From Andy P.  I will try and write some more tomorrow on the way to our roller coaster adventure at Cedar Point.

-Jason

Often in life, reflection on the past is a beneficial form of passing the time.  By studying history, past mistakes are avoided, and heroic efforts are remembered. Today we were gifted with the opportunity to reflect on the historical creation of two prominent factors of modern culture: Football, and Rock ‘N’ Roll.

            We visited the Football Hall of Fame and the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame, located in Canton and Cleveland, respectively. While I personally am not an avid follower of the sport, I certainly respect those talented enough to be inducted into its Hall. And looking for and subsequently finding those stars of the game that made it into popular culture (The beloved Coca Cola ad with Mean Joe Greene- “Hey kid, catch” and one of my personal favorite Saturday Night Live sketches, idolizing Mike Ditka- “Da Bears”) was a fun activity that I spent most of my time there engaged in.

            Then came the Hall of Fame dedicated to that most “rebellious” genre, Rock and Roll. So much of American culture springs from and then feeds back into the musical styles of Rock, Blues, and all of their various offshoots and subgenres. And in the same way that Rock ‘N’ Roll is no mere score of notes on a page, its Hall of Fame is no mere corridor. Five floors were required to display the numerous historical points in the musical and cultural history of the genre, going all the way back to its roots in African Spirituals, good ol’ Dixie Tunes, noting the advent of the greats like Elvis, Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, to Beatlemania with the appearance of the foursome from Liverpool, Jimi Hendrix, Van Halen; revolutionaries, unafraid of the distaste with witch they were looked upon by parts of their society. Not unlike a certain man who held a similar viewpoint approximately two thousand years ago. And while their message wasn’t the same, their work achieved the same thing: changing the way people looked at the world.

            We also sang in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the setup for which was rather harrowing, but the end result of which went rather well in my somewhat-less-than-professional opinion as A Clear Voice’s sound engineer. We drew a relatively substantial crowd, which means we must’ve been doing something right, or that the area in front of the stage was popular for regrouping and resting. Either way, people heard us, and since that’s what we set out to do, I’d call it a success.

            We then returned to the church for a game of “Clean up your mess you hoodlums!” I’m actually amidst fixing an enthusiastically leaking faucet in the men’s room, which involves an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the average tap, and between myself, and the house intern Aaron (possibly misspelled, I haven’t seen his name written) I think we’ll get it figured out.

                                                                                                            -Andy P.