Category Archives: Life reflections

Coach Oliver Wins Through

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We’re sorry about the off-timing of our blogs this week; most of the adults associated with the bookstore and/or the Celtic Festival are lying in darkened rooms with cold cloths on their foreheads. The Monday book will return next Monday, and we’re back on track now, we promise!

Jack and oliverAs the 2014 festival fades into the distance, our headliner Barbara Dickson and her husband Oliver Cookson are staying on for a bit of a holiday. We’ve sent them off to Nashville and have plans to hit Cherokee and Bristol before they fade into the British Empire sunset.

Among the simple pleasures they’ve enjoyed is attending our good Chef Kelley’s children’s soccer games. We walked over to one the Monday after the festival, after all the adults had slept 12 hours straight.

James, Kelley’s wee’un, plays on the Funky Monkeys for ages 4-6. Oh, the hilarity! The Monkeys had black shirts, the opposition purple. Purple showed up with fewer players than Black, resulting in rotations for the Black players. The first two put out began turning cartwheels beside the goal–not noticing when the teams came charging down to attempt to put the ball into said goal, or when said ball rolled merrily between them as they turned.

Next, one of Black’s players trotted off the field as his mates were running the other way, and said to his parents, “I’m tired. I don’t wanna play anymore. Can I have some cheese and crackers?”

One of the cartwheelers was quickly pressed into service.

Soon the ball was returned to some point in the field for a reason Jack and I didn’t understand, whereupon the clump of children surrounding it began to kick it toward a goal–regardless of shirt color–and the Purple coaches began to shout, “No, no, the other way!” A Black child looked up, shrugged, and started kicking the ball back the way they’d come. The Purple coaches shouted again, “NO, NOT YOU! NOT YOU!”

The Black player gave the Purple coaches an enigmatic look that suggested all adults were crazy and kicked the ball to score a Purple goal. All the children cheered madly as the Black coach shook her head in despair.

A few minutes later, time to rotate! But where were the extra Black players? After a quick search I heard the Black coach exclaim, “Come down outta that tree! It’s your turn to play!”

We thought our joy was complete, but about then, Jack asked, “Where are Oliver and Barbara?” We looked over at the sidelines between the peewee game we were watching and an older team…..

?????????? Oliver 2….and saw Oliver gesticulating with their goalie, demonstrating kicks while hugging a ball to his chest. The goalie stared up at him, enthralled.

No doubt a few parents were startled by the sight of a dapper man with a curly handlebar mustache beneath a straw boating hat, shouting, “Kick it, lad!” in a posh British accent. As we left the field, I heard some murmurs: “Nope, never seen ‘im before. Anybody know who that was?”

We’re all going back next week to watch another game. Who knew sports were such fun?!

 

The Monday Book: OUR FAMILY OUTING by Joe Cobb and Leigh Anne Taylor

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a guest review by Beth O’Connor

Imagine for a moment that you have two small children, and your husband is one of four pastors at the large church where you are the minister of music. Now imagine what would happen when your husband determines that he can no longer deny the fact that he is gay.

Pain. Denial. Pain. Self-doubt. Pain. Anger. Pain. Shame. Pain. And more pain. An ocean of pain that threatened to drown everything. Yet, as deep as the ocean is, their faith in God was deeper. It was the lifeline they used to haul themselves up out of the darkness.

This is Our Family Outing, the autobiographical story Joe Cobb and Leigh Ann Taylor published in 2011 via TotalPublishingAndMedia. Told in alternating voices, Our Family Outing details Cobb and Taylor’s journey from being one very traditional family to two families who are anything but. All of the emotions in the process are poured out, from Taylor’s worst fear (What if my husband infects me with AIDS and leaves our children orphaned) to Cobb’s greatest joy (the birth of his and his partner’s second adoptive child).

Full disclosure: I discovered this book because Taylor is currently the music minister at the church I attend and my church book club went to her signing event. The book starts at the end, with Cobb and Taylor determining that they need to share their story with the world. The memoir takes you from the days they first started dating in seminary, to deciding how to tell their friends, family and co-workers, to creating separate lives in which everyone is loved and accepted for who they are.

The book can be awkward to read as Cobb and Taylor refused to avoid any of the uncomfortable situations in which they found themselves. As a reader, you will feel as though you accidently stumbled into someone’s private conversation and cannot find a way to escape from the room without being discovered. The description of their lives is deeply personal – such as Cobb’s fear that a lover from his high school years will give away his secret, to Taylor relating that early in the process her husband, “my favorite companion” did not smile at her for a year and a half.

Cobb and Taylor are not professional writers, and it shows – the writing is often clunky and disjointed. However, instead of distracting from the narrative, the raw style serves to underline how very real the story is. The book comes full circle, with the oldest of Cobb’s adoptive children playing The Game of Life and noting that everyone is along for the ride.