A to Z 2024: One More Time and You Get a Parade Day

 For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together. 

The third Wednesday of April is One More Time and you Get a Parade Day.  

As today's letter is a vowel, it is another opportunity for me to make up a new holiday.  Many holidays come with traditions, games, or events that go along with them.  Easter egg hunts, for example are believed to have originated in Germany in the 16th century.  The first Turkey Trot (a race taking place the morning of Thanksgiving) took place in Buffalo New York in the late 19th century.  One More Time and you Get a Parade Day may be the first holiday that was started to celebrate a tradition rather than the other way around .

My wife and I have been playing a game I invented around the time we got engaged called "What A Thing to Say". It started as a game to play when we were in a social setting that required a lot of mingling.  I believe the original occurrence was at my Grandfather's wake.  I gave my fiancé  a thing to say, I believe it may have been The Almighty Dollar.  Over the course of the event she had to work in the phrase into ordinary conversation 3 different times with 3 different groups of people.  

Some of the original "what a things to say" besides the almighty dollar were, The Stevenson Expressway (A Chicago road), People don't floss like they used, to, and one of my favorites, I don't like blank (whatever person , place or thing just mentioned) they supported the war movement.  

It's a totally random game that when played well is oblivious to all but the player, and when played poorly is a staple of group conversation for a very long time.  

"What does this have to do with parades?" you might ask. A few weeks ago I was subbing in one of my favorite classes.  It was the class in fact, that I had been a long term sub in for the 1st semester of the 2022/2023 school year.  I have a great deal of familiarity with these students and they have a great deal of familiarity with me.  The class is comprised of 6th graders and 7th graders  and one of the 6th graders tends to sneeze 5 or 6 times in a row on a frequent basis. On this particular day, after the 3rd or 4th sneeze I responded with the quip, one more time and you get a parade.

I'm not sure how that phrase came to me.  True, I just made it up,  but, I was definitely thinking something along the line of when you do something multiple times you get a prize.  I don't think I was remembering the below  scene from A Few Good men, it is in my collective unconscious . 

 

One way to  celebrate One More Time and You get a parade day is by playing a version of What a Thing to say with your friends, family, classmates or co-workers.  This could be done virtually or in person.  Each person writes one phrase down and then they are distributed.  Then each person has to use that phrase in a conversatToday'ion throughout the day.  Another way is to try to make up your own expression and use it in the course of the day.  

April is a month that starts with foolishness, but One More Time and You get a Parade say insures that foolishness doesn't end on the first.

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Today's Song is Off Again On Again Love By Allen Levi

I generally put a video on of the song, but as far as I know there are no videos of this song, so here is a link to it on Spotify.    

With this song, my playlist is now up to 15 songs.

It is already 9:15 P.M. in Chicago and this is the latest that I've posted in the challenge so far this year.  I now must go, and work on tomorrow's.  When I finish this one, I might not get a parade, but I will be caught up. That is certainly something to turn a phrase about.

To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

Best 2 Next Ten

The beginning of a new year is a time of looking back and looking forward at the same time.  In that spirit, I will be writing about the best 2 books I read for the first time in 2023, and also list ten books I am either currently reading or planning to read soon in 2024.   The best 2 books I read in 2024 were  A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

In September I wrote a little about Levi here.  Levi has been many things in his career a lawyer, an independent singer song writer, a judge, a bee keeper, just to name a few.  He weaves many of those experiences into his first novel.  My favorite album of Allen's is Rivertown, a musical love letter to the history of Columbus Georgia.  Theo of Golden is also about a  river town.  The fictional southern city of Golden is an additional character among many finely developed characters.  But the characters and the setting take a back seat to the story which is about kindness, community and redemption.  Theo of Golden and is available in multiple places, including Rabbit Room, Amazon, and at Levi's website.

In preparation for the launch of his book, Levi wrote several pieces on his blog about writing.  In one, he talked about the novel A Gentlemen in Moscow by Amor Towles.  I was intrigued, so I borrowed it from my local library.  

A Gentleman in Moscow is about a man who is under house arrest for over 20 years in a Moscow Hotel.  It takes place almost entirely in the hotel, you would imagine this would make for one claustrophobic read, far from it!

Towles like Levi successfully makes the setting a pivotal character in this book.  The 2016 novel will soon be a television series on Showtime. I was sad to finish both of these books and am looking forward to rereading them again soon.  Which brings us to  our Next Ten ....

This will generally just be a list of 10 books, but as I mentioned in a previous post, I will also be entering a small update on my progress in my quest to read Fellowship Of The Ring before my 60th birthday,.

Dreyer's English - Benjamin Dreyer

Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin

Concise Theology - J.I. Packer

1984 - George Orwell

Write Better - Andrew T. Le Peau

Royko - F. Richard Ciccone

Fellowship of The Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien 

I obtained the book from my local library, although my son has since informed me that he has several copies he could lend me.  I have finished the first chapter.  

The Periodic Table of D.C. - Melanie Scott

Theo of Golden - Allen Levi

A Gentleman In Moscow - Amor Towles

Note: I have already completed one book on this list since, I started writing this post a few days back.  When I have finished reading 4 more books, I will post a new Last 5 Next Ten.

SJT: Richer Still in Grace

 *Note* I originally wrote and published this post on Friday September 8th 2023 and I inexplicably deleted 1/2 of it and then deleted the rest trying to fix it.  If I could explic it, it wouldn't be inexplicable. 

The post contained below is what I wrote Friday, to the best of my growing faultier by the day memory.

Love, Dave

On the first Thursday of each month, An internet community gathers to explore the spiritual ramifications of a given topic or to make their own spiritual observations off the topic.  This months host is Patricia Franz of  the Reverie Blog Her entry is Life At The Speed of Grace.

I really enjoyed her post.  I liked her idea that grace is shorthand for God.  I especially liked her poem featuring an adieuing owl and a blooming cucumber.  I spent a good deal of time reflecting on Grace and the idea of God's grace and here are some of my reflections.

Allen Levi is my friend. He is also one of my heroes.  I have only met him 4 times and these have always been at concerts he's playing.  Yet I consider him a friend and kindred spirit.  In my opinion Allen is a jack of all trades, master of all.  He is a former lawyer, a former judge (with a 20 year gap between these occupations).  He left law in the early 90's to become an independent singer  songwriter.  During  that time he took a year off from singing, writing, and touring to be his brother's caregiver as his brother was dying, of cancer.  He wrote an excellent book about his brother called The Last Sweet Mile.  He has also written a fine children's book based on his song Oliviatown.

Recently Allen finished his first novel.  It is  called Theo of Golden and is available for preorder at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and on Kindle.  His website has a link to a sample chapter. Levi also is or has been a beekeeper, bird enthusiast, book reader (volunteers each year to regularly read to a grade school class) and blogger.  And those  are just the things I know of that begin with the letter B.

I say all this because when I began reflecting on Patricia's post the first thing that popped in my head were Allen Levi song lyrics and since Mr. Levi isn't the household name that I think he should be, I needed to answer the question of who Allen Levi is before I could begin in earnest.  And earnest I am; so begin I shall. 

As I mentioned Allen Levi is one of my heroes. The lyrics that popped in my mind when I started reflection on Grace, is from his song. "Most of My Heroes". 

The 2nd verse starts:

All of my heroes are rich in imperfections.  All of my heroes are richer still in grace.

Levi continues

They are people who are weak and bruised and broken, But they know somehow they'll make it through the race.

Grace has been defined as unmerited favor.  It is one of the main manifestations of God's goodness.  We grow in grace as we grow closer to God.  This is probably the reason why Franz says grace is shorthand for God.  Levi makes a similar point in the song's chorus:

Most of my heroes are very simple people.  All of my heroes look a lot like you.

Accepting God's grace in your life is a transformative process.  The more grace we receive the more we are changed and the more we attribute that change to God.  Consider Levi's powerful yet whimsical bridge, . . . 

And if you brag on them like I'm trying to do, I can bet what they might say to you. They'd say "thanks a lot.", and blush as if it's just not true.

The book of Hebrews spends an entire chapter  (eleven)  talking about the heroes of the Old Testament.  The same phrase is used over and over again in the chapter to describe how these heroes operated and that phrase is by faith.  Without God's faith in God those heroes would not have done the things God made them able to do. 

When I think of my spiritual journey, I think of grace, I think of faith and mostly  I think of Jesus,  In Chapter 12 of Hebrews, the author segues from the Hall of Faith to Jesus himself :

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

 The spiritual journey I am on is one of faith and one of grace. I am being perfected on this journey by Jesus. He is my hero and as I grow in faith through his Grace I will grow to look a lot like Him. 

 For more Spiritual Journey Friday click here.

A song about Middle School

My Friend Allen Levi is one of the most prolific music artists that no one has ever heard. He performs one song called You'll be famous when your dead" I'm not sure that he wants to be or ever will be famous. But if he ever does catch on, his 16 albums on Spotify will keep the public saturated for a while. I had been listening to one song from each of his albums on Spotify for the past 15 days now, so today when I was grading papers after work, I put the only one on Spotify that I hadn't heard a song from yet and listened to it in it's entirety. The album called People in my Town is a kind of a concept album. Levi interviews people in his town (thus the title), writes a song based on the interview and then plays them back to back on the album. Here is the title track from the album that introduces the concept ...

 . In about the middle Allen interviews a middle school teacher who had been deeply effected by his teachers when he was in middle school. Levi then performs a touching song about the dedicated teachers who love on students. When I first heard this album, I kind of glossed over this song as I was not a professional teacher at the time. The song resonates much more with me now as I am a long term substitute in a middle school setting. But I think this song should resonate with anyone who has worked with young people either as a parent, an educator, or any type of yout leader. If these songs or interviews have resonated with you in anyway consider going tot he bandcamp platform and purchasing these songs or perhaps the full album or maybe sample some more of Allen's music.  WHo knows? You might make him famous before he's dead.

Made To Fly (Original Song)

I just sent a letter to Allen Levi. If you read this blog you know he is a singer-songwriter who lives near the Alabama Georgia border.  In the letter, I told him that my favorite song of  his is House of Mercy from his album Rivertown.  (You can check it out at Bandcamp by clicking here.  Or listen to it on Spotify by clicking here.)

After I sent out that letter I realized that I had set up this song to play today.  It reminded me that almost every song of Allen's is among my favorites.  

Allen Levi Concert in Reverse: Introduction and Song #1

We reversed our selves all the way back to the begiining of our Allen Levi concert. Feel free ro listen to just this song or listen to the concert in it's entrety.

Allen Levi Concert in Reverse :Song #2 Someone to Serenade

Allen Levi Concert Song 3: Reflecting on my Reflection

Allen Levi Concert Song 4: Wise Old Tree

Allen Levi Concert Song 5: You'll be Famous When You're Dead

Allen Levi Concert in reverse song # 6 Anywhere close to you

Today is January 28th and there are 5 more songs left in the Allen Levi Concert in reverse. Let me see if we can get them out here and begin the concert by February. first. His introduction islonger than the song itself but what an introduction it is! The song is ggreat too and I dedicate it to my wife and I certainly echoe the sentiment.

We now continue with album in reverse: Allen Levi Concert: Song # 7, Love Isn't Earned

We Interrupt our Allen Levi Concert in Revese ...

For this New Years Evw Message from Allen Levi.

Allen Levi Concertin Reverse : Song #8 Mighty Good World

The Dave Out Loud Show (Dave Out Loud)

 

 

Allen Levi Concert: Song #9: Sunday Driver

Allen Levi Concert: Song # 10 The Masterpiece of Central Park

Allen Levi Concert in Reverse Song # 11 Be Friendly

Allen Levi Concert in Reverse Song # 12 No Where I'd Rather Be

Allen Levi, Concert in Reverse: Song # 13 Made to Fly

Allen Levi performed in a concert earlier this year and the venue that hosted the concert, SIlvan Guitars  posted the concert on their you tube channel.  In trying to trim the songs to share here, I discovered that I could start the videos anytime during the concert but it would end up playing the rest of the concert after playing  the selected song.  

This gave me an idea to post these songs in reverse performance order. Today I start with the encore, Made to Fly.  When I return soon with song # 12 you will have the option of watching song 2 and then the end of the concert.  In a few weeks time you will be able to watch the entire concert in a backwards progression.  I hope you enjot this concert in reverse.