Cell Phones

For the Reunion, I prepared several observations to share, if needed, during set up between musicians. I did not share all of them, including the following.

There are many reasons I'm glad cell phones did not exist during the Jesus House era. One reason is because of the obnoxious ring tones some people choose to use at maximum volume levels! Imagine yourself, sitting on the floor, leaning on one of the pillows listening to Jennie Daniel Pitney sing one of her beautiful songs and suddenly you hear the Star Spangled Banner playing on someone's cell phone.

A few years ago, a man named Peter Laufer gave me a copy of a book he wrote titled, Wireless Etiquette. The premise of the book is that every new technology requires instruction in use. For cell phones, we need someone helping us understand when to have the ringer silenced, when to answer or not answer the phone, and when to leave it at home or in the car. I was in a small group Bible study one day when one of the members answered her cell phone and started a conversation. In grad school, one of the other students, a pastor, answered his cell phone in the midst of the professor's lecture!

I'll admit, I have a love and hate relationship with cell phones that goes beyond how obnoxious they can be. I also hate cell phones because they are not reliable. Because of advances in technology, we can check email, surf the web, and update our calendars. Wouldn't it be great if you could actually talk on a cell phone and not loose the connection? Be honest, how many of you have experienced a dropped call on your cell? Let's see a show of hands. Come on, don't be shy. Okay, see, everyone. (You say you didn't see those hands? I saw those hands, why didn't you?) Of course, the cell phone companies know the phones are unreliable. That's why one company used a national advertising campaign with the tag line, "Fewest Dropped Calls." In essence they were saying, "We know our product is going to fail you. We just believe we will fail you less often than our competitors. That's like McDonald's advertising, "We will burn your hamburgers less often than Wendy's" or Delta promoting, "Fly with us our planes crash less often than United." or a church advertising, "Fewer of our members go to hell than the church down the street."

Yes, I have a cell phone, in fact I've had one most of the time since 1995 but I still don't like them and really don't like talking on one. So, if you have my cell number, don't be surprised if I don't answer your call. It will just be dropped anyway...

This Week in History: Artists who performed at the Jesus House the 3rd, 4th & 5th Weeks of May

The Third Saturday of May:
1972 - Rich Davis, one of the early Christian musicians in Cincinnati.
1973 - No One Listed (Not the name of a band)
1974 - U.C. Players and Randy Moody This was also the weekend of the Concert on the Lawn at Shiloh United Methodist Church!
1975 - Kent Odor
1976 - Tim Hacker
1977 - Don Wetstine - The only musician I ever met who enjoyed singing at weeks of Junior High Camp!
1978 - Cindy Price, Tony Ross
1979 - Harvest Team
1980 - John Gould
1981 - Dove - And you always wondered, was there ever really a group named Dove. Now you know.
1982 - Deny Brigance
1983 - Nori Kelly

The Fourth Saturday of May:
1972 - Doug Adams, Bob Chick
1973 - A Blank Month (Also not the name of a band)
1974 - The Bozo Brothers (Kevin Boys & Andy Danzl)
1975 - Rich Mullins
1976 - Donnie Yazell
1977 - Latter Reign
1978 - Tom Black & Brent Eresman (Yes, the same Brent Eresman who play sax and flute on several cuts on the JH CD Project!)
1979 - Zion
1980 - Brent Eresman (Wait, didn't he just play, no, okay, that was two years before. What happened to Tom?)
1981 - Willoughby-Wilson Band
1982 - Terry Fisher, Rhema
1983 - Revelation Band

Artists Who Played that rare fifth Saturday:
1975 - A Rising Hope Weekend! Yes, folks we expanded into two nights for this special weekend. Unfortunately only 25 people showed up for Friday night. But we had 116, a decent crowd, for Saturday. We worked those Rising Hopers to death that weekend!
1976 - The Yahoo Band - A band from the One Way House in Springfield.
1980 - A special weekend with Jon Owens performing and Dr. Foster speaking.
1981 - Cathy Snyder
1982 - Sower

Where Are They Now?
Just before the Reunion, I heard from Cathy Snyder who is married to a producer, living in Columbus, still singing and recording.