Wednesday, February 29, 2012

IT CAN BE A CRUEL WORLD FOR A SINGLE MAN



Yesterday I went out to the garage to get my Sawzall because I needed to cut some steel. This necessitated me changing the blade in the saw, which I can handle. The part I can’t handle is getting into the package the new blades came in. After a few futile attempts, I took the package over to the workbench, got another saw and cut them out. That’s right—I had to cut out the blades-- to get one, to put in the saw. I used to, when my wife was alive, cuss enough that she would take the package away from me, and with a disgusted look, open it up. She would say, “I would rather do it for you than see you rot in hell for your use of language.”

Men that have been around women—and particularly wives—long enough, learn a few tricks to make life easier for themselves. Men know, if you don’t want to paint, just make a big mess of it and she will do it for you. Don’t want to wash pots and pans? Leave a little sausage in them and quickly put them away. With any luck, you might not be home when she next uses the pan. You’ll never have to wash it again. You might get some flack, but heck, that’s water off a duck’s back compared to painting and doing dishes. On the other hand, if you like fried chicken and dumplings, tell her that her’s is much better than your mother’s ever was.  But here is a caution. Don’t tell her she is pretty when she’s a mess; and for sure, don’t tell her she’s a mess. That’s just crazy talk. They know what they look like, and that reverse psychology you think works will boomerang on you, and you might be snoozing on the couch for a while. Not that that’s all bad—if you got the dog and your flashlight with you. It’s kind of like camping out, but be careful with the snacks. I once got in the doghouse by spilling sardine juice on one of her couch pillows. Not a good thing. I thought the dog would lick it clean, but he just rubbed his shoulder in it. Some buddy he was, huh?

Anyway, I got off-track here but I could write a book about this, and maybe I will—but back to the packaging. I know that, someday, I will be found deceased on the kitchen floor, with an unopened bottle of pills in one hand and a hammer in the other, the childproof lid still intact on the bottle of life-saving pills. It’s providence, my friends, and there is no use fighting it.  I have many electronic devices that I can manage the bare necessities on, but I am stymied on most of it. Unless the grandkids come up, I’ll never learn how to use them.

I once went with my neighbor to pick up some lumber and we had a flat tire on his vehicle. Now men do change tires ladies, but we couldn’t find the jack anywhere in the car. We read the Owner’s Manual in our search for it, but he spilled coffee on the English section of it, and the Spanish section was no help to two guys that struggle with English, unless the jack was at Taco Bell.  Some woman finally lent us her jack, and we did get it changed. However, we did lie a little, and told her we didn’t have a jack because we lost it while changing a tire for a bus full of nuns—on a railroad crossing—in a snowstorm. Oh man, I hope my priest doesn’t read this, and none of you women at the church need to bring it to him, either. I got enough problems right now trying to fold clothes.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

A PRIVATE PARTY


                                              
 Many years ago, on a cold New Year’s Eve, my wife and I found ourselves alone at home. No parties to go to and no one coming over. We both sat quietly, watching the tube, and wishing away the last few hours of the outgoing year. It was about ten p.m. and we both had drooping eyelids when I said. “Let’s go outside and have some fun.”
“Are you nuts?” she said, pulling her snuggie around her. “It’s cold out there.”
“I’ll warm it up,” I said. “Trust me on this one.”

So we both bundled up, and walked down the road to where I had a big pile of brush piled up from the summer. I brought along two lawn chairs, two cans of beer and a book of matches. “Yes, my friends, that was the night we burnt the brush pile.”  She was skeptical at first, grumbling at me in her bunny boots and parka; but as the fire grew, and the warmth radiated at us, and the stars winked down on us from an endless cloudless sky, I could see the reflection of the flames in her wet eyes, and the beginning of a smile on her face as she looked at me, and said. “This is better than the New Year’s Eve that you took me to the party at the Radisson.” We both had tears in our eyes. For me, at least, it was a Hallmark moment.

I learned two things that night in the woods. I learned that it didn’t matter where you had a party, it just mattered who was at the party. The simplicity of it all simply added to the ambiance. We sat there and held hands like two teenagers; we talked about how good our life had been for both of us, and how much we truly cared for each other, our family and our friends. Yes, we felt so blessed.

If I told my granddaughters about this New Year’s night, they would just say, “eww grandpa. Seriously, you need to get a life.” That’s what has happened in our society today. We acquaint happiness with momentous events and expensive trips and gifts. I have a friend who sends me a Christmas letter every year, and all of it is about her world travels. There is never a word about her and her husband, who rarely goes with her, or their kids and grandkids. “Just look at me in front of the Taj Mahal,” the captions say. Would I like to go to the Taj Mahal? Yes, if I had my wife to go with me. I traveled a lot with her, but it wasn’t the place that was so special, it was our happiness together, and that is what I will always remember.

My dad used to say, “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” I have found this to be so true. The other day I read this quote by an unknown writer, “When I was in grade school, they told me to write down what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down happy. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment. I told them they didn’t understand life.”

When I think of the last time somebody made me really happy—I was with her. I don’t remember where it was—but I was with her. You can travel a long ways, and do many things, but true happiness will never come from new experiences. It will come from sharing those experiences with someone you love. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in each of us. Yes—even if it’s burning the brush pile.

GEESE


                                                            
 When I was young boy, I used to watch the geese flying overhead in the fall. I often wondered why they flew in that perfect V formation, and all at the same speed. It was years later when I found out that it was nothing more than teamwork. That each bird, except the lead bird, provided lift for the others behind them. It made the long trip much easier. The geese honk when they fly to encourage each one to do their best, and like the little engine that could, they are saying, “I know you can. I know you can.” They take turns flying the point, and when one bird drops out for any reason, two others accompany it to the ground. They leave no man behind. They mate for life. I told my son this one day, to make a point, and he said, “Well, Dad—it’s not like they are going to find a better looking one.” I had to agree with him on that, but it goes much deeper than that.

Sometimes we realize that, as humans, we are at the top of the food chain. The alpha dog, you might say. But when you look at the geese, and how they act, you realize how selfish we can be. That goose has a brain the size of a plum, and we have one the size of small melon. But somehow, in many cases, there seems to be more of a sense of caring for their friends and family, coming from that goose, than us. We don’t have to look far in the bird and animal kingdom to find other instances of this. We also don’t have to look far to find cases of not caring and neglect in our society. So why is this?

Have we evolved to a point where we became so self-centered and greedy that this virtue, of caring for each other, gets lost in the shuffle of everyday life? My dad used to tell me when I was a young man, “Always look out for number one.” It took a few years, but I discovered that “number one” was not always me. When my wife was sick and in the last months of her life, I put my life on hold to care for her. I thank God I was allowed to do that, and deem it a privilege, even though she had to “drop out of the flock” and I came down to be with her. I’m not trying to be sanctimonious here. My children were there with me, and they came down from their formation, too. It was our job, our duty, and it happens every day in our society. But if you look at the people abandoned in nursing homes, and the lost and neglected children in our society, all too often it doesn’t happen. Even a wolf would not abandon her pups.

Fifty some years ago I grew up in a town where we never locked our cars, or in a lot of cases, even our houses. Now we pay for security systems, and lock packages in the trunk, far from prying eyes. A few years back I had a young lady working for me in the cities, and when her shift was done late at night, I made someone else on staff walk her to her car in the parking lot. There are places in the cities you would not think about driving through at night, let alone walk. We have to always be aware of our surroundings because, like the zebras on the Serengeti, danger lurks behind every bush. Yes, even though we have cured many diseases and put a phone in every pocket; even though we have been to the moon, the deepest parts of the sea, and climbed the highest mountains, many of us still prefer to fly alone.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

SHARING OUR LIVES


                                                
A while back one of my friends sent me a video that was a New Years greeting. It was Auld Lang Syne being sung in Norwegian with some beautiful visual effects. A singer named Sissel Kyrkjebo from Norway sang the song. If ever an angel sang, this lady’s soprano voice would sound just like it. I shared it with few a friends and got some nice comments back. But the crux of my story is not how Sissel sings but how we find beauty and feelings on this earth in so many different places. I have talked about music before and have used its words in a lot my writings. So many of my memories seem to have a song tied to them.

Pictures are another inspiration and not only pictures about this earth and its creatures but also pictures that are a snap shot in time. Our memories are a wonderful way to visit the past and often a picture can open the floodgates and make remembering them so much more enjoyable. Especially when you are sharing them with someone else because they know exactly what you are talking about when they see it. There comes a time when life has nearly passed you by and about all you have left are your pictures and your memories.

I have found over the years that sometimes it’s very hard to transfer how you feel about things to another person. You want them to see things exactly as you see it but it’s just so hard to get on the same wavelength with them, because that’s how different we are. We are all unique in our own way and thinking and sometimes we have little choice but to keep it to ourselves. Every once in a while though you are moved so much, you have to share and you hope that this time, is the one time, they will feel like you do.

Feelings are another thing we share with others and be it friendship or a deep and abiding love for someone, you share this in the hope that they will reciprocate in kind. It’s not always successful and there is a certain amount of salesmanship involved in it. I remember the first time I told a woman I loved her and my biggest fear was she was going to say. “That’s nice.” But this one didn’t and she loved me for forty-nine years and I never stopped loving her to this day, even though she is no longer alive. Have I told others I loved them? Certainly because I believe the words ‘I love you’ can be all encompassing with different degrees of it. How I loved my wife and how I love my children and my friends, differs greatly, but anyway you look at it, it’s still love. Valentines day is right around the corner. It’s not just for lovers but a day when love does takes center stage. Be sure to tell someone you love them, because they need to hear it from you.

Monday, February 13, 2012

HOUSE OR HOME


                                                
 When I was a young man, and married for just a couple of years, my bride and I decided to look for a house. We had one child and another on the way and it was time to put down some roots. For me this was just another piece of the puzzle in my on- going life with my growing family. I guess at the time this house was in reality just boards, shingles and nails but I was going to find out how to turn it into a home.

For me the words house and home had always been synonymous in my mind. They both meant nothing more than a shelter but now that was changing and the meanings were taking on separate distinctions in my mind. The recipe for a house was as always, cement blocks, boards, wiring and plumbing and a way to put it all together. A coat of paint, some grass and a doghouse in the yard and you had a house. The home however was more complicated, needing all of that and more and the house basically was just a part of it. For you see bit-by-bit that house was taking on a human touch and that is the real recipe for a home.

In my home, to start with, the main ingredient was she and I. She was the foundation and the mortar in the bricks. She held it all together and the home was built upon her. Then the kids came and we had important parts too but she was the choreographer and we were content to just play our parts and take her lead. In many homes this is reversed between husband and wife, or is shared so equally there is no real clear-cut distinction. It’s not that important who drives the boat. What’s important is that it isn’t rudderless and spinning in circles. In the end however in our case, we all played a part in making the house a home.

When people came to our house I always said, “Welcome to our home.” That is what I wanted them to see. Not the pictures on the walls or the walk-in closets. Not the cupboards in the kitchen or the spacious yard. Those are just fixtures and not what the home was really made of. I wanted them to feel the love and compassion that existed there. I wanted them to leave talking about the home and not the house. From my days as a fireman, I remember standing with people in front of their burnt out houses trying to comfort them. Always I would tell them that as long as they were all safe, the house may be ruined, but happily the home survived. The house will rise again and then the home will be whole once more.

In my case, with my wife’s passing, it’s the home that has suffered and the house is fine. Fixing the home will take a lot more work then fixing a house. Houses can last for centuries and the family that once called it a home will fade away. But new families may come and make it a home again and the house will once again be a happy place. So be proud of your house but be prouder yet of your home. You see in most cases the house is what the builder built-- but the home-- that’s what you built.