The World’s Most Valuable Cassette
6 min read
My father’s name was Billy Ray; he was as Southern as his name suggests. His dad, Marvin Otto, was a tent revivalist preacher in the 1930s and 40s, but also a coal miner.
My dad was a giant of a man, a Vietnam veteran with the 101st airborne, with arms thick as tree trunks that sported an assortment of tattoos. The initials REB were across his shoulder and served a twofold purpose:
1. His affinity to Dixie
2. My initials
My first name is Robert, my namesake was General Robert E. Lee, and on more than one occasion my mother has reminded me that I was very, very close to being named Robert Elvis Boggs. Thank you Lord that my mother had the tenacity to protest that suggestion.
My earliest memories of my dad always involve music. I still have very vivid memories of his habitual evening practice of playing album after album while he paced back and forth in the living room, running his fingers repeatedly through his coal black shoulder-length hair, and becoming more inebriated with every song. For me he served as a visual commentator, asking me, “Did you hear that? Reb, did you hear that?” His arms pointing and flailing as if he were suddenly transformed into an orchestra conductor; his gestures visually drawing my attention to a favorite lyric, melody, guitar lick, or whatever it may have been. And of course, I always did hear it because the sheer volume he played his music at altered anything hanging on our neighbors walls. This scenario played out virtually every night, sometimes until 2 or 3 AM or later, from age 3 until I left home some 17 years later. It was this very connection with my dad that initially compelled me to step foot on a stage and share the deepest passions and fears of my heart with strangers; I solely wanted to make him proud.
Despite these living room gesticulations, my dad only ever stepped on stage once in his entire life and even then it wasn’t planned. He and his twin sister Bonnie had purchased tickets to see a performance of Dracula and unfortunately the actor who was to portray the Transylvanian terror fell ill. My dad had no prior training, no script, but was the exact size for the costume. My Aunt Bonnie had no idea where her brother was until he walked on stage.
The only other performing’ my dad involved himself in, was the singing of my grandfather’s coal mining songs. One can imagine from the fervid depth of verse after verse after verse rooted in hopelessness and utter despair that coalminers are not the most optimistic human beings. Unlike Sneezy, Sleepy, and Dopey who ‘whistle’ while they work, coal miners sing “Ludlow Massacre”, “Sixteen Tons”, “1913 Massacre”, and “Dark As A Dungeon”:
Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine,
And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines.
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul,
‘Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal.
It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.
It’s a-many a man I have seen in my day,
Who lived just to labor his whole life away.
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,
A man will have lust for the lure of the mines.
I hope when I’m gone and the ages shall roll,
My body will blacken and turn into coal.
Then I’ll look from the door of my heavenly home,
And pity the miner a-diggin’ my bones.
These songs possess characteristics of dejection and despondency that on his best day Trent Reznor couldn’t produce at gunpoint. For hours on end dad would sing these songs, always concluding with “Goodnight Irene”:
Irene goodnight
Irene goodnight
Goodnight Irene, goodnight Irene, I’ll see you in my dreams
Sometimes I live in the country
Sometimes I live in town
Sometimes I take a great notion
To jump in the river and drown
These songs are job security for Prozac, only made worse by the fact that my dad could not sing!!!
Thus, after repeated requests from my sister Amy and myself, one Saturday afternoon he took my portable Sony cassette deck, requested that we both go play several hours with friends down the street, and while we were gone he recorded himself singing the songs.
When we returned he was very quiet and didn’t make eye contact; it may have been the only time in my life I saw my dad embarrassed.
From that moment forward, he never sang again.
I wish I understood then my dad’s desire to share with me those aspects of his childhood that were unique to him. I wish I could’ve respected that and not have stolen it from him by means of humiliation.
Sadly, my dad passed away suddenly and unexpectedly the day after my first child was born; he was only 43. To make matters worse, somewhere in the midst of this tumultuous reality, most of the items reminding me of my dad were given away by his vindictive widow or they simply disappeared, including a lone cassette that preserved his voice singing songs from his youth. And while I can easily play Willie Nelson’s version of “Dark As A Dungeon” or Tom Waits singing “Goodnight Irene” for my children, it can never be the same.
Twenty years ago I buried my dad, under his right hand was a photograph of him smiling while he held his one day old granddaughter named Jaydon; under his left hand, an MFSL CD of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon. In the time that has passed, a day does not go by without thinking about him. Even more so now as I recently celebrated my 43rd birthday and have come to realize how truly young my dad was when he died. And while I have also realized that our similarities are numerous [workaholic, bad temper, and prone to grandiloquence] our differences, all rooted in my commitment to serving Christ and sharing the Gospel, are even more copious.
Thus, while I grieve over a lost recording, I am convicted to appreciate the individual strengths and impuissance of those around me now. After all, our foibles are deeply rooted in the fabric the Lord wove together in our mother’s womb that make us who we are as individuals distinct from one another.
So, as I slowly begin to see the huge influence a dad can have on his children:
virtually all of my kids draw the Lord with a large goatee
several of them use five dollar words to express fifty cent sentiments
all of them love music
I sincerely pray that my example will not be one where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal’[Matthew 6:19], but rather Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.’ [I Corinthians 11:1]. Therefore, as my life bears the fruits of the Spirit, pursue that example, embrace those instances, and please forgive me for merely ‘imitating me‘ so frequently.
I wish I could hear that voice sings those songs just once more…but I can’t. However, as time remains, we all should savor those facets that make our dads uniquely who they are and purpose to enjoy and experience these moments face to face while we still can.
Hold his hand and listen intently to every syllable of a story you may have heard countless times; but this time, hear his words as never before. Because a day will come when small voices will ask,” What was your Daddy like?” And in those instances, may the richness of a dad’s righteous legacy be seen, heard, and lived through you.
One day, I pray that I’ll hear his voice singing again, but this time instead of coal mining anthems, he’ll be declaring ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord!”
I love you Dad.
You are missed.
