FAMILY REUNIONS

                                              

Each summer for the past thirty-eight years our family—not my immediate family, but my parent’s family—has had a reunion. We take a weekend; all of us camp together, eat together and enjoy each other’s company around a campfire on Saturday night. Our parents have long since passed, but the eight kids they raised are all still here. We have grown from a family of ten, to a family of over seventy. My dad, our patriarch, used to say, “You can pick your friends, you can even pick your nose, but you can’t pick your family and don’t you ever forget that.” Like a good recipe, there are always things in the mix that are not tolerable by themselves, but when they become one of the family, you see how essential they are to us.

My siblings and I have remained, for the most part, supportive and concerned for each other’s well-being, and their children’s. Some of us have more than others, and some of us have made greater strides in life, but when we get together like this, the playing field is leveled, and we are once again the children of our parents. For me, it is a unique celebration with brothers and sisters I grew up with, and learned to love sixty some years ago. Each year those feelings rush back at me again as we meet once more, face to face, and we get this little booster shot. The hair is gray or gone, the faces wrinkled, but when you look beyond that—he’s the same brother you shared a bed with just to keep warm on a cold winter’s night. The day will come when the original eight of us will be seven, and that will be a sad day for all of us because it will signal the beginning of the end of a generation. Being the oldest that may well be me, and in a way, that may be the easiest way out—at least for me.

My family’s story is not unique, by any means, and reunions are played out each and every day of the year all over this great country, but the trend in society today has placed less and less importance on it. We have grown into this fast-paced society that has less and less time for each other—family or not. We are greedier with our time and our talents. We are more self-centered and less sharing than we used to be. This is a trend brought on by the idea that we should always look out for number one—a “survival of the fittest” mentality. In the process, we have forgotten that number one is not always you. I saw a quote once, from a Vietnamese monk named Thich Naht Hanh, which said about family, “If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.” Yes, we owe it to our founding family to never let those who taught us and influenced the way we live and conduct our lives today, to be forgotten. To take a vow to carry on their wishes for all of us, even though they may be physically long gone. They passed us an important torch when they left and we need to carry it with pride and dignity. We all have people that have come into our families that don’t quite meet up to our expectations. But we do find out, in time, that the boy, who wasn’t good enough to marry your daughter, has become the father of the world’s smartest grandchild. The stark reality is that we came into this world as part of a family, and in the end, that’s how we need to go out.  In the meantime, we need to enjoy the trip together, as a family.

MARRIAGE AND MONEY

                                                            

I read an article from the Star and Tribune the other day, which in effect said, working class people are being priced out of having happy marriages. That somehow good marriages and happy couples exist only because they come from prosperous roots. It gave an example of a woman who was in a couple of loveless marriages and laid the blame straight on the fact that without money there was no way to succeed. I don’t think I would have to go far in my life, to find people, who have had solid marriages, which were based on anything they were able to buy.

My parents, who by the way had a good marriage, never had squat. We were some of the poorest people in the small town we lived in. They had eight children and out of the eight, over a span of fifty some years there has been one divorce and it had nothing to do with lack of money. I go to church on Sundays and see all sorts of old couples, happy to be living out their old age with partners they have walked the path of life with for many years. I personally know most of them and they are not rich. Not in the sense of riches the newspaper article was talking about anyway. The richness they posses came from hearts that grew close together, working hard, raising families and an admiration they had for each other for what they brought to that marriage. Note I said brought to the marriage not bought for the marriage.

My wise old grandfather, God bless his soul, told me the two greatest thing anyone could give to each other was love and respect. That those two things were the absolute foundation for a good marriage and that’s where you started to build from that day you tied the knot. You can take all of your money and riches and go down to the Mall of America and walk the corridors for days, looking in storefront, after storefront and you will never find a love and respect store. You get respect one way- by earning it and you get love one way too-- by giving it, it’s that simple and there are no shortcuts.

I was married for forty-nine years and except for the death of my spouse I still would be. We were never rich or even mildly rich when it came to money. We ate and paid our bills, bought most things we needed but not many things we viewed as luxuries. When we had troubles in our marriage—and yes, financial troubles too—facing them and solving them together only made us stronger. The happiest moments in our married life didn’t come from buying them. I have many friends who are rich and a lot of them are happily married. But I suspect that those happy bonds they now share were made long before the money was and if the money were gone, they would still exist. The money was only the frosting on the cake.

We have done many things to dumb down and ruin marriages in our society and not make them work. We have developed selfish attitudes about what we should and shouldn’t have to endure in life. Troubles in and out of marriage often become a blame game with couples, because someone isn’t man or woman enough to face them any other way. Children, grandparents’ friends and relatives are thrown beneath the wheels in the aftermath and no one is ever more happy, rich or not.

ANOTHER MINNESOTA MORNING

                                

I awoke early this morning to a summer thunderstorm and another amazing Minnesota morning. My nineteen-year-old granddaughter from Phoenix, who is visiting and usually sleeps to noon, was sitting by the patio doors watching the rain come down and she said “Grandpa you don’t know how much I miss this.” she moved to Arizona over a year ago, after being born and raised here.

I have a disk of the song ‘Minnesota Morning’ that’s always lying on top of the player and I went over and slipped it in and pushed play. “I open up my sleepy eyes and see. The morning just the way it should be. By the setting of the midnight moon and the rising of the sun and the feeling like I’ve only just begun. The morning mist still lies, upon the ground and it comes and goes but doesn’t make a sound. And the heavy of the midnight air lightens with the day. There’s a Minnesota morning on the way.”

I guess for me, I take for granted all of the intricacies of this beautiful state and I have never been gone long enough to miss all that is going on the way she had. But as a sat drinking my coffee and listening to the song and the soft rain, I thought about all of the things that were going on right now that I had witnessed in just the last twelve hours. Last night we had gone for a boat ride just as the sun was setting on another perfect day. We slowed to watch the loons showing off their new little one, perched on it’s mothers back. I knew when its was born the other day because I heard them celebrating that morning, somewhere out on the lake. We watched a nervous doe down by the river drinking from the lake, her eyes watching us intently and her bushy white tail flicking in the shadows, her spotted fawn hiding behind her, peeking between her legs. Back home, over my back door, tucked back in some old antlers, is a swallow’s nest. I saw all of the little beaks pointing skyward the other morning and I have watched the mother coming and going on her food runs. The humming birds put on their little air show everyday, darting in and out of the feeders as they drink. Yes there is something going on everywhere you look.

But its not just about the animals and birds, its about the vibrant green world summer brings us with grass and trees and flowers blooming everywhere. It’s about the lakes with their clean clear waters, and bass surfacing down by the dock to take a water bug and leaving a ring of ripples to show us where they surfaced. It’s having to drive carefully, while watching for the turtles laying eggs in the driveway. Sitting on the deck in the evening and watching spectacular sunsets across the lake and the mirrored image of the opposite shoreline, in the still waters of our little golden pond. Sometimes at night you need to just close your eyes and listen to the frogs croaking in the swamp and the waves lapping softly on the shoreline. The birds are singing another Minnesota day away and then you know your living in one of nature’s showplaces and you feel like the luckiest guy on the face of the earth. “And I haven’t seen a day like this, since I went away. Minnesota I am here and I’m going to stay.”

   

RACIAL PROFILING

I wanted to talk a little about racial profiling because it’s been in the news a lot lately. You would think that after 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation we would be beyond this, but we’re not and most likely never will be. It still exists today, as do other forms of profiling, and it always will because it’s in our nature to do so. Most of the countries of the world are made up of one race and their roots go deep. When we became a land of immigrants, and established this melting pot, we had to expect problems such as we have. I guess by stating in the constitution, “All men are created equal,” it shows our founding fathers were already aware of it, too.

I’m not trying to say that I understand what people of color go through in this nation every day, but I do understand somewhat how you have to deal with it. There are no effective laws that will ever be able to tell people what they can and cannot think about others. It’s against human nature to even try to do that. You can make laws and punish people for what they say and do, but you can’t punish people for what they’re thinking. That tells me there isn’t much any government can do about it.

The greatest way to change people’s minds, regarding what they think about you, is to gain respect by being a good person. But I’m going to stop this lecture right here because you have heard it all before and that solved nothing. NO—I want to talk to you about the day your child was born, and what were your hopes or wishes for that child on that day. I don’t care how poor you were, or if your child was born into a one-parent family. I want you to know that if on that day, when your child was born, if you wanted that child to be great, he or she would be great but not without a huge effort on your part. But then, that is your responsibility, isn’t it?  In this country, with the resources that are available, it’s hard for any child not to succeed if you are serious about them being a good citizen. It’s only when you give up, and expect others to raise your child, that the child will probably fail. Being bad is easy, and often the first choice if not shown otherwise—being good takes constant work and commitment, but the rewards are huge and last a lifetime.

If our government shares any of the blame for the troubles with our youth today, it’s because somewhere along the line, they decided to try and raise your child for you. They thought that through strong-arm laws, they could tell people not to judge other people, when all they had to do was help you raise your child, in the right way, to be a good person and no one would judge them wrongly. I said “help you,” not do it for you. Love and respect are the most essential ingredients in raising a child, and that, the government will never master because they are not capable of doing it. It’s something children should get all of their life from their guardians.  It’s simple—you give it to them and they will give it to others. I don’t judge people by the color of their skin, but I do judge them by their reputation and character, as I know it. If you, as parents, help those children from day one to build a reputation that is not tarnished, then your child will always be respected, and yes, some wrong-minded people will still discriminate against them, anyway, but we can’t control that. When you know that you are a decent person, you don’t care what others might think wrongly about you because you’re better than that, and you know it.

SO GOD MADE A DOG

All right my friends; you know how I feel about dogs so I want to share something with you that I came across on the Internet the other day. It’s called, “So God Made a Dog.” I remember years ago the late Paul Harvey did something similar called, “So God Made a Farmer” and maybe it’s a take-off on that, I don’t know. I want you to know I didn’t compose it, and I’m not sure who did so I can’t give credit where credit is due, but it says so well how I feel about dogs. I have talked to you about my Molly before, and I have nothing new to report on her. As loveable as she is, if Molly was starting school this fall, I think she would need a tutor. But just to hear her breathing, on the floor next to my bed at night, gives me pause and reassurance—and maybe some dog hair on the rug, but who cares. There is something about a Labrador’s eyes that women should pick up on, and maybe they would get their way more often. Ouch!  Did I really say that? Well, too late now. To my significant other— mea culpa.  Enjoy the following—Mike

SO GOD MADE A DOG

And on the ninth day God looked down on his wide-eyed children and said, “They need a companion.” So God made a dog.

God said, “I need somebody willing to wake up, give kisses, pee on a tree, sleep all day, wake up again, give more kisses, and then stay up until midnight basking in the glare of a television set.” So God made a dog.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit, then stay, then roll over and then with no ego or complaint, dress in hats they don’t need and costumes they don’t understand. I need somebody who can break wind without a first care or a second thought;

who can chase tails, sniff crotches, fetch sticks and lift spirits with a lick. Somebody who, no matter what you didn’t do or couldn’t take, or didn’t win, or couldn’t make, will love you without judgment just the same.” So God made a dog.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to pull sleds and sniff bombs but yet be gentle enough to love babies and lead the blind. Somebody who will spend all day on a couch with a resting head and supportive eyes to lift the spirits of a broken heart.” So God made a dog.

It had to be somebody who would remain patient and loyal, even through loneliness.

Somebody to care and cuddle, snuggle and nuzzle and cheer and charm and snore and slobber and eat the trash and chase the squirrels.

Somebody who would bring a family together with the selflessness of an open heart.

Somebody who would bark and then pant and then reply with rapid tail wag when their best friend says, “let’s go for a ride in the car.”  So God made a dog.