My Musical Dark Ages

We all experience dark periods in our life. Mine have come at different times, caused by different circumstances and challenges. But my musical dark period was self-inflicted and started around the time I was nineteen.

BACKGROUND

Now, my involvement with church music started early enough when my parents started listening to Keith Green and The Imperials, dragging us all to the Jesus '77 festival in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. On the heels of that experience, we were attending a Baptist church where my parents were volunteer youth group leaders and I got to hang with high schoolers when I was but a junior higher. I liked the music they liked, to fit in. But we're still not talking about my Musical Dark Ages. These kids were into Boston, Queen and REO Speedwagon. I hung with a troubled youth who was closer to my age and he introduced me to Ozzy's "Blizzard of Oz" album.

Juxtapose that with the disco-infused gospel music of The Imperials in the late 70's, featuring Russ Taff. Our church also hosted this gospel rock outfit out of Ohio who called themselves The Friends of Jesus. Their albums tended to border on Bee Gees-style rhythms, too, but I was just finding my way musically then. A friend of my parents handed me a cassette by Christian rockers, Rez Band (they'd shortened their previous name, Ressurection Band, to be more hip, less Christian-y, I guess). Rez Band was edgier than the stuff my parents listened to and was my first foray into CCM, or Contemporary Christian Music, a musical subculture that really exploded in the 80's.

I didn't go to church much during high school. I didn't listen much to that crap from the 70's, either. I befriended guys in my neighborhood and in high school who loved Rush and the other groups I was growing to love in the 80's. My connection to others was usually through the music we listened to, like my coworker, Dan, at Little Caesar's, my first job that didn't involve cutting grass, babysitting or delivering papers...and also involved coworkers. Dan was next door neighbor to a quiet kid from my school who loved early Sammy Hagar and Motley Crue. In fact, the three of us went to see Hagar in Terre Haute circa 1985. Dokken opened up for him. It was an incredible show!

Back to where this story started, in Tallahassee, age 19, still living at home and taking my first college courses at a TCC satellite campus near our apartment. Enter Preston R. Scott into the scene! Yes, THAT Preston Scott--former WTXL Sports Anchor, Tallahassee Ford spokesman and talk radio fixture. Before all of those ventures made him a local celeb, he moved here in 1987 to become the youth pastor at the church I attended. It was a heavily music-centric church where I got involved in youth ministry and music.

Now, I was attending church not so much to fit in with my peers, but to win the approval of my parents with whom I'd been at odds through most of high school. I was a misfit. I could have been in the cast of Freaks and Geeks. Now, facing adulthood, I wanted to connect with my parents and with something bigger than myself, so I poured myself into church activities, like youth and music. This was late 80's during the time rock music was on trial for lyrical content, backwards masking and corrupting our youth. With encouragement from Preston, I jumped wholeheartedly on that band wagon and burnt all of my secular music in a grand display at a youth function one night.

Enter my Musical Dark Ages.

MUSICAL DARK AGES

My musical dark ages began in earnest in 1987 and lasted about eight years. I fully emersed in the CCM subculture during that time, abandoning all of my favorite music which was "secular." (as if music itself can be inherently good or evil, secular or Christian).

All of this came to mind suddenly this morning while I was reading a Rolling Stone article on the new King's X book. King's X, one of the best power trios to ever cut their own path (akin to Rush), was once stigmatized as a CCM band, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I've been a lifelong fan of the band, but had no idea that Ty Tabor and Doug Pinnick had worked behind the scenes on some CCM albums I had, like Morgan Cryar's "Fuel for the Fire" (Pictured, left). This vocal hack was sold to people like me, hungry for secular music alternatives, as Jesus' answer to Bryan Adams. I mean, just look at the cover. The guy couldn't hold Bryan's mic cable, but the production was slick, the music catchy enough and it was markedly more cool than The Imperials and Keith Green.

I became a regular at The Christian Bookstore on Thomasville Road and bought up every CCM album on CD* I could stomach, ranging from Amy Grant to Stryper. But even before Preston had convinced me to devote myself wholly to this "more wholesome" rock music, the previous youth pastor, who fronted a house band called Don Carr and Sold Out (they sold me on going to church at Christian Heritage in '86), brought in a real rock star to perform at our church.

*Remember, the 80's was the dawn of the compact disc (CD) and I didn't buy my first CD player until we moved to Tallahassee in the mid-80's. I think Whiteheart's "Don't Wait for the Movie" might have been my first CD purchase.

Rick Cua, former bassist for The Outlaws, had just released his rock anthem "Wear Your Colors" and he brought his band of big hair, big amps and an even bigger double-kick drumkit and transformed our sanctuary on North Monroe near Lake Jackson into a concert hall. I ran a spotlight for that concert and became a big fan. In fact, Cua's touring drummer, who's name escapes me, was the first who taught me to twirl my drumsticks! Anyway, Cua and Carr had singlehandedly convinced me how cool being a Christian rockstar could be. This was right before Stryper became darlings of MTV.

By the time I destroyed all my old music, I was following bands from the CCM subculture like Whiteheart, the Allies (whose frontman, Bob Carlisle, would later score a mainstream hit with "Butterfly Kisses," I know, gag me!) and Petra. All of these groups was trying so hard to mimic their secular counterparts. I'll never forget hearing the opening lines of Allies "Long Way from Paradise." The Butterfly Kisses guy could belt some blues-laden rock-n-roll--"WE GOT LOUD GUITARS AND A ROCKIN' BAND!" and the Allies launch into a Led Zepplin-esque romp! I was hooked. But that was the kitschy way they won over hungry CCM fans like me.

Now, I'm not dogging all of these musicians/bands. In fact, some of the music, very little of it, has stood the test of time and I still enjoy it today. Some of the bands had VERY talented artists! Take the drummer from Whiteheart--Chris McHugh--for example. He has been Keith Urban's musical director and drummer for years! That guy still rocks! His bandmate in Whiteheart, Gordon Kennedy, penned the smash hit "Change the World," for Clapton. So it wasn't all kitschy Christian crap...but much of it was. And I was listening to it exclusively, largely missing out on the Grunge music period of the early-mid 90's.

I know.

Enter King's X, bringing us full circle. A friend of mine handed me a cassette copy of their first album, "Out of the Silent Planet." He was a church friend, one of my first from the Don Carr and Sold Out days. He'd gotten the cassette but didn't care for it much. Like most of the music industry, he didn't know what to make of them, telling me they were a new Christian rock band. I was blown away by what I heard. Looking back, I think they were the drop-D precursor to all that followed in the 90's, like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Nirvana. In fact, they opened for Pearl Jam in the mid-90's, and no they were not a Christian band.

I wore this cassette tape out on many road trips to Atlanta in my black Pontiac Fiero. The dischordant guitars backdropped against beautiful, Beatles-esque harmonies was like nothing I'd ever heard. These guys were groundbreakers and I was hooked from the first song on the album!

Thankfully, I'd get a chance to see King's X live at the Cow Haus in the early 2000's and hung with them after the show. I absolutely LOVE Doug Pinnick, their frontman and bassist! All three of them are cool, laid back and mega talented!

Anyway, this probably began my metamorphasis and slow drift out of my Musical Dark Ages. I eventually gave most of my CCM collection to my brother and sisters. I began collecting 70's music first, the stuff like Wings and Stevie Wonder that always transported me back to my innocence and childhood. Eventually, I made my way back to hard rock and metal, and even gave myself a crash course in grunge music. I never returned to the artistic deprivation of my musical darkness. That period still haunts me to this day.

Reading that King's X article this morning was a revelation of sorts. Once I learned that Pinnick and Tabor collaborated on the Morgan Cryar album, I looked up the opening track, "Pray in the USA." Hearing that song on YouTube sent me right back to 1986! I remembered owning that album on CD, how it made me feel at the time and how deep in the musical darkness I was.

Thanks for indulging me on this musical foray into my dark period.

Anti-Christian Believer

I haven't expressed many religious views in some time and that was partly the basis for this blog which began in 2005 or thereabouts. And as I was showering this morning, I thought about the deconstruction of my faith that has been occurring in spurts and starts ever since that time. So let's talk about that, shall we?

MONOTHEISTIC MYTH

Some of the world's great religions--Christianity, Islam and Judaism--purport this mythic creative being who is so above our human consciousness so as to be nearly incomprehensible. But is "he" really?

On counterpoint, the humanist idea purports this idea of the fully realized self--the perfect human, if you will. But is that idea really so different? Allow me to explain from my own personal upbringing.

The God of my childhood was certainly created in human image and explained to me as a loving, yet militantly disciplinary parent. I mean, uber-militant, like say your prayers or risk hellfire. Scary, right? Juxtaposed to his sense of fairness and justice, was the loving father figure who, once in his good graces, couldn't lavish enough love on you. As I grew to understand this concept of a perfect being of the most perfect love, I realized God possessed both masculine and feminine characteristics. I mean, even the Bible describes him/her as a mother hen gathering us like chicks under her wings.

But in all those descriptions, meant to put God in terms we could understand, he/she is merely the perfect parent or fully realized human--God in our image.

Is that so different than the humanist view of a supreme being? To me, this idea purported by monotheism that he is something more is a vain attempt to explain how and why we are here.

INTELLIGENT DESIGNERS

The argument of the intelligent design community is a full spectrum away from the randomness of the chaos theory. But let us be honest. Isn't it just as plausible that aliens of a far more advanced reality designed our universe as it is that a God creature did it in a mere six days? And what's so intelligent about a black hole anyway? Did those designers say, "Yeah, this is great and all, but you know what this galaxy needs? A huge vacuumous drain!"

I'm only halfway joking, here. If I am supposed to believe there is this incomprehensible being "out there" somewhere looking over this intelligent design he created with a word, why can I not consider him/her and alien being. Maybe she's an alien mother hen that exists in another realm---a highly creative chicken with a sadistic sense of humor.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN

My deconstruction of my faith has caused me to become very anti-Christian. Especially in today's polarized social climate, I have very little tolerance for the bigotry, sexism and homophobia of ultra-right-wing Christian expression.

My own Christian experience ran the gamut from Catholic to fundamental Baptist to the zaniness of Pentacostalism. I minored in religion at Florida State University to try and make sense of it all. What I came away with left me convinced that they are all basically full of shit. And the crazy part is that the Protestants don't seem to understand that the book they so highly value was given to them by Catholic Bishops from the 4th - 6th centuries, who couldn't have been any further removed from the Christ figure if they were meeting on Neptune, instead of Europe. And these bishops had an agenda. Why do you think some books were in and some were out? Because they picked what fit with their worldview, theology and bias. And the world--Catholics and Protestants, alike--have been lapping it up like it's water from the fountain of youth ever since. We don't even question it, not even when it clearly contradicts itself, at least I was raised not to question it.

My father, to his credit, did question the authority of the Pope and the Catholic Church. That's why we left and became Baptists in the late 1970's. He had what he describes as a conversion experience in a charismatic Bible Study that led him to a spiritual retreat called Cursillo. Just before we moved to Florida, however, my mom got very interested in the Charismatic movement in the Church, an outgrowth of the hippie church movement of the late 60's. She and my dad read a book called "Walking and Leaping" by Christian author Merlin Carothers. Once in Florida, they sought out a church that was "filled with the Spirit" and that's how we became CathoBaptiCostals, term I like to think I coined in the mid-1980's.

I always said that this upbringing gave me a well-rounded view of Christianity, but it really didn't. It was all pretty much based in fundamentalist ideology. It just took very different approaches to the foundational salvation message. It wasn't until college and even into adulthood, when I first encountered liberal Christians on Internet message boards, that my fundamentalism was even challenged. I'd never considered Christianity from a liberal or humanist worldview. I didn't know those kinds of Christians existed, or at least I never validated their brand of Christianity. I looked down upon such blasphemers as fake Christians.

When I go to church now, which is infrequently, I surround myself with these liberal types, who believe in justice, equality, inclusion and such. But I go to that church with a very anti-Christian mindset. I just don't trust Christians very much anymore. I totally get why a large portion of the world hates and distrusts them.

I still want to believe in goodness, in love, in fairness and justice, I just don't believe that it all starts with this other-worldly being who we cannot really comprehend. It'd be just as reasonable to assert that it started with highly evolved beings from another galaxy or whatever.

The theology and the book it is loosely based upon don't interest me as much as the result. How does your belief define you and make you treat others? Are you a decent human being? Are you a responsible, charitable and compassionate inhabitant of this planet? Do you make others better by your being here? The results, the actions, are what speak the most to me.

Well, I've run out of steam, so we can discuss this more later...

FATHERHOOD

I'm no good at this anymore...not the blogging. In fact, since I've been confiding so much in my journal, I hardly find time to write much else. This may not even be a complete thought I have to share, but I figured I'd start it just like any entry in my journal.

MY FATHER

I've been dreaming about my dad a lot the last couple of weeks. Very vivid dreams in which he is usually upset, perturbed or frustrated about something and taking it out on everyone else. I don't know why I've been dreaming about him so much. He's still alive and well. But dream I have.

I shared one of the dreams with my youngest daughter because, in it, he was getting upset with her because his feelings were hurt by her unresponsiveness. It's not like my youngest daughter at all to be unresponsive, unless she's totally distracted or asleep. In this dream it was the latter and he could not wake her up to go with him on an errand or to breakfast or something. The details of my dreams, often forgotten are not important, but the very real feelings they evoke are. I got very protective of her in this one, standing up to my father, dressing him down and even going a step further into the territory of insult.

Now, I know I was taking my life into my own hands at that point because he could react in one of two ways--sulk away defeated or charge at me like a bull. I feared the worse, but he simply sulked away, feeling bad about how he'd acted. My youngest wouldn't hurt a flea, let alone intentionally hurt her Papaw. I held my groggy, upset girl close, closer than ever, and just stayed in that embrace for several long minutes, ignoring my mother who was trying to gloss things over.

Okay, that was way more than I intended to share about that dream, but that's been the nature of my dreams about dad of late. Maybe I should call him and smooth things over.

We've never been super close, but we've had our moments. Take Summer 2016, for example. My father, freshly widowed and living alone in the house he and Mom had just purchased the year she died. She had cancer. I took that summer away from my kids and work and invested it in our relationship. It was a good summer and a great investment of time. Sadly, the closeness we shared that summer wore off within a year.

Dad went back into his shell. I got resentful. I didn't feel like I could share openly anymore without his judgment or religousy advice. It saddened me. Then he shot me a text in response to a rant I had sent him and it angered me. I didn't text him for awhile after that.

I'm thinking that distance, his retreat and my reaction to it are what's bothering me. Maybe reconciliation is in order.

HEMINGWAY

I recently took a keen interest in the lauded author Ernest Hemingway. It would seem that no amount of his creativity poured out onto the printed page could free him of his demons. He took his own life by shotgun in 1961, seven years before my birth. I was never an avid reader, growing up, and knew very little about the author. I knew of his Key West home, his affinity for liquor and that he'd won many accolades, including the Nobel Prize for Literature. I began to think I wanted to be him. I've dreamt about the Keys since my first visit in the early 2000's. Making my first trek to Key West some six years ago, I've been determined that I will one day live there. As an aspiring writer, I think I really wanted Hemingway to become my hero. But I knew so little about him. So I started reading.

First, was a novel in which he was the main character, written some 12 years ago by Michael Atkinson, titled "Hemingway Deadlights." It gave some keen insights into him as a person and international celebrity. Then, I did a little research into his suicide, which has since 1961 been dissected every way until Sunday. Fully psychoanalyzed posthumously by the experts, I feel like I understand him a little better.

Hemingway's father committed suicide with a pistol to his head the same way my maternal great-grandfather took his own life. Their self-inflicted deaths occurred within 15 or 16 years of each other, my Great Grandfather Roy Larson and the elder Hemingway. Just made that connection as I was writing this blog post. Anyway, that suicide obviously shook the author and influenced much of his work, including the book I'm currently reading, "The Garden of Eden," published posthumously in 1986.

I began to wonder why the influence of our fathers had become a recent theme in my life and my thinking. I shared a little of this with my daughter this morning after church.

FATHERHOOD

The theme was even present at this morning's worship service. I mean, the overarching theme of God, our Father, is always present, but Pastor Betsy was sharing some of her personal experiences with her father from childhood. He's still with us, as well, and was at the service today. Her story was one of love, service to the community and how his work had inspired her.

There I was sitting with my own daughter, considering the effects of fathers on their children. I feel very fortunate to have a great relationship with my youngest, Makenna. She took communion with me, a weekly ritual at our particular Methodist congregation, and we sat down. She immediately wrapped both arms around me in the most loving embrace. I simply closed my eyes and just absorbed it into my being. It felt so good through and through. I began to tear up under the weight of such unconditional love. Seeing the mist upon my eyes, she looks up and says, "It's okay to cry." I smiled, pointed at my eyes and said, "They're happy tears." She responded, "I know." And we sat there a moment longer.

Like I said from the outset, I hadn't completed this thought. These were just three seemingly random recent events that I tied together this morning under the heading "fatherhood." Still processing what it all means. All I know is, I love my daughter and I will always be here for her.

Remembering Jeff Porcaro

Just found this Drum Talk video honoring drumming idol Jeff Porcaro, of Toto fame, and it reminded me of the first time I saw someone demonstrate the Rosanna shuffle groove.

And while I play this shuffle groove with much more feel and fluidity than this "vlogger," I appreciate his scholarship and he shared some things I had forgotten, like Jeff's start as Sonny & Cher's drummer.

Toto IV came out when I was in Junior High and Rosanna was the big radio hit from that album before Africa rose to #1 some months later. I loved the groove and Jeff's drum playing, the jazz piano break followed by scorching guitar solo. It was just a great song and rightly received "Record of the Year" honors at the Grammy's. But I couldn't play it. In fact, I didn't really get the Bernard Purdie shuffle feel until many years later.

Specifically, I remember being at worship band rehearsal one night at Christian Heritage Church in the early 2000's. Christie Cole, our leader, was out that week and one of her backup singers was leading. The singer's husband was a drummer and at rehearsal that night he sat down and rocked out the Rosanna shuffle. My jaw dropped. It was right then that I realized the power of ghost notes and how on that groove, in particular, they provide the undercurrent and fluid, forward motion of the "Purdie Shuffle." Later, I would learn that it was Purdie who influenced Jeff's use of shuffle in his early work, like on Steely Dan and Boz Scaggs' records. But I watched in awe that night as this drummer, unknown to me, sat down and nailed it like it was the easiest thing to play. I took notes.

Later on, as I relaxed into the shuffle and learned to play those ghost notes in time and with groove, I was able to play the Rosanna song with feel and without rushing it. Since then, I've played along with it many times, though the tom fills still give me fits! It's just one of the reasons I count Jeff among my heroes.

My first encounters of his groove and deep pocket playing were, unbeknownst to me, while listening to his songs on the radio, like Lido Shuffle and Lowdown, both childhood favorites by the incomparable Boz Scaggs. At the time, I didn't know he was the grooving force behind Michael McDonald's I Keep Forgettin', another classic and a childhood fave. My first cognizant realization of his prowess was while playing along with Toto's first album, released in 1978.

I was a 10-year-old in my grandmother's basement, listening to my uncle's record collection in his early version of a "man cave." This room, walls painted a rich blue with my uncle's custom album cover art, had a drum platform and a rag tag set of drums, where I first cut my teeth on the kit. His vinyl collection included the first three albums I ever played along with--Foreigner's Double Vision (1978), Journey's Evolution (1979) and Toto's self-titled first album (1978).

I played along with these albums over and over until I could hit all the parts in lock-step with the players, even if I wasn't playing them exactly right. To this day, Hold the Line from that first Toto album is one of my favorites. I didn't even realize I was playing a pretty basic blues groove on the chorus, but it seemed to come very naturally to me. In fact, I seemed to have a knack for picking up on syncopated kick and hi-hat patterns without too much trouble. It was playing with groove and feel that would take many more years of practice.

But that was my introduction to Jeff's playing. I would follow him for many years and would to my surprise find out that he played on many great songs I'd grown up on. As an adult, I fell in love with the body of Steely Dan's work. Found out he was a session drummer for them...and scads of other artists spanning the 70's and 80's. In fact, he even played on an album by Christian recording artist, Bryan Duncan, on a song I'd loved since childhood. On this track, as on every track he's ever played, he does it tastefully, with groove and feel, providing the band with a deep pocket. Jeff was never very showy; never tried to steal the spotlight.

Jeff was taken from us in the prime of his life in 1992. His drumming, along with Neil Peart and Steve Smith, were my earliest influences. Had I known all the great tracks he had recorded in the 1970's, I would have called him my first, but I really discovered him in 1978-79 and followed his short-lived career over the next fourteen years. I purchased the only instructional video he ever did and have watched nearly every YouTube I could find, from his performances in '76 with Boz Scaggs on Japanese TV to his later concerts with Toto, where he never even took a drum solo. His selflessness and modesty was on display in this rare interview that I just recently discovered (from the late 80's?):

I listed Jeff among my Top 5 Modern Drummers back in 2009 and even included the clip from his instructional video where he breaks down and explains the roots of his Rosanna shuffle. After that, I immediately had to go work on Led Zeppelin's Fool in the Rain.

Well, that's my tribute to one of my all-time favorites and a huge influence on my playing style--the one and only Jeff Porcaro. Rest in peace, brother.

4G Grandfather Duston Mills, Pioneer

In August 2015, I wrote my "200+ Years in Indiana," post documenting the family of Duston & Louisa Mills, which included three sets of twins! My hopes back in 2015 were to finish a book of family history on the Mills who emigrated from Maine to Indiana in the second decade of the 19th century.

It was Duston's father, James, who brought the family to Indiana circa 1811, picking a spot east of Princeton, overlooking the Patoka River. Duston was five and one-half years old when the family landed at Evansville on the Ohio River, New Year's Day. They made their way north to Gibson County, a halfway point between their landing spot and the old fort at Vincennes, by then a territorial capital (the Old Northwest Territory). The U.S. Land Office opened some time later in Vincennes is where James Mills would go to enter his land. When Duston was entering manhood, he inherited some of that land plus what he'd receive as a dowry from his father-in-law, named below.

Even though my 4G Grandfather was a Maine native, he grew up, married and began family life in Gibson County, so I consider Duston my earliest Hoosier ancestor. As the crow flies, the farm where my maternal grandmother grew up is only a little more than a mile from that spot. When I made that discovery some 20 years ago, I was delighted. It meant that my family had farmed that same sacred soil for nearly 200 years.

Indiana celebrated it's bicentennial in 2016 and I really wanted to publish "My Mills Family: 200 Years in Indiana" that year, but it wasn't in the cards. I still had too much digging to do to document all of the many branches of that family that remained in the Hoosier state. Following that path from Duston to my own nieces and nephews, took me from 1804 to present, spanning eight generations. As you can imagine, that's quite an undertaking and the book has grown to nearly 400 pages!

Go back with me, if you will, to those early pioneer times in southern Indiana. It was the only portion of the state that was fairly safe from Indian attacks. A flood of pioneers came to the Hoosier State in those first three decades of the 1800's. Farms on the rolling hills east of Princeton, above Indian Creek, were cleared one acre at a time, usually by one man and an ox or mule. These are the times that Duston was raised to manhood, learning the agricultural, lumber milling and carpentry trades. He became a well-known Gibson County farmer, cabinet maker and a builder of flatboats.

He assisted in the organization of the county's first agricultural society, signing incorporation papers 19 Sep 1856, per Gil R. Stormont's History of Gibson County, Indiana...p.113. He and brother-in-law, Richard Hussey, are credited by some historians as founding the Patoka River town of Kirk's Mill, named for another pioneering family. That place was later granted a post office and named Bovine before being renamed Wheeling (it's present-day name). Back in pioneer times, the river at Kirk's Mill was 4G Grandfather Duston's launching point for pork and agricultural products by flatboat all the way down to New Orleans via the Patoka, Wabash, Ohio and Mississippi rivers. I forget how many pounds of pork, lard, corn and wheat made those long, arduous journeys south, but suffice to say it made him a wealthy man, by era standards.

Duston, often spelled Durston/Durstan, was a Whig in politics, but as Stormont writes, "on the organization of the Republican Party he cast his fortunes with that party." I believe he was also a Cumberland Presbyterian by religious affiliation. He married Louisa "Eliza" Stapleton 16 Dec 1827 in Gibson County. She was the daughter of a Tennessean, Joshua Stapleton, who served as a private in the Indian War of 1811 and Gibson County Historian Elia W. Peattie notes that he was "a hero in the Battle of Tippecanoe." After the war, he'd also settled in the same area of central Gibson County, so Louisa was a neighbor of the Mills family.

Together, they raised eleven children and buried another in infancy and also raised a couple of their grandchildren on the farm. Duston died there in 1875. I even have an image of the funeral announcement, but it fails to mention where he was laid to rest. His place of burial remains a mystery to me to this day. His widow lived another six years, but her burial place in 1882 is also a mystery. It's possible they were buried together across the road from their farm at Lawrence Cemetery. There are several members of the Mills, Greek and Hussey families buried there. It sits just north of where Louisa grew up.

Documenting the history of their children, grandchildren and four generations of descendants, focusing primarily on those branches who remained in Indiana, is the aim of my book. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Epic Fail Jimmy Dean!

I've always been a fan of the Jimmy Dean Pancake Sausage breakfast rollups on a sick. You know, the ones that look like a Pancake Corn Dog? Not only are they a really convenient, quick breakfast, but they taste really good. So when the company came out with the bite-sized version, I was quick to try them. I bought a 92-pack at Sam's Club at the beginning of the month.

As you can see on the packaging below, they are pictured to look just like mini-versions of the original. Bite-sized pieces of Jimmy Dean link sausage encased in light, fluffy pancake and cooked to golden perfection. What you can also tell in the photo below is that what comes out of the box looks nothing like the image on the front of it.

The smallish nuggets are NOTHING like what was advertised or expected. They don't even come close to the larger, original version. No, these sausage ball-sized nuggets, don't resemble, taste or come close to the originals.-  #FAIL #Jimmy Dean - In fact, I was so disappointed, I posted the above photo to their Facebook page. They didn't like that, so they attempted to move me away from social media, presumably to handle this privately by e-mail. Again, #FAIL #JimmyDean 

On the day I posted this, October 2nd, I got an immediate message from their Facebook Manager, "We're so sorry to this but we appreciate you reaching out. We'd like to have consumer affairs get in touch so we can get to the bottom of the issue. Is there an email or phone number our teams can reach you at?" I promptly gave them my e-mail address and waited...and waited. *Cue Crickets*

Here's what I expected to receive from them, "We're very sorry for your experience and that our product didn't meet your expectations..." Instead, I got NOTHING! ZERO!

So, after no word from them in three weeks, and 70 or so frozen turds just sitting in my freezer--my girls won't even touch them--I reached out at 8:25 this morning, threatening to go back to social media shaming. As of 10:25 a.m., they have again failed to respond to my customer complaint. So I'm posting this to ward off any potential customers. DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!

I know that I never will again, and because of their epic fail at customer relations, I'm planning to boycott any and all Jimmy Dean products. Feel free to join me and let them know on their Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/JimmyDean/

That's where I'm about to post a link to this blog post.

#epicfail #jimmydean

White Angst - Black Protest

When black athletes sit, kneel or stand in protest, they are quickly shouted down by the angry white masses. This is nothing new in this country. Every time people of color take to the streets or protest inequality in anyway, it seems to ruffle the feathers of white privilege and the age-old Establishment (a primarily Anglo-Saxon fraternal order). It's like a sudden eruption of white-hot angst from just below the surface that bubbles over in the form of hate, outrage and bigotry. In recent weeks, it was the protest of a handful of black athletes that caused the volcano to let loose it's vitriolic magma.

Interesting, isn't it? When a black man, no matter his socio-economic status, rises up to shout down inequality and injustice, a dozen whites stand to shout him down, as if to say, "Know your place, negro!" First, they taunt him and label him a spoiled, crybaby who is ungrateful for the hand up that sports provided him and, thereby, democracy. Then, they want him fired from his job for using the platform that we've given him to speak (how dare he use his celebrity status to speak up for what's right and give a voice to those who have no platform!). They somehow twist and reshape the narrative to fit their own racist ideology and self-serving agenda. In this case, they've attempted (and failed, mind you) to make this a debate about patriotism, nationalism and our flag. "How dare they disrespect our flag!"

Well, let's humor that rewritten narrative for a minute and turn the tables on the angry white folks. I often ask my white, nationalist brothers, "Is your sense of patriotism THAT fragile, that someone kneeling during the anthem can shatter it to pieces?"

Despite the fact that hundreds of war veterans have come out in droves to support the freedoms they so valiantly fought for, you still have angry whites making this about veterans and disrespect. Pretty sure the liberties that so many laid down their lives in defense of extend to our brothers of color, or is that, again, a white privilege??? It certainly was a white man's privilege in 1789 when the Bill of Rights was written. But haven't we progressed from the 18th century?

I think what spurs so many whites in counter-protest is not their patriotism, but their white privilege and white angst. For a closer look at white angst, I refer to this blog post or this article about "the primal scream of white America," which echoes what I wrote last March. It's an attack on their sense of superiority, plain and simple, and they don't like it.

So twist and turn the narrative all you like, the fact that black people are supposed to keep their opinions to themselves and off the playing field and television is the opinion of a majority in white America (at least the vocal majority). It harkens back to the days of slave ships, chains and muzzles. And while that may seem sensational to my white brethren, I remind them, "How many of your ancestors were brought over in iron chains and muzzles?" The failure here is of white people to empathize and to understand. Not one of the counter-protesters has taken a millisecond to walk in another man's shoes.

They don't WANT to understand, they just want their privileged status to remain unchecked. They want their NFL to remain mindless entertainment with no political or real social value other than fodder for Monday morning water-cooler banter.

The black conscience bears the scars of centuries-old oppression and outright torture. Don't tell them when and where they can speak or what they are protesting. You've never even tried to listen or to hear their cries or to walk a halfstep in their well-worn shoes.

Stop the hate. And stop hiding behind your white privilege! For once, I implore you to listen...to try to understand. The flag that waves over this country hasn't always represented freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everyone who stands beneath it.

#takeaknee

Breast Cancer Awareness Month...an awful reminder

Breast cancer awareness is the theme of the month of October...as if I needed the reminder. Ever since 2015, the month of November and, specifically, Thanksgiving Weekend are constant reminders of breast cancer and the devastation it can cause. I really didn't need the prompt one month earlier to begin missing my late mother, a victim of women's cancer, or my grandmother who died 25 years earlier.

Breast cancer, in particular, wasn't foreign to me. I believe it was 1989 when my maternal grandmother was first diagnosed. Her siblings and childhood friends from "Frisco" called her simply Kate, the abbreviated version of her middle name. I called her Grandma Wright. She lived in the town where I was born and where my parents grew up, near her childhood home. When we moved away in 1974, I was still in kindergarten. I can remember driving the U-Haul over to her house--maybe we spent our last night in Princeton there, I don't recall--to say our goodbyes. And even though we moved three hours away to the big city, I always remained close to her.

In those earliest, formative years it was my grandmothers who helped to raise me in our small, farming town. Dad's mom, Grandma Doyle, lived down the hill in the same subdivision as Grandma Wright and because the latter worked a day job, it was the former who picked me up from nursery school, across the highway from her house, fed me lunch, read to me and laid me down for a nap. But Dad's parents were near retirement age, with plans to move to South Florida once Grandpa Doyle gave his notice to the utility he helped to manage. They left town the year before us and I barely saw them after that.

That left Grandma Wright, a fairly new mother, herself, to help raise me. My Uncle Greg was born in March 1964 when she was a middle-aged woman. She worked for a manufacturing outfit on the outskirts of town. Mom worked for a beauty salon downtown. By the time I started kindergarten, we lived within walking distance of my school and mom had moved her "chair" to a salon around the corner from home and school. I don't remember after school then like I did the afternoons at Grandma Doyle's, but I assume I either walked home or to mom's work.

My world shrunk by one matriarch in 1973, leaving me two women who looked after me, the subjects of this blog post. The Vietnam War was drawing to it's sluggish end and my dad had been spared the harsh realities of war by ONE DAY (subject for another blog post). He had enlisted in the Indiana National Guard when I was just a babe, so his weekends once a month were spent on Guard Duty. He had to miss my first birthday while out at Camp Lewis, WA, in basic training. This is another reason my grandmothers were so intricately involved in my upbringing. Also, dad worked on the road as a travelling bank examiner for the state. But with one grandmother gone to Florida, who would pass when I was a 9-year-old boy, it left that responsibility to Grandma Wright, to whom I grew very close.

Even after we moved three hours away to Indianapolis--a drive that seemed to take forever as a kid--I remained very connected to my mom's family. For one, they were the nearest and most involved grandparents I had and, secondly, my uncle, only four years my senior, was revered as an older sibling. As the oldest in my fold, I didn't have a big brother, so Uncle Greg became that for me. I always looked forward to those weekend and holiday trips when I'd get to see them. One summer during middle school, mom allowed me an entire week at grandma's house, just me. It's one of my favorite childhood memories.

When I was older and my parent's would take a trip, usually for dad's work, Grandma Wright would drive up in her boat of a Cadillac and stay with us, so she remained a mother figure for me until I was a teenager. I loved my grandmother with all my heart. By then, she was the only one I had left.

We didn't see her much after moving to Florida in 1986 for dad's job. I was fresh out of high school and didn't need my grandmother's love and attention as much. Still, I missed being three hours away from her. I missed the solace of her basement and my uncle's man cave. I missed her embrace and her sloppy wet kisses.

In 1989, when she was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer, my mom got the call and she must have felt so helpless being her only daughter and some 10 hours away. I know that feeling all too well, now. It was the summer of 2014 when I got that fateful call from my own mother, who was living 13 hours away in Noblesville, IN. It's the most devastating call, aside from the death of a child (I would assume), that one can receive. I then knew the helpless feeling my mom had felt all those years earlier.

Mom, too, was diagnosed with breast cancer. What took less than a year to metastasize and eventually take my grandma, took 17 months with my mom. Those are 17 months that I will always cherish.

I wasn't present for my grandma's final days. Her death hit me particularly hard, not just because she was a mother figure in my life, but also because we lived so far apart--her in the town of my birth and me in Florida. I was able to attend her funeral, the saddest day of my life up to that point. We laid her to rest in the town where she grew up, aka "Frisco," in February 1990. My mom had been at her bedside throughout most of her battle with cancer.

When mom passed on the final day of Thanksgiving Weekend 2015, it felt as if I had been at her bedside, her death bed. In fact, she was already gone when I went in to kiss her clammy forehead early that Sunday morning. It was so surreal. The girls and I were departing on a 13-hour drive home to Tallahassee after the holiday weekend. Here is what I blogged the morning after (30 Nov 2015):

I got up around 4:30 and showered. Got my girls moving and had them wake up Dad before our departure. We said our goodbyes and around 5 a.m., I went in to kiss Mom on the forehead. It didn't feel right under my lips. No warmth. Concerned, I told Dad to check on her and hugged his neck one more time. The girls and I left. I figured if something was wrong, he'd call me back into the house immediately. Nothing. Fifteen minutes later, I'm pulling into a Speedway station in Noblesville to fillup before hitting I-69. I look down and see the text from Dad.

Dad's text read, "Chris, I can't get mom to respond. I just called Hospice."

In a near panic, I drove 50 mph or more through the sleepy town of Noblesville at 5:30 on a Sunday morning, nary a car on the road. I made it back to dad's house in Cicero in what seemed like seconds, but in slow motion. I found mom in the same position in her bed as when I left, one leg flopped over the side. My niece, Ireland, who had spent the last night there with us was still sleeping in the guest bedroom. We didn't dare wake her to this horrible news about her Grammy, but eventually we had to. My sister Keely was there almost immediately. You can read my immediate reactions in the blog posts I've linked above and here.

Suffice to say, I am KEENLY aware of breast cancer and it's devastating effects. I am a victim, myself. Though I've never suffered from the affliction in my own body, I might as well have. It ripped the two most beloved women of my youth from me as an adult, nearly ripping my heart out with each passing. The matriarchs of my family--gone forever. So I really don't need a month dedicated to breast cancer awareness. I am fully aware. But I do take this month to reflect and to speak out. I've made my Facebook profile picture a pink ribbon which I intend to keep up for the entire month of October...in their honor.

November will be worse. This Thanksgiving will mark the 2nd anniversary since mom's passing. And I'm glad we were there, me and my girls. It left an indelible imprint on all of us.

We miss you, Mom...Grammy. And I miss you, too, Grandma. My life will never be the same without either of you. Rest in peace.

This blog is dedicated to the memories of Alice Kathryn "Kate" Wright (1920-1990) and Kathy Doyle (1949-2015).

Really, anti-gun folks?

In 1789, when the Bill of Rights was written, the woman in this photo really had no first amendment rights. Those were extended to white men, not to women of color. So when you circulate second Amendment memes on social media of musketball rifles and minutemen, consider the context.

Let that sink in for a minute.

The second amendment simply states, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Those first four words have been hotly debated, but few can argue with the last four, "shall not be infringed."

In context, we know that minutemen carried musketball rifles to fend off their British enemies. No one is being threatened today by a musketball-wielding redcoat. We have fully militarized police forces with assault rifles and tanks. So if you're going to argue the amendment on merit, you have to bring it forward from 1789 to 2017.

While the photo of the female protester above is used to emphasize a point, it is a valid comparison. If we're going to argue that the Bill of Rights was written a long time ago and we apply the logic of 1789 thinking, then this woman wouldn't have the right to protest. As both a female and an African American, she really wasn't protected under the Bill of Rights, maybe in theory, but certainly not in practice. So you can't apply that same backwards logic to the second amendment either.

That said, we certainly need stricter gun laws, not deregulation. Congress should use Vegas as the impetus to reverse course and tell the NRA to stick their millions up their collective asses. My only beef was with the ridiculous memes circulating about the second amendment protecting only antiquated weaponry.

F#CK TALLAHASSEE

I cannot tell if this place is a God-forsaken hellhole or shithole. I think both descriptions fit Tallahassee.

I moved away in December 2006 and never intended to move back. Forced against my will, I made the move in February 2014. I have maintained that since 2012, when my daughters were moved back here by their mom, the only three redeeming qualities about this shithole town are FSU and my two daughters, but not in that order.

Since moving back 3.5 years ago, I've watched it deteriorate (leadership and law enforcement, specifically) and been treated to the same ol' "suthun hospitality" I'd grown accustomed to for 20 years, 1986-2006. That hospitality and the goodness of people here is an absolute myth. They hold onto some idyllic version of their past like it's their God-given right. It's not. And they wouldn't know true hospitality if it bit them in the ass!

When I moved here in 1986 with my parents--some 120 years post-Civil War--people still "jokingly" referred to me as a "damn yankee" or "carpetbagger." It wasn't funny. It made me wonder why they hadn't gotten over what they still call "The War of Northern Aggression." This and the inherent racism that sort of thinking breeds is part of what led me to move north in 2006. I didn't really want to raise a biracial daughter in this environment.

Nestled in the armpit of Florida, too far from the coast to feel a seabreeze but much too close during hurricane season, Tallahassee is in the worst possible spot. We just had a near miss from monster storm Irma. When that happens in other parts of Florida, further south, you breathe a big sigh of relief and continue enjoying paradise. Not here in good ol' Tally-hassee. Had we taken a direct hit, this town would have been left decimated. I breathed a sigh of relief, then realized Tallahassee is still here.

Hot and sticky, like today. It's nearly October and it's 94 out as I write this and probably 70% humidity (or worse). The swamp-like heat will remain until Halloween. But the climate and location are far from the worst things about this hellhole.

The people, by and far, are the worst, most disingenuous people you'll ever encounter. If you stay for any length of time, you'll experience their true colors--their two-facedness, their ignorance, their selfishness and their untrustworthiness (to name a few). I already mentioned the inherent racism. That doesn't apply to everyone who was born and raised here, but it is still pervasive.

I can't even begin the count the number of times I was bold-face lied to. I've been let down, beat down, trampled and left for dead on numerous occasions. And the people who I thought were "ride or die" friends were just run-of-the-mill, I'll help you if it's convenient friends. All the rest can go to hell in a handbasket. In a word, they suck!

I only worked about four jobs in Indianapolis and the rest of my work experience has been in this hellhole town. My three worst bosses were all here (only one had lived here for most of her life). None of them had my best interest--or any of their employees interest--at heart and all of them were do as I say, not as I do-type "leaders." They weren't really leaders at all. They certainly weren't people I wanted to follow. They are typical of the kinds of people who are put into those positions in Tallahassee.

It has led this "fine city" to become the most crime-ridden in the state of Florida. Yes, more violent crimes than freakin' Miami!!! In fact, last week, I read where our campus, FSU, is the most violent, as well. And all you'll hear people say is what a great place this is to raise a family. Um, really? This town has become scary. Even in the SouthWood bubble where I live, a non-gated golf course community, there has been a rash of break-ins, auto and home burglaries. As I was writing this, a Sheriff's helicopter was hovering over the bubble. Interesting.

The lack of leadership is pervasive, from government down to non-profits, and I've worked for both. It even has found it's way into the church, here. It makes for an unlivable situation. I'm having trouble coping here.

Had I not promised my daughters to stay until they graduate, I'd be headed back to the beach! In another six years I will be. On that day, I'll shake the dust from my feet and say, "F#CK TALLAHASSEE!"

Christian With Humanist Leanings

My Christianity has been leaning more left, if you will, since about 2005 after I got disenfranchised with the Pentecostal movement that seemed to be getting wackier by the day. By wacky, I mean the kind of name-it-claim-it, prosperity gospel sort of extremism that is prevalent in some mega churches today (Joel Osteen's comes to mind).

Up until then, I brandished a fairly fundamental, Protestant worldview. This world was going to hell in a handbasket and Jesus was our only hope. And by Jesus, I meant the white version hanging on the wall in many American homes, who was by no means a brown-skinned Middle Eastern, much less a Jewish Rabbi or Mystic. No the Americanized Jesus that hung on the wall of my parents house was California Surfer Jesus with windblown, brown hair, bronze skin and a big "hey dude" smile. Now, my parents were baby-boomers who graduated high school in the height of the hippie movement. They were, by no means, hippies, but the Jesus Movement influence was very real in my house.

We attended a summer Jesus festival in the Allegheny Mountains of Western Pennsylvania when I was 8. We listened to Keith Green and the Archers on the turntable console...when we weren't spinning dad's Beatles or Beach Boys albums. We were Middle America, Catholic charismatics turned Protestant, then Pentecostal.

Growing up Catholic, then Baptist and then non-denominational Pentecostal, I thought, gave me a well-rounded view of Christianity. But a common fundamentalist thread ran through all of those variants of the same faith--the world was going to hell unless it repented and accepted Jesus as the only means of salvation. Not only that, but multiple baptisms were required. I was poured, dunked and/or prayed over (for the gift of tongues) at every turn. I was neck-deep in a very narrow view of my religion and the world around us.

Only in 2005, after buying my first house, adopting two children, navigating a failing marriage and experiencing burnout at church, did I begin to consider any alternative. I learned of this movement called Emergent Christianity, which was sort of a fad after we entered the new millennium. In the discussions I had with "emergent" people of faith, I had to consider what Orthodox, non-Western and even Universalists saw in the Scripture. I saw that these people were just as devout about Christianity as I was, even if their faith seemed much different in practice and application of Scripture.

I stopped going to my church of almost 20 years.

My ex-wife and I, still married then, decided to join forces with other young families--four or five in all--and host regular get-togethers, including a big monthly meal, where we'd pool all our resources. Whoever the host family was that month was in charge of "the offering." They were tasked with finding creative ways to serve God by meeting a need in the community. It was the beginning of our home church...or so I thought. It didn't last long.

You see, with any gathering of humans around a common cause, politics and people's strong opinions always get in the way of doing good. I've found church politics to be some of the nastiest. It's part of what tainted my view of traditional church. I thought we'd found an answer. Keep the group small; be single-minded in focus and in action. It wasn't sustainable.

Shortly after that venture failed, I found myself in the midst of a real midlife crisis. I had a long-distance affair with a woman I'd met online from my home state. It nearly ended my marriage and certainly signaled it's doom. We decided to leave Tallahassee behind and swore we'd never return. Lesson there is, "Never say never."

So my world completely shaken, I broke free of the bonds of fundamentalism and fanaticism. I began looking at the core of my beliefs and re-evaluating them. I spent many years outside of church, only going sporadically while living in Indiana. Moved back to Florida and befriended the Baptist pastors at my local, beach church. Began seeing something in them that was different from most Christians I'd ever encountered in my life. They began to restore some semblance of hope.

Slowly, I returned to church, but I was a changed Christian. No longer a religious person, I'd let my convictions and questions guide me. I made a promise to my mom, on her deathbed in 2015, that I'd take my daughters to church. My youngest and I began attending Good Samaritan United Methodist Church in Tallahassee last year.

A radical change in my thinking and worldview made me a different kind of Christian. I'm now one who seeks inclusion, acceptance, social justice, love and to vanquish inequality, hate and hypocrisy. I have little use for the Church outside of it's ability to bring people together to help one another. It's the value and power of human beings working in concert that affects real change. That's where I tend to lean a little more humanist than religious. I'll share more on this later, but this is a good recount of how I became a different kind of person...a more Humanist Christian.

Understanding White Privilege

DISCLAIMER: I do not suffer from "white guilt." I do not write from a place of utter guilt for the way my black brothers have been treated throughout history. I only write to seek understanding for my white brothers. I seek to unearth a newfound empathy and to implore my white brothers to try, to the best of their ability, to look beyond their own experience and walk in another man's shoes, just until they get it.

WHITE PRIVILEGE

It's a term that came into existence, as best as I can tell, in the 1960's during the American Civil Rights Movement, but only recently gained widespread acceptance. It's understood by most to be some unspoken right bestowed upon whites at birth that's never really spoken about in order to maintain the status quo (i.e. keep minorities in their place). Some sociologists call it a way for those in the privileged class to "mask racial inequality."

I'm of that privileged class, not because I earned a college degree or made X amount of dollars or reached some vaunted rung on the social ladder. I am privileged in society only because I was born to white parents.

Now for disclaimer number two: My own daughter, who is adopted, was not born into that class. She was born to an African-American mother and an Irish (white) father. She's been raised since birth in a white, middle class home. She has two cousins, also adopted into my family (my sister's kids), who are full-blooded African-American. I love these children dearly. So I do not write from a place of total ignorance, nor do I write from a place of non-bias. I would lay down my life for any one of them. And if ever faced with the threat of violence from a racist (of any sort, and we'll discuss that momentarily), I'd return violence with violence. I would defend them and their honor to my death.

Glad we have that out of the way.

Now, to the idea of racism. And this blog post was instigated by several recent conversations on social media sparked by the recent tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia. That hate crime, a terrorist attack by a homegrown terrorist--let's call a spade a spade, here--has rekindled the debate about racism in America. That crime, carried out by an unmasked, unashamed racist, is an example of racism out in the open--like the KKK unmasked. But it has brought to light the seedier, not-so-out-in-the-open racism of so many others, who don't even believe they are racist.

These people are the one's who might argue that there is no such thing as white privilege. Let me be clear, these people are in the majority! They need to be unmasked and re-educated. They are either willfully ignorant, as so many in white America are, or they are just plain ignorant. This blog post is meant to help them get a clue.

Like me, they, too, were born into a family of privilege just because their parents were both white.

Privilege, in this case, doesn't speak to your socio-economic status. It says nothing about your immigrant heritage or how your branch of the white global family came to this country. It says nothing of how your parents were raised, how much money they had, what community you were born into--gated country club or white ghetto, it makes no difference. Privilege, in the sense we are talking about, relates only to your skin tone, your ethnic heritage and nothing else. It's something that predates you by eons and even your earliest American ancestor.

ROOTS, the Anglo-Saxon mini-series...

We don't have to go back to the dawn of time or even the earliest civilizations. Let's just start at zero. The point in time where "Before Common Era/Christ" became "CE/AD." Yes, during the first years of our Lord, when the Roman Empire was in it's infancy. Think about the early spread of Christianity and how the Bible came into existence, into social pre-eminence as a foundational document for Western civilization. This happened when the Romans co-opted a cultic, Middle Eastern religion and made it, for lack of a better term, "worldwide." Yes, I mean Christianity. It began to morph from something peculiar to Middle Easterners, specifically Jews and a few converted Gentiles in that region, to a global, mostly white religion. The Bible and the Roman church's interpretation (or we should say canonization) of it became the basis for modern society in the West.

Yes, Christianity broke into a thousand subsets thanks to the Reformation, the Greeks, the Brits and a whole host of others. Prior to that, however, the Holy Roman Empire set the stage for our modern-day problem. Now whether your family was Jewish, Catholic or Protestant, they were somehow influenced by this empire which ruled all of Christendom for about 10 centuries (800-1806, roughly). Nearly every white person who came to America, whether religious or not, was influenced by the spread of Christianity throughout Europe. These were white rulers lording their "God-given superiority" in their white religion to subject the masses. (My interpretation of history, anyway).

That wasn't the beginning of white power, to be sure. I believe white privilege goes much further back to the beginning of recorded history, but I'm focusing on how it took root in Western civilization and was essential in the formation of our country.

Our forefathers, by-and-large, were white, European Christians, though some were merely deists who still believed in one Almighty. That's why we have all the symbols and slogans we do in America, like on the dollar bill. And it was under that guise, that we subjected all other races, in particular, those of African descent. (I'm going to throw in a quick reminder that this isn't a lesson in white guilt).

Our country perpetuated and profited from the African slave trade. In my opinion, we adulterated our religion in the name of Christ. And all along the way, we felt justified just because of our God-given whiteness. Sure, we wised up during the 1860's under the leadership of one of our greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, and even fought a bloody war over it, but that didn't end white privilege.

This sense of superiority wasn't taught to us in school, nor were we inherently racist. We just benefited from the way the system had been rigged for all of history, certainly the history of Western civilization dating back to the Roman Empire. We are of the privileged white class for no other reason than we were born to white parents. Civilization was rigged to favor us over other races. Our society is rigged because we are of the majority and have been since this country was founded.

SO NOW WHAT?

Does any of that make it right? No more than our denial of it makes it not true. White privilege exists. It's inherent in our country's makeup and in the empires from which we evolved--Roman and British, primarily.

I think it takes someone with real empathy to be able to step outside of themselves and "get it." Maybe you weren't raised by empathetic parents who instilled in you a sense of fairness and social justice. Maybe they were just products of their environment. My parents were children of the 60's. I think it shaped their perspective on the world. It certainly shaped their Christianity. Thereby, it shaped me.

I'm fortunate enough to come from a family that is now more racially diverse than any generation before me, on either side, though Mom's side did boast some Native American (trace amounts). That, as well as my upbringing, have given me that empathy, I believe, that many of my white brethren lack. It's as if they can't get past THEIR American experience to see that everyone else's America doesn't look just like theirs.

Take this white woman's testimony. I watched her 11-minute video tonight and was moved by her sudden realization and newfound empathy for her African-American sisters. Or read this Southern man's story of coming to terms with his privileged status. Should we all be granted an "Aha! moment" like that!

White privilege exists.

We can't continue in our ignorance as if it doesn't. We can't be part of the dulled masses who continues the campaign of denial out of pure ignorance. White people need to wake up. Others need to be convinced that their continued denial is likened to "flat Earthers" or those who deny climate change. Their denial isn't going to make it any less true. History says otherwise.

Should we feel guilty about it? I don't think that's a productive reaction, unless that guilt moves you to a place of positivity, empathy or social action. We just need to be aware. I hope that it would make us all a little more compassionate and empathetic. Not everyone's American experience mirrors our own. Day-to-day life in this country can vary wildly whether you were granted this "birthright" or were born into a minority family. Take time to consider their vantage point. Try to walk in their shoes an inch (it doesn't even take a mile). Empathy can tear down many of the barriers between us.

Now, more than ever, we need a little more empathy, compassion and understanding.

Ezekiel Stanford Farmer (1843-1923)

Like many pioneering Indiana farm families, the Farmers came north for the promise of new, uncultivated lands in the emerging Indiana Territory. When Fleming Farmer, born 20 November 1807 in South Carolina, was just a small boy, his father Ezekiel moved the family to Indiana Territory. At that time, southern Indiana was a wilderness roamed by buffalo and Native Americans, where white settlers built log fortresses, called block houses, where they could seek refuge from attack. This was the wilderness where Ezekiel Farmer, grandfather of this subject, made his home in the woods between Princeton and Columbia City (later Oakland City). I don't know what brought them north other than the prospect of rich farmlands watered by the creeks that emptied into the nearby Patoka River. The precise date is unknown, but we can assume it was before Indiana's statehood in 1816. This was the area that would become Gibson County.

Elia Wilkinson Peattie, an American historian, wrote a bio of this subject in 1897. Her contemporary and Princeton newspaper man, Gil R. Stormont, mentions the family in his history of the county, published in 1914. Stormont mentions Fleming Farmer as an early settler of the area north of Francisco, IN, in the 1850's. Of course, Francisco was not yet platted, nor was Center Township, at that early date. Francisco became a town when the Eerie & Wabash Canal came through the center of Gibson County in the 1850's. Center Township would be carved out of eastern Patoka and western Columbia Townships in 1880. From U.S. Census records, we know that Fleming was counted among the male farmers of then Columbia Township in 1840. That area between what would become Francisco and the Patoka River, to the north, is where Fleming would marry and raise a family. The first Mrs. Fleming Farmer was my 5th Great Aunt Polly Stapleton (1810-1879), a native of Tennessee, who's father was engaged in the Battle of Tippecanoe and was also an early Gibson County settler from the south. Polly was born 7 May 1810 in Robertson County, TN, and brought to Indiana Territory in the first decade of the 19th century. Father Joshua Stapleton was also engaged as a private in the War of 1812 against the British. He began farming 160 acres 5 miles east of Princeton, according to Peattie. The families were located within 2 miles of each other, practically neighbors in wilderness times. Polly and Fleming were married 17 Dec 1832 in Gibson County. They had at least one son, and possibly a daughter, but their marriage did not last and she was not the mother of this subject. 

Fleming Farmer married a second time to Louvisa Woolsey-Clifford (1808-1879) of Edmonson County, KY, the daughter of William Hopkins Woolsey, of said county, and widow of AC Clifford, of Indiana. The Farmer-Clifford wedding occurred 1 May 1842 in nearby Pike County, IN (the county that borders Gibson to the northeast). To their union was born five children, including two sons. The youngest of their sons was the subject of this post, Ezekiel Stanford Farmer.

Born in central Gibson County 10 October 1843 and named for his paternal grandfather, young Ezekiel would join the Union Army before his 20's. As Peattie writes:

He had not yet attained his majority when responded to the President’s call for troops and joined the First Indiana Infantry under Colonel Baker. The regiment was attached to the command of General Steele and mustered in at Indianapolis. He first met the enemy at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and continued in active service in the southwest until honorably discharged at the close of the war at Duvall’s Bluff, Arkansas. He was four times wounded and still carries a rebel ball in his shoulder. Mr. Farmer arrived home July 4, 1865, and at once resumed agricultural pursuits, which he has since carried on in connection with stock dealing. For the past ten years he has been extensively engaged in shipping fat stock, and has made this a profitable source of income. He owns two farms near Francisco, aggregating three hundred and ninety-two acres, and a glance at these possessions will convince one of the industrious care of the owner. Mr. Farmer was married in August 1867 to Rosie B., daughter of William Stewart, of Fayette County, Indiana, and their home is blessed with the following children—Charles C., Fred S., Bertha C., William F., Oliver M. and Stewart. The family is one of prominence in the community, and the members of the household occupy a high position in social circles. (“History of Gibson County” as excerpted from a larger volume History of the United States, Indiana, and Gibson County, by Elia Wilkinson Peattie, 1897, Cook & McDowell Publications, pp. 120-21).

Ezekiel took to farming and stock raising in the same area of Gibson County where his father, Fleming, had established the family farm. We know from the 1881 Atlas of Gibson County, one of the first to layout the farms of newly created Center Township, that Ezekiel had two farms, one just west of Keg Creek near Patoka River northeast of Francisco. It sat right next to Thomas M. Harbison's farm. Ezekiel also had an 80-acre farm due north of Francisco in Section 18. On his farms he raised livestock and was a prominent Gibson County farmer, according to Peattie. She mentioned the "rebel ball" in his shoulder, well Ezekiel is listed on the Pensioners Roll for 1883, receiving $8/month for a gunshot wound to the shoulder (since September 1870). I also found mention that he served the town of Francisco as a medical doctor. His residence and office were on the east side of Main Cross Street behind the public school.

Ezekiel Stanford Farmer was united in marriage to Rousabell  Stewart (aka Rosa Bell, 1847-1902) on 14 August 1867 in Gibson County. She bore five sons--Charles, Fred, William, Oliver and Stewart--and one daughter, Bertha. The children were raised on the farm north of "Frisco." In 1888, just two years after the last child, Stewart, was born, Ezekiel was named Trustee of Center Township. He'd lose Rausabell in May 1902 to dysentery. She had been suffering from cancer and was buried in nearby Mead(e) Cemetery.

Two years later, he married the ex-wife of my 4th Great Uncle, Fannie King-Mills, who was also my 1st cousin (explained in notes below). Fannie married Ezekiel 9 June 1904 in Vanderburgh County, IN. Ezekiel was 61, Fannie was 45. The couple had no children together and the five children from her first marriage were all grown, the youngest being 20.

Ezekiel was a highly esteemed Mason and a staunch Republican. He died, aged 79, on 14 August 1923 (which would have been the day of his 56-year wedding anniversary to his first wife had she survived). He was laid to rest at Mead(e) Cemetery, located between his two farms in northeast Center Township. His widow, Fannie, filed for a widow's pension 23 August 1923. She died nine years later and was buried in Princeton's Odd Fellows Cemetery, the only Farmer to be buried there.

Upon Ezekiel's death, he split his vast acreage in Center Township between three surviving children--Bertha Taylor, Charles and Stewart Farmer--and three granddaughters (survivors of son Fred, who died in 1910), making allowance for his widow, Fannie, to remain on their 80-acre farm just north of Francisco.
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Notes on my relation to second wife Frances Adelia "Fannie" King (1858-1932):
She was the daughter of my 4th Great Aunt and Uncle, Adelia (Mills) and Charles Daniel King, making her my first cousin, several times removed.

Black Lives Matter. Period.

#blacklivesmatter

It's sad that we have to have a campaign with the above hashtag. But it's sadder, still, that we see black lives snuffed out on a semi-regular basis on social and other media. The recently released footage of the Castillo murder by Minnesota cops comes to mind. Traffic stops of gun-carrying white people don't go down like that!

I fear that some of the backlash to the Black Lives Matter campaign is rooted in ignorance. I also fear the the younger generation, and I'm talking here about GenY'ers and those after them, are unaware of what the world was like in the decades before they were born...in the years I grew up. So let me set the stage for you...

I grew up in the 1970's. Born in 1968, I grew up on Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and Captain Kangaroo. I'm part of the generation that grew up watching a lot of pre-cable TV. In those days, you didn't see a lot of black people or black families portrayed on television, or in mainstream media in general. There was no black Marlboro man. In fact, unless you read an ethnic publication, like Ebony magazine, you basically saw NO PEOPLE OF COLOR in any advertising, print or electronic, whatsoever! The first shows featuring black characters that I remember are Sanford and Sons and Fat Albert, both of which came on TV in 1972. Both shows were largely centered around junkyards. No implied message there!






Back then, we had 3-4 channels to choose from, so getting even ONE show with an all-black cast, tackling the issues of urban life, was a big deal. We didn't have shows like Blackish, channels like Black Entertainment Television (BET), or game show/talk show hosts like Steve Harvey. When I was very little, we had two shows! After that, Good Times, the Jeffersons and others became popular, but they were an anomaly. In all of TV History, prior to the 70's, you were hardpressed to find major characters who were anything but white.

Consider that. As a kid growing up 40 years ago, I still didn't see as many blacks represented in the media as I saw all around me in Indianapolis. And worse still, the swim club closest to my childhood home restricted access to non-Jewish whites only! My parents refused to join or to let us go there with our friends. Even then, I understood why.

A decade removed from the victories of the civil rights movement and there still wasn't much equality in America. I was shaken from my white superiority by the Roots miniseries that aired on ABC when I was 8. I'm glad my mom let me watch it. It made me look at my neighborhood friend, Gerald, through different eyes.

I share all that because I fear that teens, twenty and even thirty-somethings today don't realize that the world was still very segregated just 30-40 years ago. In fact, I was bussed to a different school across town in 8th grade as part of Indianapolis Public School's desegregation efforts. That was 1981-82! Things didn't magically get better with the civil rights movement in the 1960's. It's been an ongoing fight. It's taken decades just to get where we are today.

I had a well-meaning friend on Facebook give me his .02:

"The problem that i have with that slogan is that i should be able to say all lives matter, but i can't. I have been verbally attacked for saying it. Why? As long as society and people keep saying "white this" and "black that" we will never be free of racism. Both sides have it... but, there shouldn't be sides. My 5 year old daughter doesn't see skin color. She sees people. So, why are we as adults perpetuating the segregation?  It's time to be humans or earthlings.  Btw, i totally get what you're saying. I'm not saying that black lives don't matter, but please try to see what I'm saying as well. All lives should matter, except for terrorists. They should be destroyed"

The manifold problem with this "white people logic" begins with it's foundation. It wasn't blacks who created the divide amongst humanity. By and large, it was white people. It began with the premise that races OTHER THAN white were somehow inferior. In the case of Africans, they were classified subhuman. The African slave was classified chattel. They were no different than livestock and often treated WORSE! So white people created the US v. THEM culture between themselves and everyone of a "lesser race" (blacks were often referred to as "mud race"). This culture has been so prevalent, even in the last century, that the American public got a rude awakening with the civil unrest of the 1960's.

That's the culture into which a great percentage of today's African-American was born. They were welcomed into a world of inequality onto an unlevel playing field that was stacked against them. And just because the field is a bit more level today, it didn't make their lives any easier in the last fifty years. They had to overcome obstacles. They faced cruelty and injustice that many in the fairer race can't even comprehend. So when they say "black lives matter," it is rooted in the deep, dark history of civilization where their lives really DIDN'T matter to white people.

The phrase itself doesn't imply anything other than what it says, "Black lives matter." Period. End of statement.

What it DOESN'T say?
"Black lives matter more."
"White lives matter less."
"Cops matter even less."

It's simply a fight for equality...a fight that began ions ago and continues today. Why it puts those of other races on the defensive is beyond me.

But it does prove that white privilege still exists. It is so ingrained in us, that we feel slighted by the exclusion from the motto "black lives matter." Why we feel the need to argue, "What about us?" Well, white friends, our lives have ALWAYS mattered! We didn't have to fight for equality. We didn't have to suffer attack dogs, gestapo police tactics, terrorists (like the KKK and irate Southerners) and a government bent on keeping us marginalized just to maintain our civil rights. No, those have never been threatened or in question, not in any way. So why do we feel threatened by the fight for black equality?

I'll save my comments on "color blindness" for a different post, but the above statements pretty well sum up my feelings about non-blacks who have a problem with #blacklivesmatter.

You may wonder why this issue resonates so much with me. I'm not just some do-gooder white dude looking for a cause. I'm not suffering from white guilt. I simply want my daughter, my niece and my nephew, who are all or part African-American, to grow up in a world that seems 100 YEARS AHEAD of the society in which I grew up. We need to see RAPID progress where civil rights are concerned, not just racial equality, but sexual, gender and in every other way! I care because I love my kid and her cousins, dearly. I want a better world for them. And ever since I was a little kid, racism has made my blood boil.

Thank you for reading my blog post.

CAPITALISM GONE WRONG!

I've started a new blog, a place where I can wax political:

http://wrongcapitalism.blogspot.com

It was berthed out of this political wandering I've been doing ever since I left the traditional church back around 2004-05. That's about the same time I started to blog.

Since that time, I've undergone periods of joblessness and homelessness that have humbled me to the core. It shook me from my Christian conservative foundation. It caused me to reevaluate all of my priorities, my beliefs, my ideologies.

During the last presidential campaign, I began listening to what "socialist" candidate Bernie Sanders had to say and it made a lot of sense. Still, I didn't believe that government held all the answers. I've worked in government. I've seen the waste and corrupt mismanagement of resources. I know that government can't operate like private industry, so I knew that more government programs wasn't the answer. But what was?

If I still believe in a free market democracy, how do we change the way that market works and ensure that it reflects real American values?

Like the socialist ideals of Sanders, I still don't believe that the 99% should prop up the 1%. But I don't believe we can force people to give up their fortunes for the benefit of all (i.e. wealth redistribution). HOWEVER, we CAN give incentives to corporations and their leadership to act more socially responsibly!

This idea, called Compassionate Capitalism, is not a new concept. It's been around for at least 20 years, if not longer. But that phrase, akin to "compassionate conservatism," has been gaining traction ever since George W. ran for the White House.

It finally made more sense to me than to push a socialist agenda on the wealthy. Something they'd fight vehemently through PACs and lobbyists, anyway. But there are some socially responsible capitalists leading the way, like Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com. Reading his story and how like-minded capitalists are putting their money where their hearts are is very reassuring. My faith in capitalism might be saved, after all!

So I started the Capitalism Gone Wrong blog to shine a spotlight on abuse, greed and corrupt government, while sharing stories of hope that capitalism and democracy can live together in harmony and are not a lost cause.

I hope to gain a few followers, so we can exchange ideas about how we can affect change in our government and truly make America the world leader it has the potential to be.