Hello Everyone,
FLAT DUCK, FLAT DUCK, FLAT DUCK
Yes, we have gotten through the troubled times with Tennessee getting the yearly massacre from Alabama, and, to recover, we have the Halloween Party at Hilda Jones's that takes all pain away from the beginning of the year to this point.
Hilda says there is a detour on Three Notch Road but you can follow it to get there.
It is this Saturday the 28th, always a great time and look forward to seeing you there.
NEW CATERER
We the Board have heard your cries and we have a new caterer for the November meeting. We will be getting into the holiday spirit by having turkey and dressing with some if not all of the fixings. Please try to attend and please make plans to eat with everybody.
Ina’s comin', hide your heart, girl
Ina’s comin', hide your heart, girl
Ina Gerlach, the broker who has helped us with our European trips, is going to be at our next meeting so please try and come and show her our good old southern hospitality.
She was born in Germany, and after living in Houston a short time, she now back in Bavaria and making a special trip to the States for business and to see us.
Please, please try to attend and make a special effort to say hello to Ina at the meeting.
WHAT’S GOING ON !!!!!
We are about a month and a half from the Steamboat trip and everyone is getting ready for the ski camp both physically and mentally. As I always say, as a club, “This is our time of year.”
One of my favorite memories is when Pat and I were at Steamboat many years ago and we were in the middle of a nice ski week. Most times, going in a little early on a ski day was the norm, but on this particular day it was cloudy, snowing, about 2:30 in the afternoon, and Pat looked at me and said, “Let’s keep going.”
I have never forgotten that afternoon. We were just enjoying ourselves on a beautiful gray day, skiing for utter enjoyment, with it snowing lightly, and nothing else mattered. We did a 4:00 o’clock Bob Tramel before it was really cool.
The other day, I was trying to get myself “spiritually” ready to ski this year, and I plugged in the above memory in my brain’s ever trusty memory viewfinder, when all of the sudden, the following words came rushing into my mind like a flashing neon sign on the backside of a snowy Colorado mountain and refused to leave. These are the words that kept flashing the following:
Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Yes, I know, that’s the first verse to the old Marvin Gaye song, “What’s Going On.” These lines would not go away. Darn it Marvin, get the devil out of my head!
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today, Yeah, Yeah
Marvin, I am trying to do personal spiritual improvement here, will you get the hell out!
Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see
Oh, what's going on
Marvin Gaye was shot by his father fourteen years after he wrote and sang these words. He was living with his parents because, after an amazing career in entertainment and a recent hit song globally, he had tax issues, drug issues, and some think he had nowhere else to go. Even though he was totally dysfunctional beyond dysfunction outside the concert hall, the lyrics are still ringing true almost 50 years after he wrote them.
We all seek some type of relief from troubled times. Whenever we hear him singing that song or listen to another track on that album, everyone understands Marvin was trying to build a bridges with soulful refrains during the early 1970’s when everything was put on its head socially, civilly, politically, and any other way possible.
It is my hope, using Marvin as a guiding light, that when we all ski together on trips this next season, we also try to spend some time reflecting how we can talk to people and try to understand “what’s going on,” with everyone around us. We can in no way change people’s attitudes or feelings. So let us simply really just make an extra effort to get along.
Remember, we all agree with no exception, skiing is next to godliness. See, we all have at least one thing that we can come to an understanding about.
As a great man once said:
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
Mahatma Gandhi
See you at the next meeting,
