Looking Back to Vietnam and Medical Help Today

He had that Clint Eastwood look in his eyes that told me he was kind, but didn’t take anything from anyone.  His skin was weathered as if he had spent a great deal of his life working outside He had the appearance of knowing real work and he could still tackle that real work today.

68 Year old Russell Ashton served our country in the Vietnam War, he was in the US Army. When he returned, like many Vietnam Veterans, he went straight to work.

Ashton still has many memories and thoughts about what he saw during a wartime, things that can’t be unseen.

You can hear the 9 minute interview I did with him below…

"I think about it all the time, no one has ever looked through my eyes and no one has ever worn my boots." - Russell Ashton, U.S. Army

Domestic Violence: Fighting with the barrel of a shotgun in TN

On Tuesday, I went with Karen Lampler from the Domestic Violence Program in Murfreesboro to visit with a domestic violence survivor who was almost killed when her husband beat her 21 years ago.

After the attack in 1996, Teva Jane Chaffin ended up at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville and her now ex-husband was arrested. He spent 9 years in prison until he was paroled and eventually re-arrested for his role in beating up another woman.

After Chaffin was beat within an inch of her life, she suffered from major brain related injuries that put her on a third grade cognitive level – meaning she had to relearn nearly everything.

The audio interview with Chaffin is below, I invite you to listen to the short 14-minute interview. 

View fullsize

Above is a photo of Teva Jane while being cared for at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, TN. 

“In violence we forget who we are.”

— Mary McCarthy

Today, Chaffin spends her time making jewelry, which is her way of healing. You can find her handmade jewelry online at TevaJane.com. Below are just a few of the pieces that Chaffin made. 

View fullsize

Fathers, they are important even if your life is lived deep in the woods of Tennessee

Not everyone lives to the beat of the same drum. Of course, that is what makes life interesting for me to sometimes view from the outside looking in.

Personally, I enjoy a house that has a yard to mow, but then again I find it relaxing to mow with my headphones on. Others like to live where there is no need to mow, surrounded by nature at its best, which I understand.

Dwight Teagarden, who is holding the newborn, is from Murfreesboro, TN. He grew up here and he even went to Bellwood Christian Academy back when they had a full blown high school.

Teagarden was so excited to tell me about his new son. While it is true that he is a tad bit on the older side for a new child at age 57, you would never know by talking to him. He was all smiles, which is a very positive thing in this world of children growing up without a father in their life. However, I think his age makes him better understand the importance of a father being in a child's life.

So many studies show how important a father is or can be - which is eye opening if you have never dove into the subject.

A 2011 article in Psychology Today by Dr. Ditta M. Oliker touched base on the father and sometimes fatherless issue. One of the topics she brought up in her studies was that pre-1970, research on families typically left out the father or downplayed his importance. Of course, that led to reporting that was not representative of how powerful a father can or should be in the lives of his children. It also diminished the role of fathers greatly.

While research in the 1950’s to 1970’s nearly ignored the father, the dads were involved in a major way compared to families today.

In 1960 only 10% of children were raised without a father in the household. Today, that number is vastly different with 40% of homes lacking a live-in father. In 1950 there were 393 thousand divorced adults in America. In 2008, that number climbed to 8.4 million, according to the US National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the United States and National Vital Statistics.

Dr. Oliker wrote, “There is no question that fathers do play an important part in their children's lives; that the majority of studies affirm that an involved father can play a crucial role particularly in the cognitive, behavioral and general health and well-being areas of a child's life; that having a positive male role model helps an adolescent boy develop positive gender-role characteristics; that adolescent girls are more likely to form positive opinions of men and are better able to relate to them when fathered by an involved father; that it is generally accepted, under most circumstances, a father's presence and involvement can be as crucial to a child's healthy development as is the mother's; and that experiencing validation of their importance in the general parenting literature has made fathers much more conscious of their value and, in turn, leads to their greater desire to be involved.”

A 2007 article by Julia Borisenko noted, “The absence of a father-figure is detrimental to child personality development. At the same time, fatherhood can be a factor of male personality development of the father.” What is interesting about the article from Borisenko is that she is a Social Psychology faculty Department member of Kemerovo State University in Russia. In other words, translations of fathering roles are universal.

A woman was once was known for her many radical ideas and thoughts on women’s rights once wrote, “Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father.” While the views of Lydia Maria Francis Child in the 1800's may have been viewed as crazy for women at the time, today her views would probably be viewed as conservative.

The American Novelist from Massachusetts lived her life between 1802 and 1880. Child was against women being segregated to work by themselves and instead alongside men. She also hated slavery and spoke-out about the issue in her time on a regular basis. However, while she was pro women’s rights 100 percent of the time in her day, she was also pro father.

In closing, I have to say that I find it interesting that starting in the 1800’s a woman who was all about women’s rights totally values the role of a father in a child’s life. But today, women’s rights is often about forgetting the father, simply based on my observation of movements across the country. I am also stuck in my thoughts about the 1960’s, where the role of the father was left out of studies even though only 10% of households were without fathers in the home at the time. As I jump ahead to research in the 2000’s, I confirm that 40% of households in America are fatherless. So where did our thoughts as a whole society change between the 1800’s and 2000’s? Why did we move so far ahead and forget about fathers only to realize in the 2000’s that they are more important than originally thought?

Pancreatitis, heart attack and coma = New outlook on life

Ray Gann has been making cabinets nearly his entire life. He is originally from Nashville, Tennessee, but moved to LaVergne with his parents at age 15.

In 1983, he opened Gann’s Cabinet’s in LaVergne, Tennessee. After years of service to happy homeowners and businesses, he somewhat retired leaving the cabinet shop in the hands of others during the day while he comes in every couple of days.

Almost a year ago Mr. Gann came down with a bad case of pancreatitis for the fourth time in his life. After being rushed to the hospital he had a heart attack. A coma followed the next 28 days and some family members thought that he wouldn’t survive.

Despite the odds being against him, Mr. Gann survived and he said he has a new outlook on life that includes emotions that he never felt before about living. It was a better life…

There are more than 200,000 pancreatitis cases each year in the United States. It has many causes, but one constant similarity exists among the cases… pain.

In case you are curious, pancreatitis is the inflammation of the pancreases. Of course, the pancreas is a necessity as it produces the digestive enzymes that allow your body to properly breakdown and ultimately absorb protein.

When pancreatitis attacks occur, so does pain in the upper abdomen, nausea, vomiting and more. Chronic pancreatitis usually starts between the ages of 30 and 40 and males are more likely to have it than females. Some cases of pancreatitis are deadly with 132,700 deaths worldwide in 2015, the latest year with study results available.

Sarah needs a new kidney

Life can throw us curve balls at times that we often don’t know how to cope with. At other times, life throws us fast pitches that are altogether too fast to catch and we feel as if everything is out of control. But not Sarah Baker, even though she is going through a lot, she seems to be taking it all in stride and with a smile.

Sarah, who lives in Smyrna, Tennessee, undergoes about four hours of dialysis three times per week. She has held onto that schedule for the past two years or longer. She needs a new kidney and she is on the list to receive one, but it takes time – a lot of it.

Listen to this 8 minute and 15 second interview of what it’s like to undergo dialysis treatment three times weekly as she waits for good news.

Of course, you could help her with that good news by calling the Vanderbilt Kidney Donation Center and volunteering to donate your kidney.

If you would like to learn how you can donate or to see if you are a match, CLICK HERE today. You can also call the Vanderbilt Kidney Transplant Center at 615-936-0695.

By the way, the costs for the donor are fully covered.

To the beat of a different drum

Being different while being yourself is sometimes the best thing you can do, especially in times like this when heroin is growing in popularity and crime seems to be turning to gang activity. Rap artist around the country continue to hit a great bass note, but the messages in their songs are still similar to the messages that were first made popular by the likes of NWA and the Ghetto Boys in the 1980’s and early 90’s. However, two rap artist who live in Murfreesboro want to change that with their music.

David Manning and Humble Me perform as a rap duo called “Change Musik.” Their songs may sometimes mention gang violence, but not in the sense you are likely thinking. Instead of glorifying criminal activity, they choose to rap about the negative lifestyle that goes along with such enterprise.

Manning stated in an interview, “Hip hop is very big on being real and true,” which of course is why you may hear songs discussing drive by shootings, drug deals gone bad and mistreating women – because the writer of the songs has lived just that – a life surrounded by crime or violence. Manning, who grew up living with a family that ran carnivals, traveled from state to state seeing all sorts of lifestyles with negative outcomes. Despite his surroundings, he picked positive things in his life to hold onto and value as opposed to negative sites or situations.

“I began to write music as my life began to change,” Manning said. He became a gospel rapper when he turned to Christianity. “Really, I want people to experience freedom man – and anything apart from truth will lead you to bondage,” he suggested.

Humble Me attended Oakland High School in Murfreesboro, TN and stated, “I scored really high in socialization.” After his short stint at Oakland, he was transferred to Riverdale High School. “When I got thrown out of Riverdale that’s when I got saved,” he recalled. Humble Me went on to state, “When people start graduating and getting out of school and you went to school and started when they went, it starts making you really look at your life.”

His next school was Holloway High School, which would be the third high school that Humble Me attended in Rutherford County. While there, he started to understand the value of good people and education. Of course, he was older than most students at age 19.

While at Holloway, he spoke to past principal Ivan Duggin who told him that the school would once again start a basketball team if he could find at least 14 people to sign onto the team roster, which he did. After helping to start the team he decided he wanted to play for the NBA. Amazingly, college representatives visited the school and watched Humble Me play and some colleges even contacted him at home asking if he would play for their school, but he turned the offers down when he felt that God told him to “Speak to his people.” It was then that he decided that he would speak to the masses through music.

It was during those high school years that Humble Me and David Manning teamed up to start a Gospel Rap duo. Together, the two focused on a solution to problems that their generation failed to see through the eyes of rap artist in their time like Tupac Shakur, Biggie, Jay Z, Eminem and Master P. Humble Me said, “All of those guys were not painting a picture of negativity, some of them were just expressing their environment.” He said there is also a solution to the problem of what those rappers sing about, but many of the rappers in his time did not see that solution.  

The question of what the solution was in order to live a better life was clear to both Humble Me and Manning. For them, their solution was giving their life to God. Manning said, “If I’m really going to make an impact in my community and I’m gonna’ really reach back then this is the best means to do it by,” talking about living a positive lifestyle and rapping about the good that God can do in someone’s life. The duo wholeheartedly believe that music can be used to change lives in Murfreesboro, Nashville and far beyond.

It is not always easy to be a Gospel Rap Artist and Manning said, “People look at us like – Man ya’ll are gospel rap artist?” He followed that by stating, “Man God wants to use whatever you got to bring people to him and bring glory to him.”  He said, “God has changed my life.”

In one of their songs they rap, “They say if you have faith just the size of a mustard seed, run into a forest blind probably wouldn’t hit a tree, David beat Goliath with a sling and a stone then we’ll sell a million records just singing these songs.” The goal of Change Musik is to change people by focusing on God and making sure that the Bible is intertwined with their songs.

In addition to making music, Manning and Humble Me preach to others on their television show called Change TV. The show is currently featured nationwide on CTN, Legacy TV and Walk TV.

To learn more about their music or to contact them, visit ChangeMusik.com

This Nashville man had a paralyzing stroke in 2015, but is walking today

Terrence Heeney had a paralyzing stroke exactly three years ago in July of 2015 and thought he would never walk again or be able to properly sort his words. However, he has fought the negative thoughts and battled through rehabilitation and is now walking and talking as he did before.

Heeney is a man after my own heart. He has traveled all over the world visiting just about every country you can name while working for Ingram Content Group / Ingram International. “I’ve seen most of the world, it is really beautiful,” he told me with a smile.

Mr. Heeney told me, “I will not get depressed – no matter how this turns out, I will not allow myself to get depressed.” He went on to say, “When I wake up I say – The potential for another day.”

Doctors told him while in the hospital that he would need to re-learn all the basics like walking, chewing food, swallowing food, etc. After being released from the medical center, he underwent six solid months of rehabilitation at the Life Care Center of Hickory Woods on Murfreesboro Road. He eventually gained the strength to once again live and he decided to give back to those who helped him while encouraging others that the road to recovery does indeed get easier.

Today, Heeney visits the rehab center on a regular basis to share his story of hope with others. He smiled and told me about a 55 year old patient who recently had an intensive surgery to his lower legs. Heeney talked about how the man was not recovering at the speed he had aimed for and was in a lot of pain. I asked Heeney what he said to the man to ease his anxiety and he laughed a little while stating, “I said, you know, you’re a young man and this is only a piece of your life, not your whole life, so knock it off.” With a chuckle Heeney told me that the next day he visited the rehab center and the man’s wife told him that she now has a brand new husband. The 55-year old man walked out of the facility on his own a month later.

Heeney continues to help others with a new outlook on life. One of the many things that he enjoys includes teaching. “I teach English three times a week to elderly seniors who are from war-torn countries and I help them get their citizenship – so I step outside myself,” he stated.

In closing I asked the simple question, “What would you tell someone who maybe having a hard time or who is going through a struggle right now?” Again I saw his face light up, “You’ve got to train your mind to be positive and not allow yourself to get depressed. If you do, set the clock on your stove for 10 minutes and when that buzzer goes off – it’s over, stop thinking about yourself.” He also told me that after his time at the rehab center was over and he returned home, he knew the road to recovery was not yet over. So, he would deliberately buy only a small amount of groceries so that he would be forced to make a return trip to the store up to three times per week – in other words he forced himself to get out of the house.

“You know, you’re a young man and this is only a piece of your life, not your whole life, so knock it off.” - Terrence Heeney of Nashville, TN

Suicide in Tennessee

I met Charles in 2015 while out with my friend Jerry in downtown Nashville, TN.

“My father committed suicide in 2007, several months later… my mom committed suicide, I wish I knew why – I want to figure it out, it would help me – I wish I were there, I could have helped her,” he told me as if he were desperate to find answers.

As I continued to speak with Charles he said that he too thinks about suicide. He then rolled up his sleeve to show me a large scar on his wrist where he attempted to kill himself.

“When people kill themselves, they think they're ending the pain, but all they're doing is passing it on to those they leave behind.” ― Jeannette Walls

According to the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network, suicide numbers have climbed since 2006, of course our population has also increased, so to get a true idea of the statistics, you would have to look at the percentages, which do indeed show a slight increase.

In 2006, there were 866 suicides in the Volunteer State, which is 14.4% of the population per every 100,000 residents. In 2010, there were 932 suicides or 14.7% per 100,000 residents. In 2015, the Health Department recorded 1,065 suicides or a rate of 16.1% per every 100,000 residents.

People don’t commit suicide because they want to die, they commit suicide because they want to stop the pain, stop the voices they may hear, stop the brokenness in their life… this first has to be understood to simply prevent someone taking their own life.

“Did you really want to die?"
"No one commits suicide because they want to die."
"Then why do they do it?"
"Because they want to stop the pain.” 
― Tiffanie DeBartolo, How to Kill a Rock Star

Charles is from Knoxville, Tennessee but moved to Nashville after the death of his parents. He told me, “Someone stole all of my medication, they even took my blood pressure medicine.” He said they also took his medication for his Bi-Polar Disorder, “I have been off of it for 3-weeks,” he said.

Suicide and mental health or mental illness are closely tied together, as realized by medical experts.

In 2016, the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network announced the idea of “Tennessee’s Zero Suicide Initiative.” While the idea of zero suicides sounds great, it is an unrealistic goal to strive for – being realistic and understanding the depths of mental illness could be a better idea? Could be.

To be honest, such an idea of ending suicide may give way to less news stories about suicide and less information on the suicide aftermath that families suffer. It concerns me that looking at stopping the rates will possibly give some residents the false idea that suicide numbers are on the decrease, which will possibly allow a family member in the direct line of helping a loved one to have the thought that “It” won’t happen.

Despite my views on “Ending suicide,” the organization is moving forward with their efforts and in fairness, they are putting out more brochures. But are brochures going to cause an impact? My thought is an overwhelming “No.” Education is needed, but so is more accessible help in the field of mental health. We need experts to hit campsites of those suffering, we need home visits for those too depressed to get out of bed, we need more help and we need more volunteers.

As for Charles, I have not seen him since 2015. I do not know how his current mental state is today, nor do I know where he may be living. I just hope he is… living.

The stress of life

He was sitting alone in a dark alley with only the light from a nearby road creeping onto his right side and the left barely lit by an open restaurant door that lead to the busy kitchen. He was crouched down on a milk crate eating a tray of noodles, likely from a cook inside the restaurant.

I could not understand much of what he had to say, but he was very talkative so I simply listened to what sounded like meaningless chatter. But, it made me wonder what has caused him to become this way? Did it start before he became homeless while working as a diesel mechanic or did it happen due to one extreme stressor in life or multiple stressful situations with negative outcomes?

Have you ever thought about how unnerving our world is today? So many people fall into emotional and physical disrepair because of an inability to handle the things around us. Politics, natural disasters, physical ailments, declining health due to age or bad habits, addiction, loss of employment, false ideas of how religion should be verses how it is viewed in our churches, fear of relationships – I could continue typing for hours naming things that bog us down. But, why do we let these things get under our skin?

The simple answer is that not all of us do – some are better equipped with handling today’s times.

A Yale University study found that some people had brains that were able to process stressors better than others. What was interesting is that the study allowed researchers to see which three areas of the brain responded to stress during a functional MRI (fMRI).

The Yale study saw a decrease in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) area of the brain at first and then a huge increase in that same area by most of their study participants. That huge increase could be seen on scans that were overseen by doctors and scientist. For those that had the hyper increase of activity, it meant that their brains were blocking the stressors or protecting the person from stress.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex area is involved in brain management, in a way. It is utilized when dealing with self-related processing or figuring out when to feel stress or not to feel stress. This area of the brain also causes disruptions in individuals with autism and those who function poorly in social settings. In other words, the vmPFC is not building that wall to block the stress as it does in some people.

Basically, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex either goes into overdrive to protect the brain from extreme emotional response, or fails to go into overdrive (fails to build that wall), which equals a flood of stress and emotional reactions to the stressor.

The Yale study found that those whose brain failed to guard against the stressor, they likely had an increased risk of binge drinking, binge eating or other self-destructive behavior after being stressed.

So if you react poorly to stress and find yourself acting out in self-destructive behaviors after a hard day, your ventromedial prefrontal cortex area is not guarding your brain. A quick fix for this problem is not available, but it is now the spotlight of more research.

For those who experience one extreme stressors daily, weekly or even monthly – these stressors add up and cause serious health issues. Those health issues can include high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease which can lead to more stress. More stress then leads to depression, anxiety or the onset of an underlying mental illness that did not make itself known until that stress in life continued to build up. So, if not tackled in the beginning, it can quickly become uncontrollable for an individual.

The end result of accumulated stress that is not handled properly… we break.

“Stress is the trash of modern life-we all generate it but if you don't dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life.” ― Danzae Pace

Depression strikes the homeless and others - What about medication?

Sadness is something that others may be able to see in someone’s face, but what is behind the eyes only the sufferer knows. However, sadness and depression are quite different.

For example: “Shorty,” who is pictured, was likely sad when he and his girlfriend had a falling out. However, he may or may not have been depressed at the time, but sadness was definitely an emotion he felt. The good news is that sadness passes fairly quickly while depression can stick around for months or even years.

So many of those who live on the street experience deep and often dark depression. While it may start out as something mild in their younger years, it lingers into age and grows deeper into severe depression.

People often confuse mild depression with severe depression, only because they have not experienced such agony themselves. Others suggest that those who are sad simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps, which can’t be done if severe depression is involved. Those who make such suggestions fail to understand or even try to understand the underlying darkness.

Sadness can trigger depression and your chances are also higher if you have family members who have fought depression in the past. Severe illnesses can also lead to depression. Other items that can lead to depression in adult life include being abused as a child (any nature of abuse). In fact, child abuse greatly increases the chances of becoming depressed as an adult.

To help cure depression, doctors often encourage a healthier lifestyle along with medication. But, if you are homeless it is hard to eat right and hit the gym. It is also hard to afford a doctor’s visit, much less pay for medication. But, studies show that medication is important.

The brain is extremely complex, as most realize. Some areas of the brain regulate mood while other areas focus on daily tasks like extending your arm to turn off the alarm clock.

According to a Harvard Health article from 2009, “Areas that play a significant role in depression are the amygdala, the thalamus, and the hippocampus.” A recent study demonstrated how the hippocampus is 9% to 13% smaller in those who are depressed or who have dealt with bouts of depression.

To increase positive moods and decrease depression, the production of new neurons are needed. Doctors will prescribe antidepressants to help boost the number of neurotransmitters, but the medication takes four to six weeks to start working. The extended period of time between the depression and a good mood have to do with neurons growing and forming new connections.

Antidepressants promote the growth of nerve cells in the hippocampus. It takes weeks for that growth to occur, which explains why it takes so long for antidepressants to work. This growth process is called neurogenesis, meaning neuron growth or formation.

As for Shorty… he told me that he came to Tennessee because of a girl. He later said that he went to jail for 7 months because of that same girl. "I caught her with another man," he told me. The woman is now in California.

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Great Race stops in Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Murfreesboro, Tennessee hosted a lunch stop on the 2017 Hemmings Motor News Great Race presented by Hagerty. The cars stopped in Murfreesboro on Monday, June 26, 2017 at 12 noon. The stop was at the Cannonsburgh Village.

The Great Race, the world's premiere old car rally, brought 120 of the world's finest antique automobiles to Murfreesboro for the $150,000 event. The Stones River Region of AACA hosted the event.

In all, the participants in the race will cover more than 2,100 miles in 9 days. The start was on Main Street in downtown Jacksonville, Fla., on June 24.  The race will finish July 2 in Traverse City, Mich., on the banks of Grand Traverse Bay just off Lake Michigan as part of that city's annual Cherry Festival.

Teams and cars from Japan, England, Germany, Canada and every corner of the United States will be participating in their vintage automobiles dating back as far as 1916.

"There are more than 450 people just in our entourage from all around the world taking part in this incredible adventure," director Jeff Stumb said. 

Along the route, competitors will travel parts of the original Dixie Highway in seven states - Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. 

The Great Race, which began 34 years ago, is not a speed race, but a time/speed/distance rally. The vehicles, each with a driver and navigator, are given precise instructions each day that detail every move down to the second. They are scored at secret check points along the way and are penalized one second for each second either early or late. As in golf, the lowest score wins.

Bonnaroo: Chilling

Despite massive crowds of 65,000... Some knew the ultimate definition of "Chilling" among the masses.

Bonnaroo and the crowds

He stood in silence as the stage set was changed while the commotion before and around him continued at Bonnaroo.

He has been to Bonnaroo nearly every year

He has been to Bonnaroo in Manchester, TN every year, but 2016. “I saw the Grateful Dead here,” he told me with a smile. Anxious to tell me more he continued, “I remember the first time I saw them in California, they were nothing like they are now.”

While the original group never performed as a whole at Bonnaroo, a band known as “The Dead” did in 2003. The '03 year marked year number 2 for Bonnaroo.

The group known as The Dead was made up of several former members of the Grateful Dead. The group was formed after Garcia’s death.  

The original Grateful Dead group formed in 1965. They lost their lead singer who was a founding member in 1995. Jerry Garcia (Jerome John Garcia) was a lead guitarist and vocalist for the group that came to be known in the counterculture era of the 1960’s.

Drug use was far from hidden in the Grateful Dead. In 1970, the band was known to heavily use cocaine and later heroin. Garcia even had a $700 a day habit, which became widely known in the late 1970’s.  The band actually held a heroin intervention for Garcia in 1985.

Garcia died at age 53 in 1995 at a rehabilitation clinic. He died of a heart attack. Approximately 25,000 people attended a memorial for Garcia in California 5 days after his death.

So, who is the guy pictured? Just a dude who loves music and once followed the Grateful Dead. 

Bonnaroo: It is a Yoshi Flower kind of a day

Is that a leash or are you sharing a camel back water hose? Never mind, just keep walking – nothing to see here.  

Barefoot and Burned at Bonnaroo

The sun can do some amazing things, one of which is make you appear to be wearing a tank top when you are not wearing a shirt of any kind.

"You don't know my mind You don't know my kind" - Dark Necessities by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Bonnaroo love

Did you know that scientist have done studies to prove that when two people gaze into one another’s eyes, their heart rates synchronize?

"If I know what love is, it is because of you." — Herman Hesse (German born Swiss poet, 1877-1962)

Bonnaroo: Sitting in the dimming sun

A 1980’s band shirt that read “Suicidal Tendencies” adorned his body as he sat in the dimming sun while people walked by. He would sometimes kick his half leg into the air to draw the attention of females who passed by, some stopping to talk others walked the other way.

Bonnaroo and the fake moon

Sitting under the man made moonlight at Bonnaroo.

"Moonlight mood when twilight is ending
You're in my moonlight mood and our hearts are blending
There on the same old wall that we used to know long ago
You walked there in a ribbon of moonlight"

-Frank Sinatra, Moonlight Mood

Bonnaroo: Love the dance

In the distance, a familiar disco tune came on. The three friends started dancing and the moment they shared will likely be long remembered.

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”

― William W. Purkey, Professor of Counseling and Development at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro