"As I walk this land of broken dreams,
I have visions of many things…"
I have the best job in the world.
I have the worst job in the world.
The best job: In the short time I'm on this planet I get to meet and write about the human beings around me, get to chronicle, journalize life, float through the life blood of the rock we call home. Shake hands with the famous, the infamous, the best, the worst, the biggest, the smallest.
The worst job: In the short time I'm on this planet I get to meet and write about the human beings around me, get to chronicle, journalize life, float through the life blood of the rock we call home. Shake hands with the famous, the infamous, the best, the worst, the biggest, the smallest.
I have written about people who save lives, and people who have taken lives. I have written about architects who built the stuff around us, and arsonists who have burnt it down.
Stories of saints and sinners have bounced off my keys. Typed of Hall of Fame, and Hall of Shame.
And for all of those stories, every one, once it made air, or I hit "send," I was done. The more I had the best job, the more I had the worst job, the more done I became.
In time, I was just… done.
I had the words, lost the soul.
In the mirror stood a writer who sucked.
Me.
I believe the soul of a man, the soul of a man of letters, rests in his words, dances in his words, puts fire in his words and it is this soul in his words that lights the emotions, in you.
I've been doing this long enough that while even being, done, I can still light you up.
But the fire inside me, the soul of the words, had stopped dancing. The light within was flickering.
And then the soul of the words caught up to me… on I-40 West.
"…I know I've got to find,
Some kind of peace of mind,
I'll be searching everywhere…"
I wrote, help the children.
I didn't write, help me.
But help came in the calm.
The calm, after the storm.
Came in the darkness, rode in on the hum of generators, bounced of the stars, fell from the dark sky.
Came one bent tree at a time.
Came one lost house at a time.
Came one tear streaked face at a time.
Came one faraway eyes at a time.
In Cullman, Alabama.
I have known one thing all my life; that anger, is the flip side of love. Terror, the "B" side of tenderness. Felt the hugs as well as the chokeholds.
Grew up as the "him" in the family.
The problem.
I was the storm, even though inside, I longed to be the calm. Smiles lead to lies, the fury came perfumed.
I had everything laced with nothing.
Six words changed all that.
When "I do," came from under the veil in 1974.
When "We're pregnant" came from the passenger side of the car in 1983 in Fresno, California.
When "We're pregnant," came right after the phone was hung up in Allentown, PA in 1988.
And those words came storm free.
I know longing.
I know emptiness.
I know the storm.
I know the calm.
And once again two words changed my life. Two words whispered by a child. Two words that told me what I had to do.
Two words that will always guide me to bring calm to the storm.
These two words.
"Skinny Elvis."
"…I'll be looking everyday,
I know I'm gonna find a way…"
I know my presence here has been questioned, a non-angler in the angling word, a non-outdoor guy inside the outside.
You may have questioned it.
I know I did.
Here's the easy answer. I don't have to be a magician to know magic when I see it, like the magic that happens when a child holds a magic wand.
A magic wand with a reel attached.
A magic wand with a worm at the end.
A magic wand that leads to the treasure beneath the sea in front of the child.
The catch.
The hook.
The release.
The sense of accomplishment. The sense of living with and respecting the other creatures living here with us. The sense of love that comes with the gentle squeeze on the shoulder. The pride behind the smile of love from dad, from mom.
Every cast a child makes leads him down the path of life.
Hope and dreams float the line.
Pride winds in the reel.
Respect splashes in the release.
Accomplishment, love, hope, dreams, pride, and respect. Taken by the storm.
Stuff that we cannot allow to be lost, lose these, lose the child.
Lose the child, lose the future.
I was a lost child.
I will not allow that to happen to anyone else.
Tackle the storm, no matter WHAT the storm, I will not allow that to happen.
Thanks to you. You have responded with the magic we call soul.
And because of that please know YOU will give back to the children, the magic wand taken by the storm.
I have in the works the process of forming a non-profit 501(c) 3 non-stock corporation called, Tackle The Storm.
The goal is simple, to bring back the magic wands of childhood.
When the storm takes everything, we can't give it all back, but when it takes from the children their fishing stuff… THAT we can give back.
And now, when you wonder what I'm doing here.
When you wonder what a non-angler is doing in the angler business.
When I look in the mirror, know this, I know longer wonder why I'm here.
No longer wonder what brought me here.
Now I know.
Raised in a storm.
But leaving behind.
A calm.
.
"…nothing’s gonna stop me now,
I'll find a way somehow.
I'll be searching everywhere..."
What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted
Jimmy Ruffin
with
The Funk Brothers
