Recalling Redemption
Childhood memories of Mississippi in the 1950’s provide historical context for my story, early education wrapped in Catholic school memories, although that deep postwar South was a beehive of Protestant buzzing. . . then a move to Louisiana layered my childhood experience into a ‘Cajun’ French gumbo dominated by Catholicism and high school named “Redemptorist.”
Today, at age 72, I am pondering that concept, “redemption”, which is layered into my post-LSU season of sales in Florida, a brief jail sentence there and ultimately a trek to the promised land in lofty Appalachian wonderland, Asheville, Aspen of the East. My elevated worldview was intensified there, including a failed attempt to start a newspaper, the purpose of which was to block the severing of a mountain so that a road could go through. But have no fear. An unexpected Nashville opportunity yielded a serendipity album of original music:
Disillusionment and a failing marriage compelled me to hit the road, Austin bound. But that musical quest propelled me to a crossroads and a road less traveled — Waco, where I had a pentacostal encounter with people who were serving the King of Kings. . . changing my course, my values, my priorities, my path through life. Who’d have thunk it?
Then . . . a season of adjustment and reappraisal as I rambled around the Rockies for week or two, stopping along the road at some point to compose a song on my guitar, “Follow,” which you can hear at
http://www.careyrowland.com (pic).
After a while, I stumbled into the decision to return to Asheville, where I rounded up some friends and recorded a second album.
Funny thing happened on the way to the Kingdom of God, brutha Bo’b caught the train to heaven at about that same time; he did a vinyl which included an intense gospel message, including the most basic gospel message of all: “He’ll replace wrong with right!”
Years later, in the domestic haven of love, marriage and raising three young’uns, I turned, having left the vinyl circular behind, to writing books. So far, in this life, I’ve managed to publish four volumes that illuminate an historical view of this world: Glass half-Full, Glass Chimera, Smoke, King of Soul, which you can read snippets of at http://www.careyrowland.com
Lastly, I’ll mention that the novel pictured here is a story about what happened to our nation during the war in Vietnam.
