Grew up in a home and time
When the doors didn’t lock
And no one seemed to mind
Folks showed up, day and night
Someone always there
Almost all of the time

On the kitchen table
Always a cake or pie
That was never for you or I
But for company
Who may or may not stop by

Coffee and tea
Always on the boil
Whiskey or beer
If the end of the day was near

Our dinners were just enough
No leftovers ever
Unless a hungry soul showed up
Then dinner for six
Was dinner for seven
And no one seemed to mind

The home I grew up in
Was were people came
To live or to die
We were kids
We didn’t know the why

They would stay awhile
Growing our family of 6
To 7 or 8 or even 9
Sharing what we had
Until they would go

That was the hospitality
That I grew up in
Giving up your bed
And your spot in the bathroom line
Welcomed into our home
And no one seemed to mind

So at 13 I start
A near 50 year career
In hospitality
Before it was an Industry
When it was caring and kind
Welcoming each other
And just getting by
Before you were supposed to get rich
For just being kind

The currency of hospitality
Wasn’t cash or what it could buy
Our currency
Was in the people you’d find
Those working next to you
And those in to dine
Hospitality turned a dollar into a dime
And no one seemed to mind

Along the way, where I’m not sure
Hospitality became a business
Stealing the romance from restaurants
Forcing us to face a bottom line
Giving up on guests’ names and their lives
Only to track length of stay
And the dollars they spent
That’s where our hospitality went

Hospitality as an industry?
There’s no business model for that
Hospitality was how we treated each other

Friends and family, travelers and strangers
All treated the same
Open the door, welcomed by name

How did profit and loss
Replace kindness and caring
The worst of all - Hospitals
Bastardizing your care for their cash
Where’s the hospitality in that?

Sadly, no one seems to mind!

A mind, once eloquent and sublime
Now, ferried about by a body in decline
Wondering way back to a time
When it all seemed better than fine

When I knew where I were
And even how I got there
Not muttering to myself,
“What the hell am I doing here?”

Asked, “Hey, what did you lose?”
I can’t answer, not even myself
Because I don’t really know
My mind and my youth,
Where did they go?

I decided not to worry,
That it will be just fine
I’ll look for them right here
In this bottle of wine

Approaching is my December
I decide to recline and remember
Best I can, most or all of my years
LOL and crying real tears

Shadows of the setting sun
Memories overflow my mind
Offering a final slow dance with life
The life, that once …………was mine

Above the clouds and beyond the blue
Do you believe there's a Heaven for you

What's the path, what do you have to do
Do you think He'll have any mercy for you

Space X can’t get beyond the blue
But Zeppelin built a stairway just for you

Heaven for you, can’t be the same as Heaven for me
How is a time-shared Heaven, all there can be

There are tears in Heaven, but no cable TV
May be Heaven for you, but not for me

Is Heaven pay as you go or all inclusive
I'd like to know, might be too exclusive

When you’ll need it, will Heaven really be there
Or is Heaven imagined, just to cushion your despair

Above the clouds and beyond the blue
They say out loud, He'll make a place for you

Maybe He will or maybe He ain't
The price is your life,
Will it be worth the wait?

Woke up dead…. and you’re in a bind
Your memories, no longer able to find
In their making, your lifetime spent
You woke up dead…. and don’t know where they went

Here you arrived, but from where?
Where are your memories from there?
You nor I, we don’t know
But once again, looks like it's time to go

Origin or destination, you don’t know
But to Heaven!  You’re sure you’ll go
He’ll make a place for you
Past the clouds and beyond the blue

Scores of years and it’s never enough
Your turn at life about to be abridged
Wrought with limits and now defined
By a mind once sublime
Ferried ‘bout by a body in decline

You’re almost there
Where life is beyond repair
Using the promise of the everlasting
To cushion your despair

Whilst laboring to forget
Most of your lifetime spent
Evincing the arrogance of man

On the way to peace
There will be compromise
Bearable and burdensome
But not be ignored

Followed you home, disrupted your dreams
Being the friend, you didn't want to need
Attacking your sense of self
Causing your integrity to bleed

Compromise has it’s part
Crowding belligerence from your heart
Deftly and subtlety enough
Not to tear your dignity apart

Compromise, welcomed or not
Births consequences unintended
To deal compromise it’s fatal blow
Be your peace and let your ego go