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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 emergencies of any kind, but it was nothing like that. This page was a list of how-tos in the prevention of being the victim of pickpockets. “SAFETY ADVICE. Pickpockets may be present in the museum,” it began. “They operate in crowds while you are photographing or looking at the artwork.” Indeed, the Louvre closed its doors for a day in 2013 when pick-pocketing reached epidemic proportions. The guards were so fed up with the problem that they went on strike. Most of the blame was placed on gangs of well-organized children and arrests were difficult because of their age. “You kick them out, they come back the next day,” said the spokesman for the union representing the Louvre security personal. Poor Fagan and his crew of “Artful Dodgers” were taking the rap for this closure.

I continued to read. “Please follow these rules:

Keep your bags closed and hold them in front of you. Imagine walking through the masses with your bag extended in front of you like the reinforced hull of an icebreaker cutting through the thick crowd. Effective, but certainly an impolite way to bump into people.

Do not flash your cash. Let it be known across the land and from sea to shining sea, I flash nothing of my person or property. Well, there was that time in college after a University of Tennessee/Alabama football game when a group of us mooned the departing Alabama fans…but I digress.

Divide up your cash and keep it in several different inside pockets or in different compartments of your bag. Dividing up your assets is what financial planners recommend, advice worthy of heeding, but for me, “inside pockets” become forgotten pockets and to stash credit cards/cash/passport, etc., is courting disaster. I would totally forget where I put most of these assets, and they would end up being tossed into the laundry inside the garments where said assets are therein contained and would perish in the wash or melt in the dryer.

Do not put your wallet in your back pocket. I took this bit of advice. I’m a minimalist when I travel and pack a few nylon, wrinkle-free cargo pants and shirts with multiple pockets. I could secure my forms of currency in any number of pockets, front, side, and back. Any pickpocket would have to be a multi-armed Shiva to search through all the potential hiding places to find any assets on my person.

Do not follow the advice of strangers at ticket machines. What is the first commandment of parents to children: Thou shalt not talk to strangers…and that includes your whacky uncle who lives in a two-room cabin in the woods accessed only by an off-road vehicle.

Pay attention to your bags and pockets while taking photos. So the would-be pickpocket preys upon the unsuspecting tourist who wants to snap a selfie in the presence of great art. Guilty as charged. We posed before the “Mona Lisa,” impressed by our own vanity in front the most famous painting in the world and not the least bit concerned of a pickpocket searching for our assets. To be honest, I wasn’t that impressed with Mona. My inner-philistine had reared its ugly head.

In the event of a problem, contact a security officer for assistance. Really. I mean, really. I ask you: what organization in the art world, yea verily, in the entire world of commerce, has ever closed down because of child pickpockets? When the museum gets overrun by pickpockets, who you gonna call? I mean, really.

Thank you for taking the time to read this prevention message. Enjoy your visit.

So now we were prepared. Like Benjamin Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” We could defend ourselves against all threats of pick-pocketing. But to my surprise after our “Mona Lisa” pose, the ladies were ready to split up. “We want you to take your time,” they said. “Enjoy your visit; there are other things we’d like to see” (which was code for “we can’t get out of here fast enough and go shopping”). And in a whoosh they were gone. “Meet you back at the apartment,” was the last thing I heard before they were swallowed up by the large crowd…FULL OF PICKPOCKETS.

I could only pray they would heed the “Safety Advice” I had read to them. I secured the zippers on all my pockets and spent the rest of the day in the Louvre’s wonderful time machine with one eye on the art and the other one cocked for would-be pickpockets. Eventually the art lulled me into its spell, and both eyes became focused on the beautiful exhibitions.

The art of pick-pocketing must be the world’s third oldest profession, and while this form of larceny should not be tolerated, there is something profound in these lines from Shakespeare’s “Othello” where the character of Iago compares the loss of the contents of his purse to the diminished value of his good name. Iago twists this line of reasoning to poison Othello’s mind, but the inherent truth is there all the same.

“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.”

One might say it took you long enough to get to the point of this essay, but indulge one more nod to Shakespeare. When Juliet struggled to justify falling for Romeo, she questioned the value of a person’s name; the two lovers represented two different families engaged in a perpetual, deadly feud. “What’s in a name?” she asked, arguing the point that their names were artificial and meaningless. Remember, they were just teenage kids blinded by the heat of love and the light was off in the rational portion of their brains.

Anyone who has lived on the planet long enough has done damage to their reputation. We are flawed humans being, after all, in need of rescue and forgiveness. There are times in my life where I have wished for the proverbial “do-over” and the chance to polish away the self-inflicted tarnish upon my name. I could wander the Louvre distracted by the beauty, my economic wealth vulnerable to thieves, but in truth, the total value of the contents of my pockets added to the museum’s great wealth of art, is no comparison to the value of the name I inherited. I’m so grateful for that good name, for the good name Kay was given by her parents, and my hope is that we will pass the heritage of those good names down to our girls, their husbands, and their progeny. That “jewel of the soul” is a precious gift.

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 into the reception area. The big-wig opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated as if what he was about to say would cause him great physical pain. Finally he spoke. “Suit up,” he said, and stormed back to his office. Apparently, a thick Brooklynese brogue tripping off the tongue of Captain Jerry sounded worse than my bad German accent.

For this and many other sins, I was recast that following season as the Ring Master in a new “Circus Show.” It had no music theme, no singer/dancers, and no musicians; just me, a couple of clowns, the animal trainer, and her stable of performing animals featuring Mickey the Monkey. There was the obligatory dog and pony act, a couple of goats that did something forgettable, and a talking parrot whose clipped wings would barely get him from one side of the stage to the other for the reward of a cracker. In between the animal tricks, the clowns did their clown high jinks. In my Ring Master role, I would wax poetic about the circus and introduce each animal with its appropriate cute name. Mickey the Monkey is the only name I can remember. There was a stage manager who doubled as the sound engineer. The music was prerecorded calliope; the sort of music that will be played in hell on a continual loop.

The animal trainer was very protective of the creatures she had devoted her life training to be show animals. On the first day, she gave us a stern warning not to do anything she considered harmful to her precious ones. Truth was neither the clowns nor I wanted anything to do with them, cute and talented as they might be. It was the precious ones who fouled the backstage area filling our dressing room with a potent odor of livestock, and in the summer heat, made all the more pungent.

To say that Mickey was a chimp with an attitude was an understatement. I took lessons from him. In fact, I think we had a special bond. At that time in my life I was an off-again/on-again smoker. When the trainer wasn’t around, I would stand near Mickey’s cage and have an occasional cigarette. I would get this vibe from Mickey that he would love nothing more than to share a smoke with me. But of course, the female trainer would come down on me with the wrath of Greek Furies were she to catch me handing Mickey a lit cigarette.

Mickey was talented. His bag of tricks included playing catch, doing flips, jumping through hoops from perch to perch, and walking a tightrope suspended from a pole anchored at the lip of the stage strung over a pit and attached to a pole on the railing in the front row of the audience. Once he crossed the great divide, Mickey would shimmy up the pole, retrieve a preset treat on top of the pole, and then return back across the tightrope to the stage, turn to the audience and receive the expected enthusiastic applause. While he could do his job, he did so with all the energy of a washed-up alcoholic who was unemployable in any other capacity. Mickey was moody and all the trainer’s coaxing with treats and cajoling with kindness, was no guarantee that Mickey would do the trick when asked the first time. It was usually the third or fourth request before he would jump through that hoop or throw that beach ball. From time-to-time during a show Mickey would give me what I interpreted as an “I’m-so-over-this” look, but then fulfill his obligation to do his trick. Often he would get a post-show, “Bad Chimp” scolding from the trainer and a withholding of his favorite treats. On those occasions Mickey would sulk in his cage like the kid sent to bed without his supper. That’s when I really wanted to share a smoke with him.

As Ring Master, I never needed to worry about irritating management. I was told by the big-wig at the beginning of rehearsals, “This ain’t Shakespeare,” (an understatement), and the “Circus Show” was a place he and the other big-wigs did not go. I could have done my monologues in any accent I wanted, rewritten the script into a lecture on the ascent of man, or switched roles with a clown. But my mischief-making-motivator was turned off for lack of inspiration. The reality felt more like a purgatorial punishment I must go through before emerging back into the light. But at least I had Mickey as my commiserating partner.

I don’t know how it happened; if Mickey woke up on the wrong side of his cage, or he and his trainer had an argument, or he ate something that didn’t settle, but on this certain morning for the first performance of the day, Mickey was just phoning in all his tricks. I knew he would be read the riot act at the end of this show. But his sour attitude changed when he got to his final act as if struck by sudden inspiration. He became more animated as he hopped onto his perch and started his monkey-walk across the tightrope, pretending to lose his balance halfway across to the delight of the crowd. When he got to the other side, he climbed up to his perch to get his treat and sat down to eat it.

Gloating with pride, he began a self-congratulatory applause, which induced the audience to respond in kind. Then the trainer commanded Mickey to return to the stage. Instead, he sat with his arms folded and a “you can’t make me,” expression. The trainer’s tone became more insistent and her repetitive command became a run-on sentence. What was fascinating was the reaction of the audience. They assumed this was all a part of the act. Only the clowns, the stage manager, and I knew that our trainer was staring into the face of monkey mutiny. She started yelling when Mickey climbed down the pole and began to lope along the railing of the front row of the audience. This was an outdoor theatre with tall trees all around. Mickey scampered up a tree on the audience-right seating bank with branches that hung out over the heads of the spectators. By now even the audience realized that this was not a part of the act and the monkey was now in charge. When Mickey reached the top branches, I half expected him to beat his chest and cry “FREEDOM!” but he did something better.

The trainer was apoplectic and the audience was beside themselves with joy at Mickey’s escape and the self-admiration of his antics. Then Mickey climbed onto a more limber branch and began to swing himself like the pendulum in an old clock, back and forth, first over the audience and then back the other direction. Each time he swung over the seating bank the audience would cheer. A few began to chant “Mickey. Mickey.” Not to be outdone, Mickey began to echo the chanting of his name with a staccato chortle of his own. In the middle of his final swing over the audience, he re-positioned his body, took dead aim with his rear end pointing it at the audience, and released a spray of excrement that looked like a plague of the apocalypse. The reaction by the audience was exactly like that in a war zone where the sound of the in-coming missile gives you a three-second warning to take cover.

I had enough presence of mind to take the microphone and try to reassure the horrified audience. “If anyone has ever doubted the credibility of the theory of evolution, Mickey’s grand finale should lay that doubt to rest. That’s our show for today. Thank you, Mickey. Thank you, Mr. Darwin. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”

The next morning when the clowns and I arrived for work, the cages were empty, the backstage was cleaned out, and the trainer and her precious ones were nowhere to be found. Our stage manager greeted us like a town crier with the “Cancellation Notice.”

I never worked at Opryland again, but I went back a few times to see friends and my sister perform, and I always went by the theatre (transformed into a stage for rock n’ roll bands), and looked up into the trees and re-imagined Mickey’s moment of freedom when he swung from the branches, let out his ear-piercing screeches, and released…his inner King Kong. My only regret of the whole surreal experience of doing the “Circus Show” is that I never shared a cigarette with Mickey the Monkey.

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. The Saturday night of that spiritual renewal conference of 1983 in a mountain retreat center in North Carolina would be the world premiere of that modest, one-man/two-bench show, a far cry from the original price tag and no hologram in sight. The Damascus road experience would have to play out in the audience’s imagination. The whole prospect frightened and humbled me.

But it was an experience the night before that brought me to a deeper place of humility. The seven of us gathered in one of our rooms after the scheduled events that Friday for some late night conversations. We sat in a ragged circle around the room. I have the general remembrances recorded in my journal, but I did not note how it began. I just know who began it…the pastor in our group. He rose unobtrusively from where he sat, found a container in the room, and filled it with water. He took a used towel off the rack and slung it over his shoulder. No conversations were interrupted or halted by this action. Few of us were really paying much attention.

I’m not sure when I became conscious of what he was doing; probably not until he began to unlace my shoes. The talk continued but was more subdued. The pastor did not ask for silence or indeed for anything to stop on his account. In fact, he continued to engage in general conversation—laughing at how someone had forgotten the lyric in the middle of a song or the beauty of our hike in the snow that day—while going around the room, one-by-one removing six pairs of footwear, and washing our feet. This was attention-getting not for the unusual nature of the act, but for the fact that he diverted our attention away from it by talking about anything other than what he was engaged in doing. He did not pray or offer a homily; just treated the act almost as if it were any mundane activity, and with this approach, he deflected any awkwardness we might have felt in the moment.

What was a common practice in ancient times, done more out necessity than for religious ritual, and performed by the servant/slave class on their superiors, Jesus Christ transformed into a holy act that equalized all human beings: no one was to be considered greater than another, and when you serve others in any capacity, that humble act has the transcendent power to make you happy, joyful, blessed.

After four years of collected failures and disappointments for the efforts made in behalf of the “Lion” dream, this foot washing moment freed me to be joyful in the act of my performance, yet at the same time, it brought me low. Twenty-four hours later I slipped onto the stage in the black and hit my mark spiked between two benches my father loaned me from his theatre department. And ninety minutes later following a standing ovation, curtains closed and house lights up, I took a few faltering steps upstage out of view behind some sound equipment and fell prostrate on the floor and began to sob. After a few moments, I felt a someone fall upon my back and begin to weep with me, and then a second body fell on top of the first, he too joining the sobbing chorus. It was a dear musician friend and the pastor. The weight of these two men (we remain life-long friends), all three of us weeping, was a burden I gladly bore.

Whatever humility I may have at any given moment in my life is usually forced upon me. It is not a virtue that resides naturally in my soul. That foot washing moment in February of 1983 was profound; so much so that twenty-five years later when writing the screenplay “The Second Chance” with Steve Taylor and Ben Pearson, a foot washing scene was written into the story. It is a seminal moment in the movie that alters the lives of the two main characters who are experiencing racial conflict. The first major religious conflict within the early Christian church was based on racism. Sad to say little has changed in the last 2,000 years.

In these recent days our country (and the world) has been devastated by violent events that have left us all confused, sorrowful, angry, and vulnerable. There has been a great deal of discussion concerning the causes for this racial and religious violence. Much of the discourse is thoughtful, reflective, and sound with numerous solutions offered for fundamental changes. In spite of the tragedies and traumas that devastate and divide us, there is much in our human fabric that unites us: we all struggle in life; we all have grievances; we all feel threatened from time to time; we all oppose injustice; we all want true equality.

If there is a truth reflected in the phrase, “Made in the image of God,” it must be that there is a core goodness within us because everything he created he said was “Good.” And for this goodness to thrive, we must live in community seeking the good in and for others. This goodness is not unique to a specific race or culture, nor is it relegated to an idyllic historical past. Goodness arises from an individual’s soul that gets reflected in our common humanity. We do not need to succumb to fatalism. We can actively shape our future. We are a people who give of ourselves. We are a nation of healers and comforters. We are a country that transforms optimism into service for others. It is hard work maintaining a core, God-given goodness, but the task is made easier when the effort begins with humility. If we have to begin somewhere why not with a container of water, a towel, and a bent knee? From that posture perhaps we can better examine the condition of our heart before we judge the heart of another.

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 bear was a fellow human being who was no longer able to carry their own weight. It has always been an important part of the philosophy in the military to ingrain within the psyche of the warrior a conscious concern for the well-being of others, of lending their strength to others, friend or foe, in their moment of weakness and carrying them to safety.

There is a powerful and mysterious result that happens when a blessing is pronounced and passed from one to another. Just before the nation of Israel was to enter the Promised Land, Moses pronounced a blessing on each individual tribe. For the tribe of Benjamin the blessing Moses proclaimed for them was that as “the beloved of Yahweh,” they “shall live in safety and dwell between His shoulders.” What a beautiful image, that of a beloved child riding high on the strong shoulders of God. From such a lofty perch one is safe and protected; one is lifted above the rough landscape; one is able to see the far horizons; one is given time to heal from the wounds suffered. This is a blessing available to all. In such times of being carried, our weakness is made perfect in the strength of God.

My daughters married well. They chose companions who understand the importance of being a father and joyfully and humbly embrace the role. They are quick to respond to the cries of their children, lift them off the ground, and bear them up upon their shoulders transforming a sorrowful child into a joyful one. My sons by marriage had the benefit of being fathered well, as did I. While I cannot distill a full definition of what it means to be a father into a quotable tweet or copy on a greeting card for Father’s Day, the qualities of fatherhood expands its truest meaning when I am fully present in the lives of those who daily cross my path and especially to those closest to me. And when called upon, carry the extra weight of a wounded and needy soul “between my shoulders.”

When you look someone in the eye, just look, holding the gaze or the glare, allowing the seconds to tick by, not speaking but studying in silence the shape of the face, the lines, the contours, yet always returning to the eyes, and being vulnerable enough to allow the observer of you to do likewise, can be as truthful and revelatory a moment as any person can have in their life. An actor is a truth-seeker. When an actor goes on stage, it is with the intention to look into the eyes of their opposite and not just speak the truth, but see it and draw it out in the other. When done well it is thrilling for the actors involved and riveting for an audience to watch.

Whoopi Goldberg said, “An actress can only play a woman. I’m an actor; I can play anything.” My dear friend, David Compton could play anything. I envied him. He made me jealous. I stole from him. I tried to detect falsehood when I watched him and always gave up after a few seconds. There were two roles for which I entertained the notion of auditioning when Nashville Repertory Theatre announced the auditions: The Old Man in “The Christmas Story” and the Emcee in “Cabaret.” What was I thinking? Who was I kidding? What reality was I trying to bend? David embodied those two roles, as in all roles he accepted, with a force that made each character he portrayed reach transcendence.

When he played Sherlock Holmes in Nashville Children’s Theatre’s production of “Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure,” my jaw dropped to the floor in those opening scenes and remained there for the entire performance. After multiple doses of Advil, I finally got the feeling back in my face.

I only saw him break character once, and it was my fault entirely. In “The Christmas Story,” David also was part of the Ensemble, and he played the old Schoolmarm. At the same time, I was in a production of “A Christmas Carol” playing Scrooge, a production that included Amanda Compton, David’s gifted and lovely wife. On a night off, I went to see “A Christmas Story,” and when David came out in his Schoolmarm dress and red wig and began to address the class, which included members of the

audience, he looked at me and began to berate me for misbehaving…a totally bogus charge. However, David was enjoying himself at my expense. He finished by asking me if I had anything to say for myself. I thought for a second and responded with, “Bah Humbug?” It took several beats for him to get control. It was pure joy for both of us.

In two rare acting combinations, David and I played bitterest enemies in one production and best friends in another. We were cast in Nashville Rep’s production of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” David as Bob Ewell and I as Atticus Finch. (It was also the first time I had the privilege to work with Amanda. She had stepped in to play Mayella Ewell in that last week of the run.) In the rehearsal process, we avoided the “spitting” moment in the play for as long as we could; that moment where Ewell spits in Atticus’ face after he humiliates Ewell on the stand during the trial. It was like rehearsing those kissing scenes that can make actors feel awkward at first. I needed to encourage David to let loose. Neither of us should fear the spray, I told him. It is a very intimate action for one human to spit on the other, and complete trust was required from both of us. David’s Bob Ewell was an astonishing and frightening specimen of a human being. At the time, he confessed that it took more of an emotional toll on him than any other character he had created to that point. Each Ewell/Atticus encounter throughout the play and throughout the run, made the hair on the back of neck crackle. He was electric.

In “Death of a Salesman” we played best of friends. In that first week of rehearsal my mother had died, so I was raw and unsure of myself. Rene Copeland and the cast and crew helped me carry my burden in a holy and unfathomable way that I still don’t have words to properly describe. There was one scene I dreaded above all, and that was the card scene between Willy and Charlie with Willy’s brother, Ben, joining in toward the end. That scene is like a trio in a Mozart opera where characters sing at cross-purposes with multiple stage actions taking place simultaneously. Charlie and Willy discuss troubles with work and children; Ben enters as imagined by Willy reminiscing about the past, all the while Charlie and Willy play cards. It is a brilliant mixture of psychological and emotional dimensions.

The mantra for the two of us in that scene was simple, “Keep it real.” The game Arthur Miller called for in the script was Casino. We researched the game, but found it so complicated that David and I just played a game of our own making, winning hands when specified in the script and when not. It became a beautiful, fluid moment ending in a shouting match, but setting up the two men’s final moment in the play when Willy comes to Charlie’s office to ask for money. They shout at each other once more, but Willy finally takes the money Charlie offers, and in a rare lucid moment before he exits, Willy says,” Charlie, you’re the only friend I’ve got. Isn’t that a remarkable thing?” The truth and honesty in that instant was achieved by two actors looking deeply into each other’s eyes all along the way.

Between those two plays, David was the director for a play entitled “Stand” written by Jim Reyland. It is a powerful, two-character play about a man who befriends a homeless man and their journey of friendship. Barry Scott and I were cast in the roles. It was during that time David said something to me that I hold dearer than any other moment in our friendship and yet it haunts me. We were talking about age, he had turned fifty during this time, and after confessing my own age, I just laughed and told him he was just a “punk kid.” And with that big grin of his that always brightened up his face and illuminated any room, he said, “You know, I’ve always looked at you like a big brother.” In reality, I am a big brother to three younger siblings, but unbeknown to me till that moment, I had reached that symbolic status in David’s mind. And here is what haunts me: a big brother is supposed to take care of his younger siblings, try to keep them from harm. But my grip was not tight enough. He slipped through my fingers.

David was a master of capturing those ephemeral moments of honesty on and off the stage. He turned his eyes from nothing and fearlessly exposed the humanity in himself and everyone with whom he engaged. He never settled for second best, and he forced all of us who shared the stage with him to demand the best of ourselves. His body and soul had the ability to articulate the ineffable. He was a human bridge between truth and beauty. The last time I physically saw him at Skyline during his rehab, we made grand plans of getting back on stage together this next season, but he took an exit that was not written in the script we had imagined. My big-brother heart breaks because I was not watching close enough to warn him away from that exit. And now, like our good friend Scot Copeland who also left our Nashville theatre family way too soon, we must keep the light on for you, we shall always hold you in the center of our hearts, and we will forever be better artists and human beings because of your brief time among us upon this earth.

“Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet prince; and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

With our daughter safely on the train to Avignon, Kay and I found ourselves arriving in Annecy shortly before nightfall. Our modus operandi when we travel abroad is to book a few nights in B&B’s or hotels in certain locales beforehand, and then once we are on the ground, have the flexibility to deviate from the path. We arrive in a city or village and book something that suits our fancy in the moment, stay longer in one location, or bounce to another.

Risky behavior, I know, but that is the fun of unexpected circumstances and special encounters while traveling. We had booked the apartment in Paris at the top of trip, a B&B in Mont St. Michel, a one-night stay in St. Jean in the Pyrenees (ended up being three nights because we loved the place and the location), and a two-night stay in Annecy. We were going to explore the French Alps, and Annecy was the perfect jumping-off location. Other locations we chose on the fly.

I must admit that as night fell on Annecy and we were unable to find the location of our B&B, I reluctantly thought a pre-programmed G.P.S. would have been helpful, but would I confess that to my daughter? Never. We knew we were close, but could not zero in on the exact location. It had been a long day of driving and we were fading, so I had Kay pull over at a random location, I hopped out and went inside a hotel and booked a room. As good fortune would have it, our third floor, balcony window looked out onto the cobblestone street where only pedestrian traffic was allowed. It was the Old City section filled with quaint craft and gift shops and restaurants.

Annecy is sometimes called the Venice of the Alps because of its two canals and the river Thiou running through the Old City. At dinner the following evening we were placed in open-air seating of a nice restaurant cheek-by-jowl with three other couples: German, Swiss, and French. Between the four couples, there were enough universal gestures and elementary language skills for us to communicate although most of the time we just laughed and shrugged our shoulders at our lack of fully understanding one another. At least we were not negotiating international treaties, just enjoying a meal in close proximity.

We planned a day trip up to Chamonix, and again “Wrong-Way” Arnold, got us off the path requiring a ten kilometer backtrack. I gave myself a consolation prize for continuing to reduce the backtracking distance, and by happy coincidence, the wrong direction for Chamonix just happened to be the correct direction for our continuing journey toward the Pyrenees the following day. Unbeknown to me, Kay had programmed her phone with G.P.S. tracking the direct route from Annecy to Chamonix, and she kindly offered it as an addition to the map. I took it, but did so without gratitude. The last thing I wanted was to be indebted to a little blue dot.

We drove along the perimeter of Lake Annecy toward the French Alps, and after several kilometers of silently studying the map with an occasional cursory glance at the G.P.S. on her phone, Kay asked, “How’s the little blue guy doing? Is it working?”

I compared my dead-reckoning with the current location of the roving “little blue guy.” Map, road signs, and G.P.S. were in sync, and I gave my wife a hard look.

“The little blue bastard’s got it right,” I snapped. “You happy now?”

She smiled and nodded. I would not say she looked smug, but it was close.

On we traveled through small villages leaving Lake Annecy behind and began ascending into the mountains. When the French highway department shuts down a road, the word on the signage used to redirect traffic is deviation. Halfway up the mountain on the main road we hit a deviation sign, and suddenly, I was back in business.

“Go left,” I cried tossing the phone into the cup holder, and Kay geared down the transmission and took the alternate route. Two things happened: First, the little blue bastard went into a navigational freak-out. He spun in place, its little blue pointer whirling in circles, stuck at the point of our “deviation,” and I imagined hearing his tiny, frantic, algorithmic voice squealing, “What the what? What the what?” The little blue bastard was lost in a void of trilateration. Second: my wife found her inner “Mario.” She took the mountain-pass curves like the latent Indy driver she was, is, and evermore shall be. She never got out of third gear, straightening out the switchbacks and hairpins like an expert. Mind you, this was a secondary road with few guard rails, so one faulty move and we could unintentionally end up like Thelma and Louise. I was just thankful Kay wasn’t touching up her lip-gloss at the same time she was downshifting and accelerating.

In forty kilometers we had crested the mountain peak, driven through some beautiful landscape which included high-altitude ski lodges, and descended the other side into a small village. By then we segued off the secondary road and back onto the main road to Chamonix. I confirmed this with my map, and Kay said to check the G.P.S. as well. I scoffed at this suggestion, but to humor her, I retrieved the phone from the cup holder. To my surprise, the little blue bastard had miraculously caught up with us.

“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “You don’t get to crow-fly over the Alps to make up forty kilometers that easy.” And for the rest of our trip, the little blue bastard was employed…like most professional actors.

From Annecy we met up with Lauren in Avignon. The City Center was a medieval walled city that

encompassed shops, restaurants, museums, theatres, churches, and the Palace of the Popes. I lost the ladies halfway through our self-guided tour of the Palace of the Popes. The shops were beckoning. A couple days later, Lauren took the train back to Paris and flew home, and Kay and I went on to the Pyrenees, spent three days traveling through the mountains back and forth from France into Spain. I did a lot of mountain hiking in the Pyrenees.

Then onto Bordeaux, and we ended our trip in Giverny; the small village an hour west of Paris where Claude Monet lived and painted. From the time we left Avignon, I threw all caution to the wind and found secondary routes through picturesque villages, mountain ranges, farmland, forests, and off-the-beaten path vineyards and avoided all toll roads for the rest of the trip. That included the morning of our departure from Paris. Once again in the pouring rain, I navigated us to Charles De Gaulle airport without donating any more funds to the French highway system. Yes, I was gloating when we turned in the key of our rental car.

In two and a half weeks of travel throughout France we put 2,800 miles on the car. That last half of the trip spent driving the countryside on those secondary roads were especially satisfying although Kay found the electronic, post-mounted speed indicators stationed at the entrance of many village annoying. It was the French-friendly way to monitor speed. An added feature to these roadside radar machines was either an emoticon of a smiling (color green) or frowning (color red) face depending on the vehicle’s rate of speed upon entering the village. My dear wife rarely saw the green smiling face. She might argue differently, but I only remember seeing one green smiling face. Nobody is perfect. After driving together in multiple countries in our years of travels (countries where roundabouts abound), my wife has developed strong opinions regarding traffic lights. She opposes them. It slows her down. Since returning to the U.S. from this recent trip, she has often ignored a traffic light transitioning from yellow to red and accelerates through intersections justifying her choice with an empathic, “This should be a roundabout.” Again, nobody is perfect, and who of us can live a day without practicing the art of rationalization?

So who won this Life Skills vs. Google G.P.S. contest? I would have to say we all won because we had a wonderful trip and returned home in one piece with a collection of great stories. If one is counting the number of times I got us off course, you have to say my skills as a map reader were lacking. But all those misdirections produced some memorable encounters with a variety of French people all across the country that we will remember the rest of our lives. And when Kay was not driving, she was snapping these photos.

The moral of these stories is simple…travel, often, anytime, anywhere, and anyway you are able. Take a map. Juice up your Google G.P.S. Pull out your compass. Your choice, but allow the luxury of wrong turns. The surprises are always worth the risk and adventure.

I love maps especially the old medieval kind where the mapmakers used their powerful imaginations depicting fantastical images of monsters in an attempt to explain the dark and dangerous mysteries of lands and vast oceans yet discovered. The visionaries looked beyond their immediate horizons and envisioned the wonders of the unexplored. No such monsters to be found on the Michelin highway map of France, but my heart still palpitated at the thought of navigating this wonderful country, and after three days of tromping around Paris with miles logged and Fitbit merit badges for Kay, it was time venture out.

By my clockwise count on the Michelin map there are seventeen main entrées (not the main course, but the right of entry) and/or sorties (not the military attack, but the brief trip away from) leading into and out of Paris. The nice lady at the rental car place gave us a city map; however, the reality on the ground was a bit different than simply following her green highlighted route out of Charles De Gaulle airport into the countryside. The highway arteries from the center of Paris have a spider web effect that created a feeling of consternation similar to Rowan Atkinson’s expression in the cover photo of this essay after looking at his map. Add to our departure: a pouring rain, rush hour traffic, and the unfamiliar French road signage. All this proved a formidable challenge, but one I embraced with an explorer’s zest. Bring on the monsters.

Once we were zipping along in the car, I gave up trying to follow the city map given me by the rental car lady, and by my best calculation in the moment, chose the sixteenth highway of the seventeen available choices out of Paris. I overshot it by one. Kay was doing an excellent job driving: changing lanes, weaving through traffic, and making quick highway transitions on my short-notice commands like a calm professional. I call her “Mario” for the racing legend not the video game character. We stopped once to get verbal directions, and after a couple of wonderful, albeit humorous encounters with congenial Parisians (language barriers make for elaborate gesticulations and elevated voices), we were on the road with only about thirty kilometers of backtracking to do.

We also had our youngest daughter, Lauren Blair Zilen, in the backseat. She was traveling with us for a few days before striking out on her own. L.B. is a savvy traveler, but her choice for directional guidance is to use the high-tech G.P.S. navigation provided by Google Maps. She remained patient and even helpful to her snobbish father pointing out road signage. Her extra pair of eyes was beneficial. And I need to add here that she bought the Michelin map presenting it to me with a mixture of good humor and admiration when we met in Paris at the beginning of our trip.

Out of Paris with clearing skies ahead, we made our way through the beautiful landscape heading west toward Mont St. Michel, a huge Abby and village built on a rock outcropping off the western coastline surrounded by waters of the English Channel. About halfway on our journey we went through the city of Ville d’Alençon, and since I was still adjusting to matching the directions on the map with visual sightings of road signs, we got turned around inside the city. We ended up in the square, which became a partial cul-de-sac with only one way out. Kay stopped beside an elderly couple halting their slow progress out of the square, and I hopped out, map in hand, to ask directions. The wife wore thick glasses, her wrinkled face outlined in a floral headscarf with tufts of gray hair sticking out. The husband had a potbelly with a clichéd blue French beret atop his gray head, his arms locked behind his back with clasped hands. The ancient couple wore bemused expressions at the approaching man with his unfolded, accordion-like map in hand.

“Parlez-vous, English?” I asked, and they both quickly responded “No.” Undeterred, I pointed to our current location on the map, and using the inquisitive gesture of “We’re here and want to go there,” looked at them in hopes of their understanding our plight. The husband continued to smile and bob his head, but the wife launched into quick, bantam hen-like gestures, in turns pecking at the map and pointing out the route I should take with wild hand and arm movements. Then she abruptly stopped and looked at me with probing eyes and said, “No G.P.S.?” When I shook my head, her expression of curiosity turned into one of scorn at my foolishness. I thanked her, in French mind you, and walked away. Here was a couple so old they could have been around to greet the Allies at D-Day scolding me for not having the latest mapping technology. I expected a little more sympathy. I shook it off and did a 360 inside the square, spotted the Office of Tourism, made a mad dash for it, received perfect instructions from the English-speaking employee, and after a quick backtrack, we were out of the city and on our way.

Kay indulges my navigational challenges, and Lauren enjoyed the old woman’s snide remark without rubbing it in.

We spent the night in Mont St. Michel and rose early the next day to make a cross-country drive to Lyon for Lauren to catch her 5:30 p.m. train to Avignon while we intended to drive on to Annecy. Once again, I miscalculated the directions to the main toll road to Lyon by about fifteen kilometers (notice the improvement from Paris), and we had to backtrack. This was the third backtrack in twenty-four hours, and I was not taking my mistake with humor. I made a profane comment, and Lauren seized the opportunity to whip out her trusty Apple Phone with its up-to-date G.P.S. guidance technology and begin telling her mother the fastest, most direct way to get to the toll road. She did so with no move-over-old man attitude. She is far too kind-hearted for that. On her IPhone, Lauren had written instructions as well as that little blue dot that smugly floats along the correct route. Should we make a misguided directional veer, the little blue dot would indicate it on the Google Map, and like a trusty sheepdog, guide us back onto the path.

The route was direct, but not fast. For over forty kilometers we drove on twisting back roads through farm country and small villages sometimes in thick fog and from time-to-time our progress slowed to a crawl because of some unhurried farmer, his tractor taking up most of the two-lane road. I don’t blame the little blue dot for the fog or the tractors. Every few minutes Lauren would instruct her mother: “At the next roundabout, take this road. At the next village take that road. At the next crossroad take a left.” I said nothing. Lauren had not gloated at my failures, and I could not argue with success when we reached the toll road, but I remained glum for the next half-hour.

Lauren showed Kay how she too could use the Google mapping system on her IPhone…just in case we might need it once we split up. Ouch! Kay was all excited. She loves any and all technology. I maintained my surly composure. Lyon was a big city, and because of our detours that morning, we were facing a time crunch getting Lauren to the train station. I let the two women figure out how to get to the train station when we entered the city, while I kept my eyes peeled for signs leading out of Lyon that would get us on the toll road to Annecy. In the course of two weeks we spent enough money on tolls to finance a month’s worth of roadwork on the national highways.

Once I spotted the signage to Annecy I began to concentrate my attention on helping the ladies find the train station. We were in the heart of Lyon, and to my surprise, they were no longer using the G.P.S. We were in a labyrinth of one-way streets that took us in ever-widening concentric circles. I felt like we were getting farther away from the station, so we pulled over a couple of times to ask directions from passing French citizens. Lauren handled the encounters well as she held out her printout map of Lyon to inquire the direction for the train station. Because of the linguistically challenging nature of each convene and the proliferation of one-way streets, none of us were really sure if we heard the instructions correctly. We soon realized that while we were “getting warmer” like in the child’s game of finding the hidden object, our route to the train station was taking us down the wrong way of those one-way streets. After one impulsive right turn, we were in the direct path of an oncoming streetcar. Now Kay does not normally panic and never raises her voice, but this time there was a noticeable vocal elevation as she exclaimed, “I’m heading right into a street car.” Her obvious point made, she followed it with an adroit, Jason Bourne type-move steering the right front and rear wheels of the vehicle onto the sidewalk and avoiding the inevitable collision. I could not have been prouder in spite of the fact that all three of us were watching our lives flash before our eyes.

Her deft move not only spared us, but by the next turn, had  us on the same street as the train station only two blocks away. We all cheered as we waited for the light to turn green. Kay was going to get a little closer, but Lauren was insistent as she grabbed the door handle: “Just let me out. Just let me out. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

However, before she could make her escape, a police car stopped beside us with three officers inside. The driver was on my side of the vehicle, and his berating started before I could even get the window rolled down. In the few seconds it took for me to interject my standard “Parlez-vous, English?” I considered I might just shrug my shoulders and point to the driver with an “I told her she was going the wrong way” expression, but I knew it was best to accept a collective guilt and throw ourselves on the officer’s mercy. As soon as I opened my mouth, the “un policier”  frowned and shook his head, his demeanor revealing the fact that he had had too many encounters with inane tourists for the day or for a lifetime. In broken English I conveyed our attempt at finding the train depot and he understood enough to signal with a wave of frustration for us to follow him. As we passed in front of the station, he pointed to it and then drove away in the opposite direction. I could imagine his grumpy retelling of the tale back at the precinct of the encounter with some crazy American tourists.

We did not take the time to hug and kiss our daughter, but deposited her at the station. We would meet up again in a few days. And with that experience behind us, it was time to get out of Dodge once again in rush hour traffic but mercifully not in the pouring rain. With all the twisting and turning we did on the streets of Lyon, I had to wrack my brain searching for those road signs to Annecy. I used the Saone River flowing through the city as my landmark because signage was not forthcoming and the G.P.S. was “dead to me.” Go downstream, I thought. When we stopped for a bathroom break and to gas up the car, the woman who ran the station spoke enough English to confirm my instincts. We were just ten kilometers from merging onto the highway we wanted. With great relief we were soon rewarded with the signs to Annecy.

So what was the score at this point in the Life Skills vs. Google Map contest? Well, there is much more to this story. Stay tuned for the next instalment.

For the last few years Kay and I have had the opportunities to travel to places we’ve dreamed about for years but been unable to afford. A relative on Kay’s side of the family has been generous with monetary Christmas gifts, and we have chosen to use that gift to fund travel. We booked two weeks for a France excursion with daytrips into Switzerland and Spain as we moved around the country. When we started booking our B&B’s, we discussed driving north to Brussels from Paris for a couple of days, but opted to go south instead. Then the terrorists struck in Brussels. It never occurred to us that we should cancel our trip. I recently heard a statistic that stated you are seven times more likely to die from being hit by a falling object than by a terrorist.

Mark Twain said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” With that in mind, I watched the film “Trumbo” about screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, who was caught up in the exposing of members of the Communist Party during a period in American history known as “the red scare.” This registered party was as legitimate and legal a political entity as the Republican and Democratic parties. About the same time the Dixiecrats (a splinter from the Democratic Party which gave us the likes of Senator Strom Thurmond) was also formed on the sole platform of segregation and state’s rights; these folks still seemed eager to fight the Civil War that was settled over a hundred years before and had claimed the lives of over 600,000 American citizens before the powers that be stopped the madness. But in 1948, nobody in Congress seemed to think that the members of the Dixiecrats were worthy of Senate Committee hearings.

The Communist infiltrators that were secretly taking over our government in the late 1940’s into the 1950’s were hauled before Congressional tribunals for the main purpose of allowing the likes of Senators Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon to show the country they were earning their paychecks by protecting our vulnerable nation from the communist infestation. The only people during that time who actually went to jail were primarily Hollywood screenwriters who had chosen to exercise their right to free speech and assembly by joining the Communist Party. These people never broke any laws. Then in 1954, the Senate voted 67 to 22 to censure McCarthy for his over-reaching “red scare” tactics, one of the few Senators ever to be disciplined in such a fashion. Three years later he died in disgrace from the effects of alcoholism. And twenty years after these Senate hearings, Nixon gave us Watergate.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of doing a production of Arthur Miller’s play, “The Crucible” for Nashville Repertory Theatre. Miller wrote the play during the time of the “red-scare” Senate hearings and set the story during the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts from 1692 to 1693. Some of the religious leaders of the time were attempting to weed out those people who did not hold to their strict understanding and interpretation of Scripture or the general religious teachings and doctrines of current scholarship at the time. I played Governor Danforth, one of those ordained ministers appointed to purify the flock from the dreaded witches. Danforth and the other judicial powers did more than just hold a few hearings. They executed those people who failed the bona fide tests of being religiously devout. Fear was then and is now a terrible tool to wield in determining an acceptable level of one’s piety.

In an article in Scientific American entitled “Factoring Fear: What Scares Us and Why,” Joseph LeDoux, professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University states, “Since our brains are programmed to be similar in structure, we can assume that what I experience when I’m threatened is something similar to what you experience.” Fear even affects different species in similar ways. LeDoux continues with “We come into the world knowing how to be afraid…noting that the brains of rats and humans respond in similar ways to threats, even though the threat itself might be completely different.”

What I assume from this statement is that when faced with an external life-threatening danger the rat and I will mostly likely scurry away to the nearest hiding place. But the difference comes when exposed to hate-speech and fear-mongering. A rat will continue to blithely eat his cheese while listening to the dire and spurious warnings of Joseph McCarthy while some humans will believe that America is being taken over by Communists. I recommend watching Norman Jewison’s film, “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” for a humorous look at our easy-to-fool human nature.

What else we have in common with our furry friend is the mob-mentality. In the same article, Michael Lewis, director of the Institute for the Study of Child Development at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J. states, “The behavior of people around us may influence our responses to threatening situations. We learn to become fearful through experience with the fear event, or learning from those people around us like our parents, our siblings, our colleagues.” Lewis goes on to say, “Fear has a certain contagious feature to it, so the fear in others can elicit fear in ourselves. It’s conditioning, like Pavlov and the salivating dog.”

Since I have broken the socially unacceptable rule of allowing the subjects of politics and religion to creep into this commentary, let me state that I am both political (I vote) and religious (I embrace the Christian faith). Granted that although there are a plethora of knuckleheads in both arenas who love to frighten us, they do not keep me from voting and praying.

In “Henry VI, Part 1,” Joan of Arc says in Act 5, “Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed.” I’m not sure exactly what Shakespeare meant with that line, but one possible meaning might be that fear when not elicited by a life-threatening danger invariably leads to dysfunctional choices and destructive consequences. Once Ms. Arc finished leading her own crusade, she ended up burned at the stake after falling out of favor with the political and religious leaders. Poor girl just could not get a break.

The most often spoken admonition in Scripture, or any of its close derivatives, is the phrase, “Do not be afraid.” The words are used hundreds of times. It was obvious then as now that we humans are naturally prone to fear, and it was God’s desire for us not to be afraid. So as songwriter Pete Townshend of The Who suggests in the song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” do not be afraid of politicians, religious fanatics, terrorists, (and even the random object falling from the sky), who would use verbal or violent fear stratagems to scare us into hiding places, or worse, force us to live under their power. As for Kay and I, it was full speed ahead to France.

In honor of my friend, Scot Copeland, who shuffled off his mortal coil on this day a year ago, I am re-posting this remembrance. He has left a hole in the hearts of many across this land, and while his work will be celebrated on into the future, it is the heart of the man that we cherish and hold dear. God bless you, B.A. 3, and Rene, and Josh and Ben.

Back in 1951 some friends of Groucho Marx pressured him to join the Friar’s Club of Beverly Hills. He never participated in any of the club’s activities, and after his short-lived membership, he wrote a letter of resignation to the president of the club. The president responded immediately with his own letter asking for an explanation for his abrupt and unexpected departure, and Groucho promptly wrote back: “Because I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.”

In his lifetime, Scot Copeland was given awards and memberships to many organizations, but there was a little known club to which he belonged that was so exclusive it had only three members: the Bad Ass Club. Its origins began years ago through an unusual set of events.

In the summer of 1999 after her first year of college, my oldest daughter, Kristin, had a suitor she had dated at college pay a visit to the farm. He had expressed his affections, and Kristin entertained the notion that this relationship had potential. But after a couple of days of close quarters, Kristin knew this was a dead end street and put the poor boy on the plane in tears at the end of his stay. She was a bit melancholy after returning from the airport, and so Kay and I decided we would take her out to dinner and cheer her up. Kristin and I got into the car, I in the driver’s seat and Kristin scooting into the back seat, and we waited in the driveway for Kay to join us. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw my daughter’s downcast eyes.

“Honey, I know it’s tough but you did the right thing. I’m proud of you,” I said, but my vote of confidence in her judgment on ending this romance received a tepid, “Yeah. Thanks, Dad.” So I tried the big-picture approach.

“So Kid, when you are imagining the guy you would fall in love with and see as a lifetime partner, what kind of guy would he be?”

She was quiet for a moment, the sound of the idling car engine filling the silence, and then she responded.

“I want a Bad Ass like you, Daddy.” And she paused briefly before adding. “…and Robert Kiefer.”

My heart swelled with pride. Even if it wasn’t true, the fact that she believed it and stated it was enough. I wanted to be sure of the veracity of what she said and looked into the rearview mirror once again. She bore a solemn countenance; this was no joke; this was no flattery; this was her thoughtful response to an honest question.

Of course I called Kiefer with the good news, and like me, his heart did back flips when he heard he had been one of the chosen few. For a while we went around with puffed chests and a “Sons of Anarchy” swagger, proud of our exclusive membership in the Bad Ass Club until time and gravity began to ding and dent our façades. It wasn’t long before we extended membership privileges to Mr. Copeland who did not hesitate accepting the invitation.

The three of us mistakenly thought that the quality of membership was to spend time in secret locations sipping expensive whiskey, swearing, eating red meat, swearing, smoking cigars, swearing, and reshaping the world to our specifications and with much better lighting. And did I mention swearing, blue language spoken with our “outside” voices (thus the reason for secret meetings), mainly because all three of us were going deaf with age. We simply referred to one another as Bad Ass One, Two, and Three, Scot being B.A. 3 only because he was the club’s youngest member.

It came as a shock to Kristin that Kiefer and I had, on our own, inducted Scot into the club without her knowledge or permission. We had done this after one of the shows we worked on together as the three of us stood in a circle, arm-in-arm just laughing and enjoying one another for no other reason than that we were all past sixty years of age, had been artists all our lives, and just By-God, loved each other. Sometime after this ménage a trois (French for “household of three”) of Bad Ass manliness backstage at NCT, Kristin informed me that Scot was not an “official” member until she said so. Duly noted, thus Scot was put on temporary probation until the Queen extended him her scepter. Scot’s dragon tattoo gave him a leg-up—Kristin herself the canvass of such colorful artwork—but still he had to be interviewed.

Fast forward to the end of February, 2015, at the funeral of my dear mother, Bernie Arnold. Scot came to the church straight from rehearsal. I pulled him out of the receiving line for a little one-on-one. Bad Ass 2 (Kiefer) had yet to arrive. When Kristin saw us standing off to the side, she came straight over and began the interview process. For her, a Bad Ass had very specific qualities. In her words, a Bad Ass is “someone who is a defender of the people he loves, loyal to the end, doesn’t mince words, doesn’t play it safe, loves and fights with equal passion, knows himself and doesn’t compromise to fit any mold. When a Bad Ass loves you, nothing else compares.” For Kristin, a Bad Ass was someone who was not just a character or could play a character, but someone with character. It did not take Kristin long to size up the man. After a few minutes with Scot, she turned to me and said, “He’s in.”

On the morning after Scot shuffled off his mortal coil, I called B.A. 2 and said, “We’re down one member.” We both sighed and wept.

In the coming days, stories and remembrances of Scot Copeland will flood in from far and wide. He is worthy of all the praise he has and shall receive. He was a man who displaced air, who defied the ephemeral nature of theatre to create stunning works of beauty, a pirate in good standing, a seer of dragons, a man who improved all the lives he touched, a Bad Ass to his core and worthy of my daughter’s definition, and an irreplaceable husband to Rene and father to Josh and Ben. His sudden exit has made a hole in all our hearts, and what gets me is that he offered no explanation for his departure and asked no one’s permission.

Why could this not be just another tech rehearsal where we would hear Scot say, “Hold please,” and we all go back to our first positions for another chance to get it right? Unfortunately, life is not a rehearsal. So love well as did my Bad Ass friend, Scot Copeland.

B.A. 3, the light is always on. Drop by anytime.

So how did this courtship begin? There were a few chance and premeditated encounters, memorable and brief, but nothing of consequence until that fateful day on a frozen pond in January of 1978.

Prior to graduating from UNC in Chapel Hill, N.C., with my Master of Fine Arts degree in acting in December, 1977, I got a call from the artistic director of the Advent Theatre in Nashville, Tennessee informing me that I had been hired for the upcoming season. I had auditioned earlier that fall, and I was excited by the prospect of becoming a founding member of this new professional theatre company. For an actor to have work before graduating was a happy rarity and to be back in the city where I grew up and begin a career among family and friends was sweet indeed.

Once back in town, I started attending a non-denominational church on Music Row.  There was a large singles’ contingent in the church, some of whom I knew well.  Many of us were coming out of the sixties & seventies, hippy experience looking for a deeper and continuous relationship with a personal God that went far beyond the traditions and rituals offered by most institutional churches.

It was the dead of winter with a sustained, sub-freezing cold spell long enough to ice over small ponds to a thickness that could support multitudes.  One Sunday afternoon a dear friend whom I had known since high school invited me to a church singles’ gathering at a farm to play broom hockey, a rare winter sport for the southland.  I was not all that interested until my friend informed me that Kay Patton would be there.  This friend, her inner matchmaker well tuned, was persuasive.  I had observed Kay at church once I returned from North Carolina and had commented earlier to my friend how attractive I found her. Her current romantic status was “Officially unattached,” but she had at least three other aspiring suitors.  That day, two of those three would be counted among the singles’ group at this winter happening.  If I was to have any shot at getting her attention, I needed to move fast and make her aware of me, i.e., move to the head of the line by any means necessary removing the competition.

It was BYOB for this event, “Bring Your Own Broom,” so I rushed to the store and bought my first straw broom, not to clean house but to sweep the opposition out of the way and maybe, in the process, sweep Kay off her feet.  The teams were chosen, a fairly even male-to-female ratio on each team, with the object being to sweep a soccer ball up and down the pond and past your opponent’s goalie for a score. Our form of this hockey game used a soccer ball for a puck, a broom for a hockey stick, and your standard Timberland hiking boots for skates.  In the course of the game, I was not above inflicting bruises or shedding blood…even my own.  There were no referees, which I used to my advantage; no time spent in a penalty box for a well-aimed elbow or for cutting off a competitor and causing a spill on the ice.  Everyone assumed they should act like good Christians holding their aggressive impulses in check, but that was irrelevant to me, no turning the other cheek.  I wanted to “get the girl,” and I had not taken my daily pious pill.

Kay and I were on opposing teams. Her teammates included the other two guys who had made known among the singles’ community their amorous feelings toward Kay. It was tricky how I handled such a scenario. I wanted to show myself superior and do it with style, like some exotic bird that ruffles its colorful plumage while performing an impressive ritual dance in order to attract the potential Mrs. But an exotic bird, I wasn’t. More like bulldozer. In one intense moment in the game, the ball was loose with several people rushing for it, including Kay and my two competitors, all from different angles.  My Cro-Magnon brain kicked in and I went full force for the ball.  After a great clash of humanity and the ensuing yelps and grunts of fallen players, I found myself sweeping the ball down the ice toward the goalie.  I took my eyes off the ball to glance back and saw my two competitors face down on the ice. But my future wife was also sprawled on the ice, her face a grimace of pain, her eyes flashing with desire…the desire to break her broom handle over my thick head.

I had sense enough to know that trying any smooth moves after knocking her flat on the ice would probably be met with chilly silence.  After the game the group was invited for hot chocolate to the cabin of a couple who lived on the property up the hill from the frozen pond.  This couple had recently graduated from the singles’ group into holy matrimony, and now rented this cabin that I would soon move into and live for a year before Kay and I got married.  (We would spend the first night of our honeymoon in that cabin.  Who knew?)  But here is what I did learn not long after our broom hockey encounter.  Kay was certainly impressed by my hard-hitting actions on the frozen pond, but it was not favorable.  My friend reported to me that Kay did not appreciate my competitive performance. In reality my aggressive behavior was not so much for her but for my competition in keeping with Don Quixote’s maxim: “Love and war are all one.  It is lawful to use sleights and stratagems to attain the wished end.”  I would not tread lightly or accept defeat easily.  If they wished to compete for Kay’s affections, then may the best man win.

I had created a dilemma: my early impression on Kay was not good, the competitors were galvanized for battle, and given the clannish nature of a church singles’ group, the majority favored the competitors. I am in a profession where at moments you must act quickly and decisively, then make necessary adjustments and come at it again. I realized I had potentially blown it with Kay given her reaction to the broom hockey event.  I thought if I could separate her from the herd and have a little one-on-one time with her, I might improve my standing.  The fact that she agreed to our first date was a hopeful sign.

This subsequent wooing opportunity put me on the road to recovery after the broom hockey fiasco.  I soon realized there was something within Kay’s heart and soul that had a depth that, I would say, I lacked.  The thought of dating someone my polar opposite, a complete foreigner to the world I knew, as if from another planet, was an attraction I never anticipated.  I was not looking for love, but what was seeping into my heart was a sweet elixir I had never tasted before, a taste I could not get enough of, a taste that remains to this day.

The terms introvert (Kay) and extrovert (Me) became familiar through the work of psychologist Carl Jung in the early 1900’s. However, Kay is not an introvert because she won’t ever go on stage, and I’m not an extrovert because I never want to be alone. While I might want to dance on tables and Kay would prefer to sit quietly at one, there are many more intricacies to the definitions. Our temperaments and personalities are in-your-face, irreconcilably different, from our earliest experiences and to this very day. But that is what makes us individuals. It is our belief that if either partner would attempt to erase the individuality of the other, even well-intentioned and a hallmark of a traditional marriage, there would be problems, not to mention a controlled and possibly boring creation.

In this Valentine season it is easy to do the expected and the perfunctory: buy the flowers, the candy, play the songs, and write the cards for your mate. It reminds me of the Frank Zappa quote I found: “I detest ‘love lyrics.’ I think one of the causes of bad mental health in the United States is that people have been raised on ‘love lyrics.’”

It is not an easy task to create a healthy relationship.  It is the result of trial and error followed by times of serious confusion and disillusionment.  Those who would consider their relationship healthy and immensely satisfying are fortunate.  But whatever course a couple charted to achieve the flow of a healthy marriage, they experienced moments of despair and dismay along the way.

It is my opinion that unless each person within the relationship breathes freely from the other, yet leans elegantly toward each other, there will be limited health.  It is only in the safety of freedom to leave and commitment to stay that marriage thrives.  Then we truly become witnesses of each other. And, of course, if all else fails, buy a couple of brooms, a ball, and find a frozen pond. Sparks may fly, but that could be a good thing. It was for us.