Sweet Jesus!! It was an expression that I heard in my days as an actor when I portrayed Robert Livingston in a production of 1776. It was a light weight verbal shrug offered at a situation that didn’t meet someone’s idea of acceptable. It was so benign that it never changed the rating. It never seemed to insult Jesus the way a common curse would. It was more of a plea.
Jesus was sweet. He is sweet. He is a great teacher and is there to bring people together. We are in interdependent group divided by selfish motives that can be seen by sweet Jesus. We are called to give without expecting anything in return. We are admonished to love one and other as we love ourselves. We are not called to despise ourselves as that would be denying our own divinity as we were made in the image of God.
Although I accept Jesus’ Word I am troubled by those who claim to be Christian and harbor hate and prejudice and defend evil that is taking place in this country. I mean…Sweet Jesus! How can they not see the hypocrisy? How can they not see that placing the name of Jesus to achieve worldly treasures or powers is absolutely and by definition taking the Lord’s name in Vain!
I choose to think good thoughts. I reject fear. I was not placed on this earth to do the will of another person. People…all people…are my greatest resource and they were sourced by the best.
Fifty years ago, I was just finishing the 8th grade and all of the talk was about the Bicentennial. There were Bicentennial moments on TV like the ones narrated by Hal Linden. There was Schoolhouse Rock that focused on America both in its birth and government. There were the special trips into the city of Philadelphia that toured the historic places like Independence Hall and the new home of the Liberty Bell.
It was all a little much but since we focused on the Revolutionary War during our Social Studies classes, it became a very special topic to me. Since I went into teaching music, I was particularly affected by our trip to Philadelphia to see the movie 1776, a musical based on the story of the revolution. I watched and rewatched this musical over the years and it wasn’t until I had performed in it in 2003, the same year that the National Constitution Center opened in Philadelphia, I really began to understand it. While performing, I was able to research some of the accuracies and discrepancies with the performance and real life.
It turns out that the changes made to “history” had more to do with the audience ability to keep track of the action. For example, there was no scoreboard in Independence Hall. It was added for the audience. Some of the quotes used by characters in the show were accurate but made by other people. One in particular involves Sam Adams who was not in the show.
Still more similarities existed over the years. There was a song called Cool Considerate Men that was in the Broadway version but didn’t survive the original screening to Richard Nixon. It appears he thought it reflected poorly on the Republican Party of the day so he wouldn’t allow it to be included. If you see it on TV even today, it is not there. It is in the restored director’s cut.
Crap like this has been going on in American History for a long time. When I graduated in 1976 from 8th grade, I was given a diploma that included famous American Documents. I still have it and look at it from time to time. If you read through it and read through the Bill of Rights for example, the second amendment is entitled “the militia”. It turns out that the title was not militia and it is not right to bear arms…the statements are there to stand on their own.
When you are living during the time something is written you seldom think about its meaning over time because what was “self evident” if I may borrow a phrase from the Declaration…it is not so clear to a population a hundred or so years removed. The true purpose of this Amendment was not to have it written for the people so much as it was written for the world to know that the entire country was deputized for the purpose of defending its long and vulnerable coastline and if you dare cross that beach, the government of the United States was there in the homes and the hearts of its inhabitants.
The one exception that I noticed in the 1776 musical was when slavery was being debated and the southern colonies succeeded in removing an offending clause calling for its ending. When faced with this decision John Adams line of “posterity would never forgive us” was uttered to which Benjamin Franklin said well we’ll be long gone by then. It turns out that the actual quote was from Sam Adams and its line was so prophetic that they chose to reduce it to make the movie more believable. He actually predicted the civil war.
Another movie that I watch this time every year is one called Dazed and Confused. It is a story of the last day of school in 1976 and it follows middle and high school students through the crazy traditions of teen life in the 1970s and deals with issues such as bullying, drugs, sex, rebellion, drinking and one thought provoking line from a teacher who said “just remember as you are celebrating the bicentennial that the real reason behind the revolution is that a bunch or rich white men didn’t want to pay their taxes.”
This movie also didn’t survive the censors as one scene dealing with prevalent racism against Asians was cut and you can find it in the DVD extras. It was a casual remark inside of the truck and one that the star football player wasn’t happy with from his teammates. It turns out that the feeling toward Asians were too hot of a topic on the heels of the Vietnam War.
So we have been dealing with censorship and brainwashing all along. We just don’t call it that…it’s just commerce. Sell more guns, more drugs, more movies, more poverty and blame those caught up in the loop of it all when running for office so that the freedom that we think we have is still on all of our lips and comes nowhere close to the ideals that made me love the Bicentennial America of the day.
Oh well. I will still watch baseball…have a hot dog…some apple pie…and wonder why I ever bought that Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck. All the commercial American Values. Then, with luck and energy, go back to fighting for the ideals that were put in writing 250 years ago that require all of us to defend.
Buena Regional High School…a selection of National Anthem performances at the Phillies games. These include the 2004, 2005, 2008, and 2013 years. Some of these videos had suffered from some unfortunate compression algos and they have shown poorer quality than the originals. Still, I just wanted to post some memories.
Some fun facts…The stadium was less than a month old when the 2004 Anthem took place…the one and only performance that I did with Edgewood had a scene where two students said that they ran into Tug McGraw. In the 2004 performance, one student…Adam I think…ran across Cory Lidle. Both players passed away tragically.
The 2008 performance was following a rain delay. There is extended footage of the group on the field. At one point you can see my father and sister waving from the upper deck. This was also the game where I was mocked by Ken Griffey Jr from the dugout…pretending to conduct.
The 1993 Edgewood High School Chorale and the Edgewood High School ROTC made their first trip to a Phillies game. At the time, old style camcorders were able to capture the event from arrival at school through the end of the evening. The only part missing was actually during the game. Video Cameras were not allowed in the stadium pointing at the field. This is hysterical because…their resolution sucked, the media degraded immediately and lost quality with every dub. Today, you simply can’t ban high quality video cameras because they are part of everybody’s ticket and wallet.
What you see here is almost two hours of memories from three different sources. The first segment is from my wife and it is basically a first generation rendering. The second is from the Chanel One Camera. Remember those square TVs in the classroom? The third is from the Monaghan Family. I did not select what to watch. This is the entire video that I got from Trevor and Steve’s dad. By the way…if it were not for Steve Monaghan…a middle school student at the time…we would never have performed here and the tradition may never have been born.
Enjoy and please be advised of the following disclaimer. The views and opinions expressed by the participants do not necessarily reflect the views of this channel. or its owner…or most of the people actually saying and doing stuff here…after all, for the most part…we were all kids…me included. and we were just having a good time.
Last year, I made a point of really appreciating the birthday that was number 63. Several weeks before this birthday I was reminded of the temporal nature of our time here on Earth. While recovering in the hospital I was given the opportunity to really evaluate my life choices and some of those choices were not the best in particular…my health.
One of the best choices that I made was to follow my heart into music in 1981 and meet my wife at Trenton State College. After marrying and finally settling in Franklin Township New Jersey, we raised out two kids and spent some time teaching in the same school district.
When I retired, I made good on a promise to relocate to California as my in-laws did the year we were married in 1986. So 30 years later…my wife and her family were finally in the same state. She got to spend time with her mother and father before they passed away and now California has really become my home and not just a place that I used to visit.
Still, my time in New Jersey is very dear to my heart as are the years given to the various schools where I had been an educator. Normally, my blog posts contain a video that is basically just me reading what is written for those who are visually impaired. On this post, I have included a couple of songs.
The Beatles had a tune called When I’m 64 and now, it looks like I am really turning 64. I had the good fortune to have my SSA Chorus perform an arrangement of this tune. Over the past week, I ran across a recording of their concert and I thought this might be a good time to share a performance from one of my favorite groups.
The other one is my attempt to try and sing the same song and playing on the Ukulele. I have altered a few of the words to make them more accurate. My appologies to the Beatles. I hope that these performances make you smile.
If you are frustrated with what is going on in our country and you really want to make a difference, call your congressman. After you have spoken to your own representative, you need to call the rest of them. You see, they all work for you once they are elected into congress in as much as they must support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
As of this posting, this Congress has allowed a president to take executive control of everything by simply stating that we are at war. The only war that I see now is the war that he has declared on American Citizens.
All Congressman like to say that they are speaking for the American people. As one of the American people…you get to tell them how you really feal.
our purchases are mostly emotional. Advertisers play on that by creating fear in all of us. Yes, I said fear.
From the dawn of our civilized record, commerce has driven the world events. Wars have been started over economics and people have needlessly died for causes generally identified by the ruling class of persons that had no interest in the ‘greater good.’ History continues to bring chaos at the foot of the throne of riches that individuals seek to occupy without regard to sustainability and their own future.
Certain situations in my house have brought me to a place where I need to study just how this idea has affected me and just what I can do about it. In a sense, this was not just a revelation that I had by myself but one introduced by my spouse who has been my partner in shared economics for over 30 years. This, I believe, gives me the credibility to write on the subject using myself as the main subject.
I will start with the admission that I have been manipulated…for most of my life. Now this manipulation is ok if I know that there is manipulation afoot, but if I am unaware then it becomes a situation where I am victimized. I seek to stop the victimization…first with me and then with anyone else who finds that they identify with the situation.
I buy things on Amazon. I buy things on Market Place. I buy things on eBay. I buy less things at Wal-Mart and Target than I used to but I still buy there. The problem is that most of my purchases are not based in necessity or my current reality. That is…things change. The only thing is that our lives and choices are tracked so closely that we are being fed a steady diet of our past choices.
For example. I have two eyes. Somehow, I have felt the need to have 20 contact lens cases and this seems silly but I also never stop using the old lenses when I replace them with new ones. My father would say that would be a waste. So, I clean them and always have four running at the same time to the point where I forget which ones are the newest. I suppose that’s why I want the color code.
Oh, how about that new money making activity that I got involved in when I retired. Day trading required more computer monitors so after upgrading the video card, I started buying more monitors for my computer. Sadly, I can’t always be at my computer in my bedroom and what if it breaks down. So an entire 2nd set up. But, what about if I am at work. Now a third setup. Now that I retired, I travel to my mom’s home in NJ. Now a fourth setup. NO ONE NEEDS 14 COMPUTER MONITORS!!
It never ends. My feet are very important because my legs started to break down and when I went in to the sick care system, they said I would have this issue for the rest of my life. When I found a pair of shoes, I made sure I had a spare set of shoes. This is not what I meant to have. The sad fact is that these all are still serviceable shoes and they are all basically the same shoe. And it doesn’t stop there. I also live near pools and need to navigate some pretty hot asphalt. So…enter and endless supply of flip flops and–fun fact–I HATE FLIP FLOPS!!
How about my unreasonable addiction to tripods and selfie sticks? Every possible size and feature included. Please don’t ask me if I have a camera for each one…the sad fact is that I do. Maybe I should start shooting films for a living.
In the bedroom pictures you may have noticed the Ukuleles. I don’t even play it very well. Why do I need 5 of them? (I have a sixth in my wife’s school.) Or the harmonicas. Who needs this many harmonicas? Or where music is concerned, how about my seemingly irrational love of headphones. The sad thing is that they all still work. There is even one that was custom designed to fit my ears only. Why?
I am poking fun at myself just a little bit, but it is exposing a weakness that we all have and that is that our purchases are mostly emotional. Advertisers play on that by creating fear in all of us. Yes, I said fear. It is subtle but understandable. All of these purchases can be traced to fear. Sellers now have constant access to us to create this fear.
They know my interest. They keep sending me opportunities and before I can start to think about the consequences, I hit buy. They include incentives and urgency appealing to my fear of missing out. I hit the purchase and get an immediate hit of Dopamine. Boom!! I have more stuff I don’t need and actually feel good about it.
Fortunately, this fear has only caused a lot of clutter in my house. Most of this stuff hasn’t broken the bank. Still, it could be very bad for people if they are buying dangerous things. No one is going to stop trying to sell you on what you consume. They will only increase your hunger for what they know you have an irresistible urge to acquire…whether you need it or not. They will make you “feel” that you need it and that is the point that I am trying to make.
I am going to make a concerted effort to stop reacting emotionally and reduce the clutter while at the same time digging deeper into this fear aspect and what it is doing to all of us. It’s time to stop being the victim of someone else’s fear.
It was a week ago today that I was recovering in Intensive Care for a Heart Attack. The day before, I had walked over 18,000 steps. Since I have been here in Northern California, I have been walking the beautiful trails everyday an average of 20,000 steps everyday. It was a carefree time and I always found time to put in a lunch stop. My purpose for lunch was budget and not quality. When I say quality, I mean healthy.
Now that I am home and beginning my recovery, I have noticed that many of the signs “were there”. I had a Cardiologist. He did the test that I asked for. There were elevated numbers referring to one artery in my heart. I got the results with no explanation. No followup…at least on their part. This was the artery that ended up being completely blocked. This was the one that almost took my life. I would like to think that this is an isolated situation. Since leaving the hospital, I have been trying to get clarification on a conversation regarding the elimination of a specific platelet blocking drug. I would not be so concerned if he hadn’t made such a big deal about this at the time he was going to originally release me.
I revisited the results and will bring these questions to my primary care physician to get his opinion. At the same time, it is time to get with a cardiologist who would like to partner with me in my care. This means a dialog and that means when I communicate with a doctor there is a response. A response like the one that happened when I dialed 911. That was special.
There are no people that I have gained a bigger appreciation for than the EMT who is working late at night and is ready and willing with a friendly face to lead you through a very stressful situation. The ER staff that was ready to catch a patient that needed immediate attention. The surgeon who was ready with a calm hand and used the words “this will be fixed.” The intensive care nurse who said she had only a couple of patients to give her attention to and that I was that important and, of course, the loved ones who were making necessary visits to keep me sane and stocked with supplies.
Thanks to everyone who have sent well wishes and prayers over the last week. It has been wonderful reading your comments on Facebook. I promise to take care of myself better, be kinder to people, more productive with my time, more responsible to my days and remember the true purpose of life…to serve others.
In May of 1980,my high school choir was scheduled to participate in a choral exchange with Nazareth Academy Girls School. The idea behind this was to have our school visit Nazareth during the school day and be hosted for dinner before a combined concert with the girls and then we would do the same at Cherokee High School. The only fly in the ointment was that Cherokee did not want to host the girls for a dinner because the cafeteria and kitchen of the 3 1/2 year old school was “sacred ground.” The result of this decision meant that the girls would have to go home with a student from Cherokee and have dinner in many separate homes. I told my mother of this decision and she was “not happy!”
It may be that because she was a member of the Little Flower Orchestra where she developed lifelong friendships that she felt compelled to act. I expect that it was as the stories from those days continued to appear at family gatherings and dinners. Her face would light up when she spoke of those friends and events. Of course no one in her current family was there, but in some ways we felt like we were.
I don’t remember too much of my mother’s time as a stay at home mom but this is how she began her family career. Once we were all in school, her weekly bowling outing was not enough and she went to work for the Evesham Township Board of Education where she worked for the Business Administrator and then moved to the Marlton Middle School to finish her career. All the while, she was a carpool mom, a dinner preparer, a wife to her husband, chief laundry officer, Cub Scout Den Mother, and pet mom to animals that ranged from dogs to chickens.
She loved her staff at the Middle School and always paid attention to the student who was relocated to the office for a variety of reasons. It is here where she really showed her skill at multitasking as she allowed the student to interact with her as she worked. She learned a lot about them and knew just what they needed and mostly is was the ear of a caring adult.
In 1986, I got married and although it was not easy, after two pregnancies that ended tragically, she became a grandmom with the birth of my twins, Ryan and Kelsi. Having her around was a blessing as my wife and I navigated the strange world of autoimmune diseases and needed to have grandmom babysit. She and my dad were always there no matter how late we came home. Both of my parents were critical to the development of my children as they graduated and became adults themselves.
When my parents finally retired together, they spent most of their time together. They would travel, watch TV, host their children at their home and eventually become each other’s caregiver. The love story that played out here was one of selfless devotion. My youngest siblings remained close in both proximity and importance in my parents final years. They made sure that my mom was never alone after losing my dad and even though she confided in me that they didn’t need to do this, I am sure that she was comforted that they were always there.
My mom was always connected to the church and even after she stopped being able to attend every Sunday, she continued to contribute financially to the best of her ability. My mom is a creation of God as is everybody and although she invoked God’s name with emotional enthusiasm dare I say thousands of times…I dispute the fact that she took his name in vain. You see, for the last several years, I have seen a movement toward the Name of Jesus instead of the Character of Christ. I have found very few persons institutionally who would agree with me on this point…so I haven’t been attending as often. Still, I do open that Bible and read.
We have become a society obsessed with Greatness. Greatness of country, greatness in sports and greatness in greatness so much so that we seek the Greatest of All Time. Jesus said, “the greatest among you must be your servant.” My mother would never be recognized as the Goat of anything because she never sought the spotlight so never had the opportunity to drop in the Name of the Lord in a way to gain…well, anything for herself. Joan McCausland was not the GOAT.
Getting back to Nazareth Academy and the situation with Cherokee. Unbeknownst to me, in the background my mother was fighting with the administration, organizing parents, getting a meal plan and telling our Choral Director, Miss Speth to relax. She was on the job. Miss Speth announced to the Choir in less than a week’s time, that we were in fact going to host Nazareth Academy during the school day, have dinner in the cafeteria, use the athletic fields for softball games and soccer, and then finish up with a concert. It was one of the greatest memories of my high school years.
At the concert, when Miss Speth was thanking the people who helped with the program, she paused and said, “Mrs. McCausland has been just priceless to me for organizing the dinner, rallying the parents and seeing to it that the event was fully staffed by caring responsible adults.” Priceless. That’s a good word.
No, my mother is not the goat. Still, it reminds me of another story involving goats. Jesus said, when the time comes he will separate the goats from the sheep and tell those goats that he never knew them. While they were using his name, they never loved him. They never gave to him. They never cared about him. He will tell the goats to be gone from his sight since whatever you did for the least of these or to the least of these you did to me.
Then he will turn to my mother and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Come and spend eternity with me in paradise.”
In 1788, the United States ratified the Constitution. In 1791, the amendments were added. After the amendment that followed the Freedoms amendment was the 2nd amendment…the most misinterpreted set of words on the planet…on purpose. That second amendment was to warn the world that every citizen was deputized to fight for the country and they will be armed.
In 1991, Ukraine declared their independence from the Soviet Union. That declaration came with a number of other countries. 31 years later…the largest country, Russia invaded because they wanted it back.
In 1812, England, a mere 36 years after we declared our independence, invaded again because they wanted it back. Still a young nation with people who were alive when we were under British Rule and remembered what it was like, and remembered the family members lost…the resolve of this country was tested and we prevailed. We would not have won our independence without the help of France.
Now in Asia and threatening Europe, we see a tyrannical aggressor who regularly poisons his political opponents, moving against free sovereign nations. Instead of a leader in our country that will stand up to aggressors, we have kiss ups who believe our own fighting men and women are suckers and losers.
At home, he is dismantling the VA that supports the surviving soldiers from combat and just giving away our history and our country. The leaders he has chosen are chicken shit TV personalities that don’t have close to the charisma and bravery of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Additionally Republican Congressman should just rebrand themselves as NAZI’s as they have clearly given up on America. Just stay out of our Veterans Cemeteries. It is a place for reverence and honor and not disrespectful chickens.
From the beginning, Zelenskyy and his countrymen and women have been there, to pick up a gun, learn to use it and fight for their country. We used to be that country. Now, we just want guns because we have been brainwashed to believe it is our right instead of a responsibility. Just remember, no civilian has guns in Russia…Commrade.
