The old, balding carpenter looked up at me from his kneeling position, and just shook his head.  It was not an encouraging moment.

“From the back corner of the room to this wall right here, the floor drops nearly four inches!  How are we supposed to get a level surface for a bathtub to sit on?”

I had to do some fast talking to keep him on the job.  We really needed a new bathroom upstairs in that old house.  The three-quarter bath downstairs was a long way from the bedroom in the middle of the night!  Our young children needed something closer.  So did their father.  No. We had to figure out a way.

A week later, the old fellow was back on his knees laying out two-by-fours on that floor and marking them to be cut diagonally lengthwise.  As the boards were cut and returned to their respective positions, I saw that at the lowest place in the floor, they were the full three and a half inches tall.  At the other end, only seven feet away, the same boards were trimmed down to just a tiny thickness, perhaps an eight of an inch.  It looked like a cobbled up mess to me. 

I didn’t see how this would ever give us the result we needed, and said so.

“This is nuts!  I want a level floor, not these ugly wedge-shaped two-by-fours.  This is going to be awful.”

The craftsman looked up at me from his place on the floor, with a sad smile.

“You’ve got no faith in humanity, Paul.  Give me time.  You’ll see.”

I didn’t have long to wait.  Within a day, the plywood was cut to fit the room and was screwed down over those ugly, cut boards which had been firmly anchored to the old tilted floor.  I walked on it over to where my friend sat on the floor once again, this time to check the four foot long level he had brought up with him.

He allowed himself the barest of proud smiles as he pointed to the liquid filled tube in the center of the big straightedge.  Dead center, the little bubble floated in plain view.

Dead center!

Just a couple of days before, that same bubble couldn’t be seen, as it scurried to the back end of the tube when the apparatus was placed on the floor.  I had had to walk uphill to get from one end of the room to the other.  Now, no matter where he set the level, the result was the same.

Dead center.  Level.

When the tub and toilet were placed in their respective positions, the water levels proved the accuracy of the little bubble in that level.  As long as we lived in that old Victorian house, I was amazed when I remembered what was hidden just under the surface of the floor we walked upon in that room.
____________________

I had seen the email when I first sat at my desk this morning.  I just wasn’t ready to deal with the issue right then.  I guess I should have said that I had seen the emails, plural.  She had written two of them.

She wasn’t happy.

A problem with a transaction she had completed online made her whole world off kilter.  She didn’t want me to fix it, she wanted to pick up her marbles and play in a different game.  She was sure that the playing field was tilted in my favor and she wanted out!

I missed her first phone call while I was unlocking the door to my business.  For a wonder, I had actually drafted and sent a reply–a calm one–to her notes before she called again.  I had apologized for the problem and offered a solution which I was pretty sure she would accept.  But, when I pressed send on the email, I still was unsure of the outcome.

Her phone call came within minutes.  The tone of her voice told me that she wasn’t happy with my solution.  Apparently, it looked a lot like that bathroom floor had looked to me when the old carpenter started to make amends, all those years ago.  The cobbled up mess didn’t inspire trust.  I could see that I needed to complete the project–and quickly!

We talked.  I listened.  She listened.  She understood that we were going to make the playing field level again.  The marbles in the game would roll true and straight once more.  I apologized one more time and it was done.

I hung up the phone with a sigh of relief and allowed myself the barest of proud smiles.

Dead center.

I sometimes think the whole world has shifted from its axis just a bit and has become unlevel.  Children take knives and guns to school and attack people they don’t even know.  Friends shout angrily at friends as sides are chosen on issues and the distance grows between them, a gulf seemingly unspannable.  The gender gap and the generation gap widen, as does the gap between races.  Power flows from one group to another, always following the shifting landscape.

Sometimes, hope seems lost to bring the whole affair back to level.  We’ll never see the bubble in the middle of the tube again–never.

I wonder though. 

I’ve got some two-by-fours in my hands that just might level the room I’m in.  Maybe I could start here.  Perhaps, you could work on the room you’re in.  I think that we might just be able to work our way through the house, one room at a time.

You see, the great victory that old carpenter won in the old house was just one room.  One room with an unlevel floor in a house full of rooms with unlevel floors.  But he achieved that task and completed the one room.  Others since him have done the same thing, in the kitchen and the laundry room.  We don’t live there anymore, but someone may be working on one as I write this.

I’m no Atlas.  I’m pretty sure I know no one who is.  Not one of us has the power to shift the whole world at once.  But then, we weren’t called to do that, were we?

We are–every one of us–builders.  The Apostle spoke of being a master builder and that those who followed must be very careful how they build on the foundation that has already been laid down.

I want someday to be able to check my work and find it acceptable and thorough.  I trust that the level, when placed against the results of my labor, will show the craftsmanship I’m working to achieve.

How about it?  It would be really nice if, when the floor I’m working on reaches the one at which you have labored, we can put down the level to check the result together.

Dead center?

Time will tell.

“I know I ask perfection of a quite imperfect world
And I’m fool enough to think that’s what I’ll find.”
(from I Need to be in Love by The Carpenters ~ Carpenter/Bettis)

“By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it.  But each one should build with care.”
(I Corinthians 3:10 ~ NIV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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“I want to go home.” 

You’ve all heard the words.  You’ve probably said them, years ago.  Everyday, around the world, children say them to parents, to strangers, to doctors, and to policemen.  There’s something comforting about home; it’s a place where we can relax and know that we are safe.

When a child–any child–says the words, we understand and sympathize.  But the person in front of me wasn’t a child, by any standard of measure.

Miss Peggy was over ninety years old.  She had been on her own in the world for many years; a spinster lady who gave her life to serve her God.  She lived alone, but had influenced thousands of children with the Bible classes she taught for fifty years in Oklahoma and Arkansas.  Now, here she was, old and nearly blind, hard of hearing. and dependent on friends who came daily to help her through the long, dim days.

She sat in her comfortable chair and said the words.  “Paul, I want to go home.”

I knew what she was talking about, but pretended not to comprehend.

All I said was, “You are home.  This is your house.  You have your things here.”

She brushed the words aside.  “No!”  She was defiant.  “I want to go to my real home!” 

I found myself casting around for the right words, but none came.  Later, as I left, I thought to myself, “Why would anyone want to die?  I want to live!”  

I can still remember when I talked with her some weeks later about one of her friends, slightly younger than she, who had passed away.

She looked through me with her almost sightless eyes and said, almost angrily, “It wasn’t her turn!  Why does she get to go and I have to stay?”

If she hadn’t been so serious, I would have laughed.  I had a vision of school days, with a line of kids waiting to get ice cream after lunch.

“No fair!  She cut the line!  It’s not her turn, it’s mine!”

The vision faded and Miss Peggy, her head tipped a little to the side, still gazed past me and said again, wistfully, “I want to go home.”

The dear lady has been home for many years now, and I still think about her words.

Funny…I’m starting to understand her a little better.  Life here is good.  I enjoy my family immensely; I love every single occasion on which we meet.  I love my church; love my work; love the town in which I live.  But, I’m starting to realize, just a little, that there is something not quite right.

I recall the times when as a child, home was a place of comfort and shelter from a scary world, and that’s all I needed.  I reminisce about early days of marriage to the Lovely Lady and remember the satisfaction of being at home with her and later, with our children.  Home was enough; nothing else was necessary to satisfy.  It has been so for many years.

Something tells me it won’t stay that way forever.

I saw recently that the Encyclopaedia Britannica is not ever going to be offered in print again.  After 244 years in print, the reference library is now only available online.  The reality of the information age in which we live is that we want instant and up-to-the-minute facts, not outdated words on a page printed a couple of years ago.  The publisher is admitting that the beautiful sets of books which found a home on the bookshelves and in the libraries for so many years, will now have a new home, albeit a nebulous one, in cyberspace.

I couldn’t help but think as I heard the news, that we certainly live in a transitory world.  Always have, always will.  In the business arena, we’re constantly warned to be agile and light on our feet.  If we get slow and languorous, we’ll not only be out of a home, we’ll be out of existence.

All things change.

The same might be said of our entire lives.  A Greek philosopher, who lived five hundred years before Jesus, put it this way,  “Nothing endures but change.”  His words still resonate today.

I’m not sure why we don’t (or won’t) see the truth of it while we’re still young.  Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but I vividly remember wondering why the old men in church were so anxious for the Second Coming, and why they sang that old song that said, “This world is not my home.”

This world was too my home!  I wanted to live!  A long life!

Now, a few years have passed and I have more than a sneaking suspicion that they were onto something.  Somehow, as I move along, I feel a growing certainty that we’re not made to be comfortable here.

There is something, somewhere that is better and I want to point the prow of my ship in that direction.

The will to live is strong in us.  Our Creator made it so.

I’m not telling you I’m going to start sighing and wringing my hands about a better place.  This is the place that I’m intended to be right now and I am content with that.  But I’m not going to get too comfortable  here.

I think I’ll stay light on my feet and ready to move.

After all, my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the Blue…

 “…they are eager for a better land, a heavenly one…He has now prepared a city for them.”
(Hebrews 11:16)

“I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward.”
(David Livingstone~Scottish missionary~1813-1874)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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A battle may be raging tonight.

No, it’s not a gun fight in Afghanistan, although that may be happening as I write this.  It’s not the earth-shattering resumption of the Cold War in parts of the old Soviet Union.  Those battles are unlikely to require my participation; the combatants there hardly need my hat to be thrown into the ring.  They will do what they will without the benefit of my contribution.

The battle of which I speak would seem small, with no guns and no physical violence, yet there is the opportunity for a lifetime of repercussions–little land mines planted here and there now which will take their toll for many years to come.  At its ending, friends may still speak, but the booby-traps will spring when least expected, starting with a memory of harsh words, and growing into the sudden suspicion that perhaps criticisms meant for a group in general were aimed at one person in particular.

I read the words last night and wondered where they would lead.

A friend is unhappy with the outcome of a local municipal decision and is exercising his right to speak out.  I disagree with his conclusion, but I will not deny him the right to speak his mind.  For a few moments last night I even considered offering my opinion on the matter.

That was before.

Before I remembered the horror of battle.  Before I saw those faces in my mind again, astonishment and pain written on them as they were decimated by the fury of my attack.  Before the thoughts of relationships lost in the dim past hit me like an armored personnel carrier.

Just as my decision to forgo the flight to Russia to offer my two cents’ worth, I have decided to refuse to enter this fray as well.

I am an opinionated and argumentative person.  I come by those attributes honestly.  First, I am a member of the human race, a true son of Adam–a man who had the gall to argue with his Creator, blaming Him indirectly for the original sin (“The woman You gave me…”).  I’ve told you before that the red-headed lady who raised me suggested that I would argue with a fence-post.  Truth be told, I learned a lot of it from her, but we’ll move on from there quickly, shall we?

When I argue, I am not interested in solutions, only in obliterating my opponent.  When I am challenged, I feel the need, like an old fashioned prize fighter, to pull my shirt over my head and head for the ring to settle this right here and right now.

I have shouted; I have yelled; I have slammed my fists on the table.  I have lost friends.  I have lost the respect of people who thought once that I was worthy of it.  All because I was ready to fight for what I believed.

No.  I will keep my hat on my head.  Better than that, I’ll keep my shirt on too. 

Fully clothed, I’ll stand before you.  I don’t want to argue about cars or sports.  I will keep mum about politics and Hollywood.  The list stretches on, but I’ll not be sucked in.

The shirt and the hat stay on.

For all of the arguments in which I’ve ever participated, I can’t remember the rationale for starting any one of them.  Those oh-so-important subjects are lost in the dim mists of the past, many of them made moot by the years.  They loomed bigger than life in my mind when the discussion began.  Today, on the scale of importance, they rate only slightly higher than zero.

Can I tell you what towers over them, right up near the top of that same scale?

Relationships with people.

Sometimes, it’s people who disagree with me and who want to argue all the issues.  It’s also people who need to be loved and couldn’t care less where I stand on those issues.  I don’t want to end a single one of these relationships because of the fickle winds of opinions and issues that have been blowing since the dawn of time and will be blustering long after I depart from this world.

Not a single one.

I’m wondering these days if my change in attitude is only because I’m getting old and tired.  I admit it.  I’m old and tired.  But, it’s more than that.

The years have taught me that there are more important things than these temporal trappings we see all around us.  We can invest our lives in fighting for the things.  Or–we can invest our lives in people.  The things are here today and gone tomorrow, swallowed up by time and progress.

People?  Not so much.

I’ve been doing a little genealogical searching for my ancestors recently.  With every discovery I make about where I come from, one thing has become clear.

The things we do today have a profound impact on future generations.  Choices we make lightly now will alter, forever, the shape of our family tree.  The same is true of the conversations and interactions we have with people in this world, whether family, friends, or perfect strangers.

Every argument, every shouting match, every curse word uttered will alter the course of the future and have far reaching effects which we cannot foresee.  There are no exceptions.

Mrs. Olsen had the right idea when she taught us that little song, way back in Sunday School, didn’t she? 

“Oh be careful little mouth what you say.”

The shirt stays on.

“People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument.”
(Will Rogers ~ American cowboy/humorist ~ 1879-1935)

“So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.  How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!”
(James 3:5 ~ ESV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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I dislike reality television.

There.  I said it.  You can take your loggers and your duck callers; keep your stranded-on-the-desert-islanders; you may even hold onto your bachelors, dancers, and voices.  I don’t care for reality television.  It’s a little too fake for me.  Now, there’s an oxymoron for you–fake reality television.

Except…

Well, I do have soft spot in my heart (the Lovely Lady suspects it’s actually in my head) for the collectors.  The junk buyers and the pawn shop owners–even the road show antiquers.  I like to see what people collect.  I love it when someone has unsuspectingly put together a collection of valuable objects over the years, and finds that it is worth a fortune.

“Oh.  I don’t know.  I just picked them up here and there.  You know–just found them and had to save them.”

I live in hopes that the pickers will one day walk in my music store and find junk on my back room shelves worth thousands of dollars.  I suspect that they would find little to pique their interest.

I did come to a realization the other day.  I have put together a collection of sorts.  It could actually be worth a bit of money, if I could only cash in on it.

The old fellow brought in his guitar one afternoon earlier this week.

“It just buzzes and sounds horrible.  I’ve had it for years but it’s never sounded like this before.”  Almost, it seems to me, he is like the child who has just broken his favorite toy and is begging his mother to fix it for him.  Almost.

I have never learned the art of the build-up.  I cannot spend the time looking over the instrument, pursing my lips and wrinkling my forehead as I try to cipher out the issue.  I have no patience with shop owners who act the part and ask the customer to leave the instrument for a few days.  There is more money to be made by doing that, I will grant you that.  But, it is not my way.

No.  I speak three words and head for my work bench.

“Just a minute.”

A few turns of an Allen wrench later, and a quick retuning of the strings and I carry the instrument back to the customer.

“Play it now.  See what you think.”

The man looks at me with suspicion.  What kind of fool does this shop owner think he is?  The guitar was useless a moment ago–surely it will be useless still.  I motion him on over to the stool sitting nearby and he sits gingerly on the edge of the plastic padding.  Strumming a chord tentatively, he frowns.  He shifts back on the stool and, pulling the guitar up onto his lap, tries again.  A few more chords, followed by an arpeggio or two, and then a full blown riff.

He looks up at me with a grin spread across his face and exclaims, “I don’t know how you did that, but it’s perfect!”

Somehow, I knew it would be.

It’s not that I’m prideful or want to boast of my abilities.  I have no reason to do so.  It’s just that I’ve seen this scenario played out countless times before in almost the identical way.  It’s not always a guitar; sometimes it’s a clarinet, or a trumpet, or even a banjo.

You see I collect specialized knowledge.  I have done for many years–as many years as I’ve worked in the music business.  When the customer before me asks how I know what to do to make his guitar play right, and he almost certainly will, I’ll tell him the truth.

“Oh.  I don’t know.  I just picked it up here and there.”

The Lovely Lady has seen this act before.  We have discussed the need for me to parley this collection into a steady income, but I have no flair for delaying tactics, no driving need to capitalize on knowledge which has been shared with me freely.  I may have to modify that over the next few years.  Retirement looms on the horizon.

We are a species of collectors.  All of us.  We are especially adept at picking up and collecting knowledge.  But, we also love to collect things. If we want to be successful in collecting, to make the process profitable, there are a few things we need to remember.

Look for opportunities to add to our collections. 

I have always been happy to add a new technique to my collection of instrument knowledge.  The doll collectors are always looking on the shelves of the flea markets for collectible bargains.  The adrenalin nuts are always seeking new adventures and challenges.  Be ready to snag that next treasure.

Beware of the fakes and clunkers. 

I can’t remember how many times the folks on the shows have been disappointed by items passed off by charlatans as genuine, when in fact, they are simply designed to take people in.  There is no value in such items–with the exception of the cautionary lessons learned.  Early on in my own process of collecting repair techniques, I learned the hard way that you don’t want to over tighten the truss rod in a guitar neck with that handy Allen wrench.  Let’s just say that guitar necks can be expensive to replace, and leave it at that.  Collect things of value, but reject the worthless imposters.

And, one note of caution.  Know when to say when. 

There is a fine line between being a collector and a hoarder.  Don’t fill your house up with plastic Walmart bags or beanie babies.  It is true for knowledge collectors as well.  I know some people who do nothing but memorize information and spout it to their friends and acquaintances.  They are not in high demand at social functions.  No one really needs to know the distance between the guitar fingerboard and the top of a jumbo fret as opposed to a micro-fret, nor is it important to remember and share the information that the common mosquito is actually a member of the nematocerid fly family.

I assume that, by now, the reader is aware I am speaking of deeper matters as much as of the everyday collecting we do.  We are, without exception, products of our environments. That means that we will collect the things in which we immerse ourselves.  I spend most of my time with musical instruments and thus, cannot avoid acquiring knowledge of the same.

But what about all the other hours I spend immersed in different activities?  What am I collecting then?  

I wonder what the museum room of my mind really looks like to the Keeper of all Knowledge.  What kinds of valuable things have I collected over the years of my life?  What have I hoarded that I need to pare down?  What kind of garbage have I filled up usable space with?

I’m still struggling with the price structure of items from my vocational collection.  The old joke about the  fellow who repaired the lady’s automobile with just a turn of a screwdriver comes to mind.  When she got the bill for $110, she suggested that it wasn’t fair to be charged that amount just for him turning a screw.  The reply came from the mechanic.

“Oh, I only charged ten dollars for turning the screw.  Knowing which screw to turn?  That costs you a hundred dollars!”

I’ll get that sorted out one of these days.  Still, I’m wondering.

Is the rest of my collection actually worth anything? 

Time will tell.

“You can keep a piece of candy in its wrapper for up to twenty years.  After that, it turns into a hideous black goo.”
(Darlene Lacey ~ Curator, Candy Wrapper Museum)

“…where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
(Matthew 6:21)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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Our house guests have created havoc in my life.  Well yes, in my home too.  More than that, though, my spirit is full of noise and activity, to say nothing of the accumulation of snuggles and glorious smiles.

They came in like a tornado, all noise and motion.  I am speculating that they will leave in much the same manner.  I will readily admit that the walls of my comfortable existence have been shoved a little out of kilter in the process.

Kids.  They have three of them.  As I understand the unofficial rulebook, since they are not my grandchildren I am not required to love or even to like them.

I do anyway.

Who could resist that gorgeous smile from the little sweetie as she peeks out from her hiding place beside my recliner, or the lit-up face of the all-boy artist as he shows off the glowing picture of the dolphin he has just created on the old-school Light Bright?

Yet, in the midst of my enjoyment (and exhaustion), I suddenly realize that these small people are not just children learning and growing and enjoying life.  I have become aware that they are teachers, opening the door to lessons I should have learned ages ago, but have lost in my single-minded focus on making ends meet and racing into old age.

The  boy, with his creation of plastic and light, shoves his way to the front of the classroom to drive home the point.  His completed art project is destined for destruction, but not tonight.  His sisters want to remove the pegs and begin a different picture, but he is adamant.

“I built this.”  This is said as he crosses his arms and prepares to take on all comers.

In his mind, it is all the explanation needed.  I understand perfectly and I concur.  I have actually been considering this very thing for awhile now.  

Just a couple of days ago, I helped the Lovely Lady straighten up the house after the grandchildren had been for a visit.  They do their share of creating havoc, too.

Off and on, a favorite toy of the kids has been a ziploc bag full of plastic geometric shapes which hook together and form whatever object that child’s mind imagines they resemble.  Bicycles, airplanes,  guns–if their fertile genius can visualize it, that is what the shapes become.

On this day, one of the little girls had left her creations lying intact on the corner of the dining room table.  I picked them up, knowing that they were destined to become flat one-dimensional pieces of plastic momentarily.  All I had to do was to disconnect the pieces from each other, nothing more.

In my mind, I heard the little cutie’s voice naming off the objects she saw in the little plastic projects.

“Look, Grandpa.  I made an airplane!  And, this one’s a car!”  They were exact replications of the original–in her imagination.

I stood there, with the unrecognizable objects in my hand, and could hardly bring myself to take them apart.  She built them.  They represented her talents, her efforts.

They were a part of who she is, a product of her labor.  How do you destroy that?

Foolishness!  Take the silly things apart and get done already!  I hear the voices in my head, but still–just for a moment–I hesitate.

A couple of months ago, against my better judgment, I placed a little antique table near a window in our living room.  The Lovely Lady wanted it there.  It is the same table we placed in her mother’s room at the nursing facility a couple of years before she passed away.  It is sitting in the living room to be used for the same purpose it served for my mother-in-law.

Every few days, a cardboard box is placed at the edge of the table and the Lovely Lady stirs her hand around the contents inside.  One by one, little pieces of thick glued paper are pulled out, first the ones with one flat edge.  These are hooked together to form an outside perimeter for what will eventually become a beautiful picture.  After that is complete, hours (and I mean literally, hours) are spent in searching for pieces which have tabs and sockets that fit together to form the balance of the picture.

Puzzles!  I detest them!

I have for years.  I never could quite put my finger on the reason.  Until I stood in the dining room the other day with the little girl’s creation in my hands.

Now I know.  I hate to take apart something which is the product of someone’s labor.  When it is taken apart, there is nothing left to show that the thing was ever done.

Nothing.

Hours spent in fruitless labor, the only evidence of the deed, the movement of the clock, the passing of time.  The work complete, the laborers do the only thing that can reasonably be done with the product of their efforts–tear the puzzle apart and start another.

I want to leave evidence of having been here.

I want to make a difference in the world I leave behind.

I wonder.  Am I just building puzzles?  Am I leaving behind unrecognizable geometric shapes that will be flattened within moments of my departure?  Is all of this just a Light Bright creation, destined to be dismantled the instant I am not here to protect my work with my arms crossed and eyebrows threatening?

I want to be a builder, a craftsman.  I desire to leave a legacy for future generations to see and from which to learn.  It will take careful selection of materials.  It may even take a calculated plan of action.  No more throwing these frantic ideas from my helter-skelter brain on the page and expecting a masterpiece.

The all-boy artist in my house tonight told his parents the other evening that he was sure of what he would be doing the next day because he already had a road map in his head.

I want that, too.

I wonder if I will be able to ascertain the route that the Master Cartographer has already placed there.

I guess I may have to work on my navigational skills, too.

This is one road I don’t want to miss.  You coming along too?

“The Christian shoemaker does his duty, not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”
(Martin Luther ~ German theologian/reformer ~ 1483-1546)

“‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.'”
(Acts 7:3 ~ NIV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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“We’ll take it!  You’ll deliver, won’t you?” 

The heavy-set, unkempt man in front of me was not cut from the same cloth as most of my other customers.  He was what some might call local color, wearing his dirty overalls, one strap unhooked and hanging behind him.  The long, bushy beard looked wild and the dirty matted hair, even wilder.  Nevertheless, he reached into his pocket to bring out a handful of cash and paid the price for the old upright piano.

It was a good instrument, but was showing clear evidence of its seventy years of use.  We had done everything we could to make it function properly, but the darkened, almost black finish would never polish up.  His wife and daughter hung back nearby, and it was clear from her demeanor that the girl was to be the principal beneficiary of the purchase.

The teenage girl was, like her father, heavier than average, but she was also a little backward.  I asked her if she was taking lessons and she looked nervously to her father for help with the answer.  It was the same with every subsequent question I directed to her.  After a few unsuccessful attempts at conversation, I realized that I was making her uncomfortable and I turned my attention back to her dad and the task of concluding last minute arrangements.

On the day of the delivery, my piano-moving companion arrived and the trailer was loaded quickly and efficiently.  We had done this many times before, so nothing was going to catch us napping, or so we thought.  The first 15 miles of our journey passed uneventfully, but then we left the pavement of the state highway for the gravel road.  Still no problem.  Then, following the instructions I’d been given, we turned again into a dirt lane, along which we traveled for several miles.

We soon realized that we were driving through what we commonly call the boonies.  Of course, that word comes from the more common boondocks, which our military brought home from the Philippines in the early 20th century.   The word bundok, from a common Philippine dialect, means simply mountain, and came to signify any place away from civilization and hard to get to.  (Yeah, only a word-nerd would care.)

Wherever the word came from, we were in it.  The foothills of the Ozarks have many such places, but we seldom deliver pianos to them.

We passed old, tumbledown shacks with porches piled high with debris and multitudes of dogs piling out from under them to bark and snarl at us as we swept by, the dirt swirling up behind us.  The one or two individuals we saw didn’t seem as friendly as the country folk we’re used to when out in most of the more traveled areas.  There were no raised hands in friendly greeting, and no smiles in response to ours.

My faithful sidekick muttered from his side of the truck, “Deliverance! It’s just like in that movie.  What have you gotten us into?”  

Thankfully, following our homemade map, we reached the entrance to the driveway between the fence posts, as it was described to us, and we turned in.

“Just follow the driveway up to the house,” the man had said, so we followed the winding course of the driveway, actually no more than a couple of ruts through the field.  It wound around the edge of the hillside and all we saw before us was a couple of decrepit, tumbledown chicken houses.

“Surely this can’t be right!”  I exclaimed to my helper, who just shook his head. 

But, we followed the drive as instructed and were steered right up to a small tin building stuck between the two long-abandoned chicken houses.  This was obviously the shed where the poultry had been processed over the years, where sick animals would have been treated and feed might have been stored.

There was a car parked in front, so we pulled up and went to the door.  The man greeted us from inside and showed us where we were to place the piano.  A look around made it obvious that the family was indeed in residence there, although I had never before seen such accommodations.

The shed had a few bare light bulbs strung up on extension cords inside its one-room interior.  There was a wood stove for heat and an ancient, filthy refrigerator, along with an electric hot plate to cook on.  Other than that and a couple of beds in opposite corners, there was nothing but junk in the tiny dark hovel.  The piano was quickly taken off the trailer and moved into the designated location and we prepared to leave, still reeling from the conditions that we had observed.

We were amazed as the gentleman bid us goodbye, just as jovial and pleased to be the new owner of that piano, as if it were the finest grand and we had just placed it into a well-appointed drawing room in his mansion on the hillside.

My companion and I were relieved to be out of the area and back onto the highway within minutes, but still, we couldn’t get over what we had just witnessed.  But, as seems to be common with unusual events such as this, as soon as we arrived back at our pleasant comfortable homes, the plight of this family was all but forgotten, except when I related the tale to a few friends who expressed complete disbelief.

I didn’t think much about it again, until one afternoon about two years later when the Lovely Lady returned home from a high school music contest, which she had been asked to judge.  Because of her years as a piano teacher, she, along with a couple of other knowledgeable educators had rated the pianists entered in the contest.  The contestants had played their prepared pieces on the Steinway grand piano at the local performing arts center; for most of them, it was the first time they had even sat at a grand piano.

The Lovely Lady told me about one girl in particular, a heavy-set young lady, dressed unfashionably, who was reticent in her responses to the judge’s questions about her teacher and the piece she had selected.  She sat at the piano, obviously in awe of such a fine instrument.  It took a few moments for her nervousness to pass, so she could proceed.

Then, she began to play.  Almost it seemed as if she was no longer in the room with the judges.  Her playing was confident, the timing impeccable.  She executed the piece with feeling, starting quietly and soaring to a climax of emotion with great musicality, then back down again as the passion of the music ebbed, concluding the performance with beautiful chords and quiet melodies and counter-melodies spiraling down into silence.

As it was related to me by the Lovely Lady, it was not the best performance they heard that day, nor was it perfect, but without question, it was worthy of an excellent rating.

The performance was also a great surprise to those present who had been inclined to expect much less from the backward young lady.

Yes, it was indeed that young girl who lived in the chicken house, learning to play on a rebuilt seventy year-old clunker of a piano.

In the midst of poverty and lack, accomplishment reared it’s lovely head.

I am still learning that appearances can be deceiving, and presumption is a dangerous path to follow, but this one was a real wake up call, almost a shift in paradigms (if I may use that trendy, trite term).  I have delivered beautiful pianos to astounding homes, the buyers only interested in the integrity of their decor, with no interest whatsoever in the quality of the sound or the touch of the keyboard.  I have left homes, having delivered the piano, only to be followed out the door by the whining tone of children asking why their parents bought that stupid thing.   

But, I’m fairly certain that I have never delivered a more important instrument to a more important customer.

I have no idea what she has done with her talent and skill since then.  Simply to know that this young lady had in two short years developed the joy and confidence that she displayed on that afternoon inspires and motivates me to believe that no one, regardless of their environment or financial condition, is beyond hope or expectation of great things.

I pray that it is never otherwise.

“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality.  All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.”  (Niccolo Machiavelli~Italian writer and statesman~1469-1527)










© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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“Just say it!”

The scruffy boys clustered around the little towhead couldn’t bear to watch the little guy writhing in pain, so they urged him to take the only way out.  Just one word and it would all be over.

He bit his lip and stubbornly shook his head.

“Never!”

It was a stalemate.  The dark haired aggressor clearly had the upper hand, since he had the smaller boy’s arm twisted behind his back in what is known as a hammerlock.  The higher the arm was pushed toward the shoulder, the more the level of pain intensified.  The stronger of the two, he was certain that the scuffle would soon be over.  Domination was certain.  Victory was his!

But no.  The obvious loser refused to submit.  The word would never cross his lips.  He prepared for one last, desperate move.
____________________

As I relive the event in my memory, it occurs to me that the reader might wonder why a man of advancing years (I will readily admit to it) is concerned at all with a common school yard tussle which happened nearly fifty years ago.  I almost wonder myself.

I have mentioned before that my mind doesn’t always heed its master.  It goes where it wants with increasing frequency these days.  Perhaps my admission in my most recent post, of giving up control, is to blame.  I do tend to mull things over a bit, after the words have been written in black and white for the world to see.

I think though, that it was more likely the conversation I had with an old acquaintance this morning.  I’ve known the man for thirty years, having done business with him and his father too, when the old gentleman was living.  My friend is retired now, although he is not many years older than I.  His words are tumbling around in my head, along with my own from earlier.

“When I left the workplace, I guess I withdrew from life.  I don’t have much to get excited about anymore.  It’s just me and my wife and we’ve got nothing to talk about, since we do the same things together from daylight to dark.”

As he went out the door to go home, he assured me that his discussion with me would be the high point of this day for him.  Poor fellow.

For all the words he said, I really hear just one.  The little towhead refused to say the word, but this sixty-year old man is living it everyday.  

As I headed out for a run tonight, my thoughts ran along with me.

photo: Nicholas A Tonelli

The stars shone brightly up in the sky above me as I left the house, their brilliance shining through even the annoying glare of the streetlights that I moved under and past.  I looked at them up in the sky and  suddenly realized that those were the very stars which were shining when I was a boy.

The very ones.  Fifty years is nothing to them.  Fifty years of being stared at.  Fifty years of having projectiles flung from this little sphere of dirt and water up into what we call outer space.  Not one of those projectiles has ever come close to touching a single one of those stars.  Not one has dimmed their brilliance a single lumen.  Since I was a boy–since my father was a boy–since my father’s father was a boy…

The very same stars are shining brightly in the sky.

I will admit to talking to myself frequently, but tonight I talked to the stars for a minute.  Just for a minute.

They were brightest as I ran through the cemetery.  Looking up, I actually said the words out loud.

“Are you still there?”

There was mute silence, but their brilliance shouted in the quiet.  I didn’t hear an answer, but I had it anyway.  I wasn’t done quite yet.  Two words.  That’s all it took to finish my conversation.

“Me too.”
____________________

The little towhead had seen the luchadores, the Mexican wrestlers, on the black and white television set at his neighbor’s house.  He remembered seeing them caught in the hold that his opponent now had on him.  It was a submission hold that few escaped.  But once–just once, he had seen it done.

Reaching back to grab the other kid’s head for support, he lifted both his legs and, holding his weight with the hand on the boy’s head, he shoved against the tree that was just in front of his body.  When the luchadore had done it, he had flipped up and over the other wrestler’s back, pulling him into the same hammerlock.  Of course, the wrestling moves on television depended on the cooperation of both wrestlers, one helping the other as they performed their spectacular gymnastics, but the boy didn’t know that.

What actually ensued is that the boy who appeared beaten simply knocked the other boy down backwards, landing with his full weight on top of him.  The tables were turned as the surprised boy on the bottom of the heap, bruised and in pain, begged to be allowed up.

The towhead, himself surprised by the turn of events, shouted out instantly, “Say it!”

The other little boy, all the fight knocked out of him along with his breath, gasped out the word that his conqueror had refused to utter only moments before.

“Uncle!”
____________________

I know too many who have already said the word.  I’ve seen them waiting for time to pass.  The things that life has thrown at them have dimmed their brilliance.  The submission hold that trials have put them in has them on the ropes, and the towel of surrender has been thrown over those ropes into the ring.

I wonder, if we fall–no, when we fall–I wonder… Could we just roll over and look up?  They’re still up there, aren’t they?  The same stars that shone brightly way back when–back when nothing was going to stand in our way.  Those very stars that shone as we made plans and laid the groundwork for conquering our world.

Our Creator put them up in the sky, along with the other lights.  I’m wondering if we’ve forgotten that He also made us to shine like stars in the universe.

They’re still shining, aren’t they?

Me too.

And, I still won’t say that word.

“…So that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.  Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.”
(Philippians 2:15 ~ NIV)

“Being defeated is often a temporary condition.  Giving up is what makes it permanent.”
(Marilyn vos Savant ~ American magazine columnist)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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