Author: Henry O. Arnold

In the days of my youth I had numerous unpleasant experiences of being part of a large group only to have it split like an amoeba in order to engage in a competitive activity. I so desperately wanted to fit in; and please dear God, don’t let me be picked last as the teams are chosen because it would only confirm that my talent (usually an athletic competition), is considered well below average by my peers. Consumed by anxiety in those days, I dreaded the athletic events where high achievers in the sport—dodge ball, basketball, flag football, etc.—were designated leaders of a team, and the Darwinian process of selection was used to determine the competitive sides. As names were called out, the chosen would stand behind their leader and whisper advice in his ear as to who might be his next best choice. I was never the last man standing. I usually ranked between mid-to-penultimate choice, and I don’t ever remember hearing groans from my fellow teammates when my name was called. Still the whole process was an exercise in humiliation. One year in high school I did make the basketball team but kept the bench well heated with three other boys. The four of us were allowed to play only if the score favored or disfavored us by twenty points and with less than two minutes on the game clock. With so little time left to play, what harm could we do? Once I became an actor I found myself, on occasion, with other professional artists engaged in art-related workshops and seminars. We would often be asked by the seminar leaders to form a small group to do an exercise. While the expectation to perform or compete was nil, I still felt the anxiety of being chosen. I sought out those folks of similar disposition and felt the gravitational pull of like-kind. The profession I chose is competitive and the selection process to find the right person for the job is daunting. As Martin Scorsese says “more than 90% of directing a good picture is the right casting.” Early in my career, I got an object lesson in knowing my limitations and the objectivity of being chosen to fit a role. What I experienced cannot be taught in any scholastic environment or workshop or professional seminar or program. Now when it comes to creative talent my father and sister had/have it in multiples: Dad could act, sing, teach, direct, play an instrument…a quintic threat; then my sister, Nan Gurley, is a quadruple threat: act, sing, dance, and play an instrument (now she is an established painter, so after this I’m going to crawl into a hole and die). By the harmonic confluence of genetic design, I consider myself fortunate to have one of those talents. In 1973, I was home from Pepperdine University for Christmas break. Nan was also home from Abilene University, and we learned of auditions for singers, dancers, and actors for the Opryland theme park that would open in late spring…

Many years ago I had to suffer through a procedure with a doctor. No, it was not an operation I had to endure, but an exposure to insufferable ignorance. The doctor had been asked if he would consider becoming a board member for a non-profit theatre of which I was associated. He said, “Actors are such phony people; they just turn their emotions on and off at will.” Following that logic, I almost turned on my “fury” emotion and cold-cocked him, but then after he had come to, the good doctor would have likely said I had just proven his point. I did not give him that satisfaction, but the incident has obviously remained in my memory. People who turn on an emotion at will are usually trying to manipulate you. They are the phony ones. The invitation for the doctor to become a board member was withdrawn. More recently I was asked by a good friend how I was able to channel emotions into a character. Emotions are a tricky thing and often produced honestly when real life circumstances dictate. What actors do, whatever their methodology or technique, is to create a character whose emotions are genuine when they react to the circumstances of the story. The initial impulses we have as humans to any situation are usually the most genuine. They may not be the best reactions to have but still the most honest. Actors are in touch with their emotions and know how to imaginatively apply them in the artistically controlled and safe haven of the theatre or film. They incorporate their own emotional life into the character they create, which brings truth to that character and makes him or her believable. No audience wants to spend time or treasure watching anyone “pretend” to do anything. You don’t expect a doctor to pretend to operate on you, or a sports team to pretend to compete. I have been the recipient of another great gift in the role of Henrik Ibsen in the play “Posterity” by Doug Wright. It is a privilege when an actor is given a character that experiences multi-layers of emotion. The opportunity for a role such as this is the reason I became an actor, that and the fact I was just not suited for any other profession. Here is a quick blurb about the play and the particulars: Nashville Repertory Theatre's production of Posterity, by Doug Wright. Live onstage at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's (TPAC) Johnson Theater, February 11th through 25th, 2017 with previews February 9th and 10th. Take a world renowned Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, near the end of his career, and force him into a room with Norway’s favorite sculptor, Gustav Vigeland at the peak of his, whose ambitions require him to persuade a reluctant Ibsen to sit for him. Their battle begins. Debating what a person’s true legacy is – the work achieved during our life or how our loved ones remember us – unexpectedly teaches them something fundamental. A startlingly…

When Kay and I traveled to Italy a few years ago one of our favorite experiences was in Assisi. We had come from a couple of days in Sienna and had booked a hotel online the day before we arrived only to find out when we got to the location that the hotel was closed for renovation. In profuse, broken English the manager apologized for the website’s misinformation, and helped book another hotel. Assisi is a walled city built on a hill overlooking the valley. The city center is restricted to only pedestrians. We could drive to our hotel about halfway up the steep incline but could venture no farther by car. We checked in, threw our luggage in the room, and headed out. Just across the narrow street stood a man in front of his shop which specialized in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and wines from local presses and vineyards. He waved us over, and for the next twenty minutes in manageable English, gave us the history of olive oil in the region and why the brands he carried were the best. He insisted we taste some of the finer selections of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. This was not like the wine tasting experiences we have had in other parts of the world. After only a few “tastes” we excused ourselves and hurried away. Before we could enjoy the sights of Assisi we had to stop at a pharmacy for some antacids to quiet our grumbling stomachs. A more refined palate might have enjoyed the subtle differences in the selections of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but for my taste buds, only vintage wines were in order for the rest of our travels. Eight hundred years before, St. Francis lived in this city. As a young man he had a privileged life. His father, Pietro, was a wealthy merchant providing expensive material and fabrics to the medieval equivalents of Dior, Klein, and Cardin. And his mother, Pica, belonged to a noble family from Provence, France. This prosperity allowed his parents to indulge the whims of their son. One biographer referred to Francis as the “king of frolic” who surrounded himself with other young nobles indulging in every kind of debauchery. He was a quintessential party animal, not yet the hallowed saint of paintings, literature, and films preaching to animals, kissing lepers, and taking “Lady Poverty” as a wife. His early lifestyle did not foreshadow an inclination to follow in his father’s career let alone a holy calling. The world of the youthful Francis was in turmoil; conflicts between church and state, battles between Assisi and the surrounding towns, and hostile political and economic spats between the local classes. For us human beings there is nothing new under the sun. Francis’ carousing did not leave much time for academics, nor was he particularly interested in education. He aspired to be a knight of Assisi. He could afford the clothes and armor. In one of the many skirmishes between rival…

Anyone of who knows me will find the title of this essay amusing. I am not a caregiver, professional or otherwise. I’m more of the day-tripper variety of care-giving. Kay has more the heart of a caregiver. Aside from her thriving practice as a mental health counselor, she also keeps our Nashville granddaughter on Fridays, which includes taking our uncle out for lunch and running errands for him. Yes, I live with a queen and a saint. And if you think this is going to be a story that will bring a tear to your eye, or that you might take offense at my annoyance with my adorable, nearly four-year-old, granddaughter and an uncle with Parkinson’s, then read no further. On several occasions I will join Kay on a Friday and spend time with my granddaughter and Uncle Tad, known affectionately in the family as U.T. On a rare occasion I will pinch-hit for Kay, giving her a respite, and do all things a good grandfather and nephew would do; not always with the best of attitudes, but the job gets done. On a recent Friday I left Kay sleeping soundly after a long night of counseling and braved the rush hour traffic into the city. Kay has a set routine that she follows, and the day before, she briefed me on my duties hoping I would not be tempted to stray. For the most part, I walked the “straight and narrow." The granddaughter and I went for a hike (my routine), and afterward we picked up U.T. at his assisted living facility. So far, so good, but the moment U.T. got in the car and said he wanted to get a special battery at Walgreen’s that makes his baseball cap light up so he can see to put his medicine in his dispenser, I got this foreboding feeling that we might be in trouble. I’m all for individual liberty that under-gird the rights of humans to be eccentric, but a baseball cap that lights up so you can see where to put your pills? Does China even make such an item? U.T. could not remember the brand name of the battery, just a number: 20-32, and that it was shaped like a flat, metal slug. It was in the battery section of the store, he said, and I thanked him for keeping me from wasting time wandering the candy and greeting card aisles as I got out and left him and my granddaughter in the car. Once in the store I faced a wall of batteries, enough selections to power half of the populace’s mechanical needs, and after a thorough scan, could not find a slug-like, 20-32 battery. I went back outside to confirm the particulars and returned for a second sortie. No luck. Why not ask for assistance, one might say, and normally I would, but given the particulars of the item and the purpose it served, I just couldn’t get the words to roll out of my…

Living with royalty can be a difficult challenge. When I was wooing Kay I did not realize how close to the sun I was flying. It was not until we were at the point of no return in our courtship that I discovered I was marrying a double-crowned queen. Apparently back in the day when the world did not spin quite so chaotically, there are no rules governing the number of times one could be nominated to the “royal” court of school athletics or win the honor of being crowned Queen in multiple sports. Her first entrance into such noble and rarefied air was in junior high when she was nominated to be on the court for the football team. She later went on to become the Homecoming Queen for the baseball team. Then in her senior year of high school she was also crowned Homecoming Queen for the football team. And yes, we have the tiaras and yearbook pictures to prove it. A little known story regarding her status in the Homecoming Court for football during her middle school year involved her escort. Tradition was that a co-captain of the football team would accompany the female members of the court onto the field, present her with a bouquet of roses, and grace her with a peck on the cheek. All a part of the ritual except that year Kay served on the court one of the captains was an African-American. This was the first year of integrated schools in her small town, and until then, the football team had never had a black player. The football coach approached Kay and her mother privately and asked if the African-American captain could be Kay’s attendant. The coach explained that he expected some resistance from other parents if their daughter was put in this position, and he felt Kay and her mother would be more open to this integrated homecoming court. He was correct. This example of courage by Kay and her mother did not make the headlines or change the world, but such action goes a long way in the generational bloodstream that flows in a family as positive DNA revealing how one human being ought to respect and treat another. Over the years of being married to a queen, I have witnessed queenly behavior both high and low, mostly for the greater good, but on rare occasion, for the not-so-good. My chief concern was for any adverse effects this behavior might have on our two daughters. Both our girls attended the same university in Philadelphia, so for a number of years Kay and I were burning up the highway between here and there. One year during the fall season, like all universities, there was a campus-wide event where the students and families, faculty and alumni, gathered for the crowning of the queen for that year. The university was more progressive than most and the nomination process included the crowning of a king as well. Our youngest daughter, Lauren, was nominated…

I have no fondness for alliteration. If I use the literary device it is either because I have no other words at my command to make the point, or my editorial skills were distracted at the moment I came up with the offending passage. It is not that I am anti-alliteration. Authors I admire have used the stylistic device to great effect: Poe, Coleridge, Frost, and Whitman, to name a few. It can be very effective in speeches. But on the whole, I try to stay away from its use. However, in the case of the title of this post, the alliterate use of these three B’s represent a seminal moment in my life many years ago; and it is this time of year when our attention becomes focused on the baseball playoffs and which two teams will make it to the World Series, that I’m reminded how our National Pastime, laying a wager, and Holy Writ converged in the blink of an eye to bring my world crashing down upon me. It was October, 1967. I was a senior at David Lipscomb High School. Minister and educator, David Lipscomb, founded Nashville Bible School in 1891. Years later the institution was renamed after its founder, and over the decades, it has expanded its educational web to encompass (yes, I just used an alliterative triple E) curriculum for grades kindergarten through high school, a four-year college, and multiple post-graduate programs. While much has changed, one foundational principal that has remained a “was, is, and always shall be” constant, are the required Bible classes for the students. It was in one of those Bible classes on that inauspicious day in October we high school seniors found ourselves pouring over the famous “Sermon on the Mount.” The passage from the Gospel of Matthew was our focus of study, and for our mid-semester final we were to memorize and write the three-chapter sermon—King James Version, of course, the “If it’s good enough for the apostle Paul...,” translation. The teacher was called away from class, but before his departure, he admonished us to use this time to memorize and meditate on the words of our Lord. Many remained in pious reflection during the teacher’s long absence, but some of us yielded to the temptation of worldly interests. The whispered conversation originated from a cluster of desks in a corner, and like a slow moving current, flowed out into the room. The topic was the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals, not the Beatitudes. The debaters were evenly divided about which team would win the seventh and final game rating their chances on the strengths and weaknesses of each team’s roster. Finally, one ardent defender of his team challenged a counterpart for the other team to “put his money where his mouth was,” and as fast as old west gunslingers, out came their wallets. A chain reaction ensued and cash began appearing on the desk centrally located to the heated debate…mine.…

Our trip to France this year was momentous on so many levels. I’ve written about episodes of the trip in earlier posts, but recently I was going through some of the brochures and literature I had kept from our trip this spring and felt inspired to share a few more thoughts and memories. Kay and I spent a day in Paris in 2012 on a twelve-hour layover between flights. As we walked along the Seine River past the Louvre (a building that is so long it has the illusion of a vanishing point when viewed from end-to-end), I regretted our time constraint. Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and a French café made the cut in our dawn-to-dusk excursion that day. For the trip this year, I bought our tickets to the Louvre in advance because I did not want to waste a single minute standing in line to purchase the tickets and then stand in another line to get into the museum. I hate standing in lines, especially in the rain, and on the day we were scheduled to visit the Louvre, sure enough, the line to purchase tickets was the length of the museum itself, and sure enough, it was raining. I laughed snootily as I breezed by the wet and sour-faced people. Lauren, our youngest, was with us on this day, and she admitted how impressed she was with her old man for getting the tickets in advance, getting us to the glass pyramid entrance, and getting us inside out of the rain with such ease and speed. I got a, “Way to go, Dad” as we rode the escalator down into the hub of the Louvre. I like it when I can still impress my daughters. It takes a little more to impress Kay. After thirty-eight years, she has seen most of my tricks, but despite the diminishing number of ruses inside the magic bag, I still keep trying. The multi-paged download on the museum’s website included an assortment of pertinent information to review ahead of time from detailed museum schematics to the gallery locations of the most famous art pieces. By following the map layout of the galleries, I could easily travel from floor to floor and find the Vermeer’s, the da Vinci’s, the Michelangelo’s, the Napoleon apartments, the Impressionists, the African and Far Eastern collections, and the Egyptian, Babylonian, Mesopotamian, Greek, and Roman antiquities. I love exploring all these cultures. It’s as if the museum (any museum for that matter) was one big time machine; just step inside the capsule, set the dial for the desired historical location, and push the “go” button. But the experience on the ground was overwhelming. The size of the museum is grand in scale, something a map from the website cannot capture, and we stopped frequently to ask directions when the maze confounded the mice. One page of this website publication that especially caught my eye was the “Safety Advice.” One would expect such a page pointing out exits in case of…

When I first began my career as an actor back in the 1970's, there were not many professional opportunities in Nashville. The few theatre gigs I landed were not what could be called career-launching. So I headed west to advance my education. When I came home from Pepperdine University for Christmas break, Opryland, a theme park that produced variety shows with specific musical genres, was holding auditions for the upcoming season. This was a great opportunity for singer/dancer/musician types, artistic forms that went beyond my limited abilities, but I thought I would audition, sing a couple of bars of something that would not humiliate me, and see what might happen. Wonder of wonders, I got a job in the “Showboat” show; a minstrel song and dance review that mixed turn-of-the-20th century tunes and dance styles with hit music of the 1970’s. There was one named role written into the show, Captain Jerry, who would narrate the story. The creative production team held internal auditions among the cast to see who of the singer/dancers would get what featured solos and dance numbers. After stumbling through my audition, Paul Crabtree, the writer/director of the show, looked at me with a droll expression and said, “And you shall talk.” Thus Captain Jerry was thrust upon me. The park was open seven days a week, and two full casts were needed. Each cast worked six days a week and did 3-5 shows a day depending on the performance rotation. I did the role of Captain Jerry for two full seasons, and while I now pride myself in my professionalism, back then I was prone to mischief-making. Sometimes between shows I would dress up in a bright yellow, full-length slicker raincoat, sport a sombrero the size of an outer ring of Saturn, mount up on a thirty-six inch push-broom, and ride onto the stage of another show in progress, kiss a female cast member, and shout “El-Toro Pooh-Pooh strikes again,” then dash away. Another time I did an entire Captain Jerry speech in a German accent. It just so happened, one of the big-wigs from the Entertainment Department was in the audience and heard my sprechen deutsch monologue. A man born without a funny bone, he marched backstage and summarily suspended me for the next day, without pay. However, I was to come to the park and sit out my shift in the Entertainment office. I arrived the next day with a backpack full of plays to read. The stage manager for our “Showboat” cast was from Brooklyn, and he had coveted the role of Captain Jerry from the first rehearsal. My infraction gave him his big break. That morning the big-wig who had suspended me sauntered through the reception area where I sat reading a play. He wore a patronizing grin on his face enjoying his little power trip of showing me who’s the boss. He was on his way to see the stage manager’s first show as Captain Jerry. An hour later he burst…

In February of 1983 I went on a road trip with six other men to attend a spiritual renewal conference in North Carolina. I was the only actor in the group. Five were musicians and the sixth a pastor. A thousand or so people would attend this three-day event. The musicians would give concerts and lead corporate worship, the pastor would be one of many speakers and seminar leaders, and then there was me, the actor. I don’t remember how I got this gig or how I landed on the Saturday night docket. That specific night was not slated as a Christian vaudeville show where a number of acts would have five minutes of stage time. I was the only act. I had no name recognition or a long list of artistic achievements that qualified me for this prime-time opportunity. But I was in the van with these six men headed to the conference and was charged with the task of performing my one-man show “The Voice of the Lion” on that Saturday evening. Four years prior to that February weekend, shortly after Kay and I were married and soon after discovering “we” were pregnant with our first daughter, Kristin, instead of doing something responsible, i.e., find stable employment, I decided to write “The Voice of the Lion,” a play about the apostle Paul. Then, after Kristin was born, I made the decision to throw what possessions we could cram into our Volvo, including our four-month-old daughter and her baby bed, and move us to Spokane, Washington to finish writing the play with a dear friend who had been the artistic director of two national theatre companies and had moved to the state the year before. He had connections with theatre and film companies on the west coast, and we had high aspirations of raising large amounts of capital to launch a big production of the play that would incorporate multiple stages, lazer lighting, and holograms. Yes, holograms; good enough for George Lucas, we argued, so why not for the leading apostle of the first century church? And how else were we going to pull off the Damascus road experience on cue night-after-night without a hologram? Kay was a reluctant, yet devoted partner in this scheme. It was not an adventure she would have envisioned or embraced, but she was then and ever has been, supportive in my artistic leaps of faith or foolishness even when they would cause her internal turmoil. After a year out west hard-charging to get a production funded and mounted, to no avail, Kay informed me that “we” were pregnant again with our second daughter, Lauren, so with my tail between my legs, we threw our stuff back into the Volvo and headed home to Nashville. I had a second opportunity to do the responsible thing: get that “real” job, but chose instead to transform the “Lion” dream from a quarter-million dollar spectacle into a one-man show with a set that consisted of two benches.…

There are moments in our lives where we need to be touched or held; to feel an embrace of warmth and comfort; to experience the invisible yet powerful force of strength transfer from one human being to another. Of our five senses, touch might be the one most overlooked, that is until someone touches us, whether for good or ill, and something is awakened. A father’s touch to their child can transfer an energy that has no parallel in the other four senses. Then there are times when a touch or an embrace is not enough; when the moment demands a lifting off the ground and being carried on the strength of others. My first memory of being carried by my father was at the age of four. Dad was starring as Billy Bigelow in the musical production of “Carousel.” When Billy discovers that he is going to be a father he sings the “Soliloquy,” a song that expresses his pride at this news, describes his own strengths and weakness as a father, and offers his dreams and aspirations for his son. When Billy comes to the point in the song where he would offer pointers on courtship, he suddenly realizes that this child just might turn out to be a girl. His whole perspective changes in an instant. At that point Billy realizes that whether a boy or a girl, he is now a father and this child is a new and important responsibility that will alter his life forever and he resolves to carry this new weight. Billy never gets to meet his daughter. He dies of a self-inflicted knife wound after a foiled robbery. I was in the audience for one of the performances and became hysterical when my father plunged the knife into his heart and collapsed onto the stage floor. My mother’s insistence that, “This is just make-believe,” did not quiet me. I had to be taken out of the theatre. My four-year-old understanding of death was limited, but seeing my daddy in such of state was traumatic in the extreme. It was not until I was taken backstage and saw my father greeting an adoring public that I began to feel relief, but my soul was not fully restored until he hoisted me upon his shoulders and I felt his live-body heat and strength flow into me. He carried me the rest of the night aloft on his powerful shoulders.   In Tim O’Brien’s brilliant book, “The Things They Carried,” the author chronicles the items carried by the regular soldier during the Vietnam War. O’Brien writes that what was carried by these men was determined by necessity, a soldier’s rank, and the specifics of the mission from weaponry to medical supplies; any additional objects an individual carried was personal and subjective. O’Brien describes that those more personal items (letters and photos, good-luck charms, religious objects, etc.), revealed each man’s character and beliefs. But the most important entity any one soldier was ever asked to…