I WONDER AS I WANDER [M, 8-18-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Folk—I WONDER AS I WANDER [M, 8-18-25]

 

I heard John Jacob Niles in person when he was 72. I was his reverse, 27.

I listen to him now not in person but on a CD, his high almost ghostly voice wandering along my ceiling, wandering as I wonder.

I wonder, as I wander, out under the sky, how Jesus, the savior, came for to die, for poor, onery sinners, like you and like I, I wonder as I wander…

His voice now is a gift from my daughter, Kathleen, who was only a year old when I sat in the auditorium at IN State U in Terre Haute, listening to John Jacob Niles in person.

The folk music revival was well started then, but only a few came to hear the man who had been singing folk music forever, who was probably the greatest folk singer of them all. Because John Jacob Niles was old.

The folk music revival was about young people, groups like The Chad Mitchell Trio and The Kingston Trio, and individuals like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan and Judy Collins. The Weavers were not young, but they were newly discovered after their McCarthy era blacklisting, and they were in their prime, not old, like John Jacob Niles.

Some years ago, I attended a folk concert at which I was introduced as a folk poet/lyricist. I mentioned John Jacob Niles to one of the young singers. He had never heard of him. That is like an American who has never heard of George Washington.

John Jacob Niles didn’t know he was old. He kept composing and singing for another 15 years. That night, though, in the INSU auditorium, the only light a bare spot on his white head, as he sat by himself on a folding chair in the middle of the stage, I was embarrassed. Not for him, but for all the empty seats that surrounded me, for all the people on that campus who thought he was irrelevant because he was old.

The Chad Mitchell Trio came to town a few months later. Their concert was too big for the INSU auditorium. Helen and I listened to them in the basketball arena, part of a sell-out crowd.

Strangely, and sadly, one of the widest gaps between generations is musical.

I put John Jacob Niles’ voice onto the CD player again now, and I know that music is neither young nor old. I worry about young people who don’t have the opportunity to wonder as they wander. John Jacob Niles will always wonder as he wanders, and so will I.

John Robert McFarland

SING ME NOT [Sat, 8-16-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Embarrassing Memories of An Old Man—SING ME NOT [Sat, 8-16-25]

 

Tomorrow is Sunday, the sabbath, the day of rest, the day I devote to recalling all the stupid church stuff I did over 70 years as a preacher.

I’m sure there is no one besides me who has even the slightest memory of the Sunday evening worship service at Mineral City, IN [1] when I sang “Pass Me Not” as a solo, but when I remember it, I cringe. Literally. Why is that? Why should it still be embarrassing after 71 years, when no one else remembers it, when anyone who could remember it is probably dead?

I was preaching at the Methodist churches in 3 tiny Indiana villages, Solsberry [2], Koleen, and Mineral. They were scattered geographically, so I could get to only two of them on a Sunday morning. That meant an evening service at the third church. So that none of the three would always have the early morning or evening service, the services were staggered. I went to Mineral at 9:30 on the 1^st and 3^rd Sundays of the month, and 11:00 on the 2^nd Sunday, and 7:30 pm on the 4^th Sunday. Solsberry and Koleen had similarly irregular schedules.

The evening service at Mineral was rather poorly attended, so in one of those fits of stupidity that I would like to blame on youth, but which is misplaced blame since I kept doing such stupid things my whole career, I told the Mineralites that I would sing a solo if they ever got 50 people to worship at their Sunday evening service. Why I thought that would be an incentive for people to come to church I don’t know, but I didn’t have enough money to promise them something like ice cream. I wasn’t worried, though; 50 people for evening service was a remote goal.

You can guess the next chapter. I counted carefully to be sure. It was actually 51, not even including babies.

I wasn’t a bad singer, but I was not a confident one. I had a decent voice, but a very limited range. I had gained confidence in my singing ability, though, because of Jim Barrett. Jim was a year behind me at Oakland City High School, and my roommate my junior year at IU. He was a music major. When he did not have other responsibilities, he went to church with me and played piano. When he accompanied me, he simply transposed as he played, keeping my voice in range. I didn’t know that; I thought I was getting better.

On that particular Sunday evening, the Mineral folks had borrowed people from all over Greene County to come up with 51 at worship. For some reason, Jim had not gone with me. Instead, the gracious and sweet 90-year-old lady with no music education but plenty of arthritis was playing piano.

I had not prepared anything, of course, for I did not think they could ever get 50 people to church. Only a year before, however, I had sung in a quartet. “Pass Me Not.” A great hymn, and I sounded pretty good when Bob Robling and Dave Lamb and Bob Wallace, real singers, were covering up my wavering bass. So, I asked the pianist if she knew “Pass Me Not.” She thought that maybe she did.  

I suspect that song was never again selected in that church.

It was a disaster. She knew nothing about transposing to fit my range. I switched, almost word by word, from one octave to another, from key to key, even clef to clef, trying to find some common musical ground between voice and piano.

Well, I started this meditation to try to figure out why that incident is still cringe-worthy. It’s no worse than many other embarrassing moments to which I have subjected myself and those who had to witness them. I really have no answer to that, so I’ll just have to let it go.

That’s one of the real advantages of old age. If there is no one else left to remember the stupid stuff you did, you don’t have to remember it, either.

John Robert McFarland

1] It was usually just called Mineral instead of Mineral City, since a church building and three houses don’t really constitute a city.

2] At the time, I thought Solsberry was just a misspelling of the English Salisbury. Later, when I pastored at Arcola, IL, and Jim Cummings was in the congregation, I learned that the town was named for his grandfather, Sol. 

THE DEMANDER [R, 8-14-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—THE DEMANDER [R, 8-14-25]

 

When I was twelve years old, I was once relegated to spending the day at the home of an older relative. I’ll call her Aunt Rhodie. One of my cousins was also parked there for the day.  I’ll call her Paula.

Aunt Rhodie’s care was only a matter of convenience. She was not the type to entertain children. She was willing to give us a simple lunch, but certainly not help us bake cookies or play table games. She didn’t even have things like table games in her house. She wanted to sit and listen to the radio and leave Paula and me to entertain ourselves.

That was okay with me. I could entertain myself just fine. I had a new comic book that I was eager to read. A new comic book was a luxury. Rarely did I have a nickel--or a dime for the really good comic books, like Captain Marvel or Classic Comics. And if my parents saw me reading, it reminded them of all the chores I could be doing instead. Aunt Rhodie’s was a good place to read a new comic book.

Except for Paula. I was a mature and sophisticated twelve-year-old. She was a bratty and entitled seven-year-old. The age and gender gaps were enough, of course, in themselves, to make it a bad day for me, but in addition, Paula was a demander.

She didn’t just demand that I play with her. She wanted to direct every step of the play. “You stand over there, and hold this just so…”

I knew how to play with younger kids. I had a little sister and brother. But they were really little kids then, four and three. I had lived with them, helped to take care of them, even changed their diapers, from the time they were born. If they wanted me to play with them, they begged, not demanded. And I was willing to play with them. Taking them off Mother’s hands was the one thing that did not remind her of chores she wanted me to do.

I sympathized with Paula. She was bored, too. But I was not used to dealing with demanding people, folks who felt they could order you around when they had no right to. Yes, my parents ordered me around, all the time, but they had a right to.

I never figured out how to deal with the demands of the arrogant. [Arrogance is not haughtiness, the way it’s often used, but the assumption you have a right to be in charge.]

The obvious way, of course, to deal with demanders is to say No. You “…draw your own boundaries,” or some other psychological phrase like that.

But if your whole life has been devoted to staying out of trouble, as my twelve-year-old life had been, you really don’t know how to say No. So, with Paula, and so many others through the years, I was passively resistant. I tried to make excuses why I could not meet demands, or act like I had not heard them, or didn’t understand them.

It's a poor approach. It’s dishonest, and so it takes a lot of psychic energy.

I did not ever want to say No because I am a people-pleaser. I want everyone to like me, or at least not cause me trouble. Not surprising, I suppose, that I spent my life in a career where pleasing people [and failing to do so] is part of the job.

But you’re old enough that you know this already. And if you’re a people-pleaser, and you haven’t learned how to say No by now, this is probably irrelevant to you.

About twenty-five years after that day at Aunt Rhodie’s, I officiated at Paula’s wedding. She was a highly accomplished professional woman by that time. I was reluctant. I didn’t think the marriage would last. But, I wanted to please everybody, including Paula’s mother, one of my favorite relatives.

So I stood before them and gave then their vows. I’m sure they were sincere in their answers. But the marriage did not last. It’s hard for demanders to change their ways, be they Paulas or presidents. Especially if no one ever says No.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

REMEMBERING STARDUST [M, 8-11-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—REMEMBERING STARDUST [M, 8-11-25]

 

I’m having trouble with stardust. No, not because I might be stardust before long. I think that would be neat. I mean the song, “Stardust.”

It should be easy. In fact, I have known those words in the past. But if I don’t keep singing them regularly, I forget. No, not the words. I know all the words. I just don’t know where they go in the song.

It’s like “The Old Rugged Cross.” I was doing a memorial service in a funeral home. No problem, because the organist was my church organist, and we knew how to work together, even when things went sideways. [My late great friend, Bob Butts, was from Mississippi and didn’t like it when people said that things “went south,” so…]

Yes, Beth and I could get out of jams in worship, but the family had asked for a soloist from another church. Still, okay. We knew her. Lynne was a nice woman. A good singer. She knew the assigned hymn well, had sung it at many funerals, so she didn’t use a hymnal. And she got one line out of place.

The problem with Old Rugged Cross” is: Any of the lines in “Old Rugged Cross” will fit with any of the others. There is no narrative progression that tells you what should go where.

Lynne sang and sang, experimenting with one line after another, trying to find her way back in. It went on and on. I thought about mouthing words to her, but by that time, I had no idea what line went with what other lines myself. Beth’s arms were drooping, so I gave her our signal, and she did those things organists do to say that the thing is going to be over. Then one long last amen. Lynne looked very relieved.

Songs and poems don’t have to be narrative. Stories do. But that makes non-narrative songs hard to remember. Which verse comes next?

Which brings us back to “Stardust.”

I sing as I walk. On Fridays, I sing a song for each place we have lived. I can’t go home until I’ve done the whole repertoire. I use “Indiana, Our Indiana” for my days as a student at IU. I use “On the Banks of the Wabash/Back Home Again, in Indiana” for when we lived in Terre Haute, since Paul Dresser was a Terre Haute boy.

That leaves me with “Stardust” for Bloomington.

Hoagy Carmichael was the quintessential Bloomington/IU boy. “Stardust” is the quintessential Bloomington melody. [1] But Mitchell Parish was a New York boy, a lyricist for Tin Pan Alley. [2] His lyrics are wonderful. They fit “Stardust.” They fit so well that most people assume Hoagy wrote the melody and lyrics at the same time, even though the melody preceded the lyrics by years, and Hoagy was only a composer, not a lyricist. But Parish’s lyrics aren’t narrative!

Narrative songs and story songs are not necessarily the same. Story songs, like Tom T. Hall’s “The Year that Clayton Delaney Died” is exactly what it says—it tells a story. A narrative song doesn’t automatically tell a story, but it has a beginning and a middle and an end, like “Love Letters in the Sand,” or “Moments to Remember.” It makes narrative sense if you’re trying to remember it.

I’ve always had a good memory. I enjoy learning and reciting poems like Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” I guess I’ll just have to bite the bullet. “So now the purple haze of twilight time…”

John Robert McFarland

1] I’ll never forgive Willie Nelson for doing a concert in the IU Auditorium--with the statue of Hoagy Carmichael right beside his bus--and not doing “Stardust,” which was such a hit for him. Bob and Julie Hammel got very good tickets to Willie’s concert as a welcome “back to Bloomington” gift for us, and Willie didn’t sing any Hoagy songs. You know how Jesus talked about the unforgivable sin?

2] Journalist Monroe Rosenfeld named it that because all the music publishers were bunched together in NYC in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Every office had a string of composers auditioning their newest tries on out-of-tune upright pianos all day long. Rosenfeld said it sounded like beating tin pans together.

THE JOY OF SAYING NO [F, 8-8-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Nos of An Old Curmudgeon—THE JOY OF SAYING NO [F, 8-8-25]

 

Every once in a while, I like to search online for auto insurance. I’m not about to change companies. It’s too complicated and time-consuming. They all use the same algorithms anyway. But I have ulterior motives. [Actually, I don’t have to search online. If I just think about car insurance, I begin to get offers…]

We pay a dollar a mile for insurance, because we drive no farther than the mailbox. That doesn’t matter to the insurance companies. They only want to know how old you are and how old your car is, not how many miles you drive. And what your email address is…

That’s where I get my gleeful revenge. Once you have looked online for car insurance, it’s like an email tsunami. Even people who don’t do car insurance want to give you a quote. Companies with names like Flybynight are as interested as State Farm. Every day in my in-box, I get six or eight offers of insurance, each assuring me that theirs is better than any of the others.

And, one by one, I click on those little boxes to delete them. No, I don’t use the box at the top, where one click obviates all such emails at the same time. I want to click on every one of them, individually. There is such joy in that!

Yes, I know that nobody at those companies knows, because it’s all robotic, but that’s not the point. I’m not trying to get any insurance company execs fired [since I don’t know how]. I do this for my satisfaction and enjoyment.

The aging-well people say that it is important as we age to stay socially engaged. What better social engagement could there be than rejecting car insurance offers?

Well, it would be fun to reject life insurance companies, too, but life insurance companies don’t want to sell to old people, anyway. I got a cold call from one of those companies. I let the woman talk, anticipating the enjoyment of telling her I didn’t want any. She told me what a wonderful plan they had for me and didn’t it sound grand. I allowed as how it did. She asked how old I was. When I told her, she hung up. I mean, didn’t say a thing. Just a solitary click. That just wasn’t fair. I’m supposed to be the one who gets to do that.

Health insurance companies don’t want to sell to old people, either. So I can’t reject their offers. But car insurance is fair game for rejection.

I don’t mean those car repair plans, the ones that keep saying they are about to run out, even though you didn’t even know you had them, and want you to reup right now. They aren’t interested in selling to people who really need them. Our friend, Joan Newsome, got tired of their calls and said “Sure, I’ll buy.”  When they found out how many miles she had on her car, they hung up.

I’m not against insurance. It’s necessary and useful. But I figure at the price we pay, I should get the enjoyment of saying “No” once in a while.

John Robert McFarland

 

THE FIFTEEN MILE REACH T, 8-5-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter: THE FIFTEEN MILE REACH T, 8-5-25]

 

Acclaimed Indiana University prof Rebecca Spang [1] went to Harvard as an undergrad to study biology but decided she wanted to study history. Changing departments, though, was not automatic. She had to go through an interview. She told the interviewer that she wanted to study the history of common things, domestic things, the ordinary lives of real people. He said, imperiously, “Miss Spang, this is Harvard; you can’t study home economics here.”

That’s the common understanding of history, isn’t it? It’s about politics and war. And dates. Who was the first president? When was the War of 1812? Who invented gun powder? It’s certainly not about peasant wedding customs.

Our daughter, Katie Kennedy, the author [2] knew better, perhaps because of her mother, an oft-quoted home management expert. [3] Katie knew that politics and war come out of what we live and learn in the commonness of the everyday, within 15 miles of home.

That’s what she discovered when, as a graduate student at the University of Illinois, she studied Russian wedding customs. She wanted to learn how far the Bolshevik Revolution extended beyond the confines of the big cities. It was 15 miles. When you got beyond 15 miles outside the city, the folks still did weddings exactly the way they always had, the new atheistic culture and its anti-religion revolution be damned.

A fifteen-mile reach. It doesn’t have to be a place. Some folks have lived in many different places when growing up. But there is some emotional spot from which you never get more than 15 miles. The customs inside your head and heart are always within that range. You can study the outer limits of the universe or human behavior, but you do it within your 15-mile limit.

What’s inside your 15-mile range?

John Robert McFarland

1] Professor Spang is an authority on the history of France, the 18^th century, restaurants, and money.

2] Katie’s most recent book, Did You Hear What Happened in Salem? is ready for pre-order now. It will be out in Sept.

3] Helen is most frequently quoted for saying: “Men enter assisted living the day they get married.”

 

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS [Sat, 8-2-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS [Sat, 8-2-25]

 

As Trump’s immigration dictates rise and fall without much order or rationale, college students from other countries are often caught in confusion. Will I be deported? Can I go home for a visit and still get back into the US? Will my green card be honored? Will ICE put me in Alligator Alcatraz because I look Mexican even though my Italian ancestors came here 125 years ago?

I’ve known quite a few international students over the years. From those relationships, I have learned that having students from many different cultures and countries enriches a university.

I also know that they can bring problems with them. They don’t always mix well on campus with some other students. Jews and Muslims have long-standing controversies. Sometimes even hatreds. The same is true of Indians and Pakistanis. Russians and Ukrainians. Zulus and Pondo. Irish and English. Poles and Germans. Manchester United and Liverpool.

I’ve gotten to know students from Korea and Germany and Norway and Kenya and Pakistan and Japan. Mostly, though, from Zimbabwe and Ghana.

We interacted mostly around clothing.

The first was when I was an IU undergrad and also the preacher on the Solsberry-Koleen-Mineral Circuit. Preachers were expected, always, to appear in a suit and white shirt and narrow tie. I had one suit. For Christmas, the church folk gave me a clothing store gift certificate to get a new suit.

I told Loyd Bates, the campus minister about it. “You know,” he said, “Stanlake Samkange [Stan’-la-kee Sam-khan’-gee]is just about to get his doctorate. He needs a suit to graduate and go to an interview…”

The folks at the church were a bit miffed that I gave their gift certificate away, but Stanlake got his doctorate, and became “…the most prolific of the first generation of black Zimbabwean creative writers in English.” [Wikipedia] His best-known works are On Trial for My Country, and African Saga, a popular history.

Besides, you can’t wear more than one suit at a time, anyway.

Through the years, I had a lot of Zimbabwean students, like James Dhliwayo and Susan Sithole, in my Wesley Foundations, because Methodists were strong in what was still called Southern Rhodesia when I started preaching.

I also had several students from Ghana, the home of Clement Asare and Sam Asamoah.

Sam was a graduate student at Eastern IL U and a regular attender at the church I pastored. He got sick and was hospitalized. The doctors couldn’t find a cure for whatever ailed him. I went to see him at the hospital, of course, and prayed for him, like I did anyone else I visited. The difference was, he got well immediately.

“It was your prayer,” he said. “You cured me.” As a thank-you, he gave me a beautiful hand-made dashiki. I still have it.

I guess it was an African trade for that suit I gave to Stanlake.

John Robert McFarland

The photo above is Stanlake.

He and I were students in the IU History Dept at the same time, but we never met or had classes together since he was finishing his doctorate and I was still taking survey courses.