Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Put Up Your Dukes!

In this, my fourth year participating with Team Phipps in the American Cancer Society Relay for Life, I wanted to encourage readers to join us in our mission (click on any link here.)  My dear friend, Terri, wrote these beautiful words I share with you now. 

   Need to be reminded you’re alive—and glad you are?

There’s nothing quite like a roomful of enthusiastic people coming together to plan an event celebrating life, remembering and honoring the lives of loved ones, and working hard to fight back against a common enemy (cancer) to do that for you…except the event itself, where you’re on a huge fairgrounds filled with hundreds and hundreds of people coming together to do the same thing.

    Relay for Life is a very big thing.  It’s a force and an event and a feeling…and more and more each day, I find it being a source of hope and renewal for me.  It’s something I want to share with others.  Yes, it’s true that Relay is a fundraising event, and every time I mention it, I’m sure most people tune it out for that reason.  But the money raised at Relay goes in very large part to LOCAL cancer needs—education, transportation of patients to and from therapy, etc.  And research—the very vital research that turns out new discoveries of causes, develops new and better treatments (the chemotherapy my mom took 21 years ago for her breast cancer made her horribly sick—today, there are drugs to combat that nausea), and furthers information for PREVENTION of cancer—Relay money does all that.

   But that money does a lot more that you can SEE immediately during Relay itself.  You can purchase luminaries in honor or memory of a loved one with cancer (or yourself!)—these are lit at dusk in a silent ceremony that there is no way to describe how incredibly moving it is.  Hundreds and hundreds of lights burning in defiance of a wretched disease, and in celebration of the lives it touches.  Knowing that MY name, and the name of my mother, and some of my friends were on some of those bags—well, it frankly just made me cry—but they were tears of love and relief and gratitude….and, yes, CELEBRATION of those lives represented.

   And that’s just one part of Relay.  There are Relay Team booths set up with neat things to buy and do-- food and fun and prizes and games and information—REAL information, with phone numbers and contacts of services available in our area.  There are bouncy-houses for kids to play in, face painting, music, entertainment.  And there is the “walk” itself, where the various teams take laps all night long (you don’t have to stay for all of THAT—but it’s okay if you do—we party all night long on May 20!), starting out with a “Survivor Lap” at 7:00 p.m….where EVERY cancer survivor in the area is encouraged to come join us (AND enjoy a free meal at 5:00 pm before the other festivities start!).

   I fought cancer—and thankfully won—six years after my mother died from it; in fact, I had my second surgery on the anniversary of her death.  That was 15 years ago now, but I didn’t learn until last year—my first year to actually participate in the Relay for Life all-night event—just how much pain and joy and hope and sorrow were still inside me from my experience with losing my mom…and then dealing with my own cancer.  Once you’ve had that “C-word” thrown at you, nothing is ever the same.  Nothing.

   But last year, I learned that that was okay.  I AM a different person for having had such close encounters with cancer, and I wouldn’t want to NOT be different.  I really do celebrate the daily lives of everyone I love.  I get angry, depressed, frustrated just like before, of course—and I’ve had more than my share of tragedies to deal with….but still…STILL…in the back of my mind and heart I know better now what truly matters.  And this second year of my involvement with Relay—and all the great people I’m meeting and sharing time with in a common cause—it’s helping me to again find that wellspring of refreshment and zest for life…that will help me do something positive with all I have learned from the pain and loss.

   Our “Team Phipps” slogan this year, “We’re putting up our dukes against cancer,” makes me smile.  A very brash, young-looking John Wayne is on the poster, poking his fists into the camera with the utter confidence of victory that he’s going to knock out his opponent.  I LIKE that; I like that a LOT.  It’s a good feeling to stand up and fight in a cause that affects so very many people.  I hope a lot of you will stand…walk…remember, help with the fight, and come join in the celebration….with me.

Terri Frazier Orr
April 13, 2011



Click here to donate to Relay for Life of Whitfield County
 

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Desperados: Waitin' for a Country Songwriter Night

 

from left, Robby Hopkins, Channing Wilson and Martha Ann Brooks

Hot off two weeks of music from Detroit,  Dad and I found ourselves back at Charles & Myrtles Coffeehouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee for Country Songwriter Night.  The featured performers:  Martha Ann Brooks, Channing Wilson, and Robby Hopkins
 
Martha Ann Brooks
 
Martha Ann Brooks is a terrific songwriter and a great friend as well.  I remember the first time I saw her, in a similar singer-songwriter setting, in Dalton, Georgia.  Brooks is an infectious performer, always plucking the right heartstrings, or setting the perfect tone for dry humor in her lyrics, and also for pulling out the happy songs and her beautfiul smile. How many times have I listened to her sing her songs?  Countless times, and I still love the old ones, still get excited about the new ones.  Tonight she sang some of both while telling her audience stories of how she thinks of songs walking with her dog and digging in dirt, and how she came to love country music.  Those included one of my favorite of her melodies, "Dead or Alive," about dealing with addiction.  When she sang "Reintarnation," she told a story I do not believe I've heard before - that she stole the word from a contest for making up a new word.  The winner's word was defined as dying and coming back as a hillbilly.  In Brooks' song the word refers to the same old fight coming up again and again - and it was probably a doosey!   And for the second time this year I heard one of her newest songs, now titled "One More Time." 

Brooks suggested each songwriter do a cover of a country artist who influenced them and she produced a medley of Patsy Cline's "Crazy" and Hank Williams' "Your Cheatin' Heart."   Channing Wilson proclaimed that he just didn't think he "could be anything else" other than country.  He then gave us another Hank Williams tune, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and Guy Clark's "Desperados Waiting for a Train."   

Channing Wilson
It is difficult to pick a favorite from the songs Channing Wilson played tonight.  There was the beautiful song about his Grandfather, who was the oldest living firechief in the country when he died.  The perfect tribute in a lyric with a perfect hook - "The way I was raised / I guess you could say / I was Grandfathered in."  Wilson's song lyrics really stick, "I'm an old country song," "Another morning / coming home" and from "Poor Man's Cocaine," "Black, white, rich, poor / there's only one class to ride on the devil's train." 

In the round, songwriters produce a lot of banter about such things as their shared experiences and Brooks' Bird of Paradise capo.  They also feed off each others' themes and so from Wilson's story of his Grandfather being a veteran, we moved to Brook's song about a man suffering post traumatic stress syndrome.  And not to be left out of songs that bring a tear or songs about Daddy, Robby Hopkins touched us all with his tribute to his father, "This is Gonna Hurt Me."

Robby Hopkins
Robby Hopkins has the real country formula, the voice to go with it, and importantly, the boots.  I don't mean pointy-toed fancy boots.  I mean real boots, like people actually wear to the barn or the stable.   With his lovely wife, he also has seven kids, which gives him a lot of songwriting material.  Hopkins sang some beautiful songs, and some fun ones, like "She's Countrier Than Me" and "She's a Little Redneck, Too!"  He did a great song about the birds and bees, singing "Birds do it / they fall in love / bees do it too / can't get enough."  For his country influence, we heard a perfect rendition of Vern Gosdin's "If You're Gonna Do Me Wrong, Do it Right."



There are moments when you just know you are in the right place, hearing the right song, nodding your head to the right words.  Channing Wilson sang, "I'dve never done what you did to me, to you."  Boy am I glad I was was there tonight to hear those words. 

For more on these singer-songwriters, visit their web sites:

http://www.marthaannbrooks.com/fr_home.cfm
http://www.channingwilson.com/fr_home.cfm
http://www.robbyhopkins.com/