Larry's gone?

Wow! Such a strange feeling when I heard that Larry Norman died yesterday so soon after I had been reintroduced to his music. Here is an article from The Oregonian's website about Larry's life and death. He had been sick for a long long time with heart failure. There is a wonderful last statement posted on his website. Farewell Larry. I look forward to worshiping with you in heaven one day.

Wireless

We've decided to ditch the home phone line and use only wireless phones. It's a step that I have resisted for the last several years because I prefer the quality of a land line call. However, we've had unending trouble with our current land line anyway. Our line went dead a couple of times, seemingly due to one of the older style corded phones that we had. It was impossible to tell which phone it was that caused the problem, so we were only using our cordless phones. And for some reason, the cordless phones that we had (not very old at all) we not working very well. Needless to say, the "land line quality" that I was looking for was sorrowfully lacking and we were paying an arm and a leg to the phone company each month. Our wireless venture is going to save us about $50 a month.

So, to celebrate, we each got a new updated cell phone with more features than our old ones. I haven't had a flip phone in a while, but so far I'm liking it. I'm just afraid that I'm going to forget it somewhere.

Larry and Terry

What does seeing Terry Fator have to do with Larry Norman? That's what I was wondering when I saw Larry's CDs for sale in the foyer of the concert hall last night. If you don't know, Larry Norman is considered the "father of Christian rock". He recorded the bulk of his music in the 70's and influenced a lot of musicians over the years, both Christian and secular. I was introduced to his music by a friend in college. Larry has had serious health problems for years now (I remember hearing about his chronic illnesses about 15 years ago at a concert I attended.) Well, Larry now lives in Salem, Oregon and most of his income is dependent on continued sales of his albums which he re-releases with some new tracks from time to time.

It turns out that Terry Fator has met and become friends with Larry Norman. He donated all the proceeds from the concert last night to help with Larry's medical costs. In my wikipedia research I found out that Terry also performed at Larry's 60th birthday party. Anyway, that was just the icing on the cake of a great evening. The show was really great. Terry has about 6 different puppets all with their own personalities. He also did some singing on his own, most of it impersonations of other singers. He's really good and really funny. There were some great interactions with the puppets. It's really impossible to describe. I bought the DVD that he has available of his first Las Vegas performance as well as a couple of Larry Norman CDs.

Mom and I got home at 2 AM, so that wasn't bad at all.

Terry Fator

Have you seen this guy? He won America's Got Talent. I didn't watch the show when it was on. I only heard about him from a posted Youtube video after he had won. This is my favorite segment - the first time he appeared on the show. The reaction from the judges is so fun and Terry really shows great comedic timing and an amazing voice.

My mom are going up to Salem to see him tonight! It will be a 4 hour drive both ways and we will go up and back today, returning quite late. I'll give you a full report later.

Addendum - Terry Fator will be playing at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland in April.

That was nice!

Denis and I just got home from our first memorial service of someone associated with our church. A dear church member, one of the founders, beloved by many went home to be with the Lord in a very unexpected way about two weeks ago. Much of his extended family attend our church, and the pastor is his brother-in-law. Denis and I had occassional interactions with the man over the four years since we started attending Bear Creek Church. Loren was always very attentive and interested in us and our lives. It was a blessing to hear all the stories of how his quiet, supporting, generous and serving attitude touch so many lives - of his family and his friends. It was a hopeful, happy service because everyone knows that Loren's faith was rock-solid. We know that he is in the best possible place now and we will be joining him there one day. It was really nice!