Sparks from the Fire

Pete

Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part series.  If you desire the full meal, you might want to start with the appetizer first – Part 1.

I grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri.  The St. Louis football team, the Cardinals, was awful and the St. Louis basketball team, the Hawks, was decent, but the Boston Celtics of Bill Russell and Bob Cousy won it all back then just about every year.

St. Louis was definitely a baseball town with the St. Louis Cardinals led by Stan The Man Musial and company.  Our family lived and died baseball and the Cardinals, and when the baseball season was over, we simply holed up and waited for spring training to start again.

My dad, Lyman, being an ex-Canadian and growing up in hockey country would take us to games, but never really understood the game.  I remember games at old Sportsman’s Park before Busch Stadium with the huge metal columns that would always seem to be in the way of part of the playing field.  I would pray to have a seat where I could at least have a clear view of my hero, Stan The Man, as he played first base or sometimes left field.

Dad would often sit backwards in his seat and spend the 2-3 hours watching the audience.  The fans and their classic behavior interested him more than the game.  He was a dedicated people watcher.

My dad was also an older dad.  I was born when he was already 45 years old and so his sports playing days were long since past, and anyway, baseball just wasn’t his game.  Neither was basketball for that matter.  He was an accountant and spent most of his time in the office.  His only real relaxation was watching Johnny Carson every night – something he never missed.

He was supportive of our sports endeavors, but often aloof.  I used to think he was just disinterested, but now I’ve come to understand that he just did not understand those queer American sports.  He was even somewhat disgusted with the way hockey had turned so violent and seemed to emphasize the fighting over the game itself just to bring up TV ratings.

So it came to no surprise to either my older brother, Jim, and me that at our Father and Son Boy Scout picnic baseball game, Lyman decided to sit out, not play, and simply watch.  So Jim, 5 years older than me, took Dad’s place on the opposing Father’s team and played against my team – the Sons.

This was neither a surprise nor a problem for me.  It was simply normal.  Dad did not participate in our sports.  He had been a professional hockey player with the Chicago Black Hawks in his own youth and his father had actually owned the Kenora Thistles up in Canada which actually won the Stanley Cup (hockey’s equivalent to the Super Bowl) in 1907, but that was such another lifetime that it really didn’t mean much to this 12-year old boy.

Back to baseball:

The Fathers and Sons game was a close game.  In fact, we were tied 3-3 in the last inning of a seven-inning game.  It was getting late and no one wanted to go into extra innings and the fathers were up last. (more…)

Lyman Link

I grew up an athlete.  Throughout high school and college, athletics were as important to me as music and girls.

In high school I was a decent three-sport athlete (Football, soccer and track).  I did not really know the meaning of work, but the highlight was that I did play split end and defensive safety on an undefeated and unscored upon championship football team that was one of the greatest teams in the history of my school.

I then went to the University of Virginia on an athletic scholarship (soccer and track) for a year.  I pole-vaulted under a coach who had coached several Olympic vaulters and he taught me the meaning of preparation and what it took to become a champion.  But the jock’s life at a major college was just not for me and I finished up my college years at a small college in the Midwest – Principia College.

There I found myself as an athlete and was the high scoring center forward on the soccer team and a champion pole-vaulter.

I suppose, as some people might think, “I had the genes” for my father, Lyman Link, who was from Canada, had been a professional hockey player and had actually played with the Chicago Blackhawks for some time.  So he had been an athlete as well, though being from Canada, at the time, he had no experience whatsoever with either football or baseball.  Neither sport had yet become popular in Canada.

My dad was an old-fashioned dad.  He was just not the kind of dad that rolled up his sleeves and got down on the floor and played with the kids.  We never shot baskets together, though he built my brother and I a fine basketball backboard in the driveway.  He hated basketball and as an ex-pro hockey player, called it a sissy sport and we argued that one for two decades.

He came to my brother’s and my events seldom and participated in our games never.  He was an accountant and a workaholic and spent most of his time in his office.  None of this ever bothered me as a kid.  What did I know?  That’s the way most dads were.  One summer he did sponsor our Little League baseball team, but he was always more the owner than the coach.

One early fall Sunday afternoon as baseball turned to football, my brother, Jim, and I were out in the side yard tossing the football around.  Our house was on a two-house lot with room enough for a brick patio and an ample playing yard on the side.  As my brother and I worked on our passing, my dad sat on the patio and read the Sunday St. Louis Post Dispatch on his one free afternoon of the week.

Then an historic and totally surprising thing happened. (more…)

I am responsible.  Each of you is responsible.  Not just Adam Lanza, but we as a people are responsible.

Those who war are responsible.  Those who greed are responsible, for greed makes war.  Those who ignore are responsible.  We as a human race must take action and raise our collective consciousness up past the point where this act is impossible.

So far we have known better than to start nuclear war.  If we know better on this issue, we can know better than to ever have a repeat of Newtown, CT.  How many school shootings do we have to bear before we as a people get it?

It’s not a matter of putting more locks on the school doors; it’s a matter of raising consciousness.

But I start with myself.  So what am I going to do about it?  “It” — the most shocking act of my lifetime.  What have I done to be a part of this?  What can I do going forward to heal my grief, your grief, the grief of a nation – the shame of mankind?

I can live better, that’s what.  I can speak up and not stand for this!  We talk about gun control.  Gun Control!  We must abolish them altogether.  As a race, forget they ever existed!  Melt them down into plowshares.  They have no purpose.  Limit them to the “sport” of killing animals?  Bah!  Get another hobby.

But it’s so much more than just guns; it’s a great mistake of the human consciousness.  If we can’t overcome these notions of killing each other then we as a human race deserve to be wiped out one day.  And if that happens then we as a human race will have done it to ourselves.

Newtown, CT must be our call to action – the action of consciousness.  What do we carry each moment in consciousness?  What are we conscious of?

Raise consciousness.  I need to do whatever I can in my life, to do my part, to live more and more in the purity of thought.  To enforce a higher consciousness wherever and whenever I can.  To take a mighty stand, in whatever way possible, for the goodness and purity of thought.  And I/we must start today, right now.

Not just pray for the grieving.  That is not enough.  We must raise the consciousness of the world – through prayer, through good deeds, through sacrifice, through our thinking.

For we are all responsible.

I was channel surfing the other night on the tube and I came across a rock concert on AXS TV, my new favorite channel on TV’s great wasteland.  It was an AC/DC concert.  For those of you unfamiliar with AC/DC, they are a high voltage rock ‘n’ roll band that has been consistently selling-out concert tours for over 40 years now with global sales totaling more than 200 million albums.

I was surprised to see an audience full of young people following this group because the group looks “old.”  The rock and roll, drug induced, no sleep lifestyle unfortunately does not produce baby faces and ever-young images.

The kids in the audience were having a ball though, and I was glad to see that groups like the Stones, Metallica and AC/DC were still happinin’ and appreciated.  After all, these are the guys that had a large hand in creating rock and roll to begin with.

The stage was replete with today’s necessary light show, fireworks and other pyrotechnic effects, and number after number went by projecting basically the same theme over and over – Hell, fire and brimstone, the devil and all things dark and spitting from the center of the earth.

Probably the typical message of many bands preaching to teenagers revolting from too much parentally enforced Sunday School.

As I watched, enjoying the power of the music, I began to tire of the same theme over and over.  They had given out little red devil’s horns for everyone in the audience to wear and even some of the musicians in the band wore them  — actually rather dopey and goofy looking …

I began to wonder, “What is this really all about?”  Devil worship?  Revolution from the good old straight and narrow?  Even worse, some sort of pagan ritual played out on a Saturday night?

The band, and especially the lead singer, screamed constantly the same message and the stage effects backed it all up, but then I began to look deeper at the whole scene.  The audience was simply having fun.  They were smiling, joyful, singing along, all standing throughout — they in their little red devil horns were one of the happiest groups of 20,000 I’d seen in a long time. (more…)

Jim — Age 3

Note: The following is Part 4 of a 4 part series written especially for my close family.  It is pretty personal stuff, but, in retrospect, eminently shareable with this readership family. 

Flash back now to when Jim was born:

Mom and Dad expected a girl.  A girl didn’t arrive.  Instead, the boy.  They had no name in mind.  Dad’s name was Lyman Link.  I’ve always loved the name Lyman Link, possibly because I’ve always loved my dad.  But I would never name my son, “Lyman”.  It’s probably just too old-fashioned.  But, as it turned out, that’s just what they did.  Lyman Charles Link.  And Jim was Lyman for a couple of years.  Trouble was, once Jim began to talk he couldn’t say “Lyman” and it always came out “Imie” with a long “I” which sounded way too much like Hymie to my dad.  So around the age of 3, Mom and Dad decided to give him my dad’s step-father’s name, “James”.

I don’t remember anyone ever calling him “James” either.  It was always “Jim”.  Occasionally “Jimmie” when younger.

Just thought I’d get this down for posterity’s sake.

Jim taught me how to ride a bike.  He taught me how to shoot a basketball.  He taught me how to drive a car and how to use a stick shift even though, in the process, I ground the gears of his Thunderbird to dust.  We played the chopsticks duet on the piano endlessly – he playing the bottom part while I improvised on top.  He taught me his three favorite pick-up lines when my mind turned to girls.  None of them ever worked, but they gave me the confidence to try. (more…)

Two bro’

Note: The following is Part 3 of a 4 part series written especially for my close family.  It is pretty personal stuff, but, in retrospect, eminently shareable with this readership family

When I had graduated from college, moved to New York City and had some early success in show business, I lived alone, a bachelor.  Every Christmas for 5-6 years I would go spend the holiday season with Jim and his family in St. Louis.  Mom and Dad lived there as well, but it was Jim’s house that I stayed in.  He had three of the sharpest kids I have ever laid eyes on – Cindy, Tina and a little red-headed ball-buster named Travis.  In those years I became the Jim to Travis’s Pete – except that I was about 25 years older than Travis rather than 5.

Jim, Travis, Tina, Pete, Cindy

We had a love/hate relationship that usually ended up with Travis going to his mom crying, but he too just could not turn from the opportunity to try to wallop Unca Pete.  Sometimes he would crawl up on the bed and wake me up with a slug to the nose or the closed eye.  Ouch!  Anyone who has ever raised a 5-year old knows that their punch can really hurt.  Sometimes I would hear him coming and just as he reared back to let one loose, I would wake up and scream “AAAAHHH” and scare him half to death so that he would run crying to Mom.

Those Christmases became the iconic Christmases for me because they were my way of hanging on to my own childhood and playing with those beautiful children that I had fallen so in love with.  Jim and I would stay up till 4 or 5 o’clock every Christmas Eve wrapping presents for the kids and often talking about our own childhood Christmases and the great times we had together as kids.  Whenever we would tell stories of when we were kids to his kids; they would gather around wide-eyed and fully concentrated, excited to hear about when we were like them.  These were their favorite stories and we had to tell them over and over.

Christmas Eve Preparation

For the next 30 years or so, Jim, the accountant, did my taxes for free each year and advised me how to take my proper deductions, organize my business life, steer clear of shady deals and stay on top of my roller coaster financial life in show biz.  One thing you can say about show biz:  It is not financially consistent.  I never had a real consistent  job until Watchfire Music.  I never knew where the next job was coming from, and yet I’m proud to say that I never had to work at any other job besides making music.  That one thing is a success story in itself in this business.  But it is an up and down life – like most entrepreneurs. (more…)

Dad, Jim, Mom, Nana at Jim’s OCS Graduation

Note: This is Part 2 of a 4 part series written especially for my close family.  It is pretty personal stuff, but, in retrospect, eminently shareable with this readership family. 

The summer after graduating from the 6^th grade my dad took over the sponsoring of a Little League baseball team when the original sponsor bailed.  Link’s Leopards, a terrific team of 6^th and 7^th graders went all the way to the winning of the St. Louis County District championship that summer (Read more on this story) under our 17-year old manager, Jim Link, who I shall always believe missed his calling.  He could have managed the St. Louis Cardinals had he stuck with it.  Instead he became an accountant.

I also always thought that Jim could have had a fun and successful life in show biz as a producer.  He had all the business skills and certainly the personality and leadership skills for such a job.  But it was always my impression that he got stuck in his field of accounting because that’s what Dad did and since Jim was the eldest son, he got elected.  He worked with Dad for several years, but that never quite materialized because Jim was not driven – and Dad was.

I often also thought that Jim’s modus operandi was to work as hard as he needed to and put away a nest egg for his retirement so that he could just cool out and relax in his latter years.  And he did that very well, in fact.  So well that he retired to Florida, bought his dream boat and traveled the world with his wife, Marcia.  A retired lifestyle was what he sought — and that’s what he got.

Jim was always the intelligent one in the family.  If ya’ buy into this IQ concept, well, he had a high one.  Consequently things came easy for him because of his superior intelligence.  Consequently he never had to work too hard to accomplish things.  Consequently, he had a tendency to be a bit unmotivated.  But he got what he sought, so what am I talking about …

If you’re happy in life, what more do you need?  I think Jim was a happy guy – is a happy guy – wherever he is, whatever he’s doing.

I remember the day when he was a 6^th grader that he came home with straight ‘A’s.  Mom and Dad were so proud and made a really big deal of it throughout the years.  Actually, he had all ‘A’s except one – in handwriting.  He was left handed and had the tendency to drag his hand across what had just been written consequently smearing the ink so that it looked like all his homework had been dropped in a puddle and stepped on on the way to school.  Mom and Dad didn’t seem to care so much about that and just decided to disqualify that one low grade.

Turned out they were right.  Nobody much cares about the quality of anyone’s handwriting anymore.

Proud Jim at OCS

The one time I remember Jim going all out in any form of school was after he graduated from college and went to Officer’s Candidate School (OCS) in the Navy.  A wise Lieutenant kicked his butt right at the beginning of training and Jim put his brain in gear.  He graduated tops in his OCS class and became an Admiral’s Aide for the next 4 years.  Worked along side of the Admiral of the seventh fleet in the Pacific all the way up through the beginning of the Vietnam war.  Was always in his dress whites and actually carried a sword – impressed the hell out of his little brother!

Serving the admiral kept him safe during the war and before the action in Nam became extremely dangerous, his tour was up.  On the evening he flew from Saigon to San Francisco, my parents, knowing that the war was really heating up and that Jim was definitely in harm’s way, were nervous as cats at a dogfight.  The tension waiting for him to land in the states was tremendous in our home as Mom and Dad waited.

Jim was bounced off a couple of flights out of Saigon and it seemed like we waited for days until he got out.

But finally he called us from San Francisco.  We celebrated, and then the tension built yet again as he traveled from San Fran to St. Lou – somehow there was the fear that he just might not make it. (more…)

Note: The following 4 part series was written especially for my close family.  It is pretty personal stuff, but, in retrospect, eminently shareable with this readership family. 

Yesterday my big brother passed away.  I write to face it.  I’ve known him all my life – the one person on the planet that I can still say that about.  He was my protector, my friend and in every way, my big brother.

I spent the day talking to his wife, Marcia, his three kids, my own close family – reminiscing, missing, weeping, laughing – a cornucopia of emotions.

It was sudden, unexpected, way too early in life, but true.  Sometimes in this life you’re goin’ down the road and along comes a bend in the road and …

Not sure I’ll ever really understand it, but it happened.  Jim left us to move on.  Was it in any way his decision?  Was it a total surprise to him as well?  We’ll never know.

I’ve spent the last two years creating a CD, an album about just this experience – passing on.  I thought it was to help the world in this transition and instead, it was to help me.

So my brother Jim’s goin’ home and I’m hangin’ out around here for a while more.  Fascinating …

It’s clear to me in these moments that life is.  In no way do I believe that it’s all over for Jim.  He’s just moving on.  I suppose in someone’s or something’s mind it was just time to do so.  This chapter of his experience ended and the next one begins.  I wonder how he felt when he woke up this morning.  I know how I felt.

Perplexed.  These catastrophic moments in life come and go and leave their indelible marks, their searing memories.  “Hello, Pete.  I’ve got some bad news …”

So today I celebrate Jim.  My big brother, my only brother.  I write to his three children – Cindy, Tina and Travis – and his wife, Marcia, and to my family as well – and to all of you.  I write of a man who lived a full life here on Planet Earth and who now moves on to experience whatever, elsewhere.

Cindy, Travis and Tina

My first memory of Jim was the day he and two other of his friends (he was five and a half years older than I) shoved me (a frightened 3-year old) into the dark basement of our apartment building, locked the door on me and yelled over and over, “Now the Boogie Man’s gonna getcha!”  I remember the trauma.  I remember screaming my head off until Mom came and let me out. (more…)