Volume 7 – #5 – May 2004

THE RIPPLE EFFECT – My father died this month. He was 85 years old, the end of six siblings, and had been in declining health since his pancreas surgery five years ago. At that time everyone thought he had pancreatic cancer, which is usually pretty much a quick death sentence. But the tumor was benign. This should have been good news, but the trauma from the surgery took its toll on him and he started a slow march to the grave (or rather, crypt, in his case). Whatever, my father, who I always called Daddy, has been in this plane with me everyday of my life and now he’s gone; moved to another plane or to Heaven or back to earth as something else or just resting in eternal darkness. His name was James Oscar Finch, but he was also known as Buck. Mother called him either Buck or Honey. His final years were so short of dignity and, I believe, his suffering so frustrating, that I often wondered what the point of his life was. He was a pretty simple guy with an enormous talent. He could construct or fix almost anything and usually better than anyone else in the immediate vicinity. Really. He and a helper built the house that I grew up in. They even poured the foundation. And it was perfect. A few years later he and a helper built a party barge, big enough to entertain 10-15 people comfortably, in our backyard and when summer arrived we took it to Lake Texarkana and launched it. It was also perfect. It remained seaworthy for 25 years, until my parents sold it to a man who took it to another lake. It seemed everything my family owned was very well maintained: the house, the car, the clothes dryer, the shower, the vacuum, the porch light, the scissors. He was a fastidious guy to an extreme degree. He loved to clean, clean, clean. Our yard was beautiful with lush, cool, St. Augustine grass. He was always doing and he loved making stuff. And when he wasn’t doing he would sit in front of the TV and go to sleep. It was a family joke. Mother would say, “Look at Buck” and we would all look at Buck and he would be in his chair almost snoring. Then we would laugh and he would open his eyes and smile and get right up and make some coffee. For 35 years he was the building superintendent for The First Baptist Church in downtown Texarkana, Texas. And the church provided him with a nice shop and lots of tools. So he could whip out desks and chairs for Sunday School classes and he could fix the giant central air conditioning unit. He would focus and work and he rarely asked for help. Sadly, I didn’t learn much about carpentry from him. I think my brother picked up a little more, but my father was so good at whatever, I wasn’t motivated to try. In a way, I’m okay with it. House repair and yard work rank low on my “fun things to do” list. Although he wasn’t musical, he did teach me my first three chords on the guitar, but he got the names of the chords wrong. He called G a C and C an F and D a G. I forgave him. He said he was here for a reason. And he was referring to a divine reason. As far Daddy was concerned, his purpose was to serve God. He considered everything he did an act of witnessing to people about his faith. He went way out of his way to help people his whole life and did it in the name of God. However, he was never heavy-handed about his beliefs to me. And I think he knew I was straying from the flock. But he didn’t really try to influence me much. In fact, he and my Mother were so lenient that they allowed me to play in a rock band that traveled around on the weekends to towns in the area when I was in the 9th grade. I was jamming out for the drunk, thuggy kids at the skating rink in Idabel, Oklahoma when I was 14. And the other guys in my band were older and sort of wild. My parents let me do this and it always amazed me. I stayed up late all the time, even school nights. Hmmm… maybe I was ignored and neglected. Oh well, too late to worry about that now. My father would slip me money to buy records a lot. This bugged my Mother, but it eventually became another one of those family jokes. When I look at his life, now that I know how it ended, I see his contribution as a ripple effect. I guess my brother and I are a big part of the James O. Finch ripple effect. An action caused a reaction, which caused a reaction. You know, everyone’s life is brief, whether you live 25 years or 85 years. It goes by fast and usually a person’s accomplishments and deeds, don’t add up to much. Someone gets married, makes some money, has some children and dies. So this can’t be what it’s really about. Memories are nice, but most are temporary. After a couple of generations, who cares? What is significant, is how one influences the tumble of the dominoes. Eventually, my father will have been just a blip on the screen. As will I. As will you. But all of us have a place in the flow. For instance, he loved Cheetos and ate a lot of them. We were a snacking family and we contributed mightily to the growth of the snack industry. He was a great water skier and he called shampooing, “warshing his head.” One of my favorite things to share with Daddy when I would come home from college was our boiled shrimp feast. And I’ll never forget how it seemed to break his heart when I stopped eating it. It broke my heart, too. I hated it when my vegetarianism made him feel self-conscious. He wanted my approval. He thought I was cool, especially after I won a Grammy. He liked the color green too much. He sometimes acted like he had strong opinions, but I don’t think he did. He just wanted people to act civilized and pull their own weight. One time, a guest on THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JOHNNY CARSON said “damn.” My father snapped at the TV, “He didn’t have to say that.” He cried easily and, with my mother, pampered their dogs and cats. They even agreed to help rehabilitate an ex-convict, right out of prison, by letting him live in their house, which he did, for more than two years. He became Daddy’s sidekick, married a local girl and had a daughter, who loved my father as much as any granddaughter ever could. It’s all up to the ripple effect now.

Our schedule is about to become very intense. Everything is so heavy these days. Brave Combo is in a state of high stress. Come on out and watch us snap. It will be entertaining, or at least interesting.