WHY I WRITE LIKE I DO

                                            

I’m not going to lie to you and say my E-mail box and mailbox are full of fan mail everyday. But occasionally I do get some mail that is encouraging and today was no exception. I received a letter from a lady that lives in another state who reads my column, because her niece sends it to her. Nothing encourages an old writer more then to know something he wrote, made someone’s day and today this ladies note made mine. I, in turn, want to thank her in this way.

When I first started writing this column way back then, I took pause because the thought that was first and foremost on my mind was, “How am I going to come up with something people want to read every week?” Now I’m going to stop myself for a moment because I fully realize that not everything I write is going to please you every week. There is just too much difference in our backgrounds and our loves and likes to be that lucky. But if I have learned anything about writing, it’s not always what you write about but how you write it that counts.

Many writers like to pound home their message, as if what they believe in is the only way to think and act. But I’ve lived enough life and changed my mind enough times, to know that a closed mind is a hostile place. So with that in mind I have often told people, who are polar opposite of what I have stated I do believe in, to convince me why I’m wrong. I want to be right as much as possible but not at the expense of being stubborn and short sighted. And if we can’t find common ground—well let’s part as friends with different views who still respect each other.

I have a dear friend in my life, who has a lot of different views on subjects that I find I just can’t compromise that much on. But as time has gone on, through listening, I have learned to respect her so much and in some cases I have found validity in some of her views and I believe in turn she has in some of mine. In effect, by listening to each other, we have helped each other; find that common ground, we both love to be at. Her agreeing with me or I agreeing with her is not a prerequisite for our relationship. But loving and respecting each other and our views is.

We have different political parties in this country and we have different religions in this world. In order to coexist peacefully we need to be tolerant of other people’s views. Notice I said tolerant and not necessarily accepting. What you believe in is what you believe in and the rules this country was set up with, allow you to do just that. But there comes a time when the path we have to trod is to narrow for both of us and it’s then that we need to seek compromise because it will be the only way forward for both of us. This may sound like a wishy, washy way of doing business but it beats “my way or the highway” every time. Because as long as there is pride and self respect. Egos and self worth then we have to have some way to make concessions that preserve all of the above. My grandparents were married for over sixty years and what made that marriage work so well, was this uncanny ability they had, to listen to each other through love and respect. I know this works and that is why I write about it all the time.-- Thank you Cozy.

WHY MOM CRIED

                                             

All over this nation, this time of the year, young men and women walk down the aisle to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance. They call it the “walking graduation march.” It’s your last walk down the aisle of your Alma Mater and you will never forget it. The emotions it brings out in people are all over the board. You the graduate will celebrate it as the end of high school or college education. Your parents and grandparents will show mixed emotions. They wanted nothing more then for you to mature and make something out of yourself. Something that would make everyone proud. They just didn’t think it would happen, quite this fast.

Your mom remembers the day she put you on the kindergarten bus and then went home and cried but luckily you didn’t see that. It too was a graduation of sorts. You were no longer a toddler but still so immature, and it was so hard for her let go of the most precious thing she had ever been given and entrust you to a teacher she barely knew. There were so many firsts over those years. The refrigerator door was covered with your kindergarten artwork. You made a little plaster cast of your hand in second grade and painted it for them and gave it to your parents for Christmas. She still has it in the back of her sock drawer and just yesterday she took it out and sat on the edge of the bed and cried-- but again you weren’t there.

Then it was junior high and sports and band and choir and they used to argue over who was going to pick you up after school. Once at one of your band concerts you looked out at the crowd and you swore your father was napping until your mom gave him the elbow in the ribs and he sat up straight, grimaced and smiled at you. You hit your first home run in softball and never mind that three people booted the ball-- it won the game and your dad couldn’t stop talking about it. He thought just maybe you might get an athletic scholarship after high school.

Then came high school and things got more serious because all of a sudden you realized that there was an end in sight for high school and maybe you should think about what you wanted to do afterwards. For a while you changed your mind as often as you changed your clothes but them something stuck in your mind and for once in your life you had a goal and mom and dad thought it was good idea. You had a boy friend and then you didn’t and then you did and then you didn’t because at least for a while that wasn’t in your plans. You went to prom and dad let your boyfriend take his car because his Mom was a single mom and she didn’t have one. You looked so pretty and grownup in that dress and yes confusingly mom cried again, while dad worried and you weren’t sure if he worried about you-- or his car.

Then it was your turn for the march and you walked down the aisle at high school and later at college with your classmates, and this time they both cried. Then you had a job, a serious boyfriend, a husband and a child and now tonight twenty-five years later that child is taking his own “walking graduation march.” You sit quietly with your tissue in your hand and then you see him looking so regal and he smiles at you and winks with that goofy smile and yes now-- you understand why mom cried.

THOUGHTS ALONG THE WAY

                                              

As my life winds down-- and no, I caution you, nothing bad is eminent—but with that being said, I am a realist and each day brings more proof to an increasingly foggy mind and creaky body that my best days are history and tomorrow is not so much a mystery anymore. I sometimes unconsciously slip into a whimsical, mood that looks backwards more then forward, although I harbor few regrets of days gone by. My life so far has been more then I ever dreamed it would be, but most of the credit lies in the people that helped shape my life and not in my own feeble efforts.

Each day when I wake up and slip out of the bed and through my own efforts dress and make my way down the lane to fetch my paper, I thank the lord for one more day. I find so much solace in my morning cup of coffee, sitting on the deck with Molly, looking out over the still waters of our lake. Listening to a loon far across the waters heralding springtime. So many of my friends and neighbors once too enjoyed what I embrace, but time has stilled their hearts or minds and I no longer can enjoy their smiles and lively banter. For now I am relegated to draw upon my memory for that old companionship. But I say this with all sincerity --that’s okay.

There was a time in my life when I never thought much about the past and maybe that’s really because I had no past and yesterdays were just used up days and tomorrows were the days that counted because they gave me a fresh start every time the sun came up. Tomorrows were days of hope and a chance to get it right but they were not without a risk because you weren’t totally in charge and you often had to pick and choose which fork in the road to take, because you were languishing there in somewhat confusing, uncharted territory. Yet you relished the choice, the chance, to make some history of your own, even if it was wrong.

Life is such a puzzle sometimes but unlike a picture puzzle we do get to reshape the pieces to make them fit. There are those who will never fit in where they belong because they don’t want to fit or change and life for them becomes a black hole in our grand picture and it never is really complete. This, for the rest of us is sadness personified because we want the picture to be complete, & perfect. Especially when its friends and family that are so much a part of it. People that we love so much.

Fast forward to today when this history of mine, brought about by trial and error, has drawn and painted the way for me to follow and it’s so much easier to pick and choose my actions now because along the way I have eaten the sour berries of life and spit them out, savored the sweet ones and gave them my blessing-- all in this never ending ritual of yes and no’s, rights and wrongs. Yes my friends, it is this winnowing process that may not be perfection but it’s as close as life allows me to get. Some day when the lights are finally dimmed and the curtain goes down for the last time I want my swan song to be “My way,” and not “Born to Lose.” Allison Blanchard said and I quote. “Life is beautifully tragic. Giving it up isn’t the hard part; it’s the living part that everyone struggles with.

MEMORIAL DAY

Of all of the holidays our country celebrates, none has more meaning for me than Memorial Day. That’s because, except for the obvious being its meaning is to honor our war dead and those who survived, it’s also the start of another summer season. Here in the Midwest we tend to bookend the fairest of our four seasons with Memorial Day and Labor Day—the alpha and the omega of summer. But we need to keep that as a subliminal message lest we forget the true meaning of Memorial Day.

Not being a veteran, I have often wondered what it was like to leave your families and loved ones, and to go off to some far off place to defend our way of life. One thinks about our children and how we often have such a short time to live with them before they go out on their own. Many times, veterans give up a substantial part of that time to try to keep the peace this world so sorely needs; a time they will never get back; a time they wanted so much to share with their life’s partner and kids. But it goes far deeper than that when you have to take up arms because someone has taken up arms against you. It’s then that so many of our young protectors can be taken from us, and never get the chance to become a parent. Yes, they gave up far more than just their lives. Let’s not forget the survivors, too, as many of the survivors suffer immeasurably, having seen the horrors of war.

The world has long prayed for peace, asked for peace, and even begged for an end to aggression and hostilities. But there have always been those amongst us in this world that selfishly don’t want us to have that freedom and way of life. They want to dominate us and force their convoluted way of life on free people. Thank God we have had the will to stand up to them in the past, or this world would be hell on earth without their efforts. Thank God, also, that there are those who, in the words of Isaiah in the good book, took heed when it said, “They will bend their plowshares into swords. Their spears into pruning hooks against nations.” Our creator knew there would be threats, and knew all too well we had no decent choice but to respond against them, and fight back, or this world would get far uglier than we could possibly imagine.

As for that lasting peace we all want. That same chapter of the Bible talks about it as part and parcel of that same verse. To be sure it has, in our lifetimes, proved to be very elusive. I have the feeling that it will always be difficult to attain, and we will have to always remain vigilant. That is exactly what our brave service men and women are doing today for all of us. We lose our awareness of this way too easily in this world today. We must never forget their service to, not only our country, but also to all of us. I have in my mind today a picture I saw of a young widow lying face down sobbing on the green grass of a grave in a veterans cemetery, her toddler child looking on bewildered, way too young to realize what it, too, had lost. The father he/she will never remember. Let us not forget them, also.

So, this Memorial Day, let’s give credit where credit is due. Let’s not let Memorial Day be just the start of another summer season, and another four-day weekend.