STAPLES

                                                          

                                                

Someone started a face book memory trail of all of the graduates of Staples high School, of which I was one. It’s been so much fun to see the pictures and hear the stories. It’s Ironic that the very school I couldn’t wait to get out of, and the very town I wanted to leave in the rear-view mirror way back then, brings back such precious memories.

I did leave town, not because I wanted too so much, but more because Staples at that time had little opportunity for employment. The railroad was moving out and it wasn’t until a few years later that some other small companies started up in town. I guess I always envied the ones who did make it work in Staples although I had a good life where I did go. But always my thoughts and roots went back to Staples. I think this is inherent to people and where they grow up. “You can take the boy from the country but you can’t take the country from the boy.” Right. 

Call me crazy but somehow, I liked the smell of creosote from the railroad ties. It was later in life that I connected the dots and realized it wasn’t those wooden tie’s I smelled but the scent of my dad’s overhauls from working long hard days in the car shops. In 1959, the year I left there was a siding full of old steam engines relegated to the scrap yard. I remember going over there one night, when I knew my days in Staples were numbered and sitting in one of those big steam engines with my arm out the window, looking down the track like those engineers did as they traveled across the prairie for decades. At the time those engines too were leaving Staples forever and it was so sad. I can still hear those steam whistles when I close my eyes and see the smoke from their stacks. I remember pressing my ear to the track and feeling the vibrations of those huge steel wheels on those endless ribbons of steel track, even though the train was still out of sight. I made one last trip that spring of 59 to the round house where it was always warm on a cold winter night. Saw those behemoth beasts of burden sitting in their stalls warming up for the last time. I climbed the coal docks where you could see over the whole town and sat once more on the polished benches in the depot and thought of all of the trains and people that had stopped over the years. All while listening to the clicking of the telegraph operator.

I have traveled this life’s journey for the better part of eight decades. Lived in numerous towns, and in more than one state. Raised a family with my wife. Had grandkids and great grandkids. Had a career and retired and became a writer. But it seems to me if you could magickly convert memories into something tangible and put them in a box, my Staples box would be the fullest. They are my oldest memories, yet some of the most memorable.

Today we are in the middle of something that could have only been dreamed about back in 1959. Our world is going to change in ways we never thought possible. Hopefully for the better but there are so many unknowns and it is scary. I am thankful for the life I have had and I am thankful it started where it did. “In a lonely shack by the railroad track,” if I can paraphrase from an old song by Gogi Grant.

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

So today it’s been one month since Pat and I came home from Arizona and went into hiding, sequestered in our own homes. Oh, we’re cheated a few times and met to take our dogs for a walk, or made a grocery run but for the most part we have obeyed the rules. They say absence makes the heart grow founder and I wait for the day when I can be with my family again. I wait for the day Pat and I can walk hand in hand and say our goodbyes with a hug and a kiss not an elbow bump.

I celebrated my 79^th birthday this year and one of my goals was to enjoy this last year in my seventies as a young seventy some-year-old, because looking ahead, at least for me, eighty is a whole new ball game. Then I fell and broke my hip and now my knee on the same leg is failing me, so what was physically normal for me has changed significantly. This with other health problems has dampened my spirits and put things into a whole new perspective. I used to see tomorrows as just a long line of now’s, as it seemed to me that the days flowed unimpeded, one into the other. Now, and here today, I find myself in a reversal, hoping tomorrow will be better than yesterday.

As an author I know how important it is to end your story with a proper finish. It’s usually at a point in your writing when there is no more story to tell. So many times, when I was writing my stories, I didn’t want them to end. Ending them was ending my characters and I felt they had much more to offer than I had put down on paper and I guess maybe that’s where I am now. There is more story in my life to be wrote, I just need to be patient and wait for it.

The New Christie Minstrels, a group in the sixties sang these lyrics from their song, “Today,” 

“I can’t be contented with yesterday’s glories; I can’t live on promises winter to spring. Today is my moment, and now is my story, I’ll laugh and I’ll dance and I’ll sing.” They didn’t live in the past and they didn’t beg for the future they just wanted the here and now. While we are quoting musical lyrics, Merle Haggard sang, “Lord for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time.” Yes, in these days of uncertainty we need to celebrate our yesterdays and never let them die, hope for our tomorrows with all of our hearts but live for today. That being said, now we need to take Merle’s advice and take, one day at a time.

As I lament in my self-imposed exile, feeling sorry for myself, my thoughts go back to my father-in-law who left his family to go fight for his country in World War II. He left behind a toddler son and a pregnant wife. When he finally got home his new born daughter was two and a half years old and his son was five. Think about your children and think about the first two and a half years of their lives and the memories you have of their birth, their first step, their first word, Their baptism and that first birthday party. The day you took the training wheels of your sons’ bike and the day you taught him how to throw a baseball. Then there was the two and a half years his wife had to go it alone, not knowing from one day to the next if he would come back alive or not. Crying in her pillow, in a half empty bed for the man she loved. Yes. My father-in-law missed all of that. It puts our plight right now into perspective doesn’t it.

AN EASTER STORY

                                                            A STORY FOR EASTER

Foreword. I wrote this for Easter but Easter has passed. Thought you would enjoy it anyway.

A few years back, on a trip to Rome with our parish Priest I had the privilege to visit many of the great cathedrals of Rome. As I stood in one of the immense doorways of St Peters Basilica, my breath was taken away, by not only the beauty of that place but the immense size of it. It is a memory that I visit quietly and often in my daily musings. Many of the world’s other great Cathedrals or Basilicas would actually fit inside of it. Many of the princes of the church are interred there, including St Peter himself. It is the heart of the Vatican. It is part of a vast complex of buildings including the Sistine chapel where the great Michelangelo showcased his artistic and architectural skills. In front of it is a vast public square with fountains and obelisks that showcase’s its beauty. It has existed since the sixteenth century and Catholic or not it is something you will never forget.

On the other side of the world back in Minnesota, there was a highway I used to travel in my many trips from my home town to the cities and off to the side of the road you could see a small white country church. It wasn’t made of granite blocks and it wasn’t set in a public square but rather a simple gravel parking lot. It was made of wood frame and white clapboard siding and a few small stain glassed windows. Two simple wooden doors at the top of about five wooden steps led to the inside. On one side of the church was a belfry with a steeple and although I never heard the bells ring, I can hear them in my mind, calling the faithful from the surrounding countryside to worship. Behind the church on a gentle hillside was the final resting place of the hard-working faithful that went there to refresh their faith and their souls. They now lay there in silent repose. I doubt the church is over a hundred years old and I doubt those who designed it and built it, will ever be remembered by more than a few, except their lord.

Two totally different places but yet both built to serve the same purpose. A place to worship our lord. One immense and majestic, the other simple and humble like. The prayers that were uttered in one of them were just as important in the eyes of the lord, as the other. There is something to be said for the magnificence of St Peters Basilica in all of its splendor, but the humbleness and the serenity of that little wooden church seems at times to me at least, to be more in tune with what Jesus asked of all of us. I am sure the lord hears all of the prayers of the faithful, wherever they come from. I make these comparisons, not to extoll one or the other but to showcase them both for what they are. Gods houses.

Its Easter Sunday and both of these places will be eerily quiet this year. Shuttered by a sickness that threatens our very way of life. No bells, no crowds in the square and no cars in the parking lot. We are left, each to our own, to celebrate the resurrection of our lord in our own humble way. They can’t take that away from us.

Happy Easter everybody and may God bless

LONELINESS

Many years ago, on a Christmas Eve, I went to the care center where my father in law was being cared for to pick him up and take him to our house for the holiday. As I wheeled him through the hallways to the entrance, I passed many other residents that weren’t going anywhere for Christmas. They had no place to go, no one to share Christmas with. I tried not to look at their sad faces, and muttered some halfhearted “Merry Christmas” to some of them. Selfishly I just wanted to get out of there.

I have written before about loneliness and not just with the elderly or shut-ins. I have tried to imagine what It must be like to not be needed anymore. This past week I have been home trying to keep my distance from everyone as this virus rages around our country. But in essence, it is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to true loneliness. I have at my disposal phones and computers. Televisions and music players. Book cases full of books and the daily newspaper. Yet I’m lonely.

There is no substitute for human interaction. All those lonely old people, in that rest home so many years ago, wanted nothing more from me then just too sit down and listen to them. A handshake, a hug, share a cup of coffee and just not be ignored. There is nothing that rips at the very essence of my being, more than being isolated from those I Love. Yet for me and most of us there is hope that this thing will run its course and we will once again find that happiness that we can only find in each other, face to face. Maybe this will help us appreciate it-- the way we should have.

We all need to be needed and not just during the most productive parts of our lives but for the rest of our lives. What greater education is there then the wisdom that comes from living a life well served. No one throws a switch and you become stupid when you retire from active life. Yet its hard to be relevant, even when the advice you give is free for the taking. I was blessed with a wonderful grandfather who gave me advice that still lives with me today. I stood with my father in front of his open casket when he passed and Dad said. “I wish I was half the man he was.” Not to sell dad short, he too was a good dad but he was right about grandpa. He’s been gone for fifty some years but his wisdom still resonates with me today. He told me “It’s not so much what you accomplish in life that defines you. It’s what you become along the way.” I am sure there is some of my grandparents in all of those who have lived life well.

Over the years I was blessed to have so many friends in our coffee group. The group is largely gone now. Old age is the poster child for attrition. All of them were special in their own way but some of them just seemed to have lived such interesting lives you could listen to them for hours. My friend Gordy was one of them. He was fifteen years older than me so he had a fifteen-year head start when it came to storytelling. I never tired of listening to Gordy and when he died part of the heart of that group died with him. Somethings are hard to replace. At his funeral there wasn’t an empty seat. I am sure God was saying well done my good and faithful servant. I know it was what I was thinking.