Convening and Vacating (Part 3)

This post seems a little disjointed, but there is a lot of diverse background to this story, so stay with me. When I was 8-9 years old, we lived in Alexandria, Indiana, where my whole family was working for Bill Gaither. My aunt was a backup singer for the Bill Gaither Trio, my uncle was the trio’s music director and manager of their recording studio, my dad managed the sound & light crew, and my mom designed album covers. I spent a lot of time at the studio and at Bill & Gloria’s house, swimming in their pool and getting into various & sundry mischief with their son, Benji.

Fast forward nearly thirty years to this summer. The Gaither Vocal Band performed on the opening day of the Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis, and one of the songs they sang was called “Jesus & John Wayne.” I’m not really familiar with the song, except that it apparently talks about finding oneself “somewhere between” the two people in the title.

I was sitting next to Bart Barber during their performance, and after that song was sung, Bart, feigning indignation (at least I think he was feigning), declared himself to be offended by the song’s implication that there existed some distance between Jesus and John Wayne.

When the convention ended, my wife and I, having returned our rental car after picking up our traitorous Windstar ($2900!), prepared to head north to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to be reunited with our children. They had spent the week in the care of grandparents, and apparently missed us not a bit. It had been many years since I had visited Alexandria, and so we took a side trip to tour the town.

We stopped in to Gaither Family Resources, a store next to the Gaither’s studio complex, right about where I remembered the bus barn having been on my last visit. After browsing for a few minutes, we walked over to the studio, just for old time’s sake. The receptionist was someone whose name was vaguely familiar to me, and when I introduced myself she immediately knew who I was.

As we chatted about family, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a man in shorts and a t-shirt, looking somewhat dissheveled, walk past us as if he was looking for something. I thought nothing of it, but when he came back through, I recognized him: It was Bill Gaither. He recognized me immediately (amazing, since it had been something like ten years since I had last spoken to him), and we chatted for a few minutes. I took the opportunity to tell him how he had “offended” my friend Bart during his convention performance, and he chuckled. As my wife and I talked later, we agreed that it was a somewhat uncomfortable chuckle, and we concluded that he wasn’t terribly happy about it.

Turns out we were wrong. Bill Gaither is a major backer of my uncle’s record label, Doxology Records, and they work closely together. My uncle called me a few hours after our conversation with Bill to tell me that Bill thought Bart’s line was absolutely hilarious, and he would likely be using it on stage whenever they perform the song. Apparently, he just needed some time to process the remark.

I’m glad we took that sidetrip, as it was fun seeing the town that was a part of my childhood. We met up with my family in Michigan, and spent a relaxing few days with them and by ourselves at their home and at their condo. You can read more about that part of the trip on my wife’s blog.

This concludes my posting on our convention/vacation trip. My fall term begins today, and I’m enrolled for 18 hours, so posting will be at least as sparse as it has been the last few months. I appreciate those of you who still read this blog (you both know who you are).