BLTSS

I was pleased a few minutes ago when I noticed I got a text from an old school chum of mine from the days when I went to Borah high school. The committed reader will remember that because of my spinal cord injury and not being able to walk I was forced to go to Borah High School, built all on one floor in the late 50s. Larry C.was one of the few people I remember going out of their way to make friends with me. I have thought about this individual lot over the years but it's not really maintained a relationship. Thanks to the Internet and FB with connected again if not just superficially it's nice to be in contact.

I have this mental image of Larry in my mind. Long curly hair, wire-rimmed glasses and always seemed to be wearing a Nehru jacket. Vietnam was raging, the seem to be a lot of drugs floated around Boise at that time and I sort of felt I needed to do something. I wanted somehow to make a difference. I know that sounds dorky and in all honesty I don't know how much I want to make a difference are how much I just want to be “a big guy” and this was a way, in my mind, of doing this. My older brother got into some trouble with the law and they been shipped off to Vietnam (just like the verse from “Born In The USA”. It's true it's just the way it was. Between my brother's dossier and my spinal cord injury and my willingness to be visible anywhere I could be I had acquired a significant amount of social currency looking to spend it any way I could.

Somehow Larry C. And myself got together and somehow we're going to put together some sort of program/network/traveling show focused on bringing peace to the world. Neil Diamond was big at the time and seemed like his music was everywhere. When the songs it struck me deeply at the time was Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show(BLTSS). I had visions of some sort tent show with music, bands and antiwar rhetoric. Now, mind you, I was not a sky pilot by any means, and Larry, though not a sky pilot then, was certainly much more spiritual than I which I think totally impressed me. Of course like so many things in our adolescent years those ideals were fun to think about, explore even move toward but, life and practicality gets in the way and quickly the adolescent mind quickly turns to something else at least mine did. I'm not sure what Larry did with his life I want to think he followed his spiritual calling at least he was in a rock 'n roll band which makes sense in a funny sort of way. I even had this vision of Larry turning his neighbor jacket in for a spiritual collar and bringing countless law sheep to the judgment bar. Like me, Larry is retired now and but little bit I can discern from his FB page and other Internet searches he's had a great life with a great wife and I suspect a great family as only he deserves. Larry's one of the guys I would really like to follow up with just to see what he's done and how you doing. Hopefully, Larry is part of a little band that gets together on weekends and plays at waterholes serving 60s burnouts with the covert goal of bringing lost souls back to the fold. I smile and slipped back 50 or 60 years every time I did the strains from Brother Love,s Traveling Salvation Show…