In Another Life with Kris Kristofferson

 

In another life, I taught Sunday School to fifteen-year-old girls.  I was 24 & totally not qualified to be leading a group of teenagers.

How I became a Sunday School teacher is another story for another day.

During that time, Kris Kristofferson starred in a remake of “A Star is Born” with Barbra Streisand.  The girls were madly in love & lust with him.  Or at least with his character in the film.  

And it happened that Kristofferson was touring the country & scheduled for a Houston  gig.  So I arranged a girls’ night out with my class & any others in the department to see the object of their lust in person.

(A sure sign that I was inept as a Sunday School teacher – what were their parents thinking?)

Other greats showed up for the final set – Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson . . .others I don’t remember.

Later, after the concert, I took the girls to IHOP & they looked at me in dismay.

Jaki, he is a country & western singer.

In my youth, I did not know how to explain Kris Kristofferson to a group of lusty fifteen year olds.

That he was not the character in “A Star is Born.”

That he was a Rhodes Scholar, a graduate of the US Army’s Ranger School, a man who quoted William Blake.

That he, not Janis Joplin, wrote “Me & Bobby McGee”. 

 And “For the Good Times” & “Help me Make it Through the Night” & my personal favorite, “Sunday Mornin´Comin’ Down”.

Or that he would eventually team up with Willie Nelson & Waylon Jennings & Johnny Cash to tour as “The Highwaymen”.

I sometimes wonder if those girls remember that night & how I tried to explain the enigma that is Kris Kristofferson to them.

Personally, I admire him much more as a songwriter than as an actor.

But for me, it is always about words.  Always.