I dislike reality television.

There.  I said it.  You can take your loggers and your duck callers; keep your stranded-on-the-desert-islanders; you may even hold onto your bachelors, dancers, and voices.  I don’t care for reality television.  It’s a little too fake for me.  Now, there’s an oxymoron for you–fake reality television.

Except…

Well, I do have soft spot in my heart (the Lovely Lady suspects it’s actually in my head) for the collectors.  The junk buyers and the pawn shop owners–even the road show antiquers.  I like to see what people collect.  I love it when someone has unsuspectingly put together a collection of valuable objects over the years, and finds that it is worth a fortune.

“Oh.  I don’t know.  I just picked them up here and there.  You know–just found them and had to save them.”

I live in hopes that the pickers will one day walk in my music store and find junk on my back room shelves worth thousands of dollars.  I suspect that they would find little to pique their interest.

I did come to a realization the other day.  I have put together a collection of sorts.  It could actually be worth a bit of money, if I could only cash in on it.

The old fellow brought in his guitar one afternoon earlier this week.

“It just buzzes and sounds horrible.  I’ve had it for years but it’s never sounded like this before.”  Almost, it seems to me, he is like the child who has just broken his favorite toy and is begging his mother to fix it for him.  Almost.

I have never learned the art of the build-up.  I cannot spend the time looking over the instrument, pursing my lips and wrinkling my forehead as I try to cipher out the issue.  I have no patience with shop owners who act the part and ask the customer to leave the instrument for a few days.  There is more money to be made by doing that, I will grant you that.  But, it is not my way.

No.  I speak three words and head for my work bench.

“Just a minute.”

A few turns of an Allen wrench later, and a quick retuning of the strings and I carry the instrument back to the customer.

“Play it now.  See what you think.”

The man looks at me with suspicion.  What kind of fool does this shop owner think he is?  The guitar was useless a moment ago–surely it will be useless still.  I motion him on over to the stool sitting nearby and he sits gingerly on the edge of the plastic padding.  Strumming a chord tentatively, he frowns.  He shifts back on the stool and, pulling the guitar up onto his lap, tries again.  A few more chords, followed by an arpeggio or two, and then a full blown riff.

He looks up at me with a grin spread across his face and exclaims, “I don’t know how you did that, but it’s perfect!”

Somehow, I knew it would be.

It’s not that I’m prideful or want to boast of my abilities.  I have no reason to do so.  It’s just that I’ve seen this scenario played out countless times before in almost the identical way.  It’s not always a guitar; sometimes it’s a clarinet, or a trumpet, or even a banjo.

You see I collect specialized knowledge.  I have done for many years–as many years as I’ve worked in the music business.  When the customer before me asks how I know what to do to make his guitar play right, and he almost certainly will, I’ll tell him the truth.

“Oh.  I don’t know.  I just picked it up here and there.”

The Lovely Lady has seen this act before.  We have discussed the need for me to parley this collection into a steady income, but I have no flair for delaying tactics, no driving need to capitalize on knowledge which has been shared with me freely.  I may have to modify that over the next few years.  Retirement looms on the horizon.

We are a species of collectors.  All of us.  We are especially adept at picking up and collecting knowledge.  But, we also love to collect things. If we want to be successful in collecting, to make the process profitable, there are a few things we need to remember.

Look for opportunities to add to our collections. 

I have always been happy to add a new technique to my collection of instrument knowledge.  The doll collectors are always looking on the shelves of the flea markets for collectible bargains.  The adrenalin nuts are always seeking new adventures and challenges.  Be ready to snag that next treasure.

Beware of the fakes and clunkers. 

I can’t remember how many times the folks on the shows have been disappointed by items passed off by charlatans as genuine, when in fact, they are simply designed to take people in.  There is no value in such items–with the exception of the cautionary lessons learned.  Early on in my own process of collecting repair techniques, I learned the hard way that you don’t want to over tighten the truss rod in a guitar neck with that handy Allen wrench.  Let’s just say that guitar necks can be expensive to replace, and leave it at that.  Collect things of value, but reject the worthless imposters.

And, one note of caution.  Know when to say when. 

There is a fine line between being a collector and a hoarder.  Don’t fill your house up with plastic Walmart bags or beanie babies.  It is true for knowledge collectors as well.  I know some people who do nothing but memorize information and spout it to their friends and acquaintances.  They are not in high demand at social functions.  No one really needs to know the distance between the guitar fingerboard and the top of a jumbo fret as opposed to a micro-fret, nor is it important to remember and share the information that the common mosquito is actually a member of the nematocerid fly family.

I assume that, by now, the reader is aware I am speaking of deeper matters as much as of the everyday collecting we do.  We are, without exception, products of our environments. That means that we will collect the things in which we immerse ourselves.  I spend most of my time with musical instruments and thus, cannot avoid acquiring knowledge of the same.

But what about all the other hours I spend immersed in different activities?  What am I collecting then?  

I wonder what the museum room of my mind really looks like to the Keeper of all Knowledge.  What kinds of valuable things have I collected over the years of my life?  What have I hoarded that I need to pare down?  What kind of garbage have I filled up usable space with?

I’m still struggling with the price structure of items from my vocational collection.  The old joke about the  fellow who repaired the lady’s automobile with just a turn of a screwdriver comes to mind.  When she got the bill for $110, she suggested that it wasn’t fair to be charged that amount just for him turning a screw.  The reply came from the mechanic.

“Oh, I only charged ten dollars for turning the screw.  Knowing which screw to turn?  That costs you a hundred dollars!”

I’ll get that sorted out one of these days.  Still, I’m wondering.

Is the rest of my collection actually worth anything? 

Time will tell.

“You can keep a piece of candy in its wrapper for up to twenty years.  After that, it turns into a hideous black goo.”
(Darlene Lacey ~ Curator, Candy Wrapper Museum)

“…where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
(Matthew 6:21)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Did you enjoy this post?  Let your friends know about it by “liking” our page on Facebook!

Our house guests have created havoc in my life.  Well yes, in my home too.  More than that, though, my spirit is full of noise and activity, to say nothing of the accumulation of snuggles and glorious smiles.

They came in like a tornado, all noise and motion.  I am speculating that they will leave in much the same manner.  I will readily admit that the walls of my comfortable existence have been shoved a little out of kilter in the process.

Kids.  They have three of them.  As I understand the unofficial rulebook, since they are not my grandchildren I am not required to love or even to like them.

I do anyway.

Who could resist that gorgeous smile from the little sweetie as she peeks out from her hiding place beside my recliner, or the lit-up face of the all-boy artist as he shows off the glowing picture of the dolphin he has just created on the old-school Light Bright?

Yet, in the midst of my enjoyment (and exhaustion), I suddenly realize that these small people are not just children learning and growing and enjoying life.  I have become aware that they are teachers, opening the door to lessons I should have learned ages ago, but have lost in my single-minded focus on making ends meet and racing into old age.

The  boy, with his creation of plastic and light, shoves his way to the front of the classroom to drive home the point.  His completed art project is destined for destruction, but not tonight.  His sisters want to remove the pegs and begin a different picture, but he is adamant.

“I built this.”  This is said as he crosses his arms and prepares to take on all comers.

In his mind, it is all the explanation needed.  I understand perfectly and I concur.  I have actually been considering this very thing for awhile now.  

Just a couple of days ago, I helped the Lovely Lady straighten up the house after the grandchildren had been for a visit.  They do their share of creating havoc, too.

Off and on, a favorite toy of the kids has been a ziploc bag full of plastic geometric shapes which hook together and form whatever object that child’s mind imagines they resemble.  Bicycles, airplanes,  guns–if their fertile genius can visualize it, that is what the shapes become.

On this day, one of the little girls had left her creations lying intact on the corner of the dining room table.  I picked them up, knowing that they were destined to become flat one-dimensional pieces of plastic momentarily.  All I had to do was to disconnect the pieces from each other, nothing more.

In my mind, I heard the little cutie’s voice naming off the objects she saw in the little plastic projects.

“Look, Grandpa.  I made an airplane!  And, this one’s a car!”  They were exact replications of the original–in her imagination.

I stood there, with the unrecognizable objects in my hand, and could hardly bring myself to take them apart.  She built them.  They represented her talents, her efforts.

They were a part of who she is, a product of her labor.  How do you destroy that?

Foolishness!  Take the silly things apart and get done already!  I hear the voices in my head, but still–just for a moment–I hesitate.

A couple of months ago, against my better judgment, I placed a little antique table near a window in our living room.  The Lovely Lady wanted it there.  It is the same table we placed in her mother’s room at the nursing facility a couple of years before she passed away.  It is sitting in the living room to be used for the same purpose it served for my mother-in-law.

Every few days, a cardboard box is placed at the edge of the table and the Lovely Lady stirs her hand around the contents inside.  One by one, little pieces of thick glued paper are pulled out, first the ones with one flat edge.  These are hooked together to form an outside perimeter for what will eventually become a beautiful picture.  After that is complete, hours (and I mean literally, hours) are spent in searching for pieces which have tabs and sockets that fit together to form the balance of the picture.

Puzzles!  I detest them!

I have for years.  I never could quite put my finger on the reason.  Until I stood in the dining room the other day with the little girl’s creation in my hands.

Now I know.  I hate to take apart something which is the product of someone’s labor.  When it is taken apart, there is nothing left to show that the thing was ever done.

Nothing.

Hours spent in fruitless labor, the only evidence of the deed, the movement of the clock, the passing of time.  The work complete, the laborers do the only thing that can reasonably be done with the product of their efforts–tear the puzzle apart and start another.

I want to leave evidence of having been here.

I want to make a difference in the world I leave behind.

I wonder.  Am I just building puzzles?  Am I leaving behind unrecognizable geometric shapes that will be flattened within moments of my departure?  Is all of this just a Light Bright creation, destined to be dismantled the instant I am not here to protect my work with my arms crossed and eyebrows threatening?

I want to be a builder, a craftsman.  I desire to leave a legacy for future generations to see and from which to learn.  It will take careful selection of materials.  It may even take a calculated plan of action.  No more throwing these frantic ideas from my helter-skelter brain on the page and expecting a masterpiece.

The all-boy artist in my house tonight told his parents the other evening that he was sure of what he would be doing the next day because he already had a road map in his head.

I want that, too.

I wonder if I will be able to ascertain the route that the Master Cartographer has already placed there.

I guess I may have to work on my navigational skills, too.

This is one road I don’t want to miss.  You coming along too?

“The Christian shoemaker does his duty, not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”
(Martin Luther ~ German theologian/reformer ~ 1483-1546)

“‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.'”
(Acts 7:3 ~ NIV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Did you enjoy this post?  Let your friends know about it by “liking” our page on Facebook!

“We’ll take it!  You’ll deliver, won’t you?” 

The heavy-set, unkempt man in front of me was not cut from the same cloth as most of my other customers.  He was what some might call local color, wearing his dirty overalls, one strap unhooked and hanging behind him.  The long, bushy beard looked wild and the dirty matted hair, even wilder.  Nevertheless, he reached into his pocket to bring out a handful of cash and paid the price for the old upright piano.

It was a good instrument, but was showing clear evidence of its seventy years of use.  We had done everything we could to make it function properly, but the darkened, almost black finish would never polish up.  His wife and daughter hung back nearby, and it was clear from her demeanor that the girl was to be the principal beneficiary of the purchase.

The teenage girl was, like her father, heavier than average, but she was also a little backward.  I asked her if she was taking lessons and she looked nervously to her father for help with the answer.  It was the same with every subsequent question I directed to her.  After a few unsuccessful attempts at conversation, I realized that I was making her uncomfortable and I turned my attention back to her dad and the task of concluding last minute arrangements.

On the day of the delivery, my piano-moving companion arrived and the trailer was loaded quickly and efficiently.  We had done this many times before, so nothing was going to catch us napping, or so we thought.  The first 15 miles of our journey passed uneventfully, but then we left the pavement of the state highway for the gravel road.  Still no problem.  Then, following the instructions I’d been given, we turned again into a dirt lane, along which we traveled for several miles.

We soon realized that we were driving through what we commonly call the boonies.  Of course, that word comes from the more common boondocks, which our military brought home from the Philippines in the early 20th century.   The word bundok, from a common Philippine dialect, means simply mountain, and came to signify any place away from civilization and hard to get to.  (Yeah, only a word-nerd would care.)

Wherever the word came from, we were in it.  The foothills of the Ozarks have many such places, but we seldom deliver pianos to them.

We passed old, tumbledown shacks with porches piled high with debris and multitudes of dogs piling out from under them to bark and snarl at us as we swept by, the dirt swirling up behind us.  The one or two individuals we saw didn’t seem as friendly as the country folk we’re used to when out in most of the more traveled areas.  There were no raised hands in friendly greeting, and no smiles in response to ours.

My faithful sidekick muttered from his side of the truck, “Deliverance! It’s just like in that movie.  What have you gotten us into?”  

Thankfully, following our homemade map, we reached the entrance to the driveway between the fence posts, as it was described to us, and we turned in.

“Just follow the driveway up to the house,” the man had said, so we followed the winding course of the driveway, actually no more than a couple of ruts through the field.  It wound around the edge of the hillside and all we saw before us was a couple of decrepit, tumbledown chicken houses.

“Surely this can’t be right!”  I exclaimed to my helper, who just shook his head. 

But, we followed the drive as instructed and were steered right up to a small tin building stuck between the two long-abandoned chicken houses.  This was obviously the shed where the poultry had been processed over the years, where sick animals would have been treated and feed might have been stored.

There was a car parked in front, so we pulled up and went to the door.  The man greeted us from inside and showed us where we were to place the piano.  A look around made it obvious that the family was indeed in residence there, although I had never before seen such accommodations.

The shed had a few bare light bulbs strung up on extension cords inside its one-room interior.  There was a wood stove for heat and an ancient, filthy refrigerator, along with an electric hot plate to cook on.  Other than that and a couple of beds in opposite corners, there was nothing but junk in the tiny dark hovel.  The piano was quickly taken off the trailer and moved into the designated location and we prepared to leave, still reeling from the conditions that we had observed.

We were amazed as the gentleman bid us goodbye, just as jovial and pleased to be the new owner of that piano, as if it were the finest grand and we had just placed it into a well-appointed drawing room in his mansion on the hillside.

My companion and I were relieved to be out of the area and back onto the highway within minutes, but still, we couldn’t get over what we had just witnessed.  But, as seems to be common with unusual events such as this, as soon as we arrived back at our pleasant comfortable homes, the plight of this family was all but forgotten, except when I related the tale to a few friends who expressed complete disbelief.

I didn’t think much about it again, until one afternoon about two years later when the Lovely Lady returned home from a high school music contest, which she had been asked to judge.  Because of her years as a piano teacher, she, along with a couple of other knowledgeable educators had rated the pianists entered in the contest.  The contestants had played their prepared pieces on the Steinway grand piano at the local performing arts center; for most of them, it was the first time they had even sat at a grand piano.

The Lovely Lady told me about one girl in particular, a heavy-set young lady, dressed unfashionably, who was reticent in her responses to the judge’s questions about her teacher and the piece she had selected.  She sat at the piano, obviously in awe of such a fine instrument.  It took a few moments for her nervousness to pass, so she could proceed.

Then, she began to play.  Almost it seemed as if she was no longer in the room with the judges.  Her playing was confident, the timing impeccable.  She executed the piece with feeling, starting quietly and soaring to a climax of emotion with great musicality, then back down again as the passion of the music ebbed, concluding the performance with beautiful chords and quiet melodies and counter-melodies spiraling down into silence.

As it was related to me by the Lovely Lady, it was not the best performance they heard that day, nor was it perfect, but without question, it was worthy of an excellent rating.

The performance was also a great surprise to those present who had been inclined to expect much less from the backward young lady.

Yes, it was indeed that young girl who lived in the chicken house, learning to play on a rebuilt seventy year-old clunker of a piano.

In the midst of poverty and lack, accomplishment reared it’s lovely head.

I am still learning that appearances can be deceiving, and presumption is a dangerous path to follow, but this one was a real wake up call, almost a shift in paradigms (if I may use that trendy, trite term).  I have delivered beautiful pianos to astounding homes, the buyers only interested in the integrity of their decor, with no interest whatsoever in the quality of the sound or the touch of the keyboard.  I have left homes, having delivered the piano, only to be followed out the door by the whining tone of children asking why their parents bought that stupid thing.   

But, I’m fairly certain that I have never delivered a more important instrument to a more important customer.

I have no idea what she has done with her talent and skill since then.  Simply to know that this young lady had in two short years developed the joy and confidence that she displayed on that afternoon inspires and motivates me to believe that no one, regardless of their environment or financial condition, is beyond hope or expectation of great things.

I pray that it is never otherwise.

“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality.  All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.”  (Niccolo Machiavelli~Italian writer and statesman~1469-1527)










© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Did you enjoy this post?  Let your friends know about it by “liking” our page on Facebook!

“Just say it!”

The scruffy boys clustered around the little towhead couldn’t bear to watch the little guy writhing in pain, so they urged him to take the only way out.  Just one word and it would all be over.

He bit his lip and stubbornly shook his head.

“Never!”

It was a stalemate.  The dark haired aggressor clearly had the upper hand, since he had the smaller boy’s arm twisted behind his back in what is known as a hammerlock.  The higher the arm was pushed toward the shoulder, the more the level of pain intensified.  The stronger of the two, he was certain that the scuffle would soon be over.  Domination was certain.  Victory was his!

But no.  The obvious loser refused to submit.  The word would never cross his lips.  He prepared for one last, desperate move.
____________________

As I relive the event in my memory, it occurs to me that the reader might wonder why a man of advancing years (I will readily admit to it) is concerned at all with a common school yard tussle which happened nearly fifty years ago.  I almost wonder myself.

I have mentioned before that my mind doesn’t always heed its master.  It goes where it wants with increasing frequency these days.  Perhaps my admission in my most recent post, of giving up control, is to blame.  I do tend to mull things over a bit, after the words have been written in black and white for the world to see.

I think though, that it was more likely the conversation I had with an old acquaintance this morning.  I’ve known the man for thirty years, having done business with him and his father too, when the old gentleman was living.  My friend is retired now, although he is not many years older than I.  His words are tumbling around in my head, along with my own from earlier.

“When I left the workplace, I guess I withdrew from life.  I don’t have much to get excited about anymore.  It’s just me and my wife and we’ve got nothing to talk about, since we do the same things together from daylight to dark.”

As he went out the door to go home, he assured me that his discussion with me would be the high point of this day for him.  Poor fellow.

For all the words he said, I really hear just one.  The little towhead refused to say the word, but this sixty-year old man is living it everyday.  

As I headed out for a run tonight, my thoughts ran along with me.

photo: Nicholas A Tonelli

The stars shone brightly up in the sky above me as I left the house, their brilliance shining through even the annoying glare of the streetlights that I moved under and past.  I looked at them up in the sky and  suddenly realized that those were the very stars which were shining when I was a boy.

The very ones.  Fifty years is nothing to them.  Fifty years of being stared at.  Fifty years of having projectiles flung from this little sphere of dirt and water up into what we call outer space.  Not one of those projectiles has ever come close to touching a single one of those stars.  Not one has dimmed their brilliance a single lumen.  Since I was a boy–since my father was a boy–since my father’s father was a boy…

The very same stars are shining brightly in the sky.

I will admit to talking to myself frequently, but tonight I talked to the stars for a minute.  Just for a minute.

They were brightest as I ran through the cemetery.  Looking up, I actually said the words out loud.

“Are you still there?”

There was mute silence, but their brilliance shouted in the quiet.  I didn’t hear an answer, but I had it anyway.  I wasn’t done quite yet.  Two words.  That’s all it took to finish my conversation.

“Me too.”
____________________

The little towhead had seen the luchadores, the Mexican wrestlers, on the black and white television set at his neighbor’s house.  He remembered seeing them caught in the hold that his opponent now had on him.  It was a submission hold that few escaped.  But once–just once, he had seen it done.

Reaching back to grab the other kid’s head for support, he lifted both his legs and, holding his weight with the hand on the boy’s head, he shoved against the tree that was just in front of his body.  When the luchadore had done it, he had flipped up and over the other wrestler’s back, pulling him into the same hammerlock.  Of course, the wrestling moves on television depended on the cooperation of both wrestlers, one helping the other as they performed their spectacular gymnastics, but the boy didn’t know that.

What actually ensued is that the boy who appeared beaten simply knocked the other boy down backwards, landing with his full weight on top of him.  The tables were turned as the surprised boy on the bottom of the heap, bruised and in pain, begged to be allowed up.

The towhead, himself surprised by the turn of events, shouted out instantly, “Say it!”

The other little boy, all the fight knocked out of him along with his breath, gasped out the word that his conqueror had refused to utter only moments before.

“Uncle!”
____________________

I know too many who have already said the word.  I’ve seen them waiting for time to pass.  The things that life has thrown at them have dimmed their brilliance.  The submission hold that trials have put them in has them on the ropes, and the towel of surrender has been thrown over those ropes into the ring.

I wonder, if we fall–no, when we fall–I wonder… Could we just roll over and look up?  They’re still up there, aren’t they?  The same stars that shone brightly way back when–back when nothing was going to stand in our way.  Those very stars that shone as we made plans and laid the groundwork for conquering our world.

Our Creator put them up in the sky, along with the other lights.  I’m wondering if we’ve forgotten that He also made us to shine like stars in the universe.

They’re still shining, aren’t they?

Me too.

And, I still won’t say that word.

“…So that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.  Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.”
(Philippians 2:15 ~ NIV)

“Being defeated is often a temporary condition.  Giving up is what makes it permanent.”
(Marilyn vos Savant ~ American magazine columnist)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Did you enjoy this post?  Let your friends know about it by “liking” our page on Facebook!