Karaoke

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Doc Arnett

After our nearly-four-mile mud run over at Burden Dayz early Saturday afternoon, Sam and I talked about driving over to the Cowley Cinema to watch a movie Saturday evening. But, after sitting down for a while and enjoying a drink out on the back deck, we decided we’d rather take it easy.

After resting for a couple of hours, we did drive the two miles over to Cowley College. I showed Sam my new office with the brand new beautifully framed picture of the Old Arnett Tobacco Barn he’d given me and the also nicely framed certificate of my Kentucky Colonel commission, for which he’d nominated me.

After that, I drove around the campus, pointing out some of the buildings including the stately old limestone structure that was originally a high school. It now houses our Criminal Justice and
Cosmetology programs, unless I’ve been misinformed or have mis-remembered. Cowley has a nice campus, lots of brick and stone, and it is exceptionally well-tended. Our maintenance people seem to take as much pride in our exterior spaces as the custodial staff take in the interior ones.

As we finished the college tour, passing by the Wellness Center and Bookstore, we headed back toward Summit Street and turned south. Just before we got to Casey’s, Sam exclaimed, “Karaoke!” We turned back around and passed back by the tiny bar and grill on the east side of the street. I was hesitant and drove on by. Then I realized I might not get another chance to do Karaoke with Sam before he deploys to the Middle East again and maybe not after he gets back.

So, I turned around and parked in front. We got out and walked in. Two pool tables, five booths and one big round table housed about twenty patrons or so. Sam and I picked out a couple of songs each and turned in our lists to the DJ, who also took turns singing. There were about eight of us taking turns and I chose Don Williams’ “Tulsa Time” for my opener.

It went over pretty well. I’ve got an average voice and I can hit most of the right notes. There was a spattering of polite applause as I finished. Then Sam got up to do an old country classic.

He was about five measures into George Jones’s classic “She Thinks I Still Care” when I saw folks that had been sitting with their backs turned to the singers turn around to look at him. I grinned as broadly as if I’d just been told Ed McMahon was pulling up to my house in a big white van. Sam has a really good voice but it’s his blend of tone and talent that turns heads, literally. He put his own spin on a couple of lines and turned on the charm. I knew he was good but I’d never seen him work a room like that. Even the DJ was impressed: “That’s a mighty fine version of that song, folks. Give Sam a hand!”

I did and I didn’t even try to not be proud. I’d been outdone by my own son and I couldn’t have been more tickled.

That’s how love is. It’s never jealous, never resentful. It just rejoices… over and over.

H. Arnett
9/18/15

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The Blessing of Rest

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Doc Arnett

After working like a benevolent banshee for four days, Randa headed back home on Thursday afternoon. She’d managed to transform most of the kitchen and the bathroom into places that looked like humans ought to inhabit said space.

When I came home Thursday evening, the house felt dark and empty. My own steps seemed to echo through the empty rooms and hallway. I kept expecting to hear Randa in the next room and to see Layla come trotting through the kitchen. I was wrong on both counts. The dark hours are part of the price of this new adventure and I’m not going to whine. Well, at least no more than usual.

On the bright side, Sam came down for the weekend. He got here right at eight o’clock Friday night. We ate pizza out on the deck, enjoying the cool and quiet of a late meal. On Saturday, we headed over to Winfield. I’d heard there would be lots of yard sales because of the huge crowd already gathering for the Walnut Valley Music Festival. That annual event brings in thousands of people from all over the United States and several folks from some of the un-united ones.

We found several yard sales but no chests, dressers, couches or love seats. Around ten-thirty, we headed on over to Burden to join some other folks for the annual festival and a mud run. Jason is the director of Student Activities at Cowley College. He and his son and some other friends of his invited Sam and me to join their team for the event.

I’ve done about twenty of these things now in the past four years but this one had some of the most unique, interesting and challenging obstacles that I’ve seen. We had to work in teams for such things as flipping huge tractor tires a hundred yards one way and a hundred yards back, climbing a mountain of big round hay bales, filling a big garbage can with water, passing poles through the low forks of high trees and other such stuff. Making your way across a thirty foot I-beam hanging ten feet off the ground was pretty much on your own. So was the one-mile jog around the soybean field, through the woods and back to the fairgrounds.

Sam and I were pretty much in our element though at the end: stacking hay bales up nine courses high. I’d already planned on the strategy of building up a platform for the stackers to stand on as we were building up the stack. Even though a few of our team members were obviously not used to handling wire-tied square bales, we all worked together and got it done in good time. And, our stack didn’t fall over until we pushed it over.

I ended up with more scrapes and bruises than usual this time. I chose a possum crawl (hanging upside down underneath) and shinnied my way across the I-beam, scraping up my lower legs just above the ankle. I also slipped off of the parallel pipe crossing and ended up catching myself by the armpits. Right after spraining my thumb as I lost my grip on one of the pipes. Yes, it felt just as good as you imagined.

But it was still fun: running, jumping, climbing, crawling and sprawling like young kids.

Unlike some young kids, Sam and I cleaned ourselves up at the truck. Then we moseyed back over to the Burden Dayz Festival and soaked up the atmosphere for a while, watching as the later teams built their hay towers. That was fun but we enjoyed our late afternoon lunch at El Maguey’s in Winfield more.

The warm shower and clean sheets were even better.

After our greatest adventures, our longest days and most bruising trials, the sweetness of rest is always a great blessing. Imagine how wonderful that final rest is going to be!

H. Arnett
9/17/15

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Whoop! There It Was…

Posted on September 16, 2015 by Doc Arnett

Randa helped me move some stuff down to the new house on  Monday of last week. She and our French Brittany Spaniel, Layla, rode in the big black Silverado that we all know belongs to Randa. I drove the nearly twenty-year-old Ranger, mainly because it’s my truck and it’s a wimpy little four-cylinder and there wasn’t room for Layla in it.

After two storms and under threatening skies, we’d loaded up the horse trailer with a few things that would make life less primitive in the new house: a dining table and a couple of chairs, a new mattress set, a few useful tools, and other odds and ends. Because we had more faith in the forecast than in our ability to change the weather, we opted not to load anything that wasn’t pretty much waterproof into the back of either pickup.

Even though we drove through a few showers in the two-hundred-and-fifty miles between Blair and Ark City, nothing inside the trailer showed any signs of water. We unloaded in less than a fourth of the time the loading took. That’s how it always seems to go. A lot of time in the preparing and packing, the stacking and loading and then, not so much with the unloading. I reckon it’s kind of like cooking a big meal for a lot of folks. You spend a couple of days cooking and prepping and then everybody’s through eating in about twenty minutes or so. I have to admit, that observation is strictly observation; it’s got nothing to do with personal experience from the other side of the counter.

Maybe life itself is kind of that way, too. We spend a lot of time getting ready for things that end pretty quickly: weddings, family reunions, birthday parties and graduations.

I’m reasonably sure that heaven will be a significant exception.

At the outside, most of us will spend less than a hundred years getting prepared. At the end, even that stretch of time will seem to have flashed by in just a few breaths. And then… eternity.

I’m pretty sure it’s going to be worth the getting ready.

H. Arnett
9/16/15

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The God of Thunder

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Doc Arnett

After the rain had stopped, or at least paused, Randa and I got into my small pickup and headed over to Winfield, about ten miles away from our new house in Arkansas City. Dark clouds still filled the sky and there was an occasional sweep of raindrops across the windshield. Nothing like the downpour we’d had just an hour or two earlier.

She had spent the day fighting the grime and grit of at least ten years of neglect in the house we’re buying. It’s hard to imagine how someone could let an oven get as nasty as this one was. I can understand the gunk that builds up behind a refrigerator. I mean, what difference does it really make? Well, yeah, it’s going to run more and use more electricity because of all the dust and dirt accumulating on the condenser coils, but other than that, so what? Nobody sees it and it doesn’t affect the food, safely tucked inside, and separated by layers of insulation, sheet metal and plastic lining. The oven, though? Totally different. Direct, non-separated proximity to the food you’re going to eat. And, it’s just plain nasty looking.

So, Randa was tired from a long day of grime-fighting and I was tired from a long day of…, well, administrative stuff. Neither of us felt much like cooking anything and we’d been wanting to try out Montana Mike’s Steakhouse over at Winfield.

So we did.

It was a good call. After we’d finished our meals and lingering conversation, we walked outside into the parking lot. A lot of dark clouds still scattered across the eastern sky but there was the low end fragment of a double rainbow. The colors were a bit muted but still refreshing.

As we drove back south toward Ark City, the setting sun flamed distant clouds. A thin rim of platinum glowed from their edges while the main parts burned red and orange. Against the backdrop of grimly dark splotches, the spectacle made a visual oasis in the western sky.

In the midst of our darkest moments, in the eye of the storm and even in the forming turmoil, the glory of God still shines in the world. But we must look in the right direction in order to see it. The God of Thunder and the God of the Rainbow has never forgotten His promises.

H. Arnett
9/15/15

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The Passing Storm

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Doc Arnett

Driving back toward home at the end of one day’s official duties, I saw what looked like two long smooth dark clouds, joined along a horizontal seam. They stretched from low on the western horizon, tilting up just slightly as they stretched nearly to the eastern limit of my vision. Their smooth texture seemed somehow ominous, as if hiding some wretched threat inside them. I pictured their interiors roiling, rising, pitching and bucking, as if in some fit of internal turmoil, hidden by the satin surface. Along the seam, thin wisps of white spilled out, curling outward and downward, as if the clouds could not keep all of their store sealed inside. It seemed as if steam were sifting outward, strangely gentle, soft and mysterious.

An hour later, the heavens opened and it rained as if to raise Noah from the grave. Water poured in sheets, spewing earthward. Rain spilled from the gutters and filled the lower streets, a rush moving along dried leaves and sticks, whatever had gathered in slightly sloping yards and along the curbs. The water moved across our yard, diverted by the edging of the planters and the brick foundation. We stood under the low roof of the north porch, watching the flashing of lightning and feeling the pulse of thunder.

It is good to know the power of the storm, to feel its surging strength from a protected place. Better yet to stand still safe, after the storm has passed. Although we are not protected through every storm; we are always loved.

H. Arnett
9/14/15

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A Humbling Power

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Doc Arnett

There is a strangeness in this:
this separation,
this new beginning,
these nights in a hotel,
this distance between
where we have lived
and where I am now.

There is an excitement in this:
these new colleagues,
these new associates,
these new faces and places
waiting to know me
and whether or not
I will be what they believe
they have needed.

There is a peace in this:
this patient pursuing of deeply held longings,
this warm breeze filtering through the night,
these small town lights
flickering through the branches,
this calm knowing
that these miles and hours
do not diminish love.

There is a power in this:
this yielding awareness
that it is not alone the years I have lived,
nor the books that I have studied
that has brought me to this place,
this role,
this work.

In those long forming years
of both joy and tears,
courage and fears,
I have cooperated, perhaps,
sometimes with greater
and sometimes with lesser grace,
but I have also kicked and complained
against the very things
that have shaped me for this service,
this calling.

I will try to remember
at all times,
in all things,
whether in weakness or in strength,
whether in power or pity,
that He Who Is In Me
is greater
than he who is in the world.

I will share
the grace I have been shown.

H. Arnett
9/5/15

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These Treasured Moments

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Doc Arnett

On this past Lord’s Day morning, we sat outside enjoying our breakfast in the pleasant coolness. Gathered with Randa, Sam and me were my sister and her husband from North Carolina and my niece and her husband from Oklahoma. Freeda and Olian had driven over twelve hundred miles; Andrea and Scott nearly five hundred. Sam had just returned from Texas on a visit to be with Sara Jane and the boys. He is on temporary duty at Ft. Leavenworth.

Ostensibly, what had brought the other non-residents to northeast Kansas was the publisher’s official book launch party celebrating Amazing Things Press’ recent release of several books by several authors. That list included my new poetry book, Tears and Prayers. Hosted jointly by Julie Casey (publisher) and by Rick and Terri Tobiason at their wonderful Stained Glass shop in downtown Saint Joe, the event also included the work of several artists.

That group included Randa’s brother, Kevin Burleson, who is quite talented at making ceramic art and entertaining children. A group quickly gathered as he began his demonstrations at the potter’s wheel. Different children (some of whom were over forty) took turns under Kevin’s guidance while his wife, Cheryl and the rest of us looked on. Of the many pictures taken that day, my favorite is one of Kevin’s hands, coated with clay, wrapped over the small hands of a child feeling the shaping of their very first work in that of which we are made.

It was a wonderful day in more ways than one. I met a few people, was honored to have some of my family and friends there and autographed a few copies of my book.

As the waffles and sausage gradually disappeared, as sips of coffee and juice were enjoyed, I reflected on the gathering. Surrounded by green hills and hardwood trees, with the limbs of the locust tree swaying softly in the slight breeze, I closed my eyes for a moment. I savored the feel of morning air, the aromas of breakfast, the sound of voices.

It is good to love and to be loved.

H. Arnett

9/3/15

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A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Doc Arnett

Well, it was a good day in Ark City, Kansas yesterday. My first day at the new job was pretty well packed with meetings and greetings and getting things underway. A few hours with the president and other administrators in the morning, an hour or two with the interim vice-president in the afternoon and a little bit of starting in on the duties.

My first official act was pretty simple: approving a travel request that didn’t involve any time off work or any money from the budget. The ones coming up next won’t be so simple. A few situations that will require executive decisions that may not be universally well-received. That’s part of the territory and a big part of the reason why a good number of folks don’t want a job like this.

What wasn’t part of the territory was a text message from Randa that she had ordered up a little surprise for me back at the hotel. The reason there’s a hotel in this story is that we haven’t yet been able to close the deal on the house we’re trying to buy here in Arkansas City. So, I left her and Sam at home in Blair and drove down to Ark City on Monday.

The reason there’s a little surprise in this story is that yesterday was our twenty-sixth anniversary, which is about twenty-five more than some people thought we’d ever celebrate. It was the only anniversary in those years on which we had not been together. We’d texted each other good wishes for the day early in the morning but I was very much looking forward to the bouquet or fruit basket or whatever it was she had ordered for me.

I got to the room about seven p.m. and opened the door, expecting to see some bright colors greeting me from the little table. Nope, nothing. I checked on the bed, in the chairs, even on the dressing counter. Nada, zip, zilch.

Just about the time I was about to go confront the front desk clerk and find out what happened to my wife’s wonderful little surprise she’d ordered, there was a knock on the door.

Turned out, it was no little surprise. That darling wife of mine had driven two hundred and fifty miles so we could be together on our anniversary! I was so overwhelmed with emotion and appreciation, I ordered us a pizza. Deep dish pan style supreme. It’s hard to go overboard with someone this thoughtful.

We just might make it another twenty-six…

H. Arnett

9/2/15

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A New Adventure

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Doc Arnett

For the past seven years, I’ve tried to secure a vice-president position. I’ve interviewed seven times at six different colleges, including twice at my former institution where I worked for over eleven years. Whether it was the Lord’s timing or the president’s preferences, I failed in six of those efforts.

It was more than ego deflating; it was devastating. Until this string of disappointments, I’d landed every job for which I interviewed. I guess it was time for me to learn what so many others had already learned: not getting a job that you really, really want really, really stinks!

After each episode, I’d go through the usual cycle of self-pity, disappointment and discouragement. Then, I’d return to doing my job, going beyond the minimal level of necessary effort and trying to continue to achieve excellence. Even though it’s not particularly easy to work for the person they hired instead of you, it can be done. In fact, it can even be pleasant for all parties concerned, if you choose to make that the goal.

Now, oddly enough, I find myself in the other chair.

Today, I begin working for Cowley College as their new Vice President of Academic Affairs. There seems to be a fair amount of mutual excitement; they seem to be genuinely looking forward to me serving and I am certainly excited about it. Seven years, seven interviews and finally, I got the job!

But there are at least two people here who have good reason to be less than happy about it. Two people here who have learned the sting with which I have lived for seven years. I will be as gracious and pleasant as were the two supervisors for which I worked. I will be fair and positive. I will pray for grace and wisdom.

I will also pray that in a couple of years not just those two people but pretty much everyone else will be very happy and pleased that I was selected to work here at Cowley. To no small degree, I pray that that group will include Randa and me!

When we take the pain and disappointments of our lives and use those things to help us remember to treat others in the way that we would like to be treated, no experience is wasted.

H. Arnett

9/1/15

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A Few Good Things

Posted on August 28, 2015 by Doc Arnett

The slate blue of storm clouds hems the view this morning. A southern breeze sways limbs and leaves on the locust tree beside the patio. While we sip coffee and eat our breakfast, Randa and I reminisce about last night’s wedding and discuss plans for tonight’s company. The cat poses along the retaining wall as a mourning dove calls from the top of the dead spruce tree. Although there is more than a hint of rain in the air, it is pleasant and cool. Not the typical northeastern Kansas August morning.

Nor is it a typical week for us.

Some of it focused on the preparation for hosting a very private marriage event. Thanks to a fair amount of coordination and quite a bit of cooperation and collaborative effort, everything came together late yesterday afternoon. A makeshift arbor of wrought iron frames fastened to the peach tree, some flowers and ribbons strategically placed and a bit of yard work set a nice stage for the wedding. Leah outdid herself making the corsages and the cake, which was nothing less than a work of art. My part was a lot easier.

After doing a short and simple ceremony for Jay and Leah, I left to do a poetry reading at the library of the college where I have worked for the past eleven-plus years. Jay grilled steaks for the small wedding party and I hoped there would be some left when I got back. There were and they were good.

Tonight, Lord willing, my sister and her husband will arrive from North Carolina, via stopovers in Tennessee and Kentucky. If the weather continues to cooperate, we’ll probably have waffles and sausage served on the patio. Later tomorrow morning, my niece and her husband expect to finish their trip here from Oklahoma. Around noon, I plan to drive over to the Kansas City airport and pick up my son Sam as he returns from a week visit with his family in Texas. (Sam is living with us while temporarily stationed at Ft. Leavenworth.) Then, in early afternoon, we all plan to go over to St. Joseph for a book release party hosted for several new authors by our publisher, Amazing Things Press.

Other than that, it’s just been a lazy sort of week, finishing drywall and painting in the dining room and working on the new ceiling in the entry way. Taking our morning and evenings on the deck or the patio, giving thanks for cool breezes, hot coffee and the blessing of living with someone we like. And for other lives with which to share ours.

H. Arnett

8/28/15

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