Month: August 2016

“Unnatural Changes”

lane

“Unnatural Changes”

I worked for a company back in the 70’s building luxury condominiums in a factory. We would build the floor sections and push them down the track. Then set the prefab walls on them and push them down the track again. Next, we put all of the appliances in and push again, fabricate the roof and so on. When they came out of the building, they were finished. I was in charge of a large number of workers. The assembly line was long and spread out. I had so many people working up and down the line that I couldn’t keep track of them. Well, it was easy to congregate, hide and talk. A lot of the people were young and inexperienced and the job didn’t pay a lot. But, production had to be kept up. I couldn’t see them all and this made it difficult. My brother Charlie was a welder in the jigs and fixture department, so I had him build me an office on a 12 foot tower. Problem solved, I could now see over my whole department. I now had an overview. This didn’t set well with my workers, but it sure kept production up. I knew what natural production should look like, so I always looked for unnatural things that slowed down production. There were always those few people that brought unnatural changes in. My job as an overseer, was to have the know-how to build and keep production up. Unnatural changes can damage a business, a family or a nation. Continue reading ““Unnatural Changes””

“A Boat or An Ark”

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     “A Boat or an Ark”

When I was young, my brothers and I loved boats. We liked riding in them, looking at them and fishing from them. Of course we couldn’t afford one, so we built some. We made one out of an old suitcase, put it in the 4’ fish pond and it sunk. Than we made one out of 1×4 pine flooring, put it in Gunnerson creek and it sunk. We helped our Daddy some, building a houseboat, and it sunk. Continue reading ““A Boat or An Ark””

“Either-Or”

 

banjos

“Either – Or”

 

While sitting on the couch, I glanced over at my two banjo’s sitting side by side on one of our recliners. I keep them in plain sight so that I will remember to practice. I can see them from anywhere in the room. One of them has flower inlays on the neck, While the other has the tree of life inlays all the way up the neck. They are both beautiful but different. The one with the flowers is tuned in a G tuning, while the other one is tuned in Double C tuning. The reason they are tuned differently is because playing Old Time Mountain style banjo you are limited to the amount of lead notes you can play. So, the banjo is tuned in the tuning where you can play those certain notes. For instance the old tune Cherokee Shuffle, is played in the G tuning. I had taught the folks in our music jam to play it this way. While I was gone, a man came along and taught them to play it in the key of D, The problem is that some of the lead notes are just not there. The tune now sounds nothing like The Cherokee Shuffle. The tune could be played on most all of the other instruments, but not the clawhammer banjo. Everyone was having a great time playing the tune, while I just sat there quietly. When playing in public, someone might ask me to play a certain tune, I choose the banjo that is tuned in the only tuning that can play the tune correctly. I kid people sometimes and say, let me change banjos because that song is not in this banjo. Continue reading ““Either-Or””

“Change”

 

sign

“Change”

My wife and I lived in a small mountain farmhouse. The windows in the den were high and we had to stand on tiptoes to see out. The rooms were small. The bedroom was eleven feet long by eleven feet wide, after putting a chest of drawers in, we had to turn sideways to get in the bed. At first that was fine, but after a while that got a little old. Something had to change. Things that need to change, seem to have a buildup period before any change can take place. Well, we decided to build a new house with more room. It seems we have to get tired of the way things are before the ground is fertile enough for change to take place. There is preparation before change is wanted. Sometimes I will work so hard that I will change clothes twice a day. How do I know that I need to change? When I am soaking wet with sweat and stink. At times we have to get very uncomfortable before we want change. When I was a little boy Mama would tell us boys to come in and clean up. We would say, but I’m not dirty. We were not uncomfortable, but she was. She was teaching us to recognize uncomfortable, on our end and others. Is it possible to make someone uncomfortable, by what I look like or am doing? Continue reading ““Change””

“Pages”

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“Pages”

A turning

Our world is full of books, with a lot of pages. Many of us love to read, page by page. Some read fast and some read slow.  Some read slow when they should read fast and some read fast when they should read slow. Some read fiction and some read true stories. Some read fiction that seems it could be true. Than some read truth that sounds like fiction. Fiction should be all fiction and truth should be all truth. Some read fiction and believe it as truth and some read truth and believe it is fiction. If I read fiction, it had better be pure fiction, so I don’t mix it up with truth. Continue reading ““Pages””

“Calling in the Slaves”

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“Calling in the Slaves”

 

After all these years I still have a vivid picture within myself, of 1963 slavery. I was driving through the middle of a prominent state. Most of that area is flat land as far as you could see. I looked to my right and could see a group of people, horses and wagons all in single file. They were young, middle aged, white haired old folks, women and children. They were bringing in the cotton after a hard day’s work. This may sound like a story back in the eighteen hundreds, but it wasn’t. We were visiting some relatives there. As we drove down through the old town area there were many black people sitting out front of the company store. They worked all day for the farm owner and shopped in the farm owner’s store in the evening. I know they were not called slaves in that day, but it sure had the characteristics of it. I wondered what it would be like to be a slave. I would soon find out. Continue reading ““Calling in the Slaves””