A Bad Day Made Better

  Dean Holloway was having a bad day. Dean was the bus driver for Merle Haggard and his band. Dean and Merle were both Okies that grew up in California as their parents fled the Dust Bowl. Merle was in LA to record 23 songs in 48 hours for his label. Dean had spent the better part of the days outside with the bus with no air conditioning waiting. So when Merle came out to let him know they were almost done he wasn’t happy.  Merle asked how his friend if he was doing all right, He replied, “I hate this place. I’m tired of this dirty old city”. 

As a songwriter, Merle was always listening for interesting ways people put things and something about. “This dirty old city” caught him. Merle said, “Mr. Holloway “I can see you’re upset, but why don’t we take that anger out on a piece of paper?

  So Dean ranted and Merle wrote. Merle said to Dean, “You’re in the middle of Los Angeles now. Where would you rather be?” Dean said, “If it were up to me, it’d be somewhere in the middle of Montana.” Well, with Dean on a roll, they had the lyrics to the song done in about ten minutes. Merle went back into the studio and asked if they could do one more song. An hour later, he went back out to the bus with a tape of the song telling him, “Dean we just wrote ourselves a hit”! 

  He was right. Big City would become a number one hit.  Merle only thought it was fair to ‘split the proceeds down the middle’ with Dean. He estimated the song made him over half a million dollars.  

  Life at times isn’t fair easy or even a whole lot of fun. Those times when we hate everything and everyplace. Yet we need to understand that even those times can be as, maybe even more, beneficial than the good ones.

  In 1st Peter 1:6-7 we read, “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,  so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;”  The Hebrew writer talks about those were mocked and had their possessions taken from them yet rejoiced because it was helping them gain something better (Hebrews 10:33-35).

For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

Hebrews 13:14 

 It ok to grow weary of this ‘dirty old city’. Life here can beat you down. However, let’s remember that suffering can bring something better. We have a friend that can take our bad days and help shape them into something that will make our life better.  We just need to turn it loose and set ourselves free.