Author: Henry O. Arnold

I met Joshua back in the Fall of 2019 at one of the exits off Interstate 40 that cuts through the middle of downtown Nashville. Joshua is a newspaper vendor who sells The Contributor, a street newspaper focusing primarily on social justice issues involving poverty and homelessness. At peak morning hours (pre-Covid-19), there can be a steady stream of cars driving onto the exit ramp. These vehicles approach a traffic light where Joshua operates his business on this prime real estate. Then drivers must choose one of three different directions to take, and so become absorbed into the vast web of city streets. Drivers caught by the red light are usually so taken up by the self-absorbed process of destination driving to notice anything other than the irritating slowness for the light to change to green. Those early meetings with Joshua were what I call the “baton hand-offs.” It was the type of transaction that offers minimum reward: Joshua and I trade a couple of bucks and some snacks for a copy of The Contributor; we also swap a cheerful greeting, an exchange of “thank you/you're welcome”--those obligatory marks of good manners, and, if the light is red, then time for a casual comment on the weather or an inquiry into the other's well being...platitudes in place of real conversation. When the light changes to green, I'm off to my appointment, and Joshua goes back to his place at the top of the intersection to repeat his march down a fresh line of cars. To see Joshua was not an everyday occurrence. I don't regularly drive into Nashville, and when I do, my destination does not always take me to his exit. But in the last several months I have had the good fortune to grab hurried seconds with Joshua. Here is what I have observed in our numerous one-on-one's: Joshua is reliable; always at his post unless inclement weather prevails. He has a business-like deportment that includes a smile. While his attire may not be the latest fashion, his wardrobe is clean and neat. Only once have I seen him on the phone when I pulled up, but he was conversing with his worried mother arranging for her son to get a protective mask against Covid-19. Otherwise, he is paying attention to potential customers, holding an opened copy of the paper in one hand, while offering a friendly wave with the other. The rest of the papers are neatly folded and placed inside the pouch hung over his neck with its cover of clear plastic revealing the headlines and a sticker with the price of the paper below it. On a separate laminate is a picture I.D., also draped around his neck. He is a professional. Over time, our conversations, while brief, have deepened and become more meaningful. We've met so many times now that he recognizes my car even when I am way back in the pack. I am greeted with the “Usain Bolt has-left-the-building” pose and a…

Never thought I'd be standing at a baker's bench. Never thought I'd be up to my wrists kneading dough. Never thought I'd be driving a delivery van to multiple locations giving out bread. But here we are in this not-quite dystopian world of pandemic and sequestration. Nothing like a plague to get the attention of the world. And yes, I ripped off the title of my piece from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's great novel, “Love in the Time of Cholera;” an excellent addition to one's literary life experience. Kay and I were in New Zealand in mid-January when we became aware of Covid-19 shutting down Wuhan, China. It was surreal, because the Chinese were celebrating their New Year, and we kept seeing busloads of tourists from China going about the Queenstown sites and landscapes snapping photos and seeming to enjoy themselves. Most of the tourists had their faces covered by masks. I had two pleasant encounters with tourists from China both on the same day: 1) While on a solo trek in the mountains, I had under-estimated my arrival at the rendezvous point to be picked up. I had over an hour of hiking left, well beyond the time to meet the family. I had my daughter's phone number (Having flunked Boy Scouts, I am always just “mostly” prepared), and asked a young woman I met on the trail if she could call a New Zealand number. She was quick to oblige, and even dialed the number for me. I was able to contact my daughter before the family left the house and delay our meeting time. And 2) As I was approaching the end of my nineteen mile hike, I met two young Chinese women who had just gotten off their tourist bus. They were beginning an ascent up the mountain, one in sandals and the other in pink, Croc-like shoes. They stopped me with a wave and asked how long it would take them to hike the first couple of miles. We struggled to communicate in broken English, but I tried to explain how deceiving this path was: a pleasant start at the trail head that quickly turned steep and strenuous. Then pointing to their shoes, I tried to explain that their footwear was not right for this trail. They seemed to understand by nodding their heads, and we smiled as we parted. These three tourists were sans masks which allowed for clarity of gesture and expressions of gratitude and concern. While our conversations were brief, I was shown kindness in the first encounter, and passed on what I hope was kindness in the second encounter. When Kay and I got home in early February, the world was beginning to wake up to the potential destruction of the Covid-19 plague. In mid-March we were hit by some shocking news: our New Zealand kids were in a nation-wide lock-down, the status of their visas and employment now in limbo; our Chattanooga kids had to layoff twenty-seven employees at their bakery.…

I don't know who fired the first shot, but I do know when and where the war began. It was in 1991, at Fontana Resort in North Carolina at the ninth Pryor Family Reunion. The war continued for decades; family "water warriors" from five states gathering once every two years for great battles with intermittent skirmishes among members of the clan in several other locations between reunions. Back in the day, humans roamed the landscape on foot. We were nomadic individual families that turned into clans that turned into tribes that, with a steady birth rate and population increases, eventually turned into nations. The personalities of dominate family members shaped the family as a whole, which in time, evolved into distinct, cultural qualities of clan, tribe, and nation. Today's family is no different than the families of early humankind. Water is essential to all plant, animal, and human life. But our clan took it a step further, and no, I’m not talking about baptism, although that is an important component to our clan. I’m talking about the “Water Wars of Pryor Reunions," which might be considered our cultural distinction. In Great Britain there was the “Hundred Years’ War,” which led to the “War of the Roses,” which led to the “Seven Year’s War...” all that death and mayhem can wear a body down. And don't forget our little dust-up with our English cousins starting in 1775. But the marked difference between the civil wars of nations and the Pryor Reunion “Water Wars” is that no one died. There was an occasional injury, but that was usually a stubbed toe from running barefoot or a bashed noggin from running into a tree while taking cover. In honor of the recent passing of my Uncle Tad Wyckoff into the heavenly realms, I give him credit for the idea of starting the “Water Wars” at our family reunion in Fontana, N.C., and for firing the first shot heard round the world. He was the mischievous instigator. Team-Uncle Tad, which consisted of my brother Cris, U.T., and me, slipped out of the family dinner undetected. We went to our cabin, gathered our munitions, loaded up the ”water barrels,” and got into the car; Uncle Tad in the back seat, I in the front seat, and Cris driving the getaway vehicle. With darkness as our friend, we lay in wait as the families unsuspectingly strolled down the road after dinner and split off to their respective cabins. Cris drove us by those families we knew would appreciate, yea verily, enjoy this sort of sport; a perfect activity on a hot summer night. We rolled down our windows, and like the old black and white gangster movies, we unleashed H2O hell. Yes, it was a senseless drive-by soaking. The gauntlet had been tossed. The "Water Wars" declared. With each reunion that followed, Uncle Tad would visit the toy stores or go online to purchase the latest models of super-soakers months in advance. We would study the locations…

I have embarrassed myself so often in life that one could accuse me of being an accomplished Performance Artist in the trade. For humiliation to work there must be witnesses. Doing something humiliating in the privacy of one's personal space doesn't count. The whole “dance like nobody's watching” thing is a bit self-inflated. Unless, of course, you are Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine Benes. But the trouble with the Ms. Benes' character was that she was quite pleased with her “moves,” never seeing the disgrace. The humiliation only works when both the audience and the humiliated see the humiliation in action and together recognize it for what it is...abject debasement from which there is no recovery and leaves the indelible mark on the memory. Back in my middle-school days – peak years for prize-winning humiliations – a group of us decided we would go to the State Fair. While we had to depend on the parents for transportation, I did not have to ask them for the money to pay the admission fee and for incidentals. I was a paperboy at that time, and made my own money. I did not depend on the parents for an allowance. With four kids to feed and clothe on one income, the topic of an allowance was a non-starter. There was no such item in the Arnold household budget. Besides, I wished to impress my girlfriend at the time with my economic independence; quite proud to pay for our tickets with money earned by the sweat of my brow. As we strolled along the Midway, our senses were bombarded with enticing sights and sounds and smells. My girlfriend and I indulged in a Cumulus cloud of pink cotton-candy on a paper cone, followed by the deep-fried goodness of a funnel cake. Our spirits were high after such fair fare. I saw an opportunity to continue this good feeling by winning a stuffed animal for the girlfriend at the shooting gallery. While I was no Frank Butler – male counterpart to Annie Oakley – I had shot my neighbor's air rifle many times at targets set up in his backyard. So I slapped down my quarter for three shots and missed every one. I slapped another quarter down, not for the chance to save face, but to examine the trajectories flying out of a crooked barrel. My aim didn't matter. The pellets veered away from the targets no matter where I sighted. My complaints to management were met with a surly, “Face it, kid. You can't shoot. Now get outta here.” The girlfriend had to walk the Midway empty-handed. Humiliation number one. When the group spied the Rocko Ride, the girlfriend's excitement was tangible. Maybe the first humiliation would be short lived. I approached the monster bravely concealing my trepidation. The steel cages were shaped like the old manual pencil sharpeners, and attached to a metal frame similar to that of a Ferris Wheel, but the seats were enclosed and designed to rock and roll…

It was not until my mid-twenties that I began in earnest to read western classic literature. Growing up with undiagnosed dyslexia kept me from reading much of anything except comic books, Mad magazine, and newspapers—I was a paperboy for four years. For academic assignments I relied on the student's best friend, CliffsNotes. It wasn't until my early twenties that I discovered that I was not “slow of mind,” but that my brain/eye connections were malfunctioning when it came to reading. I just had a problem decoding language, so I decided to slow down and read for pleasure. While in my Russian Literature phase, I was reading Dostoevsky's major works, and my brother, Cris, happened to see me plowing through “The Idiot.” His comment was, “Hey Big Brother, when did you publish your autobiography?” Nothing like family to keep me grounded. The word “idiot” may be offensive to some, but I use it here in the vein of “fool,” “ass,” and “knucklehead.” I am particularly fond of how the Irish spell and use the word “eejit.” Bonus points when elongating the “eeee.” Through the art of literary conjuring, the Irish have expanded such a word into an art form. “Eejit” is one of more than a dozen words used in good-natured insults, though there are a few pejorative uses that can incite brawls. Recently Kay traveled to Spain and Portugal with friends and family while I stayed behind to do a play. Her car was sluggish when I started the engine the first few mornings after she was gone, and by the third morning the engine would not even crank. I had a dead battery. I could not deal with the issue right away because of my daily rehearsal schedule, but I knew I could take care of this. Now whenever someone says, “I got this,” be warned. The “eejit” demon lurks in the shadows waiting for the perfect moment for a surprise attack. Once we opened the show I was able to give the dead battery my full cognitive powers. The morning was cold and frosty; the temperature in the low twenties, so I knew it would be more difficult to jump the battery. But, I'm in my “I got this” mode, and confidently pulled my car in front of Kay's car, popped the respective hoods, and let my car warm up before attaching the cables. Jump-starting dead batteries is not something I do on a regular basis, but still I had done it before, and “I got this” could do it again. The battery posts on my car were easily marked positive and negative so I could attach the metal clamps on my jumper cables to the right connections on the battery. But when I looked at the battery in Kay's car, it was not so marked. I looked and looked. Got a paper towel and wiped the thin sheen of grease and dirt away and still saw no plus and minus markers anywhere. She had a newer car…

Our Christmas tradition was born out of a refusal to have a fake tree in the house: the same one pulled from storage each year, a trunk of hard synthetic with drilled holes for the perfectly tapered limbs to fit, and reeking with a musty smell of aged plastic. "Not that there’s anything wrong with that" (thank you Jerry Seinfeld). We had to have a live tree, which meant finding a cedar tree on the wooded acreage behind our house, cutting it down, and lugging the felled beast home. The adventure always happened the day after Thanksgiving. We rose early anxious to be on the hunt, found our prize, brought it home and stuck the base of the tree in a five gallon bucket of water for it to slurp from during the day, and then that night had a full-on decoration party. We have carried on this tradition for decades now. In those early days, trees were found on the family farm until they became scarce or too scrawny. Then we met a man who owned property not far from where we lived, and he invited us to come and chop down a tree every year. We’d pile into my brother-in-law’s pickup and drive out to the man’s property, split into groups, tramp through the woods, and pick out the candidates. After careful scrutiny, comparing height, form, and majesty, we made our choice, cut it down, and threw it into the pickup. The girls and I rode in the back with our “kill,” and Kay drove us home. There were several years when we ran outdoor lights all along the roof-line and dormers of the house. Kay would be on the ground laying out the miles of stringed icicles, and I went up and down a twenty-foot extension ladder fastening them onto the wooden frameworks. We gave the Griswold’s of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” a run for their money. When the girls brought home their friends from college for the Thanksgiving holiday, they would be welcomed with enough lights to be seen from outer space and cause retinal damage when they pulled into the driveway. Once I reached a certain age, I put the “Bah! Humbug!” on climbing up and down that ladder and lugging the twenty-foot, metal monster to and from the shed in freezing temperatures. Ain’t nobody got time for that. From then on the Christmas lights would just have to live in our hearts. I have lived to a ripe old age for taking my stand. When the girls got serious about the respective “man of their dreams” (good choices both), we upgraded the tradition and found Christmas tree farms. We would stroll through rows of neatly laid out Fraser Fir trees, and had the pleasure of picking the one we wanted, cutting it down, and throwing it in the back of the pickup. By this time, I had put the “Bah! Humbug!” on riding in the back of the truck with the tree. Ain’t nobody…

I never thought I would see this day. I did not even dream about it or hope that it might happen. It just happened. I did not try to make it happen; no strings were pulled; no favors called in; no money exchanged. It just happened. This is not some random act of stars aligning. Dare I say it, but this might be something ordained, and it took fifty years to get here. When I walked out onto the stage of Collins Auditorium to perform in Beki Baker’s (Chair of the theatre department at Lipscomb University) production of “Bright Star” in the role of Josiah Dobbs, I felt a powerful moment of coming home. At the age of twenty I did the role of Biff Loman in Jerry Henderson’s production of “Death of a Salesman” on this very same stage. To say that my relationship with the school was tumultuous would be an understatement. In high school after numerous infractions, I had been invited to seek education elsewhere, and when allowed to attend the college a couple of years later, I had to agree to be placed on all probation's with the exception of “Short Skirt” probation. Yes, that was a thing. Any infraction of any probation and it was sayonara.  (A Japanese term used in situations where you will either not see the person for a long time, or ever again.) Quite a tightrope to walk for a rebel like me. We parted ways shortly after “Death of a Salesman,” shaking the dust from our feet and with a “good riddance” on our lips. I do not blame the school. I was a handful during my high school years and for those few semesters I attended the University. We were not well-matched, and it took time and distance to bring us back together. My father taught music and drama at Lipscomb University for over thirty years, plus he was the worship leader for the chapel services. During my period as a prodigal the a strain on the father/son relationship was evident. But in time we were reconciled, yea verily; more than just reconciled. We took joy in our relationship and worked together in countless productions. That was a miracle I attribute to divine Providence; I needed the miracle of repentance while Dad needed the miracle of patience. Way back in the 1990’s I was touring the country with some one-man shows I had created. Dad invited me to perform a shorten version of one of these shows for the chapel service he led at Lipscomb. This was followed by an invitation from the powers-that-be to do a full show for the University’s annual “High School Day” where kids came from all over the country to spend a weekend on the campus and get the spiel for why Lipscomb University was a great choice for their college career after graduating high school. I was to perform my show on that Saturday night. The Collins Auditorium was packed with high school…

I love the stark realism the words of this title bring to mind. It comes from a phrase in “Seeds of Contemplation” by Thomas Merton: “As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is a resetting of a body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish, without some pain at the differences that come between them.” This spiritual image affords us a super power. We have a potential to have x-ray vision. We can look at other human beings and see the broken bones concealed inside their flesh. They too can see the cracked and fractured bones in our body. One can’t live in this fallen world and not carry inside us a broken nature. Surely, we try to conceal it from the world with all manner of disguises, but it is not hidden for long. One of my favorite painters is Michelangelo Caravaggio. He lived and painted in the late Renaissance period and is considered the first artist to bring realism to painting. He was a wild man; some even considered him mentally ill. Who knows? He captured a dramatic truth in his paintings that, when viewed, can bore through your soul much like his frequent use of a shaft of light onto the principal subject made more poignant by the vale of blackness around it. Whether Caravaggio fully understood what he was doing or not, so many of the subjects in his paintings are captured in a moment of brokenness. He never sketched before painting. The final version just poured out of him straight onto the canvas in a burst of impetuous fire. Merton’s “body of broken bones” and Caravaggio’s painting of “The Seven Acts of Mercy” (one of his last paintings) are beautiful reminders of who we are as human beings and how we have opportunities to “reset one another’s bones” in love to paraphrase Merton. All of the images crammed into this painting are the artist’s reflection of Jesus’ admonition in the gospel of Matthew of how we might show mercy to someone: (1 & 2) a woman visits an imprisoned man and gives him milk from her breast; 3) a pilgrim asks for shelter; 4) a saint gives half his robe to a naked beggar; 5) a saint comforts a beggar; 6) Samson drinks from the jawbone of an ass; and 7) two men honor the dead with a respectful burial (the seventh act of mercy was added to this list in the Middle Ages). All of us should be using our “super power” to see one another’s broken bones, and then pouring ourselves into acts of mercy like Caravaggio poured himself into his paintings. His vision and unbridled passion went straight onto the canvass. So in this painting, Caravaggio had a vision of the brokenness of humanity and re-imagined it through acts of mercy. He had his vision and applied…

I have delayed my monthly story because I’ve been a little preoccupied ruling the world and “snuffing out popular resistance as if it were a naughty baby bunny.” It really is exhausting. There are just so many decisions to make—when your decisions are the only ones that matter, and there are so many people to keep in line—these people insist on having opinions contrary to my own. So yes, I have been busy playing a character that has created his own evil empire in a production of “Urinetown.” I have played bad guys before, but to give me an idea of the nuances of this particular role, Jason Tucker, the director of Nashville Repertory Theatre’s production of this hysterical musical, summed it up in a one-sentence character description: “Caldwell B. Cladwell is as comfortable on the dance floor as he is in the board room.” Now I can do evil, however, singing-and-dancing evil is a stretch for me. But I’m an actor with a job to do, so I have to make the audience believe the evil while singing and dancing along the way. I have to confess when a character requires me to sing and dance on stage it puts the fear of God in me. All those who asked what I did for my summer vacation, I have told them that I spent it learning music and lyrics, working on character development, and doing my “slow-drip” process of absorbing the dialogue of the character into my system. Kay was so ready for me to start rehearsals and get me out of the house. If she had to listen to me sing “Don’t Be The Bunny” one more time, she threatened to lock me in the shed. This brings me to the real reason for writing this brief opinion piece. I have had a career in the theatre since 1970. Well, actually my first time on stage was in 1955 in a production of “Medea” playing one of the sons of Jason and Medea. It was an easy gig; just look cute, and then play dead. I was a natural. So after a fifteen year gap between jobs, I got the role of Paco, the Muleteer in the musical “Man of La Mancha.” My dad played the role of Don Quixote. I never looked back after that. I was hooked. An actor I would be, for better or for worse. For the last few decades I have had the great good fortune to work with the professional theatres in Nashville in a variety of roles. People have asked me why I never went to New York. When I reflected on what a privilege it has been to work in Nashville, it dawned on me that New York came to me. Kay and I have seen a lot of theatre in our married life, and in some of the finest theatres in the world. And yes, while we can say we have been wowed from time to time by what…

I was raised in an era when our particular church persuasion believed that we were the only ones going to heaven, and only then if you behaved according to the rules and had done enough “good works” to get in, and if not, well too bad. My own heart knew that I would never be good enough or do enough to qualify. It took me awhile to ask the question that if our church affiliation was so unsure about its future hopes of heaven how then could they be so sure that anyone from another denomination had no chance of making it? But if you were from the “true” church and you did make it, then you were part of a very exclusive club. There is an old joke about St. Peter leading a group of new arrivals on a tour of heaven. When they get to a certain neighborhood in the heavenly city, St. Peter asks the group to remain silent as they pass by, “Because these people think they are the only ones here and we don’t want them to know any different.” This notion of theological exclusivity is nothing new. The Catholics developed it into an art form, from indulgences to the Inquisition, and the Protestants co-opted their distinctive takes on salvation as the Reformation movement dissolved into splintered factions. This belief of being right on all points is designed to make the ones who believe they are right to feel superior and create human structures where oppression of others is allowed to thrive. The same oppressive result happens among people groups whose tribal instincts encourage one race to feel superior to another. Bad things happen when that instinct is allowed to run rampant. I remember my parents facing down family members and others in their church community who held to beliefs of superiority in religion and race. It was a brave thing for a son and daughter of the south to declare that such beliefs were racist and wrong. They taught their offspring by example. Jesus got into trouble when he embraced the outsiders of society; those who were marginalized because of race, economics, politics, gender, and even physical disabilities. He faced great opposition from the powerful elite and even from his closest circle of friends. The Samaritans were considered an inferior race in those days, and brothers James and John, dubbed the “sons of thunder,” were soundly rebuked when they offered “to call down fire from heaven” upon a Samaritan village for not showing the proper welcome to their leader. Such a story would be laughable were it not for the racial bias exposed in the passage and the arrogant, misuse of power the brothers’ thought they possessed. On another occasion, Jesus exposed their bigotry by treating the Samaritan woman he met at the village well with respect. When Jesus tells the famous story of the Good Samaritan, he is asking us to get over ourselves and embrace the other with love regardless of skin…