Showing posts with label wine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wine. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Old dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine

For some reason this weekend, this old Tom T. Hall song entered my ADD-rattled brain and I've had trouble getting it off my mind. A quick search this morning showed me I'm not completely alone (see this lady's blog about the song and her family).

In the song, the singer stops in a hotel bar in Miami for a quick drink before bed. He sounds like he'd prefer to be alone, but someone sits down beside him and begins to talk. Man, I hate it when that happens. But the singer learns something from the visitor as he explains "Ain't but three things in this world that's worth a solitary dime..." ...wait for it... "...But old dogs and children, and watermelon wine."

Hall has many songs that I love, including his hit "I Love". Some of his songs are funny, one that my kids have heard me sing a lot is "Sneaky Snake". I also like "Faster Horses" (another song about the virtues in life, in this case "faster horses, younger women, older whiskey and more money").

Probably my favorite song by Hall is the simple melody "I Like Beer". But of course a paragraph on simple melodies would be incomplete without the mention of the song "That Song is Driving me Crazy" - ever get a song stuck in your head and it won't leave? - this song will stay in your head for weeks.

Rhapsody describes Tom T. Hall as "story teller, poet, philosopher." I think when I die, I'd like to be known as a philospher (it would be even better to be thought that way now - but the pay isn't what it used to be). You can read the lyrics and even listen to "Watermelon Wine" on Rhapsody's site here.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Noah got plastered

Did you know that Noah got drunk? They guy who built the ark and took the animals on the ark, got plastered. Three sheets to the wind. Let me give some background and then explain why I think he got drunk and why it's important.

You may remember the story about Noah. God told him to built a boat and take some animals on board. I always thought he spent 40 days in the boat, someone recently pointed out it was longer. I looked this morning, and if I did the math right, it was much longer. 7 days on the boat before the rain, then 40 days of rain and floods. 150 days after that and he the waters began to go down. 40 more days, theny 7 days and then 7 more days. If I got it all right (which is questionable) that's 211 days or about 7 months. (Exodus 6-8)

Noah was 600 years old when the flood happened. That's old. He took his family on the boat, wife & sons (presumably daughters too). Then he lived another 350 years and was a farmer. Seems he enjoyed his own product a little too much, he drank his wine and got naked and passed out (Ex 9:20). His youngest son (Ham) saw him naked and went snickering to his older brothers (Shem and Japheth). They were sutiably embarrassed for their father, so they walked into his tent carrying a cover. They even walked in backwards, so they wouldn't see their naked father laying there. The next morning, Noah woke up and extended a curse to the younger son and blessings on the older sons.

Why did Noah get drunk? Here is a man of God, listed in the roll call of the saints (Heb 11:7). As the song says, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." I believe that Noah was lonely. He was an old man and there's no mention of his wife at this point. He'd been working in the fields, was tired and went to his tent all alone. His sons had their wives, Noah had no one. So he started drinking a little of his home made wine, probably kicked back to watch a little TV and before he knew it, he had passed out.

Why is this important? Well, if Noah can do embarrassing things, any of us can. My mother is 80 and sometimes she still embarrasses me. Things just happen. But she's still my mother and I love her. I have to follow Shem and Japheth's example and when things happen, I have to help cover for my mother, not walk around snickering like some Ham.

As I type all of this, I can't help but wonder, where were Curly and Moe in this escapade?

(Sorry if some of this seems blasphemous. It's just my weird sense of humor - or lack of)