Riding the Greyhound, tired and broken

If I were a country songwriter, I might finish this lyric but I think I'll just put on a little Steve Earle instead.

I did hang out with a couple of country and western fans (it's been so long since I've even used those words--country and western fans--I don't even know if people in the genre call it that anymore). At Christmas, in Denver, a state just as politically polarized as much of the country, where environmental activists prepare for the DNC this summer and pick-up truck-riding urban cowboys prepare to leave town for the "tree-hugging onslaught"--at Christmas we went to my brother-in-law's sort-of megachurch in the foothills. Presbyterian: I can do that, yes, okay; Evangelical: really? I'm not wearing blue eye shadow, that's all I got to say.

Anyhoo, the church was filled with beaming families. There was so much goodness there in that sanctuary and there was a lot of eye shadow, too, only now it's mauve and white, not blue. And do you all ever watch the Gopher's men's hockey team? Do you know their coach, Don Lucia? He's got the craziest damn haircut and I've always wondered how he ever came to it. Well, now I know. He coached for a long time in Colorado and every other dad in this Colorado mini-mega church had one of those sharp-edged buzz cuts.

The altar was huge and held a big choir, two electric guitarists, a drummer behind a shield of neck-high plastic--a little drummer's cubicle--an organ, a piano, two pulpits, two preachers (neither sporting the sharp-toothed hair), and at one point, 15 or so kids for the little children's sermon. Above the altar was a cross, empty, and two gigantic flatscreen TVs, which at various points carried the text for the hymns, showed inspiring starry night scenes and prompts for the congregational readings.

Before I sound too snarky, I can say there was MUCH talent in that congregation. Various folks belted out songs like final contestants on American Idol.

But the thing I really enjoy about Christmas Eve church service is the singing of the Christmas hymns. It's about the only time I sing in public and I love to burst out with "Glo-oo-oo-ooo-RIA, in excelsis Deo, Glooo-oooo-oooo-oooo-RIA. . ." But the country western evangelicals did a Christmas MEDLEY! altogether lasting about 9 minutes with a blending of 20 songs, and like the poor souls out on the dance floor stuck in Limbo Land with a bad DJ who has them grinding it out to Proud Mary one minute and Nights in White Satin the other, here I was trying to reach the high notes of Away in the Manger and all the while the electric guitars were riffing on over to their sped-up version of Whose Child is This? with tambourines and bass beats, too.

Did I tell you I was in Wisconsin over the weekend for a Bantam hockey tournament? And that our room was right next to the wedding reception suite for Curt and Mary and that until way past two in the morning, I kept hearing young jacked-up groomsmen yelling out, truly, "yee-ha," yee-HA!" "YEE-HA!" all through the hallways. I got up and stuck my head out the door and three of them were walking towards me, their satin vests unbuttoned, their black bowties hanging undone, and they waited until they got right up on me and then held their beers up and whispered, "yee-ha!" then just started shouting and running wildly back down the corridor.

At the Rink, where teams from Superior and Rice Lake and Eau Claire and St. Paul were gathered, the parents sat on cold metal bleachers shouting out "SLOT, SLOT" and "NICE HIT, MATT," and then one of the dads, after his kid's team had been beat by a wide margin, said, "They lose, we booze," and proceeded to head to the bar. Oh Lord.

Riding the Greyhound, tired and broken,
Little Lord Jesus, where are you tonight?
I thought about staying, but what would
that do me?
Instead I just got in a fight.

(insert your own stanza here)