High School and the Meaning of Life

 

The fortieth anniversary of my high school graduation is coming up this month, so I’ve been feeling nostalgic for 1982. The pictures posted above were taken in my parents’ backyard in June 1982, a few weeks after I graduated from high school, and more recently at a store in Draper, UT. I like the juxtaposition of the two photos – same person, same pose, same attitude, forty-year difference. That’s my 1971 Dodge Charger I’m leaning against in the photo from ‘82. Spring 1982 was a good time in my life. Not only was I anticipating graduating from high school, I had the general expectation of great things just over the horizon that only a seventeen-year-old can feel so defiantly and yet be so oblivious of what life might really hold in store.

 

One memory in particular stands out. I had a P.E. class from Coach Mecham, the wrestling coach at Wasatch High School. Mecham was a fairly young guy, mustached, in his late twenties, originally a farm boy from Montana. He had that compact wrestler’s build and was friendly to a point, but you knew you didn’t give Coach Mecham crap. I didn’t think Mecham liked me very much because I had quit the wrestling team the previous year. At the time I quit the team I was recovering from a severe bout of the flu and trying to juggle academics with a job bagging groceries at Days’ Market after school. Something had to give, and wrestling was what gave. I wasn’t very good at it anyway.

 

Coach Mecham let us have a class baseball tournament the last month of school. He divided us into teams, and we agreed that the losers had to buy the winners milkshakes at JoAnn’s, a restaurant near the high school. JoAnn’s was home to an eight-foot-tall fiberglass statue of a chicken that stood in front of the place. That chicken would play a pivotal role on the night of our high school graduation, which is a story for another time.

 

We spent the last few weeks of our senior year playing baseball during PE class. My specialty was hitting the ball as hard as I could and running like hell to first base. If anyone stood in front of the base, I was just as likely to knock him over as try to get around him. What I lacked in finesse I made up for in brutishness. It worked; I usually got a base hit, even if I didn’t score. What can I say? We were a bunch of lower to middle class seventeen and eighteen-year-old boys growing up in a small town in Utah where education wasn’t a high priority, but sports were. I remember in one of the games I was up at bat and the guy playing shortstop on the other team started to talk trash. I believe the words he used were “easy out.” I hit the ball straight at his head, probably not intentionally, and he had to duck in order to not get hit in the face. Coach Mecham, who was umping the game, admiringly said “Nice hit.” I felt pretty good about that.

 

What makes me nostalgic about the whole experience is that not only was it a lot of fun, but it was also emblematic of a whole different era in education, one that is probably long gone. Nobody walked away angry about the results of the tournament. Somebody had to win, and somebody had to lose; that was life. As I recall I was on the losing team and I gladly drove to JoAnn’s to buy one of my friends on the opposing team a milkshake, during school time of course. Coach Mecham probably didn’t expend a lot of energy in planning the tournament – I’d bet he doesn’t even remember it – but here I am forty years later thinking about it. As a teacher I look back on that time and wonder if anyone will feel nostalgic about being in my class.

 

I wrote earlier that education – at least in academic areas – wasn’t our highest priority in May 1982. Like most high school seniors, we had other things on our minds. One of my friends lost his mother that spring, and another good friend was learning to adjust to life in a wheelchair. We didn’t go to the best school (by modern standards), but then some of us weren’t the best students, either. We did have some teachers who gave a damn, and who persevered despite the lack of money and other resources.

 

Looking back, the majority of us who went to school together in that era are successful. There are teachers, doctors, nurses, artists, attorneys, and newscasters among us. We didn’t have laws like No Child Left Behind to force somebody else’s version of success on us, nor did we have a bunch of right-wing politicians dictating what was appropriate for us to learn and what wasn’t; we discovered success for ourselves, and we actually learned American history, warts and all. I kind of miss that, and I hope my daughters are finding success without some fascist politician or educational bureaucrat defining what success – or failure – is for them.

Lessons I've Learned The Hard Way ...

 

The strongest fences in our lives are the ones we build ourselves. 

Not to get all pretentious here, but I’ve had a lot of interesting experiences over the last ten years, and I want to share some principles that guide my life I’ve learned from those experiences. There is also a story behind every statement. I may even share those stories sometime …

1. Sometimes we don’t see our personal prison until we’re out of it. Comfort zones aren’t always helpful, especially when they keep us from progressing. Relationships, careers, or where we live can all be barriers to being a better person.
2. Find someone you can love wholeheartedly, passionately, and without fear of rejection. Love someone who loves you for who you are now, but makes you want to be a better person. Love and be loved unconditionally. If you already have that someone, hang onto them for dear life.
3. Like what you do, but realize a career doesn't define you as a person. If you don’t love everything about your life now, find at least one thing you can love - exercise, a hobby, the arts, whatever it is that helps you transcend drudgery for a while. Life is too short to never find anything that makes you truly happy. I like teaching, but I don’t love the politics that go along with it. I’m lucky to be in a place now where I'm happy and engaged with my work, but there are many other things that make my life good as well.
4. Appreciate beauty. This is a lot of good in this world. Recognize the ugliness and change it if you can, but don't let it define you.
5. Fear sucks. Don’t be afraid of your feelings. Accept them, and if they’re negative, channel those feelings in productive ways. Recognize depression and deal with it.  I once reached a point where getting out of bed in the morning became a challenge. That was no way to live, so I did something about it. Mostly, I found reasons to get out of bed – my job, my kids, and the people I loved most. Don’t be afraid of trying new things. Don’t be afraid of trying old things in a new way.
6. Don’t trust anyone who says he or she knows what God - whichever one you happen to believe in - wants for your life. Organized religion is mostly bullshit and is usually just a means for people to exploit and make money off of others. For a long time, I believed there were people who were more insightful or inspired about myself than me, because they claimed to have a closer relationship with God than I had. I finally realized that nobody knows me better than myself. Depending on others for guidance because they claim to be more inspired is an invitation to disaster. It’s your life. Live it your way, but always strive to be kind. Be true to yourself, and accept, respect, and trust yourself. Don’t worry about what most others think or say about you; you can’t really do anything about it. Care what your loved ones think of you, but realize even they don't always understand where you're coming from. 
7. Accept others for who they are, but don’t be anyone’s doormat. Recognize that otherwise good people sometimes have bad days. None of us are defined by who we are at our finest moment or at our worst moment. Most of the time we're just doing the best we can. Be patient, but don’t accept being treated less than how you deserve, whether it’s by friends, family, employers, religious leaders, or anyone else. It took me a long time to realize that I didn’t have to put up with being treated poorly just because I had invested time and emotional energy into a relationship.
8. There are crazy and/or mean people out there who enjoy hurting others. Learn to deal with them. Even better, avoid those people altogether if you can. Sometimes bad people put on a good front before you realize who they actually are. Some of the worst people I’ve dealt with in my life have had advanced degrees or have been religious leaders.
9. Be grateful. You’re blessed (or lucky) every day in large and small ways. Be grateful for the good things, because it could always be worse. 
10. Knowledge matters. Education matters. Experience matters. Ignorance is not bliss.
11. Intentions don’t matter. Actions do.
12. When you're gone, you're gone. Live a consequential life that influences others for the better. Give people a reason to say good things about you years after you've shuffled off this mortal coil.

1970s Favorites: The Grateful Dead 1970-73 Edition

The Grateful Dead were one of the greatest under-appreciated rock ‘n’ roll bands in the world in the early 1970s, with Jerry Garcia on lead guitar, Bob Weir on rhythm guitar, Phil Lesh on bass, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, and later, Keith Godchaux on keyboards, and Bill Kreutzmann on drums. In fact, I think the Grateful Dead, along with Creedence Clearwater Revival, were THE Great American Rock And Roll Bands of the era.

From the mid to late 1960s, the Dead were very much a psychedelic band, probably best appreciated while the listener was under the influence of some serious hallucinogens. They did a few songs during that era that I like, but nothing that really blows me away.

However, in 1970 the Dead switched gears and recorded and released Working Man’s Dead and American Beauty, two of the greatest rock albums ever made. Neither album sounded much like anything the Dead had ever done before; they are mostly acoustic country rock albums, and they contain some of the Dead’s greatest music: “Casey Jones,” “Uncle John’s Band,” “Truckin’” and “Friend Of The Devil,”  to name just a very small sample of the awesome music on those two albums.

During the early 1970s, Jerry Garcia and his song writing partner, Robert Hunter, wrote some classic American music, as did Bob Weir and his writing partner, a Wyoming rancher named John Barlow. Songs like “Bertha,” “Jack Straw,” Tennessee Jed,” and my personal favorite, “He’s Gone,” were all written in 1970-72. Those songs are classic rock ‘n’ roll songs set in the American west, something that no band had ever really done before. Dennis McNally’s book, A Long Strange Trip, tells the story of Bob Weir driving from his ranch in Marin County, California, to Pinedale, Wyoming, where John Barlow ran his parents' ranch, so that they could drink Wild Turkey and write songs together. It makes me happy to imagine Weir hitting I-80 in 1971, and cruising across Nevada, through Salt Lake City, to Evanston, Wyoming, and then heading north to Sublette County.

Ironically, the Dead never bothered to put the music they wrote in the early 1970s on a traditional, studio recorded album. Most of it is found on their live album, Europe ’72. Nothing beats that album as roadtrip music, but the problem with Europe ’72 is Jerry and the boys did a lot of overdubs before they released it, so Europe ’72 doesn’t sound as much like the Dead sounded live in 1972 - their best year - as it could have. And as everyone knows, live Dead is the best Dead.

To really hear and understand why the Dead were as good as they were back then, you need to listen to two live albums that were recently released. The two albums are basically soundboard tapes that have been sonically enhanced to high definition audio. Those two albums are:

Road Trips Vol.3 No.2, recorded in Austin, TX, on November 15, 1971

and

Dick's Picks Vol. 11, recorded live in Jersey City, NJ, on September 27, 1972

Neither of these albums are readily available through Amazon.com or your local Barnes and Noble. The best place to find them nowadays is eBay, sadly. However, they are both worth the time and energy it takes to seek them out. 

In March 1973, Pigpen died of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage at the age of twenty-seven. For me, his death marks the end of the classic era of the Grateful Dead, even though Pig was no longer touring with the band due to his health problems, and they had hired Keith Godchaux to take his place. The Dead went on to record more brilliant music, right up until Jerry Garcia died in 1995, but they never again sounded exactly the same as they did in ’72.

Ron "Pigpen" McKernan 1945 - 1973

Everybody Loves A Nut

Tristen gave me this record for Valentine’s Day. It’s an interesting album. Everybody Loves A Nut is kind of a mixed bag as far as song quality goes - the album came out in 1966 when Johnny was in the depths of his pill addiction - but the cool stuff on this album is really cool, starting with the album cover by noted Mad Magazine and Time Magazine illustrator Jack Davis. Just check out those hippies. Not only that, it contains one of Cash’s best prison ballads, the darkly humorous “Joe Bean”. “Joe Bean” is about a kid about to hanged by the state of Arkansas on his 20th birthday for a murder he didn’t commit (in fact, Joe Bean had never even been to Arkansas.) The problem is Joe Bean was busy robbing a train on the day of the murder, not exactly the best alibi. Joe’s mother pleads his case to the governor of Arkansas, who refuses to pardon him but does wish him a happy birthday. Now that’s some serious country music. Tristen gave me vinyl by The Who and Merle Haggard as well, but this album was definitely the stand out of the bunch. Thanks Tristen. You know the way to a man’s heart.

Tryin' Like The Devil

Sooo, you were in Randy’s Records the other day (in my best Wayne from Letterkenny voice) … killing time after a hard day at work (don’t ask.) I’d already found a two-record collection from 1974 of one of my favorite country-rock bands, The Flying Burrito Brothers (featuring the always amazing Gram Parsons, the guy who arguably invented the genre), and I was just lackadaisically thumbing through the rest of the new arrival bins, not really expecting to find anything else good. I was actually kind of bored and ready to go home when I glanced to my right at the bins I hadn’t looked through yet, and saw an album I’ve never actually seen in the wild before. At first, I thought it was just wishful thinking, but even after I blinked, the album was still there: James Talley’s 1976 album, Tryin’ Like the Devil.

“Who is James Talley?” you might legitimately ask, and it wouldn’t mean you were an idiot in my eyes because you didn’t know. James Talley is a fairly obscure country singer from Oklahoma who released two pretty amazing records in the mid-1970s. President Jimmy Carter – who, among his other virtues, has great musical taste – sang Talley’s praises and invited him to play at the White House. James Talley is a guy who should have been a star (if intelligence and talent counted for much) but instead faded into undeserved obscurity.

Tryin’ Like the Devil, James Talley's second album, is my favorite – working class outlook (despite Talley’s doctorate in American Studies), great lyrics and melody, and heartfelt singing. I discovered James Talley in the 1990s through Peter Guralnick’s book Lost Highway, a collection of essays about country and blues musicians. According to Guralnick, Talley’s cultural heroes are musicians Merle Haggard, Woody Guthrie, blues singer Otis Spann, and author James Agee, and it shows in his music. After reading the book, I managed to track down digital downloads of Talley’s albums, but had given up hope of ever finding an original vinyl copy of any of his records because they went out of print forty years ago, were never best sellers, and, to the best of my knowledge, have never been reissued. Yet there was Tryin’ Like the Devil staring me in the face at Randy’s today, moderately priced compared to how that place usually jacks up the good stuff.

So tonight, I’m listening to James Talley sing,

“I’m like that pot-bellied trucker drinkin’ coffee,

I’m like that red-headed waitress named Louise,

I’m like every workin’ man, all across the land

Just tryin’ like the devil to be free,”

and happy that the day turned out half-way decently after all.

 

Archie Bunker, Fifty Years Later

 

On January 12, 1971 – fifty years ago next week – Norman Lear’s revolutionary sitcom All In The Family debuted. There was literally nothing like it on American TV at the time, and it was quite a shocking departure from Green Acres or whatever family friendly show it replaced. I remember my family never missing an episode when I was a kid. I had cool parents.

 

I broke out my DVDs of the first season of All In The Family tonight and watched the series premiere. It’s been at least ten years since I watched that show, and given that we’ve had Archie Bunker’s more evil twin as President for the last four years, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it. Surprisingly, Carroll O’Connor and Norman Lear’s comedic genius is just as relevant now as it was fifty years ago. No two ways about it, Archie Bunker is a bigoted asshole, but he’s funny. In spite of myself, I laughed until I had tears in my eyes. The thing is, I was laughing AT Archie, not with him. Played to perfection by O’Connor, and based on Norman Lear’s own father, Archie is not a sympathetic character, and I hear echoes of Archie’s rhetoric in the worst of today’s political dialogue, especially on social media, where Trump supporting politicians and commentators bloviate, and anonymous incel keyboard warriors reign. Jean Stapleton is equally as funny as Archie’s long-suffering wife Edith, and – at least in this episode – she isn’t the pushover that I remembered her being later on in the series.

 

Archie represents the worst of the Nixon era – ignorant, uninformed, and bigoted. Lear never meant for Archie Bunker to be a role model (I hear sympathetic nonsense occasionally from people who seem to be nostalgic for Archie’s racial epithets, not realizing that Lear wrote them as ironic commentary on Archie’s ignorance), and Carroll O’Connor (who was politically liberal in real life) was just a really good actor who made Archie believable. The first few seasons of All In The Family hold up well both as comedy and social commentary, but neither Norman Lear nor Carroll O’Connor meant for Archie to be a modern day politically incorrect anti-hero, either. Archie Bunker is an ignorant bigot whose attitudes are sadly still with us today, fifty years later.

True Grit

 

I originally saw the Coen Brothers' True Grit the week after Christmas ten years ago. I’d forgotten just how good it is. Everything about it is spot on - the cast, the direction, and the adaptation from the original novel. The last third of the movie really - and surprisingly - provoked such an emotional response in me tonight, from the scene where Rooster Cogburn faces down the Pepper Gang by himself, to Rooster riding Mattie Ross to safety on Little Blackie. That night ride is so beautifully shot, and when Rooster has to put the horse out of its misery, it brings tears to my eyes. Yes, I’m a big John Wayne fan, but the Coen Brothers/Jeff Bridges version is in a separate universe from the 1969 film. It’s one of my favorite movies.