Forever Endeavor

If you get a chance, saunter over to the YouTube and punch up this selection and see Randy Travis sing "I Told You So" with Carrie Underwood.  Something about the amazing Carrie - and I think she is just about as great a singer as ever graced this planet - blending her voice with Randy's country-hewn goodness just makes for a doggone good song.

Randy Travis (born Randy Bruce Traywick in Marshville, North Carolina, 1959) has seen the peaks and valleys of life.  If you watch the video to "Forever and Ever, Amen," which was his first big hit back in the 1980's, you see a much healthier Randy than you see in this mugshot, taken just the other day. In fact, it might be a good idea to start making some changes if you are hauled in nekkid as a jaybird, after crashing your car and taking a nap alongside the wreck.  When you get arrested in a place called Grayson County, Texas, that sounds a bit scary.

Travis's prognathous jaw always reminded me of another Randy - the puppet from Pee Wee's Playhouse.  But Randy the puppet was on a fun show, a piece of entertainment, who poured cereal in Pee Wee's bowl to comic effect.  Otis Campbell, the lovable town drunk of Mayberry, reflects a long-ago age in America.  Today we realize that people with alcohol abuse issues need help, not laughter. 

Travis had been arrested this past February, drunk in his car at a church parking lot somewhere else in Texas.  This latest run-in would indicate that he is running with a bad idea.  His friends and family should get him to help before his forever and ever comes way too early.