That’s my grandfather in the colorized picture, the only existing photo of him. He died a long time before I was born. He was 44 years old when he passed. My father, Lloyd Douglas Press, was 23 when he lost his dad. It was a terrible blow. My dad had to take over running the family business, the general store in Blue Ridge, Texas. He had a younger brother Leon, a younger sister Linnia Mae, and my grandmother, Jessie Jewel Press, to help support, and 1934 was in the midst of the Great Depression, not the best of times in that rural north Texas farming country. But the real blow was spiritual. I believed my father admired his own father so much, the unexpected death haunted him the rest of his life.
Dad told me once about my grandfather’s kindness. A poor kid would come in the store with a penny or two, to see what kind of candy that would buy. Arthur (he was called by his middle name, as was my grandmother) would ask the kid to tug a big sack of feed to another part of the floor, and then give that kid the great treasure of a nickel, a dime, or a quarter. At my father’s funeral, a man who knew my dad and my grandfather said Arthur was running for Collin County Commissioner at the time of his death from cancer. He said he would have been elected in a landslide, and was so popular Arthur would have one day been elected governor of the State of Texas.
Hyperbole, perhaps, but what a shame I didn’t know him. I didn’t get much life advice from my father; it just wasn’t his way. The most memorable thing he told me, when I was six and playing catch with him to try out my new Nocona baseball glove, was to not wait too long to get married. Dad didn’t explain why, but I remembered that when I finally got married at age 39, the same age my father was when marrying my mother. And like him, I was 54 when my wife divorced me. Strange, but I learned there are patterns in families that seem unavoidable for some reason. As such, I was very happy when my often troublesome son got married just before turning 32. Pattern broken!
It’s rarely been a walk in the park making a full-time living as a writer, even though I’ve done it for decades. Being a “Mr. Mom” when my kids were little didn’t make it any easier. One reason I made it through, however, is that I’ve studied mentality and spirituality all my life - mostly due to problems in the family I came from. I learned how to recognize and end bad patterns and make life corrections. I recently wrote a book about it called Destiny Re-Do: Turning Failure into Freedom and Planning into Perfection. The book seems to be pleasing a lot of people, given a recent review.
I started writing my “Chasing Mark Twain” Substack after the death of Lisa Marie Presley, someone I knew a little and who had her share of family problems. Because of troubles I had with the fathers in my life - my Dad, my maternal grandfather, and a stepfather who tried to get rid of me, I looked to movies and TV for role models. Elvis Presley was my musical hero while Jimmy Stewart was my idea of a great movie dad, particularly in the film “Shenandoah” where he gave great marriage advice.
Recently on X, I was friended by someone who is supposedly (blue check mark verification) Pastor Bob Joyce of the Benton, Arkansas “House of Faith.” If you’ve never heard Bob’s sermons or singing you should investigate. His voice is the closest thing to Elvis Presley since Elvis. Pastor Bob has a new gospel album coming out.
Trading some messages with him reminded me, oddly enough, of Ike Turner, who invented rock ‘n roll with his song “Rocket 88.” Why Ike? Partly because Ike told me about Elvis coming to see Ike’s shows in East Memphis when Elvis was still relatively unknown, and that the flashy outfits Elvis used to wear were made by the same guy who did Ike’s flashy outfits first. This got me thinking about when I tried to get a movie made about Ike’s life, which is the quintessence of rock ‘n roll, with all its joys and troubles. I told Pastor Bob a story in messages. Here’s an elaboration.
A few years back, I was trying to make an Ike biopic based on the autobiography Takin’ Back My Name: The Confession of Ike Turner. I wanted the movie to begin with him getting out of prison, having no money, and living with his daughter in Lancaster, California. He borrows a pickup from her and drives into downtown Los Angeles to Skid Row to look for his son Ronnie, whom Ike said was a heroin addict.
Ike thought Ronnie’s problems were his fault. Ike told me how he himself got into cocaine because his fellow musicians told him that you could stay up all night playing music and didn’t have to sleep. Before that, he would fire musicians who did heavy drugs. Playing music was Ike’s lifeblood and he was strict. He fired Jimi Hendrix from his band for messing with guitar feedback onstage. Ike kicked his drug habit while in prison. He told me in detail how drugs wrecked his mentality, life, and marriage, and he thoroughly blamed himself for his son getting on hard drugs.
I knew someone who knew Ike and people who knew Tina. I knew there was more to the story than in Tina’s movie. I thought Ike’s life was the story of American music in my generation, particularly the ruination brought about by drugs. I wanted to start the movie with the scene of looking for his son and then go back to his beginnings in Mississippi when he witnessed a black man getting beat to death by a group of white men for sleeping with a white woman, I wanted to show what he learned from the legendary Pinetop Perkins and how piano was Ike’s main instrument, as he told me and which few people seemed to realize. It was such a momentous story.
I visited Ike where he was living in a house in San Marcos, California. This was after the book about Ike’s life came out. We talked about ways to make the movie, which was hard because he was depicted as totally a villain in Tina‘s movie. Ike didn’t deny becoming a cocaine monster, but that was long gone when we got together. I told Ike I wanted to tell the whole story of how rock ‘n’ roll came about and how everything got messed up with drugs and the consequences of what it did to his life and family. Rock ‘n roll was a massive cultural driving force of my generation and the destruction that came from hard drugs was not acknowledged enough. It was glossed over.
We had dinner at Ike’s house. His ex-wife Audrey Madison was there and also a young man who was being his music engineer and helping him revive his music, which was being stolen and sold all over the world. Ike showed me the bogus CDs that he had gathered up. He had lost a stunning amount of money while in prison.
Before we began our meal, Ike lowered his head and said let’s pray to God. Audrey (at least that’s who I think it was) bugged her eyes out and looked at him with an expression like “Since when does this happen?” I thought he was sincere, though, and I felt the presence of God was in that house that evening. That’s one thing I don’t miss because I’ve felt that presence many crucial times in my life and God has always been the one Father I learned to unequivocally count on. I had some pretty rough times.
I couldn’t get Ike’s movie made before he died. There was still too much bad feeling about him over reactions to Tina’s very popular 1993 movie “What’s Love Got to Do With It” that borrowed its title from her hit song. (Here’s the song video - that’s my late friend Ed Love dancing with her on the bridge. He choreographed the video.)
Ike eventually got a lot of backup about his claims that he’d done a lot of good in his life, as tumultuous as it might have been. His Wikepedia listing is comprehensive. To me, though, how his kids turned out matters most. One son was lost to addiction but the others became successful. And what his daughter Mia said about him after his passing described a much different story than people saw in the movie.
The point, I told Pastor Bob in X messages, is that it’s very tough sometimes being a father. Even “King of the Whole Wide World” Elvis Presley discovered that. Despite being someone with the even crazier troubles Ike Turner got himself into, redemption remains available to anyone. I told Pastor Bob that I hoped his new CD would help spread the true gospel spirit across this country with a fervor like I’d heard from him singing “How Great Thou Art.” Jesus power can rescue anyone.
And then I told Pastor Bob God bless, and wished him Happy Father’s Day.
There’s an old movie idea that if a film ends up with a happy ending, you have a generally satisfying story, no matter what happened during the telling. Life can be that way as well, and I wish every father everywhere a very happy Father’s Day, always.
.
Thanks, Diane! Hope you had a great weeked.
Your headline sums it up perfectly! Happy Father’s Day to you, Skip!