Drop Kick Me Jesus while I get Misty

My bedroom for most of my life growing up was upstairs at our house. You would go up the stairs, and there was an open room at the top of the stairs. Then you would go down a small hallway, and into the bedroom. For some reason, we referred to the open room at the top of the stair as "the hall".

In "the hall" was a turntable and record albums. I spent many hours playing records in this room, singing, and conjuring up performances in my head.

Some of the albums were my dad's music. I don't think I appreciated them when I was young. I didn't realize my dad had such a great taste in music. He especially like the sound of women jazz singers.

In fact, it wasn't until after his death that I realized the type of albums he had, and that those albums were his. For Dad's funeral, I was in charge of making a cassette tape of some of his favorite music, so this tape could be playing as people came in before the service. I was given some suggestions from the albums that were in the open room at the top of the stairs. PKR's family had a stereo that would play albums and make cassette tapes, so I took the albums to his parent's house to make the tape. At the time a woman was living there that was a music major, and knew a lot about music, and she was the one who commented on Dad's great taste in jazz music.

One of his favorites was Sarah Vaughan. I decided to share the song "Misty", because this song is a long running joke in our family. It didn't take much for Dad to tear up, or his eyes to get "misty". Whenever this happened, we would refer to this song. He also had certain songs that he would sing little snippets of the lyrics every once in a while, and I think "Misty" was one of them.



Another I remember Dad singing was Help Me Make It Through The Night. I still remember him singing "take the ribbon from your, shake it loose and let it fall.....".

Dad had a nice voice, too. For a while in the mid 1970's, KWAL (the local Silver Valley radio station, which was the only radio station you could get in the Silver Valley for a long time), would play Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goalposts of Life each morning. Dad would either have KWAL wake him up, or have it playing so he would hear this song often. He got a big kick out of this song, and would often sing these words...


Drop kick me, Jesus through the goal posts of life
End over end, neither left nor to right
Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights
Drop kick me, Jesus through the goal posts of life

Make me, oh make me, Lord more than I am
Make me a piece in your master game plan

Free from the earthly temptations below
I've got the will, Lord if you've got the toe

(Chorus)

Bring on the brothers who've gone on before
And all of the sisters who've knocked on your door
All the departed dear loved ones of mine
Stick them up front in the offensive line.

(Chorus 2x)

Oh, this is too good not to share. Here it is to listen to yourself.



Oh, I have so many regrets regarding my relationship with Dad. It seems like I didn't get to know him as well as I would have liked. I was so wrapped up in my own life, going to college, then off to Montana for my first job, then getting married, then back to Idaho, moving to Meridian, and raising children. Then, before you know it, Dad is only 65 years old, and I get a phone call at the beginning of May, 1996, that Dad has cancer and he only has a month to live. I go home to Kellogg for a couple of weeks, and by the first of June he is gone.

He was way too young to die.

Well, I certainly didn't anticipating this flood of emotions this morning, but there they are anyway. Dad has been gone almost 13 years, and I think I'm only just beginning to deal with the loss. Grieving is a funny thing.