Friday, November 13, 2020

IS THIS OUR EPITAPH

 

While you are reading this Pat and I will be back in Arizona for the winter. For me this was the summer that was never was, living in fear of a flu that would not be kind to us and the hate that is tearing our country apart. I have never left for down south with as much trepidation as I have this year. I have never been sadder about the current shape of our country. Both fiscally and morally. The gloves came off in the last election and I’m not sure they will ever go on again. I think truthfully, we have forgotten how-to live-in peace. 

 

We both know the isolation that made life so lonely this summer in Minnesota, will have to continue down there in Arizona, as there is no running away from this pandemic. It will mean some subdued Holidays, as we will be estranged from most of our families. Last weekend we both said goodbye to our up-north family’s. Goodbyes have taken on a whole new meaning. There was a time when it meant goodbye for now, but now, one is not so sure what that goodbye means. We can only hope and pray.

 

In the animal kingdom the older ones know how much more vulnerable they are to danger. The senses they once used to warn them of danger have grown old and weak. The legs that outran the fastest foe have been hobbled. Their immune systems are weaker and disease and climate have taken their toll. Their future is bleak. We as humans have long recognized our waning bodies and reached out to loved ones for support. But now those very same people who helped us in the past, have become a liability, as their active lives expose them to the very disease’s we have to avoid.

 

So, we sit back and we reminisce. We think of the days when politicians would put their minds together and despite their party affiliations, come up with answers to our country’s problems. The greatest leaders we have in this country today, want nothing to do with politics. They know that to win they need to play the game and the game is rigged and they too will be marionettes with someone else behind the scenes, pulling the strings. We once held our leaders to a higher standard back then but then somewhere along the way we dumbed down that standard and we put up with the lies and corruption and at election time, we settled for the lesser of two evils.  We think of how we loved our grandparents and took them into our homes when they no longer could care for themselves. A place where they could still be part of a family instead of sitting in a chair looking out at the front door of a care center, hoping the next person coming in is someone they know. None of this will ever change now because it’s not possible with the life styles we now embrace. Materialism and power now rule the world, not sensitivity.

 

We also know that the time to change any of this has passed and although we once embraced this long gone life style, we are the ones responsible for allowing it to slip away. We are like swimmers who swam out farther then their ability to make it back to shore. It was on our watch that this change happened. It was on our watch that our waters became too polluted to drink and the air unfit to breath. When rules, discipline and morality ceased to exist. We can only be happy for the good life we once had and yet sad for what little we have left our grandchildren.

THE SANCTITY OF LIFE


 

If I asked you what is the most precious thing you have, what would be your answer? Would it be your family or your possessions or your health? I think they are all important but to be fair if you die, so does all three of them with you. Your absence of health and your subsequent death, separates you from everything else and one truth remains self-evident. You can’t take it with you. You can only enjoy it while you’re still alive.

 

Now there are those that say, “Hey what about my faith? That’s important to me. They have a point but your faith is a belief in a life beyond this life and yes you have to earn it but just to simplify things for the sake of argument, what I am talking about is the here and now. 

 

The older I get, and I am about to enter my octogenarian years, the more I realize how precious this thing we call life really is. You see so many friends and family, that are ending their earthly journey and you kind of get the feeling that someone is following you and how long can you stay one step ahead. You have known for years that there are things that can hasten your demise. Smoking, drinking to excess, drugs and other reckless behavior. Your own D.N.A. may say you’re predisposed to certain things and you need to be aware of that. I once talked to a man who was in his mid-forties who told me he was one of five boys in his family. All of them died in their forties from heart disease and although he said, “He was feeling good right now, he wasn’t feeling good about his future.” I couldn’t help but notice the pack of cigarettes in his pocket.

 

Now everyday people are taken from us just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. One minute earlier and that wrong-way driver would not have hit them. If they had stayed in the house instead of going outside during that thunderstorm to get the dog, lightning would not have hit them. Bridges have collapsed, trees have fallen on cars and people have been caught in the middle of a shootout. Yes, nothing could have been done about it. But it is still tragic. You can’t quantify life, yet people try.

 

Right now, we are caught up in a great controversy about all of the people that are dying in the pandemic. Some have gone so far as to say it’s just a bunch of old people. It’s almost as if they feel, like in the animal kingdom, were culling the herd. Others point to underlying conditions and say if they weren’t diabetic or hadn’t had lupus they won’t be gone. I say if they hadn’t caught Covid, they wouldn’t be gone either. People lived long and fruitful lives around many chronic diseases. Franklin Roosevelt ran this country for a dozen years and took us through a great world war and all from a wheel chair. Life is always precious. And some of the world’s greatest minds don’t have a body to match.

 

If there was one thing the Fire Service taught me it was the sanctity of life. You can’t categorially put people’s rights to live, with what they have to offer society. As firefighters we fought as hard to save grandma, as we did a teenager. There could be no distinction, they were all people who had a right to live. Sometimes events like this pandemic, make some people show their real colors.

 

 

 

 

 

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS.

                                                 HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS.

 

I remember a day, 60 years ago, when it became apparent to me that it was time to leave my parents home and fend for myself. We lived on the edge of a small town in Central Minnesota and I was going to the big city to make my mark. I remember a day, a few days before it was time to leave, when I went to the woods not far from home one last time. There was a place there by a small stream where I often went to think and I knew I was leaving it behind me. I knew that day, that leaving wasn’t something I wanted to do, it was something I had to do.

 

For me, nature is an aphrodisiac. For many its music, money or drugs and alcohol but for me it’s simply nature and the world around me where I’m in my element. After I moved to Minneapolis for work, I lived in the outskirts of the suburbs. It was a short walk to the woods and a meandering little creek that for the time being was still untouched by the developers. Oh, you had to tune out the traffic noise from the freeways, not that far away, but that wasn’t hard to do. When I wasn’t working, I went there often; found a tree to lean against by the creek and just tuned out everything else. Somehow it was similar to the place I had gone too in my adolescence. Similar yes, but not the same.

 

Then things got more serious with work and a family and I had little time to spare for nature. But the desire to be there in nature never left me. That went on for thirty years. Retirement was slowly becoming a reality and not so much a dream anymore. Then with my wife’s blessing I found a little piece of property on a quiet lake and I thought to myself, “I’m back. Back where I belong. Back up north where I came from and I am so blessed.”

 

It’s been over thirty-five years since we came to Crosslake. A lot has changed for me but not my love of this place. When my wife died nine years ago my first inclination was to move away but that was just the grief talking. Then I heard a voice that said, “You can’t run way from your past.” Yes, you lost the love of your life but don’t lose the reason you came here in the first place.” Then Pat came into my life and along with her came some semblance of sensibility back to me again. At first, I quit thinking about moving away because of her, but as time went on, I realized it wasn’t just her that was keeping me here. It was this place.

 

I love to watch documentaries about this planet and the place we call home. It seems absurd to me that NASA is planning trips to other planets, that they know are barren rock, void of any meaningful way to survive. At the same time, leaving behind the most beautiful place known to the universe. I have traveled a lot over the years and seen a great deal of this great country. Places equally as beautiful as home-- but yet-- not home. because home is where your memories lie. Home is always where your heart is. Pat and I travel south for the winter because of old age and the troubles associated with winter and getting around in the ice and snow. Were always happy to get there but only because we love to be outside and not cooped up. Then comes spring to the northland and we are far more excited to get back here, then when we left. I think we both realize that the day will come when the trip will be too troublesome but that’s alright. If you have to be stuck someplace-- who could ask for a better place then this.