Fighting Over Pink Floyd

Myra MacDonald gave me a hard time, in a good way, about the Pink Floyd Total Art blog post. She and her son Eddie used to fight bitterly about Pink Floyd when Eddie was a teenager. I was not surprised to hear that Eddie is about my age. We had our share of Pink Floyd fights in my house back then too. They were one of the ultimate rebel bands and parents in those days hated them. It was delightful.

"Eddie," Myra remonstrated, "We are country-western people." Eddie shot back that Pink Floyd had transformed the universe. "You and your Purple Floyd," she would sigh. Eddie would widen his eyes in horror. "Pink Floyd, Mother! Pink! PINK!" Meanwhile, I was softly singing somewhere in Ohio, "All in all you're just another brick in The Wall." The Wall was another of those bestselling-albums-of-all-time creations that Pink Floyd generated. And here they were in the 1990s still playing. The Pink Floyd Grandfathers. I invite you to go with me through their song "Time." I've heard that the basis for all religion is the fact that human beings live and one day we will die. I've never heard that fact conveyed in more powerful or poignant terms than it is here. This video has had more than five million views. I scrolled down through the comments on the video. One writer admitted, "This song scares me to death."

Gettin To Know Ya, Lola

Shown in photo: Lola Flushpoole dressed as a witch for a church Halloween event, with Billy-John next to her who refused to wear a costume. He thought his own face and outfit were enough.

I had a meal with Lola Flushpoole after our church's Annual Meeting today. I told her that after the stress of that meeting, I was in the mood to get drunk. But since I'm in a church that frowns on alcohol, I would get drunk on iced tea. We went to Garza's Mexican Cafe which has Smalltown's best south-of-the-border cuisine and iced tea, on which I did indeed get drunk. Caffeine intoxication is almost as good as the real thing. What's more, it is safe to drive home afterwards.

Lola has a massively high IQ and writes music on her computer using a special software program. These piano pieces will be published soon. She also plays music with as much skill as she composes it. She just celebrated 60 years as a church musician. As a bonus, she also sews beautifully.

Lola sent me the following email recently which I reprint here pretty much verbatim. After reading it I concluded that God broke the mold after making Lola.

"Dear Irreverent Reverend,

I've decided I worry too much. I finally got the answer in the middle of the night to a question I missed on a test in high school. It was an I.Q.test, and the answer was multiple choice.
The answers were : "Jane Eyre", "Lorna Doone", and "Les Miserables". The question was:

"Jean Valjean was the hero in what novel?"

I not only did not know the answer, I was incensed that they would expect a girl from a small South Texas town to know it. When I finished the test, I went to the library and looked up all the answers to all the questions I knew I had missed. Of course, that involved reading Lorna Doone, Jane Eyre, and Les Miserables, which probably didn't hurt me; and, when the test scores came back, my I.Q. was perfectly fine (according to the experts) so I never pursued the inequity of the test.

Flash forward to college. Same darned test, word for word. This time I knew the answers. Flash forward again: Called to the Dean's office. Scared. The Dean wanted to know (as did the president and the Board of Regents) why, since I had the highest I.Q. ever recorded in that college, it was so well hidden. I confessed. They had meetings. They decided to let me keep my I.Q., since looking up the answers indicated a high degree of something or other, if not exactly intelligence. Flash forward to last night. Suddenly I knew! I should have known about Jean Valjean because of the word "hero". Jean is a man's name only (or particularly, anyway) in France; hence the connection with Les Miserables. Darn!

Has my life been a meaningless shambles? Should I confess my failings to the Dean? (Nope. Dead) the Board of Regents? (Nope. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead). You? (Probably not, since you come perilously close to being as, um, unusual as I am, and would begin your own set of ruminations.) Who, then? I know. I'll tell Jacques. He speaks French.

Editor's note: Jacques is her two-year-old grandson.

The Craig Ferguson quote I wanted to share with you was: "Before they close Shea Stadium down, they wanted to have one last Billy Joel concert. That thing's old and disgusting. It reeks
of stale beer. The stadium is even worse". Right below that, there was an ad for a new type of Hallmark Card. There was a picture of George Bush, saying "Celebrificate a Person's Bornfulness". I thought that was funny, too --- not in a political sense, since I am hopelessly apolitical; but because it reminds me of eduspeak, which I never quite learned, even after lots of years of teaching.

L.F."

Only Lola could have created this. It needs no further comment from me.

Lola Flushpoole rides again

Lola Flushpoole, church piano accompanist, always has a new idea coming down the pike. I saw her yesterday, of course, during Sunday worship. Yesterday was apparently Pastor Appreciation Day. I did not know that until Lola told me. Lola's husband, Marvin, is a retired pastor. Lola asked me, "Do I have to appreciate Marvin today?" She then concluded that she would at least tolerate him gracefully.

Lola shares my love of mystery books. She told me she had hoped to give me all her old Agatha Christie mysteries until she learned I already had a full library of them. She has saved hers to read in her old age, but she said, "Now I have reached my old age and I still remember the solutions. So sad. I had hoped for a little more fog by this time."