Singing Bill

 I love to sing.  I got that from Dad.  Some of my earliest memories are of me at about the age of 5 standing on a chair to reach the mic, while my dad played one of the many musical instruments he was gifted at.  I sing Karaoke often.  People tell me I am good at it.  I don’t think they are all just being kind.  Especially the strangers that have stopped me to tell me how much they enjoyed my singing.  One of my greatest regrets is that I did not pursue singing as a career, when I was young.  I don’t have the breath that I did, when I was a young man.  That is one thing that has changed with age.  My voice is not as smooth as it was.  When I was young, we did not have Karaoke, American Idol, or Nashville Star.  Heck, back then we didn’t even have the Internet.  I know what some of you younger readers are thinking, 'How did you survive and why would want to’?

 I don't feel much different inside at 59 than I did at 28.  Maybe when I hit 60 I will feel different, but I doubt it.  My body has a few more aches and pains now days.  I am a little surprised each time I look in the mirror.  I have a few gray hairs (at least nature has been kind enough to allow me to keep a full head of hair).  I can't run the mile in 4 minutes and 17 seconds like I did in high school, but I am still me inside.

 I have the love of a great woman.  Not my first, but I pray she will be my last.  She is my biggest fan and makes me want to be a better man.  We share the joy of having Christ as our personal savior.  Thank you God, for bringing us together.

I am just a sample man that loves my God, my wife, my children, my mother, my brother, my sisters, my friends, and life.  I miss my dad, but still love and think of him often.  From time to time, at Karaoke I sing one of his favorite songs, Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain by Willie Nelson, and dedicate it to his memory.  He died back in March of 1996 from the cancer that smoking cigarettes gave him.  Sometimes I am angry that he chose the cigarettes over his family, because they took him from us to soon, but I know he was addicted to a drug.  The fact that he did quit smoking after his second heart attack and 5 years before he finally succumbed, makes me know it was possible to quit once he was faced with what the doctors kept telling him for years was going to happen.  The problem was that the damage to his body was done every time he lit-up.  That was one of the lowest points of my life, when I stood on one side of him lying in that hospital bed and my mother on the other side.  We were both encouraging him to take that next difficult breath.  He had slipped into a comma and just could not fight any more.  On one hand I am glad that I was there with him at the end, but wish his hard fought breaths were not my final memory of him.

 I also love to write.  I am a programmer by profession, which is a way to be creative and get paid for it.  I hope you enjoy the things I write.  They are a part of me and my life.  They are very personal and I am happy to share them with you.  Maybe some day I can write and get paid for it.  That would be awesome.  I have been writing in one form or another for over 40 years.  I have always dreamed of finding someone who I could collaborate with who could put my lyrics to music, but have not been successful yet.