I used to have a cool job working at the television station. In reality, people thought it was a cool job when they asked me about it but to me for most of 51 weeks a year it was just a job. There was that 1 week every year when I did have a cool job, that was the week of the PROMAX convention. PROMAX is where the television promotion managers and creative artists get together for a week each year, share ideas, go to workshops, eat and play. FOX would have a off-site session for 3 days prior to the main convention and then the main events would go on for 4 days. There would be all kinds of stars there pitching their shows and networks. After going to the FOX event a few times, you begin building friendships with some of your peers. Now the really cool part was that FOX would have different stars at their event every night and they would mingle around and talk to people, have photos taken, etc. Not bragging, just sharing events, every year without fail, I had one or two of the stars sit at my table with me and my friends and talk, sometimes for hours on end. The difference was (I think) that I never treated them as stars, I treated them as people. They were people with a cooler job than I had, but they were still just people.
Friends and family will come in to visit and often when they go attend services with us someone will comment, "was that Sonny James?" I reply yes that was Sonny and Doris James. Then I get "THE Sonny James?" See, I don't see him as THE Sonny James, I see him as my brother, Sonny James. I know his legacy in music and respect that, but I tend to view it that he had a REALLY COOL job, but that is not what makes him who he is. The fact that he is a brother in Christ is what makes him special to me.
Being from East Tennessee I am a VOL fan. Most of my friends are VOL fans. Many of them participate in the sports chatrooms. Sometimes when they are talking about this great post they read or wrote on RIVALS.com I will mention that I know several of the big dogs behind that site. They will often say something like "they must be rich" or "it would be cool to be them." They may be rich, but it really doesn't matter about their economic status, what matters is how they love the Church, their families and treat others. I am glad for them because of their accomplishments but I am more proud that they are my brothers.
I have friends who are so passionate about sports that they will go on rants about how this coach must go and how that one is no good. I used to be one of those people. Then one day I was sitting in the stands in Columbia, SC watching UT vs. South Carolina and a man 3 rows in front of me suffered a heart attack. Perfect strangers began comforting his wife, a few with medical knowledge started attending to him while the rest of us began to holler for the Emergency Services people to come help. During that time, the game didn't matter. What mattered was that man battling for life, his wife and those helping them. The EMTs that showed up, they have a cool job, they get to help people.
The second reason I don't rant about coaches anymore, some of them are my brothers. How can I claim to love them and say things that in essence wishes they would lose their jobs? Steve Caldwell attends the congregation that I grew up in, John Chavis is a member at Karns. They have high profile jobs, not sure how cool they are at times.
No, the people to me who have REALLY COOL jobs are the people like Joe Dudney and Joe Smith. They get to help people who cannot help themselves or offer anything in return. People like the church staff have cool jobs, they make everything that happens in the congregation run smoother.
I have a job but it does not make me who I am. I have a Savior who makes me better than who I am and that makes all the difference.
In Him,
David
2 comments:
Now that's a good post--kind of cool too. Who is Sonny James?
In 2006 Sonny was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Information below is from Wikipedia.
Dubbed the "Southern Gentleman" because of his polite demeanor, Sonny James recorded "Young Love", a 45 rpm single for which he would forever be remembered. That was in 1957. As the first-ever teenage country "crossover" single, it topped both the country and pop music charts. He gained more exposure with a television appearances on the very important Ed Sullivan Show. After leaving Capitol Records for the 1st time in 1959, Sonny James signed with National Recording Corporation. His career also included stints with Dot(1960-1961), RCA(1961-1962), his second stint with Capitol Records(1963-1972), Columbia Records(1972-1979), Monument(1979), and Dimension(1981-1983).
Sonny James went on to a long and highly successful career and in 1962 he became a member of the Grand Ole Opry. From 1964 to 1972, Sonny James was a dominant force in country music. Beginning in 1967 with "I'll Never Find Another You" and ending with "Here Comes Honey Again" in 1971, Sonny James recorded 16 straight #1 singles in addition to 72 verified chart hits. James's career No. 1 total would eventually stand at 23, the last coming with 1974's "Is It Wrong (For Loving You)."
The No. 1 streak record is a point of contention among historians. Country supergroup Alabama reportedly surpassed James's record in 1985 with their 17th No. 1 song, "Forty Hour Week (For a Livin')," but the dispute stems from a 1982 Christmas single, "Christmas in Dixie." The Christmas song peaked at No. 35 on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles chart in January 1983, in the middle of what is widely considered to be a streak of 21 No. 1 songs. Some sources, including the Alabama Music Hall of Fame web site, state that the failure of "Christmas in Dixie" snapped Alabama's streak before it could achieve parity with James's; others, such as Joel Whitburn's "Top Country Songs: 1944-2005", disregard non-No. 1 Christmas singles (such as "Christmas in Dixie") in determining chart-topping streaks and consider Alabama to have surpassed the record.
James was a guest performer on popular television shows, such as the Bob Hope Show, the Ed Sullivan Show and Hee Haw. He also made minor appearances in several Hollywood motion pictures and in 1969, Billboard magazine named him "Artist of the Year."
Post a Comment