A SPECIAL SUNDAY RESPITE-Dan and Leilani Clark

This Sunday Respite needs a little explanation.

The guitar player is my friend, the late Dan Clark.

Dan was the bass player in my Youth Choir in Miami. He had no thumb on his left hand, was a bit askew bodily and one might have been tempted to call him handicapped.

But Dan knew nothing of handicaps, and was professionally proficient on bass, keyboard, piano, organ and guitar.

He and I used to fish the Biscayne Canal in Miami. We also spent time fishing in the Everglades and loved to tease alligators with our lures.

As the gators stacked themselves up on little islands vying for sun space, they would compete to get to the lures we tossed in the water near them, thinking they were food. The winner would immediately grab a lure and begin a death roll.

Eventually he would figure out that the lure was not food and would release it...most of the time. We lost more than a few.

We also fished a land-locked lake in the Thousand Islands in South Florida and regularly caught one or the others of the three tarpon that were trapped in the lake.

Dan died several years ago in a boating accident.

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this video on YouTube.

God really blessed me with his friendship.

His daughter was about 14 when this video was made...in 1993, I think.