Three-Point Shots: Willie’s Birthday and Other Tidings of Good Cheer
It’s all positive this week, in honor of merry days to come: Willie Nelson's birthday concert and a Jackson Browne Christmas carol.
Welcome to a holiday edition of Three-Point Shots, a part of my Life Its Ownself Substack page. If you enjoy reading it, please 1) hit the Like button, 2) subscribe to Life Its Ownself, and 3) share it with others in the link below. Comments are welcome and encouraged.
But first, your moment of Zen … My friend, the hyper-talented photographer Mark Cunningham, created this fun Christmas image of the Mule Ears in Big Bend National Park. I use it with his permission. Thanks for letting me share it, Mark!
Friday, December 22, 2023, 2:00 p.m.
Merry Christmas! And Happy Festivus to the rest of us!
The First “Take Our Daughters To Work Day” in 1993
Willie Nelson celebrated his 90th birthday last spring, and last Saturday night they aired the Hollywood Bowl concert in his honor on TV. My mind flew back to Willie’s 60th Birthday Celebration, a TV special built around a concert held at the Austin City Limits studio on the U.T. campus in 1993. I was lucky enough to attend it, and it’s a great part of an even greater story.
The first “Take Our Daughters to Work Day” was held on April 28, 1993. (It is now rebranded as “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day.”) I was working for Governor Ann Richards at the time, and there was a lot of enthusiasm for the event in our office.
I was, regrettably, daughter-less at the time. So I asked my sister if I could “borrow” my niece April for that day, to which she readily agreed. They lived in San Antonio, so the two of them drove up to Austin and we did the hand-off. It happened to be April’s 14th birthday.
(My beautiful niece April, 1993.)
The day’s schedule began with a convocation at which the girls would meet, greet and get their pictures taken with Governor Ann. Genuinely excited about the day and the 60 or so young girls in the auditorium, Ann was at her most charismatic and charming. My niece was enchanted with the whole scene.
(Governor Ann Richards addresses the first Take Our Daughters to Work Day at the Texas Governor’s Office, April 28, 1993.)
The Governor welcomed the girls and answered some questions about herself and her job. At the end, she encouraged the girls to stay in school and pursue their dreams. She went on to warn them about subordinating their dreams to “some fella,” who might give them a couple kids and then wander off, leaving them alone to raise and support the family.
I looked over at April. She was an eminently practical girl, but she’d been raised in a very romantic, moon-June-spoon tradition of Happily Ever After. I don’t think I’ve seen her look more horrified, before or since.
After that, we went to the Capitol. The Legislature was in session then, and it was that late-April time when things get crazy. I had some bills I was managing for the Governor’s Office, and I checked in with several legislators and their staffers to see what was happening.
Along the way, we learned that Paul Sadler, then a state rep from Henderson, was friends with A-list movie star Kevin Costner, who was in Austin filming a movie (A Perfect World). Costner was hanging out at the Capitol that day, in Speaker Pete Laney’s apartment behind the House floor. I wrangled our way in there. The room was jammed and we did not get to speak with him, although we did get a good look at him.
(Kevin Costner in the Texas Capitol, April 28, 1993.)
That afternoon, we visited a few offices and sat in on a committee hearing or two. To my surprise, April’s enthusiasm seemed to flag as the meetings and hearings wore on.
Then, my good friend (to this day!) Texas Film Commissioner Marlene Saritzky, told me about the 60th birthday party and concert for Willie Nelson at the ACL studios at 24th and Guadalupe on the UT campus. She had magically procured tickets for April and me.
At the end of the workday, we moseyed over to the big rust-colored building that housed the Austin City Limits studios at the time. We entered and got ourselves seated. We were told it would be a long evening: the event was less a live concert than a taping of a show to be aired later, so there would be the usual interruptions and breaks in the action.
Nevertheless, the lineup for the show was spectacular: Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Waylon Jennings, Lyle Lovett, Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Travis Tritt and many others. Each artist would come on and sing a song or two, sometimes with Willie and sometimes with other artists.
In between performances, there were set changes, equipment loaded on or off the stage, sound checks and the like. This gave April and me the opportunity to wander around with our all-access passes. One time we were riding the elevator up a couple floors when Paul Simon and his wife Edie Brickell got on. I played it cool, of course, saying an indifferent hello like I ran into Edie Brickell all the time.
A little later, we were standing in a backstage room when we saw Lukas Haas, who was there with his mother. He’d been only nine when he had his breakout role as the young boy in Witness with Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis. More recently, he’d played a major role in Leap of Faith, which was filmed in Texas and released that spring. I was chatting up some other people when I realized there was a definite vibe between Lukas and April – quick glances followed by shy smiles across the space between them.
The moment passed, and we went back into the studio. But I could tell April “liked” him, and it seemed to be mutual.
Around 10:00, my sister arrived to pick up April. The taping had just finished. I told her there was an after-party – wouldn’t she like to mingle with Willie and Bob and Bonnie and Kris? I hoped the after-party would give my shy niece a chance to meet and talk with Lukas Haas. But it was not to be. It was a school night, and they had a hour’s drive in front of them.
Thus did my niece and I spend the first Take Our Daughters to Work Day – and Willie Nelson’s 60th Birthday Concert taping – together.
My take: During that day and since, I’ve tried to convince my niece that her uncle lived a very exciting, even glamorous life – that hanging with Kevin Costner was just another day at the office and VIP passes to Willie Nelson’s birthday just a typical night’s entertainment. She never fell for it, of course. But she did tell me recently that she still tells the story of her 14th birthday, when she met Ann Richards and saw movie stars and musical legends.
And, 30 years later, Willie is still going strong.
A Brief Meditation on Incarnation.
For most people of faith – any faith – the biggest challenge is the lack of evidence for their belief. Come to think of it, that’s why they’re people of “faith.”It’s possible to believe in an all-knowing and all-powerful sentient Being who is just like us, only more so, and who is the Creator and Master (or Mistress) of the Universe – the Cosmic Watchmaker. That is the easy part.
The real challenge is believing that such a Being is aware of and attentive to our individual well-being, and intervenes occasionally, if not regularly, in the Course of Human Events on our behalf. After all, there’s not much evidence of this. Why didn’t I get that job I wanted, or my kid get accepted into Stanford? How is it there’s still war and disease and famine? What kind of a god would allow long COVID, or childhood cancer, or 20 seasons of “The Kardashians?”
For Christians, the answer is little 8-pound, 6-ounce Baby Jesus. His Passion, Death and Resurrection — the saga of our redemption from sin and imperfection — are 30 or more years in the future. On Christmas Day, he is timeless divinity newly emerged in the world of space and time, sent by an Aloof God as a sign that He does intervene in human history. In our history.
This is the profound faith and hope at the heart of Christmas: Incarnation, the Word made Flesh. The Hebrew word for this mystery is Emmanuel: “God is with us.”
My Favorite Christmas Carol.
I am not the type to play Christmas music during the holidays, much less year ‘round. (I know people who do. I bet you do as well.) Secular Christmas music, from “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” to “Jingle Bells” to “Last Christmas” – well, to paraphrase Austin Powers, it’s not my bag, baby. And while I certainly have belted out the classic carols in my day – “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” “Joy To The World,” even “Little Drummer Boy” – they’re not my idea of a holiday playlist.
My favorite Christmas carol since I first heard it years ago is Jackson Browne’s “Rebel Jesus,” which challenges our modern Christmas experience with a prophetic rendering of Jesus’s message in a sweet, melancholy and ultimately hopeful song. I’ll leave you with a version of him singing the song, along with some of its lyrics.
…
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if anyone of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus.But pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgement
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In a life of hardship and of earthly toil
There's a need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure and I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus.
Love the reminiscence--I remember well Costner's visit to the House and the scenic view from my desk on the floor.
Happy Holidays to one and all! Thank you for adding a wonderful and touching story much needed this season.