*NOTE* Charlie will be back with a brand new soapbox on Monday, in the meantime, here's a rewind from 2009. - TeamCDB/BW

I got home off the road on a cold rainy Sunday morning to find our house all decorated for my favorite time of the year, the season we set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Son of Almighty God, Prince of Peace, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, The Way The Truth, The Life and Savior of mankind.

Our government is no longer august citadels of reason where the highest standards of patriotism and civilized decorum are practiced, where all energy is laser-focused on what is best for our nation’s security and fiscal health, where party affiliation is second to the needs of “We the People” and truth and honor abound.

*NOTE* Charlie will be back with a brand new soapbox on Monday, in the meantime, here's a rewind from way back in 2003. - TeamCDB/BW

To you who have read this column for years this piece may seem a little redundant since I have written on this subject before. But it is such a frequently asked question that I feel I should revisit it from time 
to time.

There is an old saying that “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” Well, when it comes to elections all the fat lady can do is stand in the wings and wait until the votes are counted and that seems to depend on some pretty tenuous circumstances involving a cast of shady characters who have a tendency to balk when the vote tally doesn’t add up to suit them.

*NOTE* Charlie will be back with a brand new soapbox on Monday, in the meantime, here's a soapbox rewind from 2009. - TeamCDB/BW

I guess it may be a sign of my advancing age or a healthy case of nostalgia in fond remembrance of a simpler time in my life, but sometimes I find my thoughts wandering back to a time and place in my young life when my responsibilities consisted making sure the wood box was full and keeping my grades above the passing line.

*NOTE* Here's a Soapbox Rewind from Charlie about Veterans Day - TeamCDB/BW

As we approach the day we set aside every year to honor those who have served our nation in our armed forces, my memory goes back to a blustery Sunday in 1941 - December 7 to be exact - when my family gathered around my grandparents big floor model radio to listen to a scratchy overseas broadcast informing us that Japanese warplanes had attacked our Naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii doing massive damage to a major part of the Pacific Fleet that was moored there.

*NOTE* Because of the timely nature of this soapbox, we're running it on Friday instead of Monday, and will run a rewind on Monday. - TeamCDB/BW

The election is over, the people have spoken, and although there is probably not a baker’s dozen in America who are completely happy with the outcome, it is my fervent hope that our president will dial back his acerbic rhetoric and the loyal opposition will put away the long knives and personal vendettas and take what’s good for the country into consideration for a change.

Frequently I am asked in interviews if I could go back and change anything about my life or career, what it would be. My stock and honest answer is that, I believe that there is a reaction to all actions and that anything I could reach back and change would have an impact on the way things turned out, and that, since I’m pretty happy about the way things did turn out, I would leave well enough alone.

*NOTE* Charlie will be back with a new soapbox on Monday, in the meantime, here's a rewind from way back.... last year. - TeamCDB/BW

Many times, when I do a column about the appalling state of affairs in our nation or point out issues that are irritating to me, somebody asks a perfectly fair and legitimate question.

*NOTE* Charlie normally writes a new soapbox on Monday, but we flipped the script this week so a post on his 82nd birthday went up in place of a rewind on Friday, so we're running a rewind today. In light of the tragic massacre in Pittsburgh, here's a soapbox of his from 2014 on the worldwide problem of anti-Semitism. - TeamCDB/BW

I know there will always be prejudiced people for as long as there are human beings inhabiting this planet. There will always be small-minded individuals who will consider themselves to be a cut above a segment of the population and look down on them with disdain, sometimes harboring feelings deep and dark enough to motivate them to persecution and even bodily harm.

*NOTE* Normally, Charlie writes a new soapbox on Monday, but since he's writing about his upcoming birthday on Sunday October 28, we're running a new one today, and a rewind on Monday. Happy Birthday, Charlie! - TeamCDB/BW

October 28, 2018, God willing, I will turn 82 years old.

What are you supposed to be doing and how are you supposed to act when you’re 82?

other assorted trash as street muscle. They enforced Hitler’s evil with no legal standing. They were just a bunch of riff-raff that basically did whatever they wanted to do, protected by the Nazi Party.

*NOTE* Charlie will be back with a brand new soapbox on Monday, in the meantime, here's a rewind from 2009 which coincides with Saturday's 41st anniversary of the tragic 1977 Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash. - TeamCDB

“It was October in St. Louis town
When we heard that the free bird had fell to the ground
And we all said a prayer before we went down to play
And Ronnie, my buddy, above all the rest
I miss you the most and I loved you the best
And now that you’re gone I thank God I was blessed
Just to know you”

The last few weeks have been chaotic, to say the least, high faux drama wrapped in betrayal, theater, hyperbole and downright comedic antics complete with a heroine, who possessed the unparalleled courage, to witness multiple gang rapes at parties, and keep coming back to these parties, until she herself was the victim.

*NOTE* Charlie will be back on Monday with a brand new soapbox, in the meantime here is an appropriate soapbox for today as it is the 7th anniversary of the passing of William Joel "Taz" DiGregorio, Charlie's friend and longtime keyboard player for the CDB. RIP, Taz. - TeamCDB/TeamBW

This is the hardest soapbox I've ever written.

This morning about 4:15 am I got the news that I had lost one of my oldest and dearest friends, Taz DiGregorio. He was killed in a one-car accident on I-40, East of Nashville when he was driving to catch our tour bus to go on the road.

It would seem that our Senate, instead of being an institute of diplomacy, common sense and patriotism has become something resembling a bloodless version of a Roman Coliseum spectacle, where political gladiators fight to the death, over, not legislation, nor the betterment of the nation, but for whatever ideology their party is embracing.

*NOTE* Charlie will be back with a brand new soapbox on Monday, in the meantime, here's a rewind from 2016. - TeamCDB

As an avid supporter of term limits, I have addressed this subject in this column many times over the years and have received some valid and sensible opposition to my opinion.

If you read this column often you will know that I write a lot about work and vocation, about the choice of profession, about attitude toward one’s chosen path and the dreams and goals that accompany the sincere desire of one who is serious about choosing a line of work that will hold their interest, their energy, their patience and perseverance for as long as they care to pursue it.

*NOTE* Charlie will be back with a brand new soapbox on Monday, in the meantime, here's a rewind from 2016 which still holds up today. - TeamCDB

Some of my first vivid memories are the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the opening days of the Second World War and the first news about the attack came to us over the radio.

It seems that - for the most part - political dialogue in America has deteriorated from discussion and debate to, name calling, catfights and one-uppance contests, with everybody more intent on having the last word, than proving a point.

*NOTE* Charlie will be back with a brand new soapbox on Monday, in the meantime, here's a rewind from 2008 when Charlie was celebrating 50 Years of Making Music, ten years later, he's still going strong!. - TeamCDB

Sometime during the first part of this summer, I will complete 50 years in the music business. It really doesn’t feel like fifty years in a way but when I start trying to gather all the memories of the places I’ve been and the things I’ve done it could well be a hundred years.

If this piece is going to have any impact, it cannot be viewed through partisan eyes, conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat. Preconceived political prejudice and implacable attitudes must be cast aside. For the moment we must view the political system, as just that, a political system without the personalities and policies we loath or the blind loyalty we show for one side and the blind hatred that we feel for the other.

*NOTE* Charlie will be back with a brand new soapbox on Monday, in the meantime, here's a rewind from 2012. - TeamCDB

This year I have again been blessed to travel the length and breadth of the United States of America and no matter how many times I do it, I never cease to be amazed at it's diverse beauty, the variety of the landscape, the patchwork of its cultures and its incredible people.

*NOTE* Here's Charlie's 9/11 soapbox from 2018. - TeamCDB/BW

As the seventeenth anniversary of that fateful time in American history approaches, the memories of that day and the days afterwards spring vividly into my consciousness as images of America in shock and confusion, as I had never seen it.

*NOTE* Charlie will be back with a brand new soapbox on Monday, in the meantime, here's a rewind from WAY back in 2000. - TeamCDB

Just before Jesus went to the cross he gave his disciples another commandment, to love one another. With the exception of the commandment to love God with all our hearts, the others are all wrapped up in the new one that Jesus gave.

I remember as a child seeing the newsreels at the movie houses about the Second World War and the inhumanity and cruelty of Hitler and his Nazis.

I remember the huge holes full of the naked, skeletal bodies of Jews - men, women and children - who had been murdered and were being buried in mass graves because the furnaces where they usually burned the bodies couldn’t keep up with the amount of prisoners the monsters put to death.

I come from a long line of people who made a living by the sweat of their brows and the labor of their hands. Hands that could handle a plow or a crosscut saw, break an ornery mule or hold an infant baby.

To anybody who will admit the truth, the animosity and downright hate that exists in the political arena goes way past anything this nation has ever experienced before. The vitriol has grown to the point that party power comes before patriotism for many of these jaded partisans, to the point they will fight tooth and nail to defeat things that would be beneficial for the country just because it’s the opposing party’s idea. 

*NOTE* Charlie will be back with a brand new soapbox on Monday, in the meantime, here's a rewind from 2014 about the 40th anniversary of the 'Fire on the Mountain' album. - TeamCDB

Forty years ago this December, the CDB released what would ultimately be our first gold, and then platinum album called Fire On The Mountain.

It seems there is less and less common ground in discourse in America anymore as the constantly redrawn battle lines move farther and farther apart, taking with them even the folks on both fringes, severely narrowing the space for what have heretofore been known as “moderates”.