...quick, before I forget, more about, ME ...

....I saw the original road company production of both "Hair" and "Jesus Christ, Superstar", in SF, in the 60's
....Hair was a happening...groovy, man...
.... JC,Superstar was life changing.....I still get "tingles"....
....I have known a "number" of cats in my life...6943 is a number, not the right one, but a number...
....I have a weakness for Greek food, with Mexican showing up strong too...
....a looong time ago, Kareem Abdul Jaabar stepped on my foot...
this was "money" when I taught jr high boys in the late 80's "...
....a H.S. classmate of mine was on the same USC team as OJ Simpson...Freddie was a fullback....this used to be "money" too, before OJ went on his white Bronco ride...
....Freddie was fortunate, several other classmates of ours came home from Viet Nam in boxes....
....I used to play "Taps" at local military funerals in H.S.for the V.F.W. [ Viet Nam was 'heating up' ]...
a cadet unit would fire the gun salute...my friend, Santos was the ranking cadet officer for the squad and a fellow band member, he played tuba...
....after I went off to college, Santos joined the Army, he was one of those who came home in a box... I don't think I could have played for that one...
....a few years ago, we lost a dear friend and chorister at the church...at her service, the choir circled her casket and sang...that was hard too,,,
....last summer, I bought a niche in the columbarium at the church, it's nice to know where I'll be...
....Mom had a grave site all set with a stone engraved for both she and Dad, everything but her death date...
....She had her picture taken by it.... now you can, perhaps, better understand my weird sense of humor...it's probably heredity...
....I believe that everything happens for a reason...if God is in control of your life...
....other than under those circumstances, that "saying" has no point of reference that makes sense to me....
....in 1977, I toured with a Christian musical ministry,
"Continental Singers"...the ministry continues today...
....I was gone almost 3 months across the US, through France, East & West Germany, [ 1977,Cold War...] , Poland and Holland...
....I was very briefly in East Berlin....[on the underground train]
....we sat for hours, surrounded by machine guns and barbed wire, while our bus was searched and passports were checked...6 separate times...[in & out of : East Germany, West Berlin & Poland]
....entering East Germany, a large soldier with an AK 47 strapped to his back and a very large German shepherd dog, on a short leash, boarded our bus, walked up and down the aisle and pawed through our belongings, looking for contraband...
....this happened in a small "courtyard", surrounded by 20 ft concrete walls with barbed wire and machine gun emplacements in every corner...[this was NOT a "photo op" moment...]
....one night in Poland, a few of us girls slept on bags of straw...[rolling over was painful...]
....most of the guys slept on straw too, in the barn, with the cows...
....food was in short supply during our 4 days in Poland...most of us girls gave our meager rations to the guys, but even then it was less food than a regular McDonalds hamburger...
....since we stayed with families under most circumstances, feeding us was a real sacrifice for them...
....because of this situation, we were "treated" to a gourmet meal [by their standards] at a restaurant one evening...
....they were not "regular" portions by any standards we were used to, but it was twice as much as the Polish people usually had for a meal...
....there was a mystery meat "cutlet" [probably pork], potatoes & cabbage...
....and dill pickle soup [big chunks of pickle, "swimming" in a milky sauce]...I passed on that....
....in Urk, a Dutch fishing village on an island, we would be offered smoked eel [the local delight]...I managed to avoid that too...
....did I mention that the smoked eels were about 10 inches long and were whole ? [eye, spiny fins, teeth...]
....I'll never forget the hundreds of young people in Poland, many of whom walked 20 miles through the mountains to see one of our concerts...
....I'll also never forget the sound of a couple of hundred Dutch fishermen, singing hymns with full throated zeal, during their Sunday services...
....I know I'll never forget Auschwitz, we went through it one afternoon...
....the Russians , who liberated it, hated the Nazis, so they left as much of the horribleness as possible...
....there was a room, behind glass, floor to ceiling.....
just hair...piles of it... all of it, bluish grey...
braids, long and wavy, short ,curly...
cut from the heads of victims of the gas chambers and saved to stuff mattresses...
....the gas chambers had marks in the concrete where people clawed to get out...
the ovens were barricaded with flowers...some fresh...some withered...
....and pictures...I looked up at one of a train being unloaded, people being herded to their death...and one young girl was looking at the camera...we made "eye contact" across the decades, and as I wondered how she must have felt, a group of tourists moved quickly through... being caught up , I was herded, despite my efforts to get away, along with them, into the gas chamber...panicking, I made for the nearest exit...it was the oven room...
.... when I returned to the Chicago area after tour, the Neo Nazis were planning a march through an area that had about 8ooo Holocaust survivors...after being at Auchwicz, I had no choice...I had to join the effort to keep the Neo Nazis away from there...we were successful...they chose to march on the South Side instead and got beaten up by angry African American residents there...
....traveling across the US, things were usually less dramatic ...
....the church potluck was our usual dinner...
....mac & cheese, Kentucky Fried Whatever, chili mac, green bean casserole, tamale pie, jello mold, mystery casserole, ah , indigestion...
....of course, there was that night in Texas when we had barbeque...whooey, that was good...
....and the home made peach ice cream in Georgia...
....and that night in Mississippi, when a tornado missed our church by about a half mile....
....and the canoe ride, down a wild river near St Louis that took us through country that looked like "Deliverance"...
....that evenings' concert was performed by about 40 extremely sun-burned individuals...
....during this tour, I developed the ability to get on a bus and be asleep within minutes...very handy then...
....later, as a jr high music teacher, who often went places with a whole lot of kids, on buses, I would quickly learn to "break" that habit...self-preservation...
....I was closer to that group of people on that tour then, than I have been, with any other group, at any other time in my life, until recently...
....I never expected to find that "Heaven on Earth" again...at least not on "this side"...
....I'm excited for the journey, grateful for the "second chance" and humbled by the unending power of the God who brought us all here for this adventure...