Wednesday, May 23, 2012

THE YELLOW RIBBON


                                               
 About ten years ago, I tied a wide yellow ribbon around an old oak tree outside my back door, as a symbolic gesture to my nephew Robby who was going over to Afghanistan with the military to fight. Other nephews and friends have followed Rob and now I fear it will be my grandchildren next, in a war that seems no closer to ending, then it did on that day, so many years ago.

It was 1973 when Tony Orlando and Dawn first brought that yellow ribbon song out. Ironically it was one of the few times when we weren’t at war. But then the song really makes no mention of being away to war does it. “I’m coming home. I’ve done my time. Now I’ve got to know what is and isn’t mine.” He was in prison, the song says in a later verse. But that yellow ribbon was a symbol to him that he was still welcomed home. Then as he arrived, there it was. Not one but a hundred yellow ribbons tied around that old oak tree. Victory, and home again, at last.

That song inspired a campaign called “Beyond the Yellow ribbon” and there was no doubt about it’s meaning. It was a campaign to bring our service men and women home again safely and to reconnect them and their families to society. A very worthy organization, with a worthy cause. Sometimes it’s hard to feel good about what you have accomplished when there is no clear victory, but we need to thank our troops for trying. It wasn’t their fault the way it turned out but they answered the call and you can’t ask for any more than that.

Today as I look out the window at the yellow ribbon, I tied there so many years ago; it is all weathered and torn. No longer yellow, just a dirty shade of silver. Some days my heart feels the same way as that ribbon. Weary of wars and so sad, over the deaths of so many people and for what you ask? Georges Clemenceau said “I don’t know if war is an interlude during peace or if peace is an interlude during war.” Lately we have had no interlude, to even talk about. When that symbolic yellow ribbon you put up, just so you could take it down in a victory celebration, rots right off of the side of the tree, what does that tell you? When the school has a pep rally every week and the football coach gives rousing pregame speeches but victory never comes, soon it all falls on deaf ears and becomes meaningless.

Dwight Eisenhower, himself a military hero, and later our president and leader said,” I think that people want peace so bad, that one of these days Government better get out of their way and let them have it.” Strong words from a man schooled to fight but still one who saw the awful realities of the death and destruction from the fighting in World War II. I think my friends that the time that ‘Ike’ talked about has come. In fact I think it has been here for some time.

  

Monday, May 21, 2012

WHAT I BELIEVE IN


                                                

My parents brought me up with a Christian upbringing that I strongly believe in. They told me that, while I was here on earth, I would lead two lives. A physical life and a spiritual life. That, at some point, my body would wear out and my physical life would come to an end. My spiritual life, however, would continue on in a far better place. That belief has brought me immeasurable comfort, and especially now, with the loss of a loved one who has gone on before me

I have always tried to be tolerant and understanding of others’ beliefs and religions. I have tried to not use my writing as some bully pulpit to try to tell others how to live or what to believe. I have friends who do not believe in a life hereafter, and I respect that, even though I don’t personally believe that way. I have listened while people have ridiculed my beliefs, and I always try to go back in my mind to that place that tells me they are entitled to their opinion. I can always walk away from them if I don’t want to hear it and I have.

The people I dislike the most are the ones that are hypocrites and climb on the Christian bandwagon for attention but don’t walk the walk, or talk the talk. They do those of us, who are Christians, a great disservice. I have found that most religions try to make us better people, but I recognize that there are many people who don’t subscribe to Christian views.  They are wonderful people, and great members of our society, and I applaud them. For me, however, my faith is a booster shot—that I think makes it easier for me to live because it is my moral compass—and I don’t have to leave it all up to my weak conscience to keep me in line.

Many years ago, I listened to a man who told me I was crazy to believe in some higher deity. He went on to rail against organized religions. For a long time I just listened, but the longer he talked the angrier he got because I refused to be drawn into his conversation.  Finally, I could control myself no longer, and I asked him what it was he despised so much about Christianity. His answer was “they had no right to tell me what to do, or to take my money, or ask me to go to church.” I asked him if they had come to his home on Sunday morning, dragged him out of bed to go to church and took money out of his wallet. He didn’t answer me and he stomped away.

We live in a big homogenous society with believers and non-believers and people of all faiths living and working side-by-side, day in and day out. When we are tolerant of each other’s beliefs—whatever they are—it goes a long way in making peace and harmony amongst us. John Lennon sang in his song, “Imagine,” You may say that I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will be as one. His lyrics start out talking about a world without a heaven, but I am not so sure he isn’t talking about a heaven right here on earth. As for me, in the meantime, if I die and there is no heaven, I will have been a better person while I was here on earth, for believing as I do. I truly believe that if I have a talent for writing, God gave it to me. I always want to use it for good things. 

Thursday, May 10, 2012

MOM'S DAY



 I wanted to write about Moms today, even though all the Moms I knew and loved are gone from my life, except my daughters and daughter- in- law. My birth mother was gone before I was four. My stepmother, who was the best ever, passed when I was in my thirties, and the one who was mom to my kids and me for forty-nine years, was taken from us last year. So you try to get logical, and you say, ‘What is Mother’s Day to me, anymore?” Well, Mothers Day is when we honor ALL our mothers. That maternal bond that we all have, is so strong, it never leaves us. Moms may hold our hand for only a short while, but they hold our hearts all the days of their lives.

There is an old Irish proverb that says. “A man loves his sweethearts the most, his wife the best and his mother forever.” I was so amazed, when our first child was born, to see the transformation of my wife in becoming a mom. She had, before that time, been my buddy, my lover and my best friend. Nothing much changed when we were married, except we were now husband and wife. But the day she became a mom, it was as if some inner talent, that she was never really taught, went into effect and she literally glowed in her new responsibility. I think she realized that, for the first time in her life, someone was totally dependent on her. She had grown this child in her body and had given birth to it and now, for the next eighteen years, she needed to take care of it the best way she knew how. This process would be repeated two more times, and each time, it seemed that she found the time to give them all the same amount of attention. There were no favorites.

As for me—yes, I had responsibilities, and they were my kids too, but it seemed like I had to learn to be a dad, and I wasn’t preprogrammed like she had been. You see it in the animal kingdom, when the female dog gives birth to her pups; she licks them clean and nurses them. She usually puts the run on the male at this time, because she knows he’s no help, and is more of a threat than anything. It’s her responsibility and she accepts that. Forgive me, moms, for my analogy using an animal, but I’m trying to get a point across here, and it’s the only way I know how. The point being—that true motherhood is inherent.

When my wife died, my kids weren’t the only one to lose their mom; the whole family lost its mom. I have, in the last few months, realized all of the things she did for me, too. I can cook and clean and wash my own clothes, but I can’t take of myself physically and emotionally the way she did. Think about walking in the sun someday, and suddenly realizing you have no shadow. That’s what true loneliness is all about.  Maybe she knew that, when I left my mom to take her as my partner, there was going to be some mothering involved with it. I think all wives will agree, that the biggest kid they have, is the one they married. That man never really grows away from his mom, and she now has to fill that void. There has to be a special place, in heaven, for mothers. I only hope, if I get to heaven, they will let me visit.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012


                                                          
 When we get older, we get more nostalgic and maybe its because we want to hang onto the past more than embrace the future. Old memories can be hard to recall for some of us sometimes so we need a little help and pictures are the way to the means. I surround myself with pictures because I don’t want to forget those who are so precious to me, and those who have gone before me.

Pictures aren’t something new by any means. They’ve been around from the caveman days when they had to draw their own pictures with a colored rock or some dinosaur dung on the wall of their sanctuary.  Later-- paintings and sketches remembered many people. But then along came photography and our whole world changed because pictures were within the reach of most of us and not just the rich. I still have some black and white photos that were taken in my grandparent’s days. Remember the old albums with the little corner holders glued in place to hold the photos. Yes because of these photos, these people may be gone, but never forgotten.

My father liked to take pictures and had one of the old Brownie Hawkeye cameras that he swore revolutionized the camera industry and would never be improved upon.. You had to physically insert a blue flashbulb in the holder above the camera. Turn the knob on the side of the camera to a fresh spot on the film. Ask everybody to smile and then viola! The preceding flash was like welding without a helmet or watching an A bomb go off in the Nevada desert. White spots would float around in your eyeballs for the next hour. But you did have some time to recover for the next picture because that same flashbulb stayed hot in the camera for a while. Dad got smart however and used a leather glove to dig them out and once his jacket pocket caught on fire from the hot bulbs he had deposited in there. There was absolutely no problem getting us kids to smile for the next picture.

The problem was pictures get stored in albums and shoeboxes and they in turn get stored in cupboards and under beds and unless you are prompted they largely remained forgotten. Flash forward to today. My phone takes better pictures than any camera I ever had and it’s always with me. I download the pictures to my computer and they are constantly played in a revolving picture show whenever the computer is not being used for its intended purpose. If a picture is especially poignant, I print and frame it in the comfort of my home. Yes sometimes us old buggers get sold on technology too. --- I said sometimes.

My wife was a neat freak and rarely displayed pictures. My office looked like a gallery. Her end of the room, in her sewing shop, had a largely sterile look. Well no more. I know you’re telling the angels up there right now dear, “That there will be a day of reckoning if he ever gets up here.” Sorry honey I couldn’t help myself but sometimes I need reminding of how blessed I’ve really been. Those pictures go a long way towards doing that.