"Horse Walks Into A Bar..."

Horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, “ Hey buddy, why the long face? “

This was one of the first jokes I remember being told when I was a kid. I was probably 9 or 10 years old, and I thought it was hilarious. A simple play on words. I must have told that joke a hundred times to my 10 year old buddies but to my great dismay, hardly any of them thought it was funny. Then I would try to explain to them why it was such a great joke, about the role of the bartender as a confident, someone who people tell their troubles to, someone who’s job it is to cheer you up, and about the shape of a horse’s face. They still didn’t get it, and even when they did they would usually say something like, “ Dunnevant, you’re weird. That joke blows.” The lesson I learned at age ten was that humor was in the eye of the beholder.

A few years later, when all my friends were into rock and roll, my brother taught me to play three chords on a beat up guitar with only five strings. Although I was a huge fan of rock and roll myself, one day when I was 14 I rode home from a baseball game with a friend. His Mom was listening to one of those horrible classical music stations on the radio when I heard the most amazing guitar playing I had ever heard. Some guy was going to town playing some 200 year old song and I was transfixed. I heard the announcer say, “That was Christopher Parkening playing Bach’s Cello Suite # 1 in G Major”. Within a week I had joined Columbia House record club and in my welcome package of 8 free records, there was Christopher Parkening introducing me to classical music. I wore out that record, scratched it up to within an inch of it’s life over the next few years teaching myself how to play classical guitar. None of my buddies got it. “ Dunnevant, you’re weird. That music blows.” Age 14 taught me that musical taste was in the ear of the beholder.

Later on, I became enthralled with baseball at about the time that it began to fall from favor. The whole country was going bananas over football and I was busy memorizing the starting lineup of the 1983 Atlanta Braves. It got so bad, I would call the hot line at the Times-Dispatch at 6:30 in the morning to get the west coast scores. Pathetic.

54 years in, I can say with complete confidence that my interests and sensibilities have never been aligned with the world around me. I can never manage to get on the same page with the dominate culture in which I live. Square peg, round hole.

“ Dunnevant, you’re a businessman. How come you hate Donald Trump? You’re an investment advisor, how come you detest Wall Street? You own your own business, how come you can’t stand Republicans? You’re a World War Two loving patriot, how come you want us to cut the defense budget and bring all of our troops home? You’re a serious Christian, how come you
 don’t like church?”

I have no answer to any of these questions.

“Dunnevant, you’re weird and this blog-post blows!”

8 More Weeks Of Winter....Sigh

Day three of 40 degrees and heavy cold rain. Tomorrow is to bring more of the same. Four days of no sunshine, dark, foreboding skies and gloom. Now there’s talk that the end of this deluge may bring some snow. Insult to injury.

Everything outside smells like a wet dog. Even my own dog seems offended. The streets are slick with oil. The weather maps are dark green and menacing. The meteorologists are apologetic. As of today, we are only half way through winter.

The prospect of 8 more weeks of this is oppressive. February will be the worst. February has no redeeming value. There’s Valentines Day, a fabricated faux-holiday that makes every single person, and every unhappy married person feel even worse about themselves. Even happily married couples struggle with the thing, basically because it takes place in February. Love should be celebrated in sun dresses and bathing suits, not wrapped up in layers wearing boots and gloves. February does provide us all with that eagerly anticipated Federal holiday, President’s Day. I always circle that one on my calendar. There’s nothing like contemplated the life of George Washington to take the chill from your bones, just the thought of that brave man rallying his frozen, shoeless troops at Valley Forge is enough to transport me to the Tropics. But the worst thing about February is that there aren’t any sports going on to divert our attention from the inhumane weather. Football is over, spring training doesn’t start until March, the Masters doesn’t happen until April, nobody cares about college basketball until March madness. There’s isn’t February madness, except for the monotonous forecast…” Today, look for cold temperatures with a chance of freezing rain this morning, turning to all rain by this afternoon, then switching over to sleet, followed by snow this evening.”

As a February bonus this year, we get to watch the madcap adventures of our elected officials in Washington arguing and posturing over the debt ceiling. As the sleet piles up on the front steps we can watch Barack and Boehner call each other names. Maybe, if there is any winter justice, a 100 year snowstorm will paralyze DC under three feet of snow, knocking out television communications in or out of the capital. Then if the government actually does shut down, no one will know until spring.

Vows

On a perfectly miserable day, I went to the gym to work out. It was raining and 40 degrees, with low clouds sinking lower by the minute. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon it was dusky, and streams of water were sliding across the parking lot towards the storm drain.

The gym was nearly deserted. The weather held down the crowd but mostly it was flu season, and people are careful not to congregate in places where lots of folks routinely sweat profusely while breathing deeply, and exhaling with great force. I practically had the place to myself. I dropped into the locker room to put my jacket and towel away. I saw a friend sitting on a bench leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. For a second I thought about going about my business without saying anything to him. His eyes were closed, so he probably didn’t see me so he wouldn’t have thought me rude. But, I found myself saying, “ Hey buddy, rough workout, huh?”

He opened his eyes abruptly. His eyes were red and tired. He had been crying.

In that instant, I desperately wanted to be on a treadmill, lifting weights, or cleaning out the toilets, anywhere but in a locker room with a grown man who had been crying. Men are not good at certain things, maybe not all men, maybe not even most men. Ok, I’M not very good at certain things, like comforting another man who is hurting. I never know what to say. I feel embarrassed, for myself, and for the poor guy across from me who now suddenly stands and walks over to my locker, “Doug, do you have a minute?”

We sat down and he begins to talk. He tells me about a friend of his who just got caught cheating on his wife. This couple were close friends with him and his wife. They used to do everything together. Everyone involved is devastated. There are young children involved. He thought he knew the guy, couldn’t believe him possible of such a thing.

“Doug, the worst part is, he’s probably the most committed Christian man I’ve ever known.”

I listened a little longer, tried my hand at saying something comforting. After a while, we were talking about the Ravens-Broncos game or something, and I soon held the handles of my elliptical machine in a death grip, trying to control my growing anger. My friend’s story is just the latest in the long continuing saga of infidelity among supposedly “committed Christian” men. With each new revelation, my faith takes another body shot.

What is a committed Christian, anyway? What does the term even mean? Apparently, when it comes to wedding vows, it means absolutely nothing.

I finish my run, then head upstairs to the weight machines. As I’m resting between sets of bench presses, I think about all the Christian guys I’ve known at my church who are my age who have divorced their wives. They were all good guys, at church every Sunday, guys who studied their Bibles and prayed for their families. For them, their faith wasn’t enough to save their marriages.

But by the time I’m on the abdominal crunch machine, I’m also thinking about all the Christian guys I’ve known who are hanging on to their families, who are making it work, who are still committed to their wives. There are a lot of them, and I start to feel better.

Still, when I hear the next sad story it will still make me angry. I will still feel like punching something. For although I know that my faith doesn’t promise me an easy life, and my belief in Christ doesn’t guarantee me success, my gut tells me that it ought to make it easier for me to keep my sacred vows.

I finish my workout, go sit in the sauna for ten minutes, then gather my stuff from my locker. My friend is gone. I get in the car and drive over to my Dad’s with his dinner. As I take the Montpelier exit towards his house it occurs to me that he was married to my mother for 65 years, and though she passed away 6 months ago, he’s still in love with her, …still honoring his vows.

The heavy mist covers the windshield. It’s been raining for two days now. As I make the turn onto Winn’s Church road, I think that it’s a good day to see my Dad.

Here We Go

Another Monday. Another week begins, and my eternal quest for financial security continues. This week will be especially full, many client meetings, preparations for even more meetings in the weeks to come. There will be bills to pay, cash flow to manipulate, unexpected expenses to manage.

My dad’s glasses are too loose on his face. He will need to go have them adjusted. I will take him. My daughter will come home tonight to have her wisdom teeth extracted tomorrow, then stay here until she is sufficiently recovered. There will be two meals to fix and take over to Dad. Federal taxes are due tomorrow, business bills to pay by Friday.

I don’t feel well, like I’ve been fighting something off for three days now, willing it to go away. This is not a time to be sick. I read about the Nora virus and wonder if it’s just my imagination, the power of suggestion. For now, Nyquil will have to do.

It’s raining today. All week it is to be cloudy with intermittent rain. It seems that it has been so all year. January has brought no snow, but lots of fog, rain and dreariness, like a London railway station in the movies. When the sun peaks out from the gloom we all walk outside with a hand over our eyes gazing up to get a glimpse of blue. Now I understand why the British are always so practical. Clouds do not encourage dreaming.

Another Monday. Another week.

Here we go.

A Clash Of Icons

The game was billed as a clash of icons. Arguably the best quarterback in the history of the game on one side and the most dominate middle linebacker of this generation on the other. Unlike most games that are hyped by using words like “clash of icons”, this one actually delivered, an epic back and forth battle that went two overtime periods before delivering a winner. Peyton Manning was once again disappointed, while Ray Lewis’ pending retirement got postponed another week.

Peyton Manning fascinates me, always has. On the one hand, I’ve never seen a smarter quarterback. No one who has ever played understands the game better than Manning. He will go down as perhaps the greatest of them all. I read his statistics, I look at his record and marvel. Yes, its true that most of his numbers were racked up inside a windless seventy degree dome in Indianapolis, and his legacy is obscured by a lone Super Bowl title amidst all that statistical dominance, but anyone who knows anything at all about football must acknowledge his brilliance. And yet, for his entire career he has been hard to watch. All of that hand jiving, caterwauling at the line of scrimmage, all the pointing, ranting and raving before the snap, the false starts, the hesitations and misdirection…its like all of America is screaming,” For God’s sake SNAP THE FREAKING BALL!!” But that’s Peyton Manning.

I watched Joe Montana, I watched Dan Marino. I saw Joe win all those Super Bowls with one clutch performance after another, while Poor Dan hardly ever got to a Super Bowl. My eyes told me that Dan was a far better Quarterback, but there was Joe lifting the trophies. I watch Peyton Manning, I watch his little brother Eli. My eyes tell me that Eli isn’t worthy to hold his big brother’s jock strap, yet Eli has two rings to Peyton’s one. Team sports can be a cruel mistress to personal greatness. Yet through it all, Peyton Manning ccan always be counted on for one thing, class through adversity. Once again last night after a bitter disappointment, there was Peyton Manning, two hours after the game, dressed in a suit, waiting in the empty Ravens locker room for Ray Lewis to finish his press conference, so he could offer his personal congratulations.

Ray Lewis is the best middle linebacker I have ever seen. I’m not old enough to have watched Dick Butkis, and I barely remember Willie Lanier. But when I watch a thirty four year old man lugging a brace the size of a small child around on his right arm, make 17 tackles in 12 degree weather, I can do nothing but stand amazed. As awkward and gawky as Manning is, Lewis has always been a fluid thing to watch, swift, athletic and lethal. Despite all of the pre-game histrionics he is famous for, once the game begins Ray Lewis has always played with discipline and calmness, keeping his head while everyone around him is losing theirs. When he blew out his tricep earlier this year his entire team went into a tailspin, since his return they seem unstoppable. Never have I seen a defensive player have such an impact on his teammates.

He announced his retirement as soon as this season is over. Each game could possibly be his last, and he is playing like it. But with Ray Lewis there is always the cloud. It follows him. As a younger man, he was every inch the Miami Hurricane, in every negative connotation associated with that team. There was the limo, the entourage, the gun, the murder and a trial with an ambiguous verdict. Now Ray Lewis seems to have found God, quoting scripture to anyone who will listen, and because it’s Ray Lewis, everyone listens. He’s seems the quintessential changed man. The cynic might say that his new found religion is an attempt to scrub the blood stains from hands, to assuage the guilt and wash his image clean. Maybe, maybe not. I only know that he does seem like a different man, a man who has grown into his stardom, and not been diminished by it.

The Ravens won the game 38-35. Peyton goes home. Ray moves on. And even though its only professional football, I find myself caring.

Harry Potter and Me.

Harry Potter has overtaken my house. My son and his mother have engaged in a Harry Potter marathon during this, his last week at home for quite a while. Between shopping and packing they have been watching all the movies. Since Pam was just six chapters shy of having finished reading the last book, Patrick insisted that she turn off the final movie at the exact point at which she had stopped reading. Now they are sitting on the sofa downstairs staring blankly off into space listening to a skilled actor read the last six chapters. Pam has a box of tissues on her lap. All activity has ceased, even Molly is still and silent, probably too scared to even pass gas.

I had forgotten what an amazing work is the Harry Potter series. It will be read by generations of kids to come. When my kids inform their kids that they waited in line at midnight at Barnes & Noble every time a new book in the series was released, they will stare in wonder and ask, “Mom, what’s a book? And why did you have to wait in line, and what is a barnes and noble?”

What I remember most about the Harry Potter phenomenon, sadly, was the uproar it ignited in the Christian community, at least my corner of it. We knew many parents who were horrified by the books, thought that they were satanic, glorified the occult and were aimed at nothing less than the possession of our children’s minds, and if our kids were allowed to read them they would become lifelong slaves to Lucifer. With those kinds of accusations flying about, my contrarian, rebellious nature insisted upon giving them a try. I don’t remember all the details, but the first time I discovered the books was on a drive to Maine, or Nags Head, or something. As I drove, Pam read the book. I took maybe fifteen minutes to discover that this was indeed no ordinary “ children’s book”. This was beautiful writing, filled with wit and crackling with imagination. Yes, the story centered around magic, but as far as I could tell, it was chocked full of big themes of right and wrong, courage and friendship, and even good and evil, with clear delineation between the two. Plus, it was great fun.

It was the very first time that Patrick showed any interest in a book. Now, as an adult, he loves reading. Kaitlin was overwhelmed with the stories, and the Harry Potter books played no small part in her adult love of literature and the pursuit of discovery it has produced in her. For this, I suppose I have J. K. Rowling to thank. So far, neither Kaitlin nor Patrick have succumbed to the full time service of Satan. Fingers crossed.

The Lance Armstrong, Oprah Winfrey Interview.

The headline read, “ Armstrong Will Ask Oprah For Absolution, Forgiveness”. In this Therapeutic Age in which we live, this is top of the fold news, must see TV. Two huge questions flashed across my mind when I read this. The first was, why now, Lance? The second was, wait…Oprah’s still on TV?

So, Lance Armstrong is going to come clean. After years of angry denials, he’s going to admit to cheating. The seven time Tour de France winner, and cancer surviving icon and hero to millions is going to admit to blood doping or using performance enhancing drugs or whatever it is that he’s been accused of by a host of competitors and teammates alike. Instead of calling a press conference and reading a statement of guilt, he will sit down for an hour and a half interview with Oprah Winfrey. He will cry. She will cry. The studio audience will cry.

This is how we do contrition in 2013 America. The rich and famous go on Oprah. She listens earnestly, those huge brown eyes wet and piercing. She asks about their childhoods. We discover long buried memories of abuse. We find out just how despicable their now safely dead parents really were. Why, it’s a wonder that they even survived their childhoods. Is it any wonder that they had a sex party with six women on the very day that their spouse was giving birth to their first child? Who among us can say that given the circumstances we wouldn’t have done the same thing?

Just once I would love for Oprah to snap out of her fawning celebrity-worship love fest and conduct a real interview. Lance Armstrong would be a great place to start. It might go something like this…

　

Oprah: You have consistently denied these accusations against you for years. In the process of those denials, you have attacked the ethics and motivations of every accuser, yet you come here asking ME for forgiveness. Shouldn’t you first go to all of the people whose reputations you have publicly attacked and ask THEM for forgiveness?

Lance: Oh, I plan to. It’s a process Oprah. Baby steps, baby steps.

Oprah: Why are you coming clean now, when just three months ago you held a defiant news conference in which you defended yourself vociferously against the governing body of your sport, accusing them of having a jealousy fueled vendetta against you?

Lance: Oprah, I’ve lost everything, I’ve got nothing left, nowhere else to turn.

Oprah: Everything? You’ve lost everything? You have a personal net worth of over one hundred million dollars.

Lance: Well, of course I still have the money I earned from winning all those races and the endorsements I scored from those wins and the great almost God-like reputation that being a seven time Tour winner brings. But money can’t buy happiness.

Oprah: True. So give it all back.

Lance: Wait… what?

Oprah: You heard me. Give it all back.

Lance: Well, that’s er, uh, logistically that would be, er…

Oprah: You make me sick Lance. You really do. You come here on my show, you cry me a river about how horrible you feel, about how everything you worked for your whole life has been shattered, how rotten your parents were, what a terrible wife Cheryl Crow was, but you know what I see? I see a wretched little man who built one of the most untouchable reputations in all of sports on cheating and then when he got caught his ego wouldn’t allow him to admit it. So instead, you spent years throwing everyone and everything under the bus to save your own sorry ass, and now you don’t have one single solitary friend left on this planet. So, you come to me. You hope that I’ll cry and you will cry, and all of America will feel sorry for poor little Lance and magically forget what a mean, manipulative jerk you are.

Lance: Well, yeah… isn’t that what you do?

Oprah: Not any more. Give the money back Lance. Give it all to charity and start over from scratch. Sell your six homes, sell all of your toys and go back to school. Maybe you can become a gym teacher somewhere, or become a personal trainer at American Family Fitness.

Lance: I should have listened to my agent. He said “Go on Barbara Walters”, but I insisted on you, Oprah. And this is the way you repay me??

Oprah: Lance Armstrong, everybody! We’ll be back after these messages from our sponsors!