Blessed Be the Tie

Christmas Eve Sunday (12/24/23) Somewhere else in the Gulf of Mexico -

 

I met John and Carol Murphy in the autumn of 1977 at a small church house in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They were among a handful of families that had decided to start a Work in the southern part of that city and were meeting in a cinder block structure that had formerly served as a repair shop for diesel engines.
It was…aromatic.

 

Thru the years, our families remained engaged in one form or another. My parents stayed at the Murphy home while they were away during one visit to the "Okie Contingent" of the Clanton clan.
The Murphy's are like that--come stay at our house.
We won't be there…

 

I met Heather and Steve Bergman under slightly different circumstances. Steve was a preacher at a church in the Cypress-Fairbanks area of NW Harris County, Texas. I'd met Heather long before that: She was in diapers. Her father worked on my car and on my father's vehicles.
I've known her longer than I've known my wife.

 

These couples, plus another pair of "newly-weds" in their '90's, and a single fellow from College Station all managed to be on the same cruise ship as my Bride and I over the Christmas break.
They didn't know we were coming.

 

While most on the ship were preparing to celebrate the commonly accepted birth of Jesus, we gathered on that Christmas Eve Sunday to commemorate the death and resurrection of the Christ. Steve had procured some unleavened bread and a small bottle of grape juice; the Murphy's had brought along a supply of single-serve communion packets ("the bread tastes like Styrofoam," Carol would sneer), and we had all the makings of a proper Christian communion service.

 

On the way to the worship, I ran into a couple in an elevator lobby, Wade and Rebekah Matthews, from Temple, Texas. She noticed I was carrying a hymnal and copies of sheet music. "Are you going to a worship service," Rebekah asked. "Are you a worship leader?" When I affirmed that I was heading forward for that purpose, she asked, "Can we come?"
And so we went.

 

We sang the hymns that Steve had copied, which included one of Carol's favorites, "Count Your Many Blessings," took the Lord's Supper together, and then sang two songs from memory, "I know Whom I Have Believed," and "Blest Be the Tie that Binds," before closing out our service.

 

The last hymn was so poignantly significant: Meeting up on a cruise ship with a couple I'd known for 46-years; a woman I'd known since birth and her husband; and the establishment of new friendships with 90-year old newlyweds, a vacationing accountant, and our new friends from the elevator lobby…all joined by a common faith and purpose on that Sunday before Christmas.
Blessed be the Tie that Binds, indeed.

 

Three Ships on Christmas Morning

 

Costa Maya, Quintana Roo, MX (12/25/23) -

Christmas mornings have always been magical.

The first glimpse of loot under the Christmas tree, never mind how it got there…which gave way to the joy of watching our own kids' first glimpse of loot under the tree, eventually knowing full-well how it got there, regardless. And that magic continues with grand-kids' Christmas morning excitement. That's the best Christmas miracle of all.
We saw it all...on video.

 

This year's Christmas found my bride and I cruising the Gulf of Mexico, escaping the frozen tundra of December's upper Texas Gulf Coast for the sultry climes of the northeastern Yucatan peninsula. Our ship, the RCCL Voyager of the Seas, docked in the port of Costa Maya shortly after dawn on Christmas morning.

 

There is nothing quite like a sunrise at sea. A sunrise approaching port provides more of a sense of scale of the awesomeness. Other vessels seem diminutive in comparison, and one's own finite existence is placed in proper perspective.

 

Christmas Day 2023 at Costa Maya dawned besmirched by clouds. The ship had sailed through a frontal system overnight, adding extra movement to its rhythmic rolling in the waves. (I would come to find, days after returning home, my inner ears still gently suggesting the swaying of the ship on the sea!) So these clouds were still scudding across the emerging sun, obscuring its initial appearance on the horizon.

 

I had taken position at the forward-most point on the ship--the helipad on the 5th deck. Only one other brave passenger was up on deck at this hour--he with his $2,000 SLR camera, and me with my $1,000 smart phone camera* to greet the day's dawning.
(The images we captured would turn out identical.)

 

The port pilot's launch came alongside the starboard gangway, and the pilot grabbed a crewman's hand as he leapt across a narrow gap of moving seawater. The ship slowed to a ghost's crawl as it approached the pier, silently sliding  in place--docking "Texas style," nose to sea--as shore workers secured her lines to the mooring bollards.

 

Two other cruise liners were already in place when we arrived. Our vessel had played tag with them across the Gulf, and now, a great maritime meet-up was taking place as passengers from all three blended and merged on their way to the mercado on shore.
I literally saw three ships** on Christmas Day.

-------

*That's replacement cost these days; I didn't spend that much for this device, so don't bourgeoisie me.

 ** https://www.godtube.com/popular-hymns/i-saw-three-ships/

 

A Christmas to Remember

This year for Christmas my bride and I "escaped" onto a five day northwestern Caribbean cruise.In many ways it was just what the doctor ordered for us both.
Here are a few observations I noted during the voyage.

(Somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, 12/23/23) -
I am sitting in the 11th Deck common serving area, on the northbound end of a southbound cruise ship, the RCCL/Voyager of the Seas. It's not quite noon in this latitude, and the late breakfast crowd is slowly shuffling out as the early lunch bunch arrives.
The wait staff has been here since before 6am.
 

The wrap around windows here provide a 180° view that encompasses the stern and a magnificent perspective of twin trails of aquamarine and white foam marking the track of the vessel.
It is sublime.
 

There is a literal parade of humanity aboard the Voyager: Families celebrating Christmas at sea--some for the first time--and some that are 'old salts' at cruising. Some have packed matching pajamas in red or green plaids, posing before giant-squid sized Christmas trees on the 5th deck promenade.

 

There would seem to be a clash of cultures, with young women in braids, mid-cropped T's, and short shorts leaving little to the imagination; proper, Asian families of three and four generations, nappily dressed with children perfectly comported; African men in Arabic kaftans and their wives (only one, each!) elegantly ornate with jewelry and designer jogging suits.
But it's Christmas weekend, and everyone is pretty harmonious, with peace on earth,
goodwill to men, and all that jazz.
Even in the food serving lines.
 

There's another parade, here, too, comprised of a multi-national serving crew. Name tags proudly boast polysyllabic proper nouns with more consonants than the tongue can comprehend, and their national origins are added as if an after thought: South Africa, Malaysia, Philippines, and Ghana among the place names I recognize.
Others I file away to research later.
 

A lovely woman with a long, dark, braided pigtail and wide hips navigates between the jumbled tables with a serving tray, retrieving used dishes. Her uniform trousers bunch
around her ankles because the cut of the pants are a little long because of the accommodation they provide for her hips. She circulates tirelessly in the swarming crowd of cruisers.
 

We will arrive at our first port of call by noon tomorrow, Christmas Eve Sunday. Plenty of time for breakfast and an informal worship service among like-minded friends before the ship disgorges her human cargo to ravage the shopping stalls ashore like a hoard of locusts.
 

The ship tracks ever southward, gently rocking in the swells of the Gulf of Mexico. A  cacophony of a half-dozen languages echoes through the dining lounge.
It is a Christmas to remember.

When Your Work Around Needs a Work Around

Our company recently switched telecom providers, going from one digital service to another, supposedly less expensive provider (keep that point in the back of your mind). Haply, all the employees turned-in their desktop phone instruments and began using telephone service through their individual desktop computers with wired and/or wireless headsets.
Alexander Graham Bell’s head would probably explode.

In my little corner of the office, literally, there is the studio wherein we produce our daily Radio show, complete with live-streaming on YouTube, and occasionally, a guest interview or two by phone. That phone system is managed by a Comrex STAC device that had worked very well with our previous telephone service provider, but apparently ran afoul of the new guys’ system for no good reason that was offered to me. Their solution was to “stick with the old provider,” but to buy the new guys’ service as well.
What a wonderful sales pitch.

And for a period, that’s what it seemed we were going to do. I would occasionally check the phone line for a dial tone and be comforted by the dual pitch tone buzzing in my ear.
Until it didn’t.

Today we learned the phone number assigned to our Studio gear had been mistakenly ported-over into the new system, effectively cancelling the working service on that line. There’s no going back, and there’s no going forward, since the new guys say they cannot integrate the Comrex unit into their system. 

My work-around is to take calls into the show via the phone system that’s in place at our host Radio station, and pipe them into our audio stream through our remote connection.
Except…AT&T seems to have severed the phone lines for our Radio partner.

What do you do when your work-around needs a work-around?
Stay-tuned, as they say, for the outcome.
But don’t even think of calling-in now; operators are not only not standing by, they don’t care, and they’ve apparently left the building.

Emails From the DOJ

The first time the email came in, my blood ran cold. It was from the U.S. Department of Justice, and there was no mistaking the source. This was no scammer email—this was Legit. And even though subsequent messages would be received on a monthly or semi-monthly basis, the Sender line always gave me a start when I saw it in my in-box.
An email from the DOJ!

A few years ago, when I was operating my own business, I purchased what I thought was a good healthcare insurance policy. The premiums weren’t horrible, and they paid claims on time.
Until they didn’t.

That’s when I discovered I’d been scammed by a group of three operatives that left me hanging out to dry to the tune of several thousands of dollars owed to doctors, hospitals, labs, etc.
And I discovered I wasn’t the only one.

I registered as a victim of their scheme, hopeful I would be helped in some way by a victims’ compensation fund. Never saw a dime. The trio were all convicted of fraud and various nefarious crimes, and locked away in prison.
Good for them.

One of the scammers died in jail. I’ve lost track of another one.
But the emails I semi-regularly receive keep me posted on the ring leader, still behind bars.
He is not eligible for parole, but his release date keeps creeping forward. In 2023 alone I have received seven such emails notifying me of his ever-changing release date, from April 20, 2030 forward to December 30, 2029.

Recently a family friend drove to the airport to pick up a relative.
This friend is a real prankster, playing at the professional level of prankage. He took his entire family to greet his uncle, who he had not seen in some time. The group met the man at the gate with a hand-printed, bright yellow poster, “Welcome Home from Prison!”
I think I may have snorted coffee through my nose when I saw the photos.

But back to the DOJ notifications.
Thanks for the warning.
I’m not planning any ‘welcome home’ party.

The Summer of '73

It’s hard to believe 1973 was 50-years ago. The Vietnam War had ended with the Paris Peace Accords in January.
The Supreme Court’s Roe vs Wade ruling established abortion as a constitutional right. Gasoline cost 40-cents a gallon, and you could buy a brand-new Ford Galaxie 500 for $3,883. It was the prelude to my senior year of high school.

The Summer of ‘73 was also magical in that I was able to travel to Europe for the first time, spending two weeks with the Spring Woods High School Chorale as we attended the Vienna “Musikverein” Music Festival. Our itinerary also included visits to Prague, Czechoslovakia and Budapest, Hungary.
In 1973, these countries were still behind the Iron Curtain.

The world is smaller today with smartphones and the internet and the flow of instant information. We didn’t have those in 1973, and so taking a horde of high schoolers into a Communist country was a little daunting. I think we were “undauntable” at that time in our lives. The cost of that trip was around $75,000—equivalent to over a half-million in 2023 dollars.

We didn’t know that.
We just knew we’d have to raise the money to travel. A fundraising committee was formed by school officials and Chorus parents. I remember working two part-time jobs to earn money for the trip. Not all the choir families were well-off, and so some students’ passage was paid for through the generosity of others. We were the epitome of “chorus,” not just singing, but working in union towards our European goal under the watchful eye of beloved Choir Director, Jaquelyn Cocke.

I remember our border crossing from West to East: We were sternly warned by our chaperones, ‘no foolishness.’ A Soviet soldier entered our tour bus carrying a Russian automatic rifle. He slowly walked the aisle, looking at each student sternly before passing along.
You could’ve heard a pin drop.

Vienna, Austria 1973

History was all around us, ancient and contemporary. I remember putting my finger in bullet holes of in a building in Budapest, damaged in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, 16-years earlier. The city was still somber. Yet we were able to dissipate that mood with our music.
And our frisbees.

While waiting around on the front lawn of our hotel, a few of us began tossing frisbees to one another. A group of Soviet soldiers in a Russian “jeep” pulled up in front of the building, and an officer strode inside. The three remaining soldiers took interest in our Frisbee antics, and in the international language of play, we taught them how to toss the discs.

Suddenly, the officer appeared on the front steps of the hotel, and the soldiers snapped to attention. He said something that sounded harsh, and they scrambled into the jeep and started the engine. As they drove away, I made a final Frisbee toss to one of the guys in the back of the jeep--which he caught--and was last seen waving over his head as the jeep disappeared behind a rise in the road. This may have been the beginning of East-West detente.

The Spring Woods Chorus’ outreach in the Summer of ’73 included an impromptu serenade at an outdoor café, attending a Hungarian Gulaz Party, and performances in the Vienna Opera House. The Berlin Wall would fall 16-years later, and the communist Soviet Union would crumble in 1991. I imagine that soldier still has his American Frisbee.

Sources:
https://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1973.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain

Special thanks to Sharleen Thomas for her photographs