooked. It is my firm belief that no one slides into alcoholism. You are born with it. What can change is that you increase your drinking to the point where you finally realize that you have a problem, thus convincing yourself that you are “becoming” an alcoholic.
And one sure sign is that you notice how you protect the supply. If you are underage that comes naturally. It did for me because my mother would physically abuse me if she knew I drank. So I hid the supply with other boys who were older and allowed to drink. It was worth sharing a few beers with them to stash my booze with them. But mostly I needed them to buy the booze for me.
Later, as an adult I would squirrel away bottles of scotch, gin and vodka around the house, in the car, and, toward the end even at work. And if it looked like I would run out and could not get any more quickly I would literally have a panic attack. The solution to that was never to wonder whether it was normal to have a panic attack over not being able to buy liquor on Sunday. Rather it was to buy my scotch by the half gallon and stock several half gallons away from sight in the basement – my liquid savings account.
– Choosing the right friends
This is seldom at first a conscious thing. But the alcoholic will soon gravitate toward other drinkers. As time goes on you become aware how uncomfortable you are if you have to spend, say, an entire afternoon or evening with people who do not drink. You are nervous and feel trapped and you know that a couple of drinks would take the edge off. So you make excuses not to go back to their place or to functions where drinks are not served.
And, if you have to go to a place where there are no drinks served, you have three or four stiff drinks before you leave, preferably vodka, brush your teeth, use mouthwash, carry a breath spray and go. And be sure to leave early.
When I was in Washington, DC I made sure that I went to lunch with friends who had two or three drinks before eating, usually martinis, and I went to happy hour with those who had a few before going home. Those turned out to be the same people, and naturally became the ones that I spent time with on weekends, going to sporting events, parties, etc.
This, in turn, led to a justification for my own drinking: “Everybody in DC drinks. I don’t drink any more than they do.” Of course not. They were mirrors of me. So you choose the friends who share the same best friend you do: alcohol.
– Blaming your problem on something and/or someone else
When you come home at night you need a strong drink because your boss or your partner or someone with whom you interact with was a real jerk, had a stupid idea that involved you, did not like your brilliant idea, did not agree with your ideas or, in your mind, otherwise disrespected you.
And you needed a second one because your wife did not understand, or agree, or wanted you to do something you did not want to do. And two drinks were not enough to take off that edge so a third made sense, then a fourth.
When you went to a party or a reception you made sure you chose a party with an open bar. If you just went to a bar to drink with your buddies everybody was drinking and they kept telling you to have “just one more” before you leave.So how could you leave? You can’t disappoint them; after all they are your friends.
– Proving to yourself that you are not what you know you are
You don’t have to drink and you can prove it. You can stop any time you want to. And you can and you do – for a few days or a week. You can’t be an alcoholic because you have proven the old saying, “Sure, I can stop drinking. I’ve done it a hundred times.” To others it’s a joke. To you it’s proof.
If, through the fog that you don’t know you are in, you realize you are drinking too much you go through elaborate ruses to prove to yourself you don’t drink too much. “I won’t drink before I get off work.” Later, “I won’t drink before noon.” Or, I will only have three drinks.” But, you don’t say how much scotch you put in each drink. So you say, “I will only have 4 jiggers tonight”, and then you choose the biggest jigger you own. Or you say, “I will only drink beer, “ or “I will only drink wine.”
These tactics will work for a few days and you will “prove” you don’t drink too much. That lasts until some major stress comes along and you decide to have as much as you need to take the edge off, to avoid the stress, the pain, the disappointment. Then, when you finally mellow out you are drunk, and you are the last person on the planet to know that. The truth is there is always a good reason to have the next drink.
Most active alcoholics have never heard the old Japanese saying, “First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the man.” And if they do hear it they won’t believe it has anything to do with them. They won’t understand that until they hit bottom. And that can take 35 years. I know.
To be continued.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Larry Gatlin (& the Gatlin Brothers).: Tribute Post
First posted on Open Salon, JULY 1, 2010 3:35PM
Larry Gatlin has been one of my favorites for almost 40 years. He was one of the so-called “countrypolitian” singers of the 70s and 80s who helped bridge the gap between country and pop. He has 33 Top 40 hit singles on the Billboard Country Charts.
What many people ignore is that he was one of the great song writers of that generation, in any genre. He wrote songs for himself and for many other country stars, particularly for his mentor and friend, Dotty West.
His pure tenor has a bell-like quality and his inflections carry a deep sincerity that few can duplicate. Most popular male country music are baritones. There are a few tenors who are exceptions, particularly Marty Robbins in the 50s, David Houston in the 60s, and Gatlin in the 70s and 80s.
While he no longer tours much, spending most of his time with family and with his shows at his Myrtle Beach theater, he can sometimes be seen on the Gaither gospel show, singing the old Southern gospel songs that he loved as a child when he and his brothers sung in the Texas church the family attended.
He also does another type of "touring": visiting schools and churches, being interviewed on TV and radio, and using other venues to tell his story about his alcohol and drug addiction, something which he personally went through with devastating effects on his own career.
As with my other tribute posts, this one shares a few representative You Tube videos. As usual, I urge you to use good earphones, earbuds, or quality external speakers to have any real idea about the talent of the artists in this Tribute Series.
Links to my other music tributes and music posts are gathered together in the left column of this blog.
So, sit back, put the headphones on, and enjoy one of the great swing, ballad and pop oriented country singers on the last 50 years.
Monte
Ten Videos:
First, a recent interview on a Christian talk show which gives you an idea of his backgound and his thoughts on writing songs, ending with a live renditon of his hit, “All the Gold in California.”
Early recording of “Broken Lady”
An upbeat swinging “crossover” hit: “Somebody’s Baby.”
A favorite of mine that never made it big, but just listen to the truth of the words. “Midnight Choir”
A Crossover hit that features great harmony. “Sure Feels Like Love”
“Sweet Becky Walker” was an early hit. This is a later re-recording. Their voices have matured and deepened on this track.
A big hit in ’80 or ’81 right before Larry’s downward spiral with alcohol and drugs. "What Are We Doin' Lonesome?”
Upbeat Texas Swing hit: “Houston.”
Larry is a lifelong Pentacostal Christian and loves to sing gospel. Here he is singing a modern gospel tune. He is often invited to sing with the with the Gaither Gospel Choir by his old friends, Bill and Gloria Gaither. "Healing Stream”
Final Video: A huge hit that features Larry at his best. “Bitter They Are, Harder They Fall”
Research Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Gatlin
http://gatlinbrothers.musiccitynetworks.com/
http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/gatlin_larry/bio.jhtml
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0309705/bio
http://delafont.com/music_acts/larry-gatlin.htm
Friday, May 28, 2010
Memorial Day: Take Time to Remember
Bath, NY, National Cemetery
Note: This is an edited version of a post about Memorial Day that I posted here last year. It is based on a Memorial Day address I gave in 2005 at the Dover, Ohio Memorial Day observance in 2004.
Not enough people will read this or the other Memorial Day tribute posts. Most will be out enjoying a "three day holiday weekend." And I intend to do the same. But my prayer is that at some point in this weekend we will all stop, find a quiet place, and lift a prayer of gratitude for those who made the supreme sacrifice so that we can have three day weekends knowing that we still hold our liberty as one of the highest values of this nation.
Men and women have fought and died believing that they were serving a cause far greater than themselves. Some have died in wars where the enemy was clear and they knew exactly who they were fighting and why. They knew that the people of this nation declared them to be "good" wars, wars against evil. Others have fought in wars that were not worth their sacrifice.
But we must distinguish between the morality of a war, or the lack of it, and the men and women who fight believing they are doing it for us, and for our children and our children's children. And so we should honor all who gave of themselves, their blood, and, too often, their very lives. All those we honor this day.
When I was a child we called this time Decoration Day. And we used to pick flowers and carry them to the cemetery in town and lay them on the graves of soldiers from the town who were honored on that day. But the custom of honoring those who have fallen in war began long before I was a child. It began in the Southern states immediately after the Civil War when people decorated the graves of fallen Confederate soldiers.
In 1868, General John Logan, who was then commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, named May 30, the date of discharge of the last Union soldier following the Civil War, as a day to decorate the graves of Union soldiers as well. Later the graves of all soldiers, sailors, and marines were so honored regardless of what war they fought in, or whether or not they died in combat. The date was moved from May 30 to the last Monday in May several years ago.
What we need to remember now is that, for almost a century and a half, throughout this nation, we have dedicated this time to the memory of all those who have fallen in the defense of this nation, regardless of the branch of military in which they served.
And, in more recent years, we have also taken this time to remember not only those lost in battle, but also those of our own loved ones and friends who have gone from us by accident, through tragedy, or in the normal course of life.
I am sure that many of us, and others throughout this great nation, are this day are remembering the great loss of life that we suffered on September 11, 2001, and the 5000 plus American service personnel who have since lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan these last long eight years.
For longer than anyone alive can remember, we have honored our dead by celebrating this special time. Remembering is the key to Memorial Day. Memorial Day is about is remembering. We all know too well how easy it is to forget, to take for granted, or to deliberately close our minds to the hardships and sacrifices which are sometimes difficult and painful to recall.
But there are some things we must remember. For without memory, without the history and tradition of remembrance, we cannot know the price which has been paid for our freedom. Without remembrance, we cannot know the debt that we shall always owe to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for us, sacrifices made when many of us were yet unborn.
REMEMBERING. The word is so common that we sometimes forget what it means. "RE -membering" literally means to put the members back together, to gather together what has otherwise been torn apart. We can’t do that physically in this life, for we must wait for God to provide that miracle for us and for our lost loved ones and comrades who have gone before us. But, until then we can RE-member them in our minds, and most of all, in our hearts.
Remembering is what separates us from those who don’t care, from those who are so caught up in their own importance that they have no time to think of others. Remembering is what separates us from those who are sure that what they have is what they alone have earned, and who believe that they owe no debts to anyone, past or present.
We who will bow our heads in a silent prayer or simply in remembrance on Memorial Day know better. We know that we owe our liberty, our freedom, to all those who died for the right for us to live as free people in a free land.
On this day I put away my arguments about the evil done in the last Administration and the lack of seeming purpose by the present Administration to do something to set that right. There will be many future days for me to continue that fight. Today is not one of them. Today we should be more unified than we ever are, a day when there is no right or left, no Democrat or Republican, no insiders or outsiders, but only Americans. Americans remembering.
Remembering separates us from the cold and unthinking, from those who would pay no allegiance to anyone but themselves, and who would give no honor to those who died believing that the values of this nation were worth fighting for, and, if necessary, dying for.
Patriotism is a battered concept today. For too long it was defined as those who supported the regime in power. That is changing but it will take time to replace allegiance to party with allegiance to country. In too many places in this nation we argue over even what basic human values and virtues are.
This should not really surprise us. It should not surprise us -- even though it should dismay us -- that our dead are not honored as they should be.
Community Memorial Day services are not widely attended these days. We have other things to do, or, as in my case, my health will not allow me to spend that kind of time in the heat.
But that is no justification for me not to remember. I can still think about the sacrifices made. I can still say a prayer in thanksgiving for that long line of those who put their lives on the line for me and my family, even though I know not their names, no did they know mine. But I know that many of them paid the ultimate sacrifice for the ideal that we all might be free.
For the last several days, families across America have been preparing for their Memorial Day weekend. And that is fine. I have too. I doubt that any of the honored dead for whom Memorial Day was established would begrudge American families the opportunity to have some quality time together, for people to relax and enjoy themselves.
But we must not forget what this time is really about. This is a time in which we, as a community, as a nation, gather together in groups as small as a family, or a couple newly in love looking for some time to just be together. We can gather in groups small and large, and while gathered, or even while alone, remember.
On this day we pause to remember that there are essential lessons to be learned, and re-learned; lessons for young and old alike: to remember and appreciate the blessings of freedom; to recognize the enormity of the sacrifice that has been made for us, and to pay honor and respect to those who gave everything on behalf of our common good. This day reminds us of what we can achieve when we pull together as one nation, respecting each other in spite of our differences.
And this day reminds us as well of our duty to honor not only those we lost in freedom's cause, but also, through our thoughts and our actions, to remember the service men and women who came back home from our wars, and are now our veterans. It is a day to remember, as well, the families of those who lost loved ones, and the families of those lost for whom there has never been a final accounting.
We must remember as well those who are putting their lives on the line for us in far off wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, wars that we may not individually support, wars that I do not personally support. But our service men and women are there. They are in harms way. And we, you and I, are not. That too is worth remembering.
There really are answers for those who think that this time is just like any other- except that we get a "long weekend"; to those who pause not an instant in their pursuit of their personal pleasures. We say “No. You are wrong.” to those who say that there is nothing worth remembering, no one worth honoring, no country worth saving.
This is not the time to lift my grievances, or for me to complain about how so much of what this nation does in the political and economic sphere makes little sense, about all the things we write about so passionately, about all that is "wrong" with America.
This is a time when I have something more important to do; a time when we look back and remember the shoulders upon which we stand as we look forward to what we hope will be a new and brighter day for this nation. There are those who will say, "Why bother?" Its past history, isn't it?" "Its time to move on, to look to the future, isn't it?"
To them we say, perhaps we will do what you suggest tomorrow. But, for today, we say that we remember. We remember. And we are thankful. And we will never forget the sacrifices made for us. Never. We shall remember.
And we shall teach our children, and our children’s children, of the great privilege and honor of being Americans, and of the great sacrifices that have been made for us.
On this Memorial Day we will pledge to carry a simple message into the future. Our message is that there were, and that there still are, those who loved this country enough to fight and to die, if necessary, to preserve the American way of life. That, my friends, we shall never forget.
May God bless each of us and our families, and may we always remember and give thanks for sacrifices made.
Monte
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Don Williams Tribute: Happy 71st Birthday!
First published, Open Salon, MAY 27, 2010 12:15AM
Don Williams has a birthday today, May 27, 2010. For 7 months he and I will be the same age, 71. For not quite a half century now he has been singing professionally and I have been listening. It has been an easy relationship that never grows old - although I can't say the same thing for us.
Don is sometimes called "Mr. Mellow" or "The Gentle Giant" by country fans. Yet many modern country fans have never heard of him, don't know that he still performs and that he routinely sells out venues in the UK, Europe and S. Africa. Now. Today. In fact, he has always been more popular overseas than here. His US heyday was from about 1970 through 1989. But during that time he built a following that has been loyal and appreciative of his art.
Don is a Texas country boy, and was one of the founders of the Pozo-Seco Singers, a favorite but short lived folk group that I enjoyed in the 60s.
Altogether 17 of his songs have been #1 Singles on the Billboard Country charts.
Wikipedia notes "His first hit, in 1973, was "The Shelter of Your Eyes." His 1974 hit, "I Wouldn't Want to Live if You Didn't Love Me," was the first of 17 No. 1 hits on Billboard's country chart. His best two known No. 1 hits were "I Believe in You" (1980) and "Lord I Hope This Day is Good" (1982).
Some of his other big No. 1 country hits included "You're My Best Friend" and "Turn Out the Light and Love Me Tonight" (1975); "Til the Rivers all Run Dry" and "Say it Again" (1976); "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend" and "I'm Just a Country Boy" (1977); "Tulsa Time" and "It Must Be Love" (1979); "Love Me Over Again" (1980); "If Hollywood Don't Need You" (1983); "Stay Young" and "That's the Thing About Love" (1984); and "Heartbeat in the Darkness" (1986). Some big No. 2 hits of his were "She Never Knew Me" (1976); "Good Ole Boys Like Me" (1980); "Walking a Broken Heart" (1985) and "Back in My Younger Days" (1990). His No. 3 hits were "Rake and Ramblin' Man" (1978); "Lay Down Beside Me" (1979); "If I Needed You" (1981, duet with Emmylou Harris); "Listen to the Radio" and "Mistakes" (1982); and "We've Got a Good Fire Goin'" (1986)."
Married to the same woman for 50 years, the laid back country balladeer made no ripples in the "bad boy" pond that so many young male country singers who came to fame in the 60s and 70s seemed compelled to jump into. His music is as mellow as the man, and the beauty of his baritone voice has always been a joy to listen to.
Here are some of his biggest hits, and a few others that I have thrown in just because I like them. In addition to the YouTube videos I have included a Playlist that has a few songs on it that are not available on YouTube. While he has never sought to sing duets with other country artists he did have one hit with Emmylou Harris that I have included on the Playlist.
Don Williams was finally recognized for what he has always been, a giant of country music, when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame this year.
Happy Birthday, Don. Thanks for all of your wonderful music that I have been listening to since the late 60s.
You're My Best Friend
Good Ole Boys Like Me
Some Broken Hearts Never Mend
Amanda
Lord, I Hope This Day is Good
I Believe in You
Lay Down Beside Me
Gypsy Woman
Love Me Tonight
The Rose
'Til The Rivers All Run Dry
Shelter of Your Eyes
We Should Be Together
Love Me Over Against
Playlist
Relax, enjoy the smoothest male vocalist to ever hit the country scene.
Monte
Sunday, May 23, 2010
When the world presses in, to whom do we turn?
First published, Open Salon,Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Anne Cutri produced one of her best psalms today. You can read it here:
http://open.salon.com/blog/anne_cutri/2010/05/11/hold_fast_the_words_of_saint_clare_of_assisi
I commented, "Indeed, Anne. Indeed. This is one of your best. I have read it a dozen times and each time I find more meaning hidden in it. I am not sure, but I believe because it has happened to me, that at times when we are pressed the most we do our best work. We have to dig down for our best thoughts and intentions, if for no other reason than to avoid spiraling into the darkness and out of His light -- and ultimately in so doing we come close to the core that holds us together; to the values that anchor our reality. You are doing that. I am proud of you."
I have been spending a bit more time here lately, reading, not doing any original writing. And I have watched more than a few of you dear friends struggle with the burdens of life as they bear down on your shoulders. Many of you have shared those burdens, and I hope that in so doing you have found some succor in the kind comments of those of us who care enough to say that we care.
What I have noticed is that in the midst of the pain, whatever the source, most of the writers have reached down into a place in themselves where their basic values lie. The pain is a great enemy, and great enemies cannot be fought with commonplace platitudes, or shrugged off as just another headache. When it threatens to force is into a fetal position in bed, bereft of any relief, then we must fight it with our core beliefs.
Those who succeed are those who have those values in the first place, no matter how far they may have strayed from them since they learned them. They are those who have already answered the question "To whom can I turn now?" And the answer is that we turn to someone beyond the pain, someone who has mastered it and who understands it.
We turn to God, or Allah, or a higher power, the life force, the universe, the One, or, in Otto's wonderful phrase, the "Other." It matters not what we call that force, that power, that One in whom we move and have our being. What matters is that we HAVE the Other to whom we turn.
And in that turning, it seems clear to me, we do two important things.
First, we realize that the answers are not to be found in consulting ourselves. We are out of answers. If we were not, we would not make that turn. We do not do it casually. We do it because there is no where else to turn.
Second, we realize that we cannot create our own future. Like Sarah, we are now barren, beaten down, our dreams shattered. And we cannot even imagine a future for ourselves worth living. Without answers we do a wondrous thing: we admit our powerlessness. We surrender.
And, ironically, it is in the surrender that we find strength and peace. In the surrender we find the One who cares, the One who offers love and hope where we before had none.
I do not know why that works. But I know that it does. I also know that when we finally crawl out from the darkness we have pulled over our heads we may quickly forget how we got out. We may even think that "we did it ourselves."
We are vain creatures, we humans, and love to take credit for our own lives. Like Abraham and Sarah we are quick to prove that we are really in control and we forget the Promise, forget who got us out of the darkness, who gave us those values that allowed us to survive our toughest tests.
The wonder of it all is that the One will be there for us over and over as we stumble our way through life. The One will never say, "Well, I helped you before and you gave me no credit, so the next time you are on your own."
No. The One will say, "You are my beloved, my child, the love of my being, and I will always be with you, ready to hold you to my breast and stroke your hair, to let you know in your darkest nights that nothing you do can separate you from my love for you."
There is pain all around us. The imperfect world bears in on us and brings us troubles we believe are beyond the bearing. But as I watch and read and pray for you I see brighter days ahead for those who look beyond yourselves for the answers that we do not have within us.
St. Augustine wrote:
"Great art thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is thy power, and infinite is thy wisdom." And man desires to praise thee, for he is a part of thy creation; he bears his mortality about with him and carries the evidence of his sin and the proof that thou dost resist the proud. Still he desires to praise thee, this man who is only a small part of thy creation. Thou hast prompted him, that he should delight to praise thee, for thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee."
Monte
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