"...don't it make ya wanna dance...don't it make ya wanna smile..."

Finally getting back to doing a post here. It's been a crazy month with much going on. Three weeks until the little one arrives. Two baby showers later, and I think we have everything covered! A big Thank You! to all the ladies that helped with them and gave us so many wonderful gifts to welcome this little girl into the world. It has been quite the whirlwind preparing. Thank God we have awesome friends and family that all helped along the way. I was gone the last few weeks, and we had some great shows. John Henry and The Engine opened a couple of the shows for us. They are a good band from St. Louis. One of the venues they played with us was the Val Air Ballroom in West Des Moines, IA. This place was awesome. It has been open since 1938. Everyone from Duke Ellington to Glenn Miller played there. One thing I try to do is check out the 8x10s that the club has hung of all the performers. I almost didn't go look at the Val-Air, but was glad I did. We also played The Cotillion Ballroom in Wichita, KS. I always love playing this place. It's a circular building with a dome roof. Both of these are great venues of the Mid-West. The picture to your left is a new sculpture at the site of the Larry Joe Taylor cook off that we play every year in Stephenville, TX. The festival used to be located in Meridian, TX and they moved it a few years back in order to gain some more room. Rusty Wier was a fixture at this festival and I thought it was great for them to honor him in this way. The sculpture is right next to the ramp that each artist walks up to get to the stage.

I had a couple days off on this run in OKC and got to go see our drummer Randy's kid, JC play a t-ball game. Randy and his wife have a charity that has built a special needs accessible baseball field. I took a bunch of pics but wont have access to my camera for a couple of days because I left it on the bus. I will post pics soon, I promise. The field is awesome, it has a special rubber baseline so that kids in chairs can get around the bases. They have done a great job with it, and it was a blast to finally be able to see it. Folks from all around Oklahoma drive a long way to be able to utilize such a great resource.

Like I said, give me a couple of days, and I'll have some pictures for you.

I've been reading quite a bit lately. There seems to be this innate desire in me to have all the answers for this little one coming. Not only specific answers, but general answers about why things are the way they are when she gets old enough to comprehend things. I want to have honest answers for her. Sometimes I sit and hope that maybe things will get better and I wont have to answer certain questions. Regardless of what your beliefs are on how technology is turning our individual societies into a "global culture", it's happening. Our children will have much more interaction with other children around the globe. Just like everything else, there will be good and evil to come out of this. For instance, will my daughter be socially interacting with Iraqi children? Will the discussion of why our soldiers are still in Iraq come up? What am I supposed to say to that? "Well honey, you see, if we hadn't occupied your friends country you wouldn't be having this conversation with her." Maybe, but I wouldn't be telling the truth. Maybe half the truth. Obviously this discussion is years down the road. But that's the kind of things that have been occupying my mind. Do I raise her up with a strong nationalist mindset? The Pilgrims did no wrong, and our founding fathers were all Christians with only the best intentions? Somehow I see this myth beginning to fade already, and sometimes I wonder if it is for the best. The last thing I want to do is to instill a false sense of pride and superiority. Luckily I was raised with a strong sense of accepting everyone as who they are. Hopefully I can do the same. I know a ton of questions she will have to answer on her own, and I will only be there to help guide her along. That in itself is the hard part to grasp. I'm sure I aged my parents way beyond their years trying to answer a few on my own, so I'll probably be dealt some of my own medicine:) But I'll do the best I can in preparing to help her make the decisions that send her down not the safest path, but the most righteous. It's getting late, so I'm going to have to continue this post tomorrow night. remember when I started this, I said I was using this as a venting tool, so it might be a little scattered. As I read back over it, it is just that. But maybe I can tie it all up...maybe. Until next time, Peace and Love.