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A couple of years ago Kay and I took our kids and grandkids and my mother and uncle on a family vacation in north Georgia. We rented a house with lots a space inside and an expansive yard, more like grounds. Other family members came and went during the week. The best feature was a front porch the width of the house with enough rocking chairs to accommodate most everyone. Evening meals were communal affairs and the table conversation lasted well beyond the bedtimes of grandkids. The reluctance to get up from the table was not for dread of cleaning the aftermath of a delicious meal but bringing a premature end to the stimulating and often raucous conversation that would make my mother blush just before she gave in to a grand cackle. It was during one such meal, in the middle of one such conversation that Kay blurted out, “I saw a white rabbit today.” Now imagine the sound effect of screeching tires on a vehicle as it comes to an abrupt stop as did our table conversation. All eyes came into unified focus directed toward Kay like the spotlight she hates. She had been out for a walk that day and claimed to have seen a white rabbit scampering across the grounds and disappear in the dense brush; admittedly, an unusual sight. Something in the table talk had triggered the memory of that experience, or Kay had disassociated from the conversation indulging in the private pleasure of seeing a white rabbit once again in her mind. We all began to laugh at the joy of so spontaneous a thought, and Kay had to endure some good-natured kidding from her family. “Kaymi, where rabbit?” John Erik asked, his eyes big as Mad Hatter tea saucers. Our two-year-old grandson at the time was the only one who ventured true belief. Everyone deserves to see a white rabbit whether others believe or not. “’Curiouser and curiouser!’” cried Alice…she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English.” That was a quote from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” as she remarks on the effect of eating some cake that caused her neck to “open out like the largest telescope that ever was.” Everyone knows the common and versatile definition of the word “curious:” being inquisitive; prying; showing keen interest; defining something as odd or strange. But the archaic Latin meaning has more depth: “something made or prepared with skill, something done with painstaking accuracy, with obvious signs of paying attention to detail and marked by intricacy.” Over the years I’ve watched Kay go to work on a creative project, and whatever she sets her mind to, be it painting watercolors, making Santa’s, precision cutting crown-molding with a saw, flower arrangement, or hand-carving a bird house or blocks, she epitomizes the deeper meaning of the state of being “curious.” And by being in such a state of curiosity, the work she produces has a quality that goes…

On July 4, 1977, a group of families in Nashville, Tennessee led by Dan and Pat Burton, along with my parents, threw a neighborhood birthday party for America. This was not a backyard barbeque where good friends gathered to eat and shoot off some fireworks. The celebration was conceived to honor our country, to honor those who served and serve in our military, to honor political leaders of every stripe for their dedication as public servants, and to honor citizens who live each day with “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” as we go about our lives pursuing those truths that are “…self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…” There was a parade of kids who rode their age-appropriate vehicles tricked out in red, white, and blue decorations; there were speeches; there was singing; there was the Pledge of Allegiance; there was the orchestra that played patriotic songs; and there was the recitation of a portion of the Declaration of Independence underscored by the orchestra playing Aaron Copeland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” which my father had the honor of performing each year from 1977 to 2001. A couple of times I filled in when ill-health prevented him from giving his best performance. In 2002, with the death of my father, the mantle was passed to me. My sister, Nan Gurley, has been the featured singer at this event even longer than I have been doing the Declaration. There have been special moments that stand out in my memory like the time when a bagpipe band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Amazing Grace,” or the time a World War II, Native-American veteran and winner of the Medal of Honor was honored by a younger member of his tribe dancing in full regalia a beautiful ceremonial dance, or that stirring moment when a Federal Immigration Judge spoke eloquently of why people from all over the world wanted to be a citizen of this country and then turned to a group of more than twenty people from a dozen different countries and led them through the Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America. I stood beside this multinational group listening to a dozen different accents saying the words that shed the skin of their old nationality and unified them in the new attire of an American citizen. That collection of families gathered to celebrate our country’s birthday back in 1977 has continued to this day growing in attendance from a few dozen that first year to several thousand. This year there was a special moment when Mayor Megan Barry honored Col. Sal Herrera for his service in the U.S. Army. My sister and I got to visit with Col. Herrera and share with him how our Dad had been a paratrooper who jumped in the Philippines in WWII and was a part of the first occupying…

Where did I put my wallet? I can’t remember where I left my purse. Have you seen my cell phone? Little things lost, yet important, not for the intrinsic value of a wallet, purse, or cell phone (insert brand name of your choice here), but because of what they contain…identity, real and imagined. If lost or stolen who are you? When Kay and I have traveled, domestic and foreign, she drives and I navigate. I use maps, landmarks, and road signs, not G.P.S. I take pride in that applicable life skill, doing the work myself and not have Siri do it for me. But on occasion, I have gotten us lost. It was only temporary, and while a little unnerving in the moment, who better to be lost with than your best friend. That’s adventure. And yes, when all else fails, I stop to ask directions from other human beings who have always been happy to oblige. The only time I do not like being lost is on stage. When people who have paid good money watch as you perform with your fellow actors and you suddenly lose your line. That is terrifying. Drop me in the wilderness with a compass, map, and some water, but God help me if I forget my lines while on stage in the middle of a performance. The sense of loss or being lost can be discombobulating. I don’t know why I relate this particular childhood memory with the feeling of being lost, but when I was thirteen or so, I looked at the world around me and wondered why I was put in this particular microcosm at this particular time because I believed I was nothing like the people around me, even my family. I assumed if I had not come from outer space, I must be adopted. One rainy morning Dad drove me on my paper route instead of me riding the bicycle I used to deliver papers, and I asked him if I was really his son. He stopped the car and looked at me; stopping the car and looking at me, his face a mixture of pity and consternation, meant the world had come to a standstill and I was the center of his attention. A feeling of dread crept up my spine as I awaited his answer. “You are flesh of my flesh, and I have the paper to prove it.” What a relief it was when he removed my birth certificate from a metal box on the top shelf of a storage closet and read aloud the details of my birth that included my full name, my father and mother’s full names, the full name of the attending physician, the full name of the registrar, and the embossed official seal of the state of Tennessee at the bottom left corner of the page. I was lost, but now I was found. In the fall of 2014 I acted in a film written and directed by Neil Hoppe entitled…

I was home on a Christmas break from Pepperdine University in 1973 and my father was taking me and my younger brothers on the Virgin Falls hike. A mutual friend who lived in the area had taken them on the hike a few months earlier and Dad and my brothers couldn’t wait to share the experience with me. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen,” they all kept saying as we drove the three hours from our Nashville home to the trailhead in eastern Tennessee. “They can’t find the source of the waterfall. It comes out of a cave on the top of this big hill, drops over a hundred feet and disappears. No one knows where it comes from and where it goes.” That, along with the promise of exploring deep caverns, climbing boulders, and being taught by my brothers how to “ride down trees,” raised my expectation for adventure. It was like walking into a primeval forest. For the first mile the trail meandered along a creek through spacious groves of indigenous tree varieties before it began a steep decline beneath thick canopies of mountain laurel until trail and creek converged into a large stream. We had to forge the wide stream hopping from rock to rock that rose out of the churning water in random patterns. While not life-threatening, a misstep meant wet boots and clothes for the next eight miles, and since it happened to be winter, that would add to the misery and ridicule from my brothers. The unofficial Arnold gauntlet was to see who could use the least number of rocks to get from one bank to the other. This crossing was probably twenty feet wide and the water flow was high, which meant there was minimal rock exposure to use as a landing and launching platform through the swift current. It required thrust and agility to leap across the stream bounding from rock to rock. Dad went first, pathfinder that he was, and my brothers and I followed. I don’t remember who won; I just remember marveling at dad’s ability to leap from rock to rock with a dancer’s grace and then the joy he took in watching his sons follow after him. Long gone were the days of having to hold our hands through precarious crossings of any kind. We all had been set free to stand or fall on our own; the momentum of manhood. We followed the stream for another mile and a half; it’s steady and gradual descent a deception we would come to see as a liability on our return trip. The footpath remained narrow, but the course of the stream would expand or contract as dictated by the contours of the landscape rushing around large boulders, tumbling into small waterfalls, or cascading down a natural rock slide into deep pools that during summer hikes afforded us opportunities to refresh our sweaty bodies with a dip in nothing but Adam’s original suit. At the halfway point we came upon…

I recently turned sixty-five, and while it is a milestone of sorts, it did not really seem worthy of a big celebration. Ten thousand of us Baby-Boomers turn sixty-five every day, so big deal. For a number of years I considered getting a tattoo to mark the occasion. My daughters and their husbands all have tattoos and they have been very encouraging of the idea. Even my mother got a tattoo on her eightieth birthday, which I thought was way cool. I even toyed around with some designs I thought I might like that included varied symbols referencing the spiritual, the aesthetic, and the familial. When Kay and I went to New Zealand last fall and saw some indigenous peoples who had taken the concept of family tree to a whole new level by tattooing the ancient images of their family tribe on their necks and faces, I decided my family tree could be better displayed in a picture frame and not on my flesh. I am very slow to make decisions when it comes to upgrading technology that might improve my daily life. Living in a high-speed, full-scale digital cosmos does not appeal to me. I still use a flip-up phone and I don’t text; my reading material comes in magazine, paper or hardback forms; I play pool, poker, and pinball not video games, and I have a high-definition antennae on the top of my house that gets me about a dozen free channels two of which I might watch. And when people have tried to get me to open a Facebook account so I could potentially have a half billion friends, my eyes just glazed over. On the rare occasion I received a “friend” request in my e-mail inbox, I just deleted it without so much as a twinge of guilt. I live like an animal, you say, but no more. This old dog has decided that he can learn a new trick. Not only did I have a website designed for my professional work, I also joined the Facebook team to make it a half billion and one…at least for a split millisecond of time. Now to all of the professional Facebookers out there who know me and my disdainful, even snarky, attitude about participating in such social media forums (much like the nay-sayers in the early days of television who considered the technological phenomenon a “vast wasteland”), I deserve all the slings and arrows of snide commentaries you care to throw at me. Be brutal. Be brutal. I accept the barbs. So on the day of my birth instead of Kay dropping me off at a local tattoo parlor for my birthday tat, she dropped me off at Sam and Zoe’s to meet Jill Lafave, my web designer, and have her set up my Facebook accounts. And in the twenty-four hours or so of going “live” I have received over one hundred “friend” requests. I take that to mean that you are not holding any grudges…

In the first three months of 2015 two significant events took place in my life that will resonant with me for the rest of my life. I had been preparing for the role of Willy Loman for months leading up to the first day of rehearsals for Nashville Repertory Theatre’s production of “Death of a Salesman,” and on February 20 we began. This was the role of a lifetime. My preparation was strenuous but necessary for me to feel I could begin on the first day of rehearsals and look my fellow actors in the eye and respond truthfully with the emotional life of the character, as well as absorb the brilliant insights into the story provided us by our director. After three-and-a-half decades of marriage my wife, Kay, can attest that when in production, I immerse myself in the process. The second and more profound event was the sudden death of my mother just four days into our rehearsals for the play. Mom was in relatively good health, but after she suffered a number of seizures ten months earlier, my siblings and I decided she no longer needed to live alone (our Dad had died in 2002), and though Mom initially resisted the move, she saw the wisdom of transitioning into an assisted living arrangement. Mom ended up enjoying her new “home” and the freedom and care she had while living there. The Sunday night before she died was the night of the Oscars. I intended to watch the first hour then go to bed because of an early rehearsal call the next day. When J.K. Simmons won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for “Whiplash,” and gave his wonderful acceptance speech praising his wife, kids, and then his parents, I was moved. I am fortunate enough to have been parented well, to have married well (above my station, most would say), and to have participated in the rearing of two wonderful daughters. As Mr. Simmons expressed thankfulness that his children possessed more of the admirable qualities of their mother than of him, I too acknowledged my gratitude to Kay sitting on the sofa beside me that the deep gene pool of her virtues had dominated in creating the DNA of our girls. But the moment of great conviction came when Mr. Simmons went on to praise his mother and father for their contribution in shaping him into the person standing on that stage. The man who held the Oscar expressed humble gratitude to the most important people in his life ending with his parents. Mr. Simmons’ last words were, “…Go call your Mom and your Dad and thank them. Don’t text or e-mail them, but call them and listen to them for as long as they want to talk to you.” That was enough for me, and I rose from the sofa and told Kay I was going to call Mom. When Mom answered the phone in her bright, cheery voice, I naturally thought she was watching the…