Friday, June 29, 2012

A GLIMPS OF HEAVEN


                                             
 I have often wondered what the climate in heaven must be like, and I can’t help thinking, it emulates a perfect June day in Minnesota. I really believe, in the place where we believe there is eternal life, that it’s eternal summer.  As the old saying goes, “It doesn’t get any better than this.” There are so many things that happen in June that reinforce my thinking this way. Everything is so new and fresh, and the flowers are blooming everywhere. Babies of every species are making their entrance into the world. The days in June are the longest, so we can enjoy them the most. It’s not that warm and not that cold, and those soft breezes we always enjoy, are filled with the smells and fragrances of summer. The world that was so drab and dead in winter, is now cloaked in shades of living, growing, green.

I first fell in love in summer—in a world that was so perfect back then, and she seemed so perfect too. All through our wedded life, it seemed, we endured the cold months—always looking forward to June, when life began anew for both of us. That first summer that we fell in love, a song was born called “Theme From a Summer Place,” and the lyrics still reverberate in my mind today. “There’s a summer place where it may rain or storm. Yet I’m safe and warm. For within that summer place your arms reach out to me and my heart is free from all care.  For it knows, there are no gloomy skies when seen through the eyes of those who are blessed with love. And the sweet secret of a summer place.”  Bern Williams said it best. “If a June night could talk, it would probably boast that it invented romance.”

Yes, June does seem to be a carefree month, and your memories reaffirm this. You think back to your youth, that last day of school, and three whole months of freedom from studies and responsibilities. Long days at the lake swimming, fishing, baseball games and building forts in the woods. Hopscotch diagrams chalked on the sidewalks, and riding your bikes down country lanes—your dog running behind with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. It was a time when you shed all of your worries—along with most of your clothes. Tan bodies, freckles and sun-bleached hair was the fashion. There was no one waking you up in the morning, but yet, it was so hard to fall asleep at night because you didn’t want to turn your back on another perfect day that seemed to be sliding away too fast. James Russell Lowell said, and I quote, “And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.”  Yes, it’s been said that “summer is a time when you can be lazy and still be respected in society.”

We here in the lake country are especially blessed. Those who are retired find every day a vacation day. Those who aren’t, flock here to indulge. They, too, need to shed their tensions and worries, and they know that it’s best done on the quiet shores of a sandy lake. It’s been called “heaven on earth” but we will never know for sure until we get there, will we. I, for one, am betting they’re not that far apart.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

MORE MISS MOLLY


                                                           
 A few weeks back I introduced you to my Ivory Lab puppy, Miss Molly. I think it’s only fair that I give you an update on how she is coming along, and how I am coping with this new friend of mine. As you may remember, I jokingly named her Miss Poops a Lot. She still fits the name—not so frequently, anymore, but she makes up for that with volume.  There is a natural phenomenon, which few people understand—that being, how a dog can take fifty pounds of dog food, and create fifty-five pounds of poop, and still get fat—but somehow it happens. One of life’s mysteries, I guess.

Labs like to grow hair and then shed hair so, when I got Molly, I selected an Ivory-colored dog because I have an Ivory-colored rug in my living room. She must be shedding because the rug, which was a 10 x 12, is now a 10 & 1/2 x 12 & 1/2. I don’t vacuum enough, I guess. The other day, I had her down to the public landing at the lake, and she waded in to take a drink. Now she is only five months, but already she doesn’t want to bend over to drink, so she wades in until the water is chin deep and then lets it just run into her mouth. A guy at the landing told me, if the DNR saw her do that, I would have to stay until she urinated. Everybody must pull their plugs and drain their tanks, no exceptions.

Deep inside each Lab pup is a coiled-up spring that needs to be released in a spastic, and almost violent, fit of energy. This can go on for several hours, depending on how long your arm will take throwing a tennis ball. It’s best to have several people involved so you can take turns. When the spring is finally unwound, it takes about a fifteen minute nap to recoil the spring, and then they are good to go again. Your only chance to escape is during that timeframe! If you live at the lake and are going somewhere with the dog, in the car, Murphy’s Law says they will go swimming about ten minutes before you are ready to go.

Way back in their ancestry, some Lab, somewhere, mated with a beaver and a goat. This is where they get the urge to eat the legs of your kitchen chairs or chew up a plastic water bottle into a zillion pieces. Leather chew toys take second place to furniture and your shoelaces. I went to the dictionary and I learned how to say “NO!” in fourteen languages and she still does not understand what I am saying. I think “NO” is just too close to “GO” and she knows what that means without being taught. She demands a treat for going potty outside, so just to be fair, I give myself a cookie when I do my own duty. The only difference is I have to clean up after myself.
When I got her, I made a firm rule she would not be allowed on the furniture. So far, she has been everywhere except on top of the hutch and one high dresser and—oh yeah, the refrigerator—but she has been in it. Last Sunday, I went to church and locked her in the kitchen. When I got home, I found that she had tipped over her water dish, and mixed her dog food in it, and had dragged all of her toys and the rug through it. I told my daughter; as soon as Molly is taller, there will be no more water dishes. She can learn to drink out of the toilet like a normal dog. So there is your Lab report and you didn’t have to wait a week to get the results.

Friday, June 15, 2012

FATHERS DAY


                                              
I wanted to say something for all of the dads this Father’s Day. I’m not going to write about my own dad, although I loved him dearly, and he was a good father. But for each one of us that does a good job as a father while on this earth, some credit must go to the mentor who started the whole tradition, and that was my grandfather. I was one of the lucky lads who got to know and enjoy his grandfather through all of my formative years, and although he has been dead for nearly fifty years, his example still lives on in my heart.

I have often been in awe of people who, through their example, influence other people to make the right choices in life, but yet, in describing them you would say they were somewhat quiet and withdrawn. That was my Grandpa. He never tooted his own horn—he just went on living life in his own peaceful way; always leaving a trail of friends wherever he went. If the man had a mean bone in his body, I never saw it. He worshiped his wife, and loved his children, and was the quintessential quiet leader, not only to his family, but also in everything he did. When I graduated from high school he seemed so proud of me, and he took me aside to give me these few words of advice. He said, “The greatest thing you can achieve in life is respect. The recipe for respect comes from being humble and being honest.” That was a long time ago, and it is still the best advice I ever got. I’m not sure how well I lived up to it, but it is emblazoned on the letterhead of my moral compass.

Fatherhood is very important to the family structure. Society has tried to change this with different variations of the family structure but they never will, because the traditional family structure works the best. We have too many fatherless families in our society. I once watched a neighbor lady, who was a single mom, playing catch with her young son. I asked her if she was trying to make a baseball player out of him. With tears in her eyes, she told me. “He needs a dad so much, and it’s not just about baseball. I want him to grow up to be a good man, and I’m hard pressed to be that example. I can tell him what he should and should not do, and yes, I can play catch with him. But he needs an example to follow, not a lecture from his mom.” As men, we are called to be that example.

So, on Father’s Day, take time out to tell Dad or Grandpa, or anyone else who has played that father figure role in your life, how much it meant to you—that they made a difference in your life—that they brought things to your life only a Dad can bring.


Friday, June 8, 2012

FOR THE GRADUATES


                                               
This spring, several of my grandchildren took off to exotic places for spring break.  Some of you may be thinking that they come from wealthy families that are pampering their kids, but nothing could be farther from the truth. They went because, for them, it is a rite to passage that has been pushed on them by their peers. Most of them have little money, and in fact, owe other people money. Or maybe they don’t owe anybody any money because, in their minds in today’s way of thinking, mom and dad owe it to them to give them money, not loan it to them. To those kids that have earned their own way, my apologies; however, you are the minority. Now that being said, most young people—and it was this way when I was young, too—can’t hang onto money. The old clique, “It’s burning a hole in their pockets’” was as true then as it is now. When I graduated from high school, I had no money. But, because of the expense of raising a large family on one blue collar salary, my father didn’t have any, either. I’m not sure that, if he did have some, he would have shared it with me, anyway. But that is neither here nor there because, as young people then, we didn’t expect our parents to finance us, and therein lies the difference. The plus to this was, I grew up in a hurry.

When a young wolf pup is banished from the den, he learns to hunt or starve. He has been given his education, and has the tools, now the rest is up to him. The wolf parents know that’s the only way he will learn to survive on his own and this “tough love approach,” has always worked for them—it is essential to the survival of the species.   As humans, we would think that we have evolved beyond the mentality of wolves, but as I look around me at the number of children, in their twenties and thirties, still living with their parents, it gives me concern about where we as a society are going.

Now, if you are a young person reading this, you are probably getting mad at me; so let’s take your side of the story for a while and ask, “Who made us this way?” You’re right to think that. One of my pet peeves is old people, complaining about young people, as if they had nothing to do with it. They complain about the lack of morality in your generation, and your entitlement attitude with homes and cars, and your bad spending habits, but when it comes right down to it, we old people pretty much fostered the whole thing. You know what my hope is? That you will want better for your kids, and take better care of our country and its ideals before we let it all slip away. That you will show us how it should have been done. You know, we are a strange people in some ways, preferring to learn by our own mistakes instead of learning from others’ mistakes, and you now have the opportunity to change that.

Despite spring break, I still believe in you guys, and maybe I’m just jealous I never went. But here are a couple of things you can hang your hat on, and believe me, I speak from experience, Say “no” to tobacco, excessive drinking and drugs. The happiness it might briefly bring will lead to nothing but heartache. When you find that special person, just remember one word—commitment. For out of that will come great things. I want to tell you to “be all you can be, but don’t get talked into being someone you are not.”

Friday, June 1, 2012

OLD AGE BLUES



  Every day I get a plethora of things in the mail that remind me of how old I am. Things from the A.A.R.P Insurance Company, for instance, and their newsletter and magazine. People call and want to sell me a “step-in bathtub,” or a “grabber” for taking things off high shelves. I can just imagine what would happen in that tub if I forgot, and opened the door before draining it. All it would take is the doorbell ringing, or a phone call, and I would be washing my dog out the front door of the house. Today I got my monthly letter from the scooter store. I’m supposed to take this test, and call them immediately if I answered “Yes,” to any of the questions—like, “Have you fallen in the past twelve months?” I fall once a month, and that’s in a good month. I invented the Stop, Drop and Roll and I wasn’t even on fire. A good day is when I don’t fall on the dog, but the dog is safer with me falling occasionally, then getting run over by a scooter chair. My doctor asked me once, how long has it been since I had sex? I asked him if this was a memory test, or a sex test. Either way, I failed.

I’m supposed to eat some kind of new fangled yogurt to cut down on intestinal gas.  I did tell you I live by myself, didn’t I? If I do have company, I’m right back to the dog taking the blame. Besides, in my family, it’s genetic. I once had an uncle who could toot out the first verse of the Happy Birthday Song, in G Minor, without lifting a foot. My dear wife was always cracking me across the back of the head if we drove within a mile of a manure spreader. Miss her—but don’t miss that.

Someone talked us into buying a Sleep Number® bed a while back. Now that I’m alone, I like to sleep in the middle of the bed and the dog—yes, you guessed it—ate the thing that changes the settings. So my right side is sleeping on an eighty-six, and my left side is on a twenty-one. I walk in circles for the first part of the day because I have one limber leg and one stiff one. I tried sleeping on my stomach half the night to balance things out, but then I can’t see the TV, and I drool too much.

Someday, when I’m all worn out, I am going to get a scooter chair with a continental kit and cruiser skirts. It will have a built-in cooler for beverages, and it will recline for sleeping—then I can get rid of all of the furniture in the house. It will have side pockets for my remote controls, and snow tires and four wheel drive, so I can take it to town in any kind of weather. Oh yes, and a heated seat, and it will do fifty-five on the straightaway. It will have a six-rack CD changer, AM-FM radio and radar detectors. It will be dual fuel, electric and methane, but that’s all I am going to say about that. I thought I was done with that methane subject in paragraph two, but I guess not. It keeps coming back up—no pun intended.

Each morning I go through a little test when I wake up. Today it went like this. Wrist hurts from raking leaves. That’s bad. Back hurts from lifting leaves. That’s bad. Finger hurts from dog bite. That’s bad. Asthma today is only a 2 on the 1-10 scale. That’s good. There is one more thing bugging me though today—if I can just think of it.-- Wait for it. -- Oh yeah! I got to go to the bathroom. That’s excellent.