Making music with our friends, loved ones

Terry and I are hitting the road this week. Haven't done that in a while. Probably wouldn't be doing it now — with gas prices riding the up-elevator — except for our new-to-us Sonata gets decent mileage.

I still like Willie. I remember rolling down the highway to his hit single “On the Road Again.” How can that be 40-something years ago? 

He “just can't wait” to get to his next destination because “the life I love is making music with my friends.” I think Willie would agree his fans are as much the music as his band. He's still on tour at almost 91. Who's to say it's not making music with his friends that's keeping him going.

Our upcoming road trip is about people connections. Our own for one. Time together — new sights and experiences. We're also hoping to make some relational music with people along the way.

The first stop is Pendleton, Oregon to see a friend I only met once on the train six years ago. We've kept in touch, though she's half my age. She's had one crisis after another. Maybe the supreme one was when she phoned from the hospital last year with only a 20% chance to live. Doctors were about to induce a coma to try to save her.

She hasn't found much peace anywhere she's looked. So now she's searching out Jesus. She's done with coming up empty. What's the song with her going to be? I'm hoping a song of truth — of hope — of new beginnings.

From Pendleton, it's a run over to Twin Falls — Jerome, actually — a rare visit to my second cousin. Somehow he's climbed into his 80s — still going full blast with his engineering company — something to do with electrical control systems for irrigation. He sold his dairy farm, but still lives on the property.

If we arrive in time there will be literal music — he's got barbershop practice. Not really Willie's idea of music with his friends, but it grows on you. This cousin — who is about the most generous person I know — is really good at loving people. Not sure he's ever heard that other Willie song, “If you've got the money honey, I've got the time.”  Because his tune is he's got the money — and finds a way to funnel it to those who most need it. 

Our road trip loop ends with a swing into Montana to see friends in Missoula. We go back 50 years. It is its own kind of music when you're now marked as “elderly'' — if you make it into the news for any reason — and yet you remember each other's swollen bellies when your sons were born.

These friends are world travelers — hitting the high notes — and we are just glad to be catching them at home. Their life is not without dissonance. No one knows what happened to her sister — who vanished years ago after dropping off school lunches for her daughters. Our friends adopted and raised those two traumatized girls.

Making music with my friends is definitely the life I love. I don't always know what the song will be — but that's part of the dedication to the “road.” Sharing life with others is my calling as a caring human being — and  I don't want to show up missing.