Dennis Jernigan, Part II

My children know the first part of this story, but for the one or two others who have nothing better to do with their time than read this blog, here’s why I said in Part I that Dennis Jernigan is one of my heroes.

When Julie and Jason were first married and still in Abilene in the early ‘90’s, they became part of Abilene Mission Church. They described this church to us – I think rather cautiously, at first – as a “different way of doing church,” meeting during the week in homes as a Cell Church, then coming together in the rented Civic Center on Sunday mornings for Praise and Worship. Inevitably, we visited them in Abilene and attended AMC for the first time.

First time is a key phrase here; for the first time Barbara and I – raised in rather traditional Church of Christ settings – experienced worship with a praise team. For the first time we attended a church service where people would stand throughout the Praise time (or sit – no one cared which). Some people raised their hands, others didn’t. Some clapped. Some even danced! Well, to my traditional eyes it looked liked dancing; maybe it was just pronounced rhythmic movement while singing rapturously. For the first time we heard men and women participating together in the service. And there was so much joy evident in praising our God and our Savior! No one wanted to stop; the singing often lasted longer than our entire service does at Westover – even on the three baptism days!

And the songs they sang… oh, the songs they sang! Never before had we heard songs about such a personal God – songs about real relationships and real longings; songs that spoke about a real father, not a distant deity. Songs about the Great Jehovah God singing over us, rejoicing over us! We asked about these songs and learned that many of them were by Dennis Jernigan. So we bought CDs and exulted in these new songs. We didn’t know the whole story then, we just knew the music, and it blew us away. One of our friends who also had just been introduced to Jernigan told it this way. “We bought a CD and put it in the car and spent a year playing just the first song!”

After Julie and Jason left for Prague, Barbara and I would – about every six weeks – drive to Abilene on Saturday, spend the night in the motel across the street from the Civic Center and go to AMC on Sunday morning. Then we would put the Jernigan CDs in the player and make the long drive back home that afternoon. Later we would get the chance to hear Dennis in concert on a couple of different occasions. Except they are not just concerts, are they? They are worship experiences.

Now for the 2^nd part of this story. I was excited to hear that Dennis was coming to Westover; it meant that I would have a chance to meet him and tell him what an important part he played in the awakening Barbara and I experienced and continue to seek. And I did meet him. I worked with him during the sound check. We joked about his wanting the piano moved – for one number only. We talked about his barn behind his home in Oklahoma, where his studio is. But when it came time for me to tell him about being a hero to us, the Anderson Family Curse robbed me of that ability.

I could not tell the man what he meant to us. I never said a word.

It didn’t end that badly. I told Rick how disappointed I was that I couldn’t tell Dennis what his ministry meant to us, and Rick said, “I’ll be with him later. I’ll tell him for you.” And he did.

And I thank him.

Dennis Jernigan, Part I

Friday afternoon I got good news and bad news: the good news was that I was going to mix Dennis Jernigan in concert at Westover on Saturday night; the bad news was that I was going to mix Dennis Jernigan in concert at Westover on Saturday night.

It was good news in that Dennis is one of my heroes – more about that in Dennis Jernigan – Part II. The bad news is that late Friday I received the contract rider that specified what was required of the sound system – in very specific terms. I’ll make a long story short and just say that there were a lot of technical requirements that we didn’t meet, and in that short time frame could NOT meet. My immediate response was to call one of the other guys involved and ask him what his response was when he saw the rider, and we both were alarmed at the situation we found ourselves in.

My next response was blistering anger toward Rick, our Spiritual Formation Minister who set all this up. Since the rider was part of the contract, he had known about these requirements for months and was just now sharing them. Then my response was that of sheer terror. How on earth was I (note the implied sense of ownership and responsibility in that little one-letter word) going to pull this off, since there seemingly was no other choice but to proceed. My expectation had been that Rick was going to rent a sound rig and technician like we had done for the other two concerts in this series, that of Chris Rice and Nichole Nordeman. Now I find out that I (there it is again) was going to have to pull this together, without the needed techno-stuff and no time to get it.

I made an emergency trip to the building to check on a couple of microphones and look for some boom-type stands. In the meantime, Brian, the other guy involved had been in touch with Rick with our concerns, and Rick’s response seemed to be “I know a guy who has done this before and it’s no big deal that we don’t have all that stuff, and he said he would loan us some boom mic stands.” Snarl! Fume!

Saturday afternoon, I arrived at the building (hours before I needed to be there) and found a guy waiting to deliver the boom stands, and he also had a couple of high-dollar microphones of exactly the type needed to mic the piano. I helped him carry the stuff in, and he asked to look at the sound system. He asked me where a couple of the needed techno-stuff items were, and when I confessed that we didn’t have them, he takes out his phone and makes a couple of calls and asks people to bring these needed items. Then, after a few more questions and seeing the abject terror in my eyes as the time for the sound check grew nearer, he asked me if I wanted him to stay and help work this program.

To make this a blog of near-normal size, it turns out that this guy, Mike, is a professional sound technician who works for the biggest sound event outfit in town and is also the sound guy for High Point Fellowship, where Dennis has appeared on two other occasions and he knew just exactly what was needed. What's more, he obtained it with his magic phone, set it up and stayed and mixed the concert, which was wonderful!

The concert was over – the sound was awesome, thanks to my private angel Mike, and I was rehearsing in my mind what I wanted to cover in my Come-To-Jesus meeting with Rick, when I got to thinking. What just happened here? Who was right? Rick, with his attitude that “God is going to provide – show a little trust” or me with my “How could you do this to ME!” attitude. I’m not through thinking through it, but I am sure that there is a lesson to be learned in this exercise. The only question is it a lesson that Rick needs to learn, or is it a lesson that I need to learn?

Overheard in Home Depot...

...as the self-serve checkout station again refused the college student's credit card - "I don't know what the problem is. This is my dad's card and he pays his bill!"

The pecan crop is in!

We knew that we were going to have a lot of pecans this year because limbs kept breaking off from the weight of the pecans as they got bigger. Big limbs. And sure enough, this has been a bumper crop - certainly the biggest crop since we planted the tree. Julie, I don't know if you remember but I used you as the measuring stick for how deep the hole needed to be to plant the tree. I would stand you in the hole, and if you could see out, it wasn't deep enough. Before anyone objects, it was not that deep a hole, and you thought it was great fun!

The way the tree is situated, a third or more of the nuts fall directly on the driveway. When we back out or drive in, it sounds like fireworks with all the pecans going pop! pop! pop! when they are overrun. The birds love it, because they feast on pecan hash with no effort on their part; we'll drive up and a great flock of birds of all descriptions will flap off into the sky. For the past few weeks, I've gone out and swept the driveway clean from time to time just to keep from hearing all the pop! pop! pops! from under the wheels (not to mention avoiding the mess).

Last night Fall came to Austin. A big cold front came blowing through and mighty was the wind thereof. I was up during the night and it sounded like hail from all the pecans being blown on the roof of the house. When we got up this morning, the driveway was covered - literally covered in pecans. I regret not getting a picture of that, but Mom counted and said there were at least a thousand pecans. Well, she said she counted.

It was still raining when she left this morning, so no one had been out to sweep the driveway, and it sounded like the 4th of July when she left. Especially since she had to pull forward again to negotiate her way around another fallen limb in the driveway. I swept the lower part later, but the wind was (still is) blowing and they were falling faster than I could sweep them away. Plus, I kept getting bonked on the noggin by falling pecans!

The lawn guys came this afternoon and they were so excited when we told them they could pick up pecans; they took the majority of what was swept up by the driveway, but you can't walk across the lawn without the danger of twisting your ankle, so there are plenty more out there. And within just a few minutes after they blew the driveway clean, the new crop began to accumulate again. We just came back from Chuy's and it was pop! pop! pop! all the way into the garage.

Now, who wants pecan pie? Just a minute - I'll go drive over some freshly fallen pecans.

Good stuff out there

Today's entry is entirely purloined. I stole the title from Sarah and other folks sent me the pictures. That happens on the Internet.

How to Tell When You're Not Mom's Favorite

Anger Management

Really Reading for the Blind

I mentioned a few posts back that I was volunteering some at RFB&D. Except I wasn't reading, I was "directing." That's when you follow along with the people that are reading and make sure they are doing it right. Like I would know on some of the stuff - like Math Books.

After you direct long enough, you get to take the reading test, and if you pass that, then they will let you read. Well, I did and I did. Took it and passed, that is. So today I read. You will recall that I've been a little nervous about revealing my history with these folks. They did, after all, reject me once upon a time. But I figured if they rejected me again, I could attack them on my blog, and boy that would show them! But I passed with flying colors so there's no hard feelings about the past.

The test is interesting. It consists of 7 or 8 pages, each representing a typical page that you might actually read. For instance, the first page was a vocabulary list, and it contained words like ACETANILIDE, BOATSWAIN, BOGATA (NJ) and OTIOSE. You are supposed to (correctly) pronounce each word, spell it, then pronounce it again. You do get to look the words up ahead of time. While actually reading, if you encounter a word you don't know how to pronounce, you are supposed to stop and look it up.

The 2nd page is an exercise on analyzing a product map. The text describes the steps to follow and then shows a map that the reader is to analyze. In this case, it is a map of the State of Texas, showing cotton production in 1895. You are supposed to describe the map, point out that the state is divided into 4 different geographic regions, paint a word picture of what area each region covers, then count the cotton bolls in each region and indicate to the listener where cotton was grown and to what extent.

Another page was a flow chart, with decision branching and alternate paths to follow. Or how about the page on Oral Hygiene which included the illustration of a cross-section of a tooth, with labels for the Crown, Dentin, Pulp and Root. But the best page may have been this.


Yes, just the cartoon - and the task is to describe it so a non-sighted person "gets it." Go ahead. Try it.

I guess I "got it" because today they paired me with a director and I spent 2 hours reading a Business text which featured eleventy-zillion different ways for a company or organization to conduct sessions to improve/benefit/restructure/turn around/rethink/revitalize itself. When I got through, I'm not sure that I knew how to conduct any of the sessions described, but I did know that 2 hours of continuous reading is very hard on the throat!

Have you ever said/heard this?

After bad mouthing YouTube a couple of posts ago, I got this from Bonna and thought it deserved to be shared. So, turn up the volume and hang on.

In the book selling business

When Mom retired she disposed of her rather large library in several ways; Julie got the Children’s books, a number of books were sold to her co-workers, Goodwill got boxes of remnants, and I asked for and got the left-over Teacher’s books. Two big tubs of Teacher’s books, which have been sitting in our bedroom/office/computer room all this time, waiting for me to do something with them.

I finally got motivated (okay, there were some rather pointed hints involved) and I have gone into business as a seller of books. Amazon makes this fairly easy – you sign up as a merchant, promise to abide by all the rules, give them a bank account to deposit the sales proceeds into (they already have a credit card number if there needs to be a charge-back), list your books (“Never read, only opened once by a little old lady schoolteacher”) and sit back and wait for the orders to come flooding in.

In fact, the orders have come in – okay, not a flood – but the 1^st day I listed 23 books and had 3 orders before I finished entering all the books! I have since listed a total of 67 books and sold and shipped 13 as of today.

So what am I going to do with all this money I’m making? Well, let’s talk about the used book business. The first thing you do when you list a book is look it up in Amazon and see what’s for sale, and at what price. Usually you see a link that says something like “9 used and new available from $14.67.” This is a good thing, because you don’t have too many competitors, and the price is in a range that will make this a profitable transaction if sold.

However, it is not uncommon to see “87 used and new from $.01.” Yes, 1 cent! This basically means that a merchant who is really in the book selling business is unloading a dog that he hasn’t been able to otherwise sell. If your volume is high enough, there is no minimum fee to Amazon (normally $.99) and 6% of the selling price can’t be calculated, so if the merchant can get his postage and handling below the minimum $3.99 shipping charge, he makes a few cents, adds to his volume, and irritates the little guys. So, if I see “87 from $.01,” it’s “Hello Goodwill” regardless if it is a 360 page 4-color text.

Which is the other interesting thing about pricing books; you simply have no way of knowing what the book will bring in the marketplace. Some of the highest listings I have are small, 40 page booklets. Some of the lowest are 360 page 4-color texts. Mom looks at the pricing and says, “Wait! That’s a great book! It’s worth ever so much more than that!” or she says, “You are asking how much for that old thing?”

So what does it really add up to? If I sell a book for $9.99, Amazon will deposit $10.14 in my account ($9.99 + $3.99 shipping allowance minus $3.84 for their cut). I will spend $1.02 for a bubble-wrap mailer and $2.47 for postage. Not counting a few cents for labels and gas for a trip to the Post Office (I’m required to personally hand any package weighing more than 13 oz. to a Postal clerk – thank you HomeLand Security), $6.65 is mine, all mine. You might say, “Wait! Doesn’t Mom get a share of that? They were her books.” Think about that for a minute. What is it worth to Mom for me to stay occupied and out from underfoot for hours at a time? She’s getting her money’s worth!