I GOT A PROBLEM

                                             

When my wife became ill, I had to take on some roles in life that I am ill-prepared for. I’m like a nineteen-year-old bride, playing house for the first time. At first, I thought, this can’t be all that bad, and for the first time in my life—except for the three disastrous years for me, between leaving home and getting married—I’m the boss, or at least I think I am. So I pumped myself up a little, and got on with the tasks at hand. Now I’m here to tell you that being the boss isn’t new to me, as I was in management for many years and had many employees. Flash ahead to right now. My only employee seems to be an old Labrador dog who does what he wants most of the time. Somehow, it’s just not quite the same.

The other day, I hauled the wash down to the laundry room and separated it into two piles, white and dark. Don’t ask me why I did that, as I have no clue what happens if you just throw the whole load in together, I just did what I was told. Even the boss can take some direction, right? “Wait a minute! I am the boss, and if I want to, I can throw my tightey whiteys in with my blue jeans.” I am going to do that someday— just not today. I found a white sweatshirt with a dark blue collar. So, Mrs. high and mighty, what’s the answer here?” It’s still on the laundry room floor, as I haven’t made a decision on that one yet. Next, I select the size of the load. I looked in the machine and it was half full. Is a half full machine a large or small load? Glass half empty, or glass half full here. If I was able to toss them all in together, it would have been a big load and problem solved. Note to self—if you’re ever washing just for yourself, buy black underwear, sheets and towels—no more white stuff.

Upstairs at last, I noticed muddy dog tracks across the kitchen floor. Ha! Time to do a little disciplining, boss man. Where is he? On our bed, and why does he have to lie on my pillow, belly down, Ish! Note to self—when dog dies, get smaller dog that can’t jump on bed. Preferably, a female dog that doesn’t love my pillow so much—and change that pillowcase right now. Now, need to wipe up kitchen floor. Oh, oh. This just might be the dishrag I’ve got here. Oh well, she has a whole drawer full of them, and I’m the laundry man, am I not? Besides, it’s a dark-colored one and that fits my plans. Note to self—need new kitchen floor, in a mud color or something with a dog paw pattern in it.

What to make for supper? Chili and beer sounds good. Haven’t had that for a few days. I must ask the little woman—Veto—Plan B is in affect. Mrs. Marie Callender, you cook a mean meal, babe.  I just need to shove it off on one of our dinner plates, instead of that little plastic tray, and who will know the difference except the boss. Good thing you do the shopping, boss man. “What’s that, dear? Where did I get the fettuccini recipe?” Crap, she knows. Note to self—hire a housekeeper.

Love and Marriage

When I graduated from high school and ventured out into this big scary world, as emotionally immature as I was, a story that I had heard over the years made a huge impact on my life. It was a love story that was so special that one could not ignore it—and it was about my father’s parents and my beloved grandparents. They seemed to be so in tune with each other that it was almost impossible to think of them as individuals. It was never just grandpa or grandma with me; it was always my beloved grandparents. They were George and Gracie, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Anthony and Cleopatra. They were an inseparable team and when one of them died, it seemed like the end of the world for the other, and in their case, it was.

As life went on, and I took a partner, the example my grandparents had set out for me became my guideline, my instrument of thought when it came to building my marriage and my relationship with my wife. I had learned from them that that there was no “me” in a good marriage, just an inseparable “we.” That together, we could raise good children, build a loving home, and lay the blocks for their future lives with someone else as their life partner. But more than that, with or without children, we were the support team for each other. I had seen how fragile and incomplete I was alone, before marriage, and knew now—after marriage—that she was completing me with all of the missing pieces that go into a successful union and family.

As different as a woman and a man are anatomically,  they are also that different emotionally. But when you blend the best of both of them, you come out with a homogenized team that is the finer of two worlds. Love and respect for each other is the cornerstone and centerpiece of all of this. From love and respect, come all of the pieces that let you make it big in marriage. Pieces like problem solving, and sharing all of life’s ups and downs. You are there to laugh together, to cry together, to love together, to take care of each other, and to die together. You get to know each other as well as you know yourself. You have, in effect, melted two hearts and two bodies into one.

The only downside to all of this is—you can’t always go out together.  Then, this wonderful union is ripped in half, and you are lost in this frightening world once again. Your heart will look like a lovely porcelain vase that was dropped and glued back together. It will still hold water, but the scars from the breakage will always show. You may find love again someday, or what you perceive as love, but in the long run, if you felt like my grandparents felt about each other, and my wife and I feel about each other, it would be so difficult to ever get back to where you were. You see, it takes a lot to erase what you felt and experienced for all those years, and to be truthful, you might not want to even try. You and she or he set the bar a long time ago, and it just isn’t fair to anyone else. 

The words that describe the perfect marriage describe something that cannot be truthfully claimed by anyone—because what is the criteria? What is the measure? I know that only when you lose half of the team, will you finally realize how close you came.

SPRING AGAIN

                                             

The poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson once said, and I quote, “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” I guess when I was a young man those thought’s of love-- or what I perceived was love, bubbled out of me in the dead of winter way back then. Yes raging hormones and runaway glands got all mixed up with thoughts of love. Now that I’m an old codger though and those thoughts and urges have greatly diminished, springtime does seem like an aphrodisiac of sorts that’s really not sexual in nature, but I do realize all to well what Alfred was talking about. You see to me, spring is like a new beginning. It’s as if Mother Nature who just last fall put all of her flora and fauna away for a few months just to tease us a little, is now bringing it all back together again, as the trees bud once again, and the grass turns back to green. It’s a time when we replace the smell of the furnace, with the smell of the mother earth.

Each year at this time of the year spring becomes the great precursor for the summer months ahead. The forerunner for yet another round of the lazy crazy days of the season we all rejoice in. It’s the season when projects come off the drawing board and become a reality. A season of flowers, and fruit, and vegetables, and a season of long carefree days in the warmth. There is baseball, fishing and long days at the lake, soaking up sunrises and sunsets. There are baby animals and birds replenishing the ageing stock and insuring the continuation of the species. But first of all must come springtime, the season that ushers it all in and lifts us up gradually from the winter blahs, quietly transitioning us into the summer of sun and fun.

Nowhere on Gods green earth is this change so dramatic as it is right here in the lakes country we all love so much. Maybe its because I’m old and realize that the summers of my life are not infinite that I so look forward to them. That summers in my life are now just a memory, more than a reality. Maybe its because I have learned through the wisdom of life to love so perfectly and that an old mans fancy, compared to a young mans fancy, turns to all of the things he knows makes this world so wonderful, because he has lived them, over and over again.

There will be days in springtime that play with us however. Days that will say, “Not so fast my fickle friend, because summers coming, but winters not quite at the end.” Charles Dickens described it best as, “One of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” Patience is a virtue however and all good things come to those who wait. Virtue can only be described as our moral goodness and something we have to practice and learn. Not just in springtime, but every day of our lives.

Mike Holst

Baseball

            

When I was a young boy growing up spring always brought me a promise of school out and another carefree summer. But it also brought one other thing almost as precious, and that was baseball. I was addicted to the game, not only playing it, but watching my heroes like Duke Snider from the Dodgers, Henry Aaron from the Braves and Willie Mays from the Giants. Everywhere I went my baseball glove would be on my belt or the handlebars of my bike. I had shoe boxes full of baseball cards and could recite statistics for most of the players. I would hover in my bedroom at night when I was supposed to be sleeping, my little electric radio tuned to St Louis, Missouri. It was the only station I could pick up carrying a baseball game.  I would listen to Harry Caray in that signature voice of his say, “Now batting number six, Stan the Man Musial.” These players were to me what every red blooded American boy wanted to grow up and be. Then something happened and it’s never been the same since.

Greedy owners who cared little about the devoted fans they had accumulated over the years, took their teams to the most lucrative markets they could find. The Dodgers broke a million of those bums’ hearts and left tiny Ebbets Field for glamorous Los Angeles. The Duke would never again hit one out over Bedford Avenue. Willie lost that big center field in the Polo Grounds where he roamed and made all of those dazzling catches, to go to the city by the bay, and Hammering Hank who seemed to just glide around the bases, left them crying in their beer in County Stadium in Milwaukee. There would be teams moving every year after that and then the players took a page out of the owner’s playbook and they found themselves an agent and free agency themselves.

I cried the day I saw Harmon Killebrew in a Kansan City Uniform. He was to the Twins what all of those other greats were to their respected teams where they had played their hearts and guts out. I never forgave the twins for that. He was one of them that didn’t ask to leave. Now there is no more allegiance by the owners or the players to the fans. It’s all about the money. Who cares about the kids that worshiped you? The ones who sat wide- eyed in the bleachers just to get within fifty feet of their heroes, and prayed with all of their hearts for a home run ball or dangled their arms over the fence, begging to touch fingers with them.

I had a friend who lost his dog and he told me he would never get another. It was just too hard to lose them he reasoned. Well that’s the way I feel about baseball and the players now. Don’t get too attached to them because as soon as some wealthy owner opens his wallet they will be gone, and if you don’t build the team a new ball park every twenty years they will leave too. Maybe it’s time to go fishing. I’m not sure but I don’t think anyone can move the lake. 

HANDS

                                                            

When my wife and I were married almost a half of century ago, one of the photos in our wedding album was a picture of our crossed hands. I don’t remember it being taken and it must have seemed insignificant at the time. I was probably lost in the excitement of the day. For a few brief minutes the other day, looking for a different photo, I took out that album and I stared at that old black and white picture. Then I went and took her hand in mine and looked at the physical differences, all of these years have made to our hands. Those same hands, still wearing the same rings, we gave to each other on that day. Those hands that were so vibrant, unwrinkled, and unblemished back then, now showing the ravages of age and time. The bones are so much more apparent today, the skin parchment thin and peppered with age spots.

But then my meandering thoughts went in another direction and I thought of where those hands had been and how much they had accomplished over all of these years, and the stories they could tell if they could talk. I looked at her hands again and I saw them white with flour from the kitchen counter and black with dirt from the garden. Stained with berry juice at canning time and splotched with paint. I saw them dabbing tears from a little girls eyes and holding a wet cloth to a sick child’s forehead. I remember them turning the pages on a Doctor Seuss book while our son sat wide-eyed on her lap. I watched as they raced effortlessly back and forth on a typewriter keyboard and remembered the yards of cloth they had pushed through a sewing machine. I recalled how good they felt when they massaged the tension out of my shoulders after a hard days work, and the times they gently held my face while she softly kissed away all my troubles.

Then I looked at my own hands and remembered the day I cut my finger off at work, --the scar still visible. I remember the countless nails I pounded building our home and the nail I shot through my finger-- the one that no longer bends. The times I played catch with my kids in the backyard and showed my son how to throw a curve ball in little league. There were the times they were black with soot from my days on the fire department or sticky with someone’s blood. The days I stood by my parents grave and wiped my own tears away with the back of my hands. The times I baited hooks for my kids in the boat and all the times I offered them in friendship to so many people, and the times I just held them to my face and clasped them in prayer.

But the times I remember the most is when I took her hands in mine and we walked and talked, or just sat and tried to give each other a transfusion of caring and love, as if our empathy and emotions could just flow miraculously from fingertip to fingertip. Her hands fit so well in mine that first time I held them way back then, and today---well they fit even better. It’s as if our hands somehow became the coupler for us, the point of origin that joined us together over all of our years of partnership and remarkably today. Their simple touch can convey our innermost thoughts through some unexplainable process, which defies explanation and needs no words.

STORY TIME

Once upon a time, in a world far away, people were fed up with the amount of government in their lives. So they packed their possessions, and sailed across the sea—to a new world—where they could live without the tyranny they had been living under. America offered them a chance for a fresh start and a good life.

These were people who wanted to have a say in their government, and to have the freedoms that, before, they had only dreamt about. The freedom to worship as they pleased, freedom to say and write their views, freedom to elect people who would be their legislators in a congress, who would represent them and their needs. These legislators knew they could never please everyone, but they wanted to please most of them, and so they called it, “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” They wanted to form a more perfect union and realized it would never be all-perfect, but that is how a democracy works. So America, “the land of the free” was established and there were a lot of challenges over the years. A war came along that threatened to split the country in half, but finally they came to their senses, mended the rifts and carried on as the proud United States of America. Other countries threatened us, too, but we went to war to defend these freedoms, and defeated them.

Then, there were people who took those same freedoms they had been granted, and even though they were a small minority, they got their way as their lawyers litigated, what our forefathers had written, into things that were never meant to be.  Freedom of speech became the right to use profanity, tell lies and incite riots. Freedom of religion meant the one or two percent, who hated God, could get courts to chase the religious principles, that this country was founded on, out of our schools and public places. Freedom of the press meant you could peddle filth in magazines, television, movies and the internet. The right to bear arms morphed into assault rifles and guns that have no purpose but to kill another human being. We gave up on English as our official language, and told people we would teach them in whatever tongue they pleased. The door for immigration, at Ellis Island, was closed and people just snuck in any way they could. Drugs poisoned our society and sent crime rates soaring, as addicts turned to prostitution, stealing, robbing, and even killing, to feed their habits. We incarcerated more people than any country on earth, but still it grew.

The government of the people became the government of the lobbyists and special interest groups, or anyone else who had the bucks to buy political favors. Greed was rampant, and what had started out as capitalism with regulations, became true capitalism, where there are few winners because the one with the most money wins.

So in the end, the country became something it was never meant to be. It went broke over endless social programs, and useless wars, until it could no longer do business with the rest of the world. Congress became dysfunctional. The rest of the world grew increasingly wary and impatient with America, and so the country was on its own. The people looked to distant shores, like their forefathers who landed here did, but no longer was there a place to go and set up house all over again—the end.

My Grandsons Wish

I have a grandson who is only thirteen years old. I once asked him what he wanted to do after his formal schooling was over. He said, “I want to move to Alaska and live on my own, in a log cabin in the wilderness. I want to hunt and fish and just enjoy nature. I don’t want to live where I can read any newspapers or see any televisions, because it’s the same old bad news every day. I want to live in peace with God and this earth.” Just think—all of that from a thirteen-year-old—but this is what our world today is driving them to.

I wonder how many of us really think this way. I wonder how many of us have had our fill of wars and the stench of politics. Even our level of trust with other people has been immeasurably harmed, and we seem more and more alienated. For us seniors who lived during the good times, and through our indifference to what was going on around us, helped usher in the bad times, it gives one pause. What makes a thirteen-year-old, with his whole adult life in front of him, want to go and hide. Yes, it’s apparent that he sees nothing out there to make him want to live in our world, and that is so sad

I wanted to ask him—why Alaska? It’s cold and forbidding. Life can be so harsh out there on the edge of civilization. But then, I thought for a moment about the differences, and I answered my own question. Americans enjoy the doodads, and an entertaining life, with 3D televisions, the Internet, IPods, cell phones, fancy cars and the like.  Alaska’s wilderness has none of that, but none of the problems that come with it, either. By its own nature it keeps life, for those who want it, pure and simple. Its ground water is not full of herbicides, pesticides and drugs. Its air is devoid of mercury and carbon monoxide. But, you might have to cut your own wood for heat, and worry a little bit more about where your next meal is coming from.

My dad had a brother who lived in the southern part of the United States. He once asked my dad, “Why do you live up there in the cold?” Dad winked at him and said, “It keeps the riff raff out.” Each weekend we, up here in the lake country, see this exodus of people from the urban areas coming up here to get away from the rat race back there. Now, we’re not Alaska’s wilderness by any stretch, but we are something somewhat in-between. Very few of us drive the other way—except for social reasons.

Will my grandson get his wish? I’m not sure, because so much can and will change for him in the years ahead. One cute girl can change all of that in a few minutes. As his body grows, his mind will grow, too. His reasoning powers, that weigh all the good and bad in his life, will show him the harsh realities of an existence like that. But, if things get too much worse, maybe I can talk him into a two-bedroom cabin. For now, I will go for a walk in the woods across from my house. I’ll try to leave what I know behind, and like a thirteen-year-old, maybe for just a few hours I’ll pretend that I’m somewhere on the Klondike and just enjoy this unspoiled land.

love

                                                THE MEANING OF LOVE

High on a mountain slope the rays of the sun warm a tiny piece of ice, and transform it from its frozen dormant state, to the living liquid it once was.  It flows down across the jagged rocks to merge with other droplets, and slowly, one by one they become a tiny rivulet of water.  Despite the obstacles in the way this little stream finds its way in, around, and over them, with one goal in mind.  To reach the end, the promised land, the sea of tranquility where it can finally rest in peace.  It knows not where it is headed; it only has this inherent faith that this is the place where it was intended to go.

Along the way it encourages others to join in and come along. Together it says we will become a mighty river, and there is so much strength and support in joining numbers. So others join in and although it may be just a creek, a brook, a stream, or another river joining in, the momentum of water becomes a crescendo of motion that becomes unstoppable.

It may be held back momentarily from time to time, but it cannot, and will not be stopped for long.  It will rest and pool itself until once more it spills over the top and consumes all the obstacles in its way and then once again, it’s on its way.

Along the way it becomes a vital support system for all who seek refuge in and around it.  They feed from it. They use it to wash away their filth, cool, and refresh themselves.  They seek comfort and shelter in it and they let its current carry them along in the ultimate free ride.

Substitute Gods love for the water I have described above and the analogy is the same.  God starts it all flowing from high above and asks us to join in. God gave us a never-ending supply of love the day we were born, but unless we use it, it dries up and we lose it.  The more we give it away the more of it flows back in.  He knows if we all join our love together, there is nothing that can stop us.  God knows there will be dams of resistance and waterfalls of weak days. There will be arid deserts along the way filled with suffering and pain that will try and consume us, but if we stay together, he tells us, we’ll make it together. God has also told us it’s a one-way trip to his Promised Land, and we will never have to worry about going back to where we came from. Like the river I talked about above, this stream of love will carry us and cleanse us, and feed us along the way

Marianna Williamson wrote,

“Love is what we are born with.  Fear is what we learn.  The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth.  To be consciously aware of it, and to experience love in us, and others is the meaning of life.  Meaning does not lie in things.  Meaning lies in each of us.” Yes, sometime,somewhere in our waning lives, we all need to find our ultimate quiet pond.

                                                                                    Mike

Sunshine

Today, even though it’s fifteen degrees below zero, the sun is shining brightly outside my office window. It’s a proven fact that we feel much better on sunny days. Maybe it’s because we can feel the sun’s warm rays on our faces, no matter the ambient temperature. Maybe it’s because it’s just brighter outside on sunny days. Doom and gloom are always portrayed in some stage of darkness, hope and happiness in a stage of light. But the sun does more than warm us or light us—it tells us when to get up and when to go to bed. We often think of heaven as being high in the sky, above the hovering clouds where the sunshine is unimpeded all the time. We use it as an analogy for happier times, and we have written numerous songs and texts about it.

As I watch my wife suffer with her lingering illness, and I think of all the sunny days we had together in life, I can’t help but think of the words to an oldie but goodie called “You Are My Sunshine.” Yes, how many times have we sung, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray.”

So many people vision old age as a time when the sun shines perpetually, and we lounge on sun-drenched beaches, with all of our cares and troubles behind us. But then something like this comes along, and our hearts grow heavy because that happiness—that sunshine—that you worked so hard for, and shared so willingly for so long, is threatened, as is your whole way of life. It shows you how fragile life and happiness really is. How much we take for granted—that sunshine in our lives.

One of the things that happens when you are seriously ill is that treatment and doctor visits bring you both together, with many other people, who are suffering just like you are. You can’t ignore it because it’s all around you and the deep feelings that are so prevalent are so infectious. It encompasses you and you feel their pain and their suffering up front, and see it in their sad, longing eyes. You sense the fear that has crept into their lives and their hearts; and they no longer seem like the strangers to you they once were, but brothers and sisters of the disease, reaching out to each other in a time of need. You can almost feel the prayers and hopes they have—for more time to get it right—dear God, at least for a while, you pray.

As caregivers, friends and family, you pray to be strong—not necessarily just for you, but also for her or him, so you can bring back some sunshine into their troubled lives. So you can be that pillar of strength that they, your friends and family, need so much at a time like this. But, try as you may, sometimes the tears and grief take over, and you look anywhere you can for that ray of sunshine that will make it all better. I have, in my travels, talked to many people who have lost a loved one. For a while, it’s hard and words don’t come easy. But gradually, all the sunshine they brought into your life trumps the grief that came along, and brightens your day once more. We take the good that comes from those who we loved and emulate it into our lives and it makes us far better people. It’s their way of giving back some goodness and a little sunshine.  Now it’s up to us to keep that sun shining, like they did for us. “You’ll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

Springtime

It begins in a subtle, but seemingly fickle way. One tentative step forward, then two half hearted steps back, and then a bolder step forward, followed by another, and another, and then there is no looking back. Winter never gives up its cold icy grasp without a fight, but there comes a time when it has run its course, and quietly succumbs. To paraphrase the Gaelic songwriter, “The valleys are no longer hushed, no longer white with snow.” The days grow longer and soon they outlast the clement sunlight, and our warm stars rays grow even more radiant. As young women wait for love, the entire world waits for springtime.

Green grass appears once again, and the slender, tender blades are prominent on the sides of sun basked hills and roadside banks, slowly overwhelming autumn’s and winters forgotten clutter. Crocuses, tulips and daffodils poke their colorful fragile heads out of long neglected flowerbeds, still littered with last seasons decaying leaves and grass. The trees and bushes of the forest sense the change and conceive the swelling buds that will slowly ripen into another year’s protective leafy canopy. Their rough trunks glisten with running sap as they prepare to add another ring of life, and once more their branches are alive with a menagerie of colorful birds; back from their winter retreats, and now carefully weaving their nests.  Acrobatic squirrels show off their aeronautical skills and pent-up exuberance, leaping from tree-top to tree-top in their new found freedom.

Out on the ponds, lakes and streams, wood ducks, golden eyes, and green headed mallards once again forage in the muddy bottoms that were long locked away under winter’s frozen impenetrable barrier. They preen their feathers while nosily and enthusiastically readying themselves for spring’s annual courtship. Deep in the woods, does, heavy with fawns, lie wearily on the warming hillsides.  They appear gaunt from the long winter siege, but for now they revel in the rebirth of the land, and know that food will once again be plentiful and that their time is near.

Everywhere swollen wombs empty with tiny replicas of their parent species, hungrily searching for nourishment and a chance to survive and carry on in this new world.  Eggs are laid and hens settle in for their long lonely vigils in their nests. Fish crowd to the same sandy shallows their parents once came to spawn, their belly’s now ripe with roe. Cubs and pups, and all of the newborns emerge wide eyed from their darkened dens, presenting themselves at nature’s altar. Enduring their species yes-- but more than that, doing their part in the rebirth and the cleansing of mother earth.

It’s a time for all of us to renew ourselves too, and to look forward to those carefree lazy days of summer. It’s a special time to plant the harvest and welcome the warm April rains that softly fall and germinate the seeds, replenish the lakes and ponds, and wash away winters dirt and grime. Mankind knows that when the years of our lives are finally finished and tallied, they will most often be measured by the summers of our life, and spring is the great precursor to all the summers.  It sets the stage with this remarkable reincarnation of life itself. It is a fresh new beginning for nature, and for all of us. Each day we wait in breathless anticipation, as if every spring will be our only spring.

                                                                                               

Moonlight

 I went down to the end of my dock on a quiet summer evening and sat down, dangling my bare feet in the tepid water. There was just a hint of a breeze blowing softly across the lake. Just enough wind breathing to make some miniature ripples, but not enough to ruin the calmness. It was cloudy and quite dark when I walked down there, but suddenly the clouds parted, and the light from an almost full moon shown down as if to say,” let’s put a little light on the subject.” That light that had me so mesmerized, shining like an illuminated pathway from the distant shore, and across the lake, was culminating at the end of my dock like a heavenly beacon. It was almost as if its glow was beckoning me to just slip into the depths and follow the yellow brick road. I thought of the words of Kurt Vonnegut when he said, “The very edge of anything from a rivulet to an ocean says to me: now you know where you are. Now you know which way to go.” 

I had gone down there to clear my mind, as all of us have to do from time to time.  Sometimes our thought process needs to search for solutions we sense are there, but are hiding just beyond our grasp. The only way we can effectively do that is to shut out the rest of the world for a brief time, and focus on whatever it is we are trying to understand. My grandfather was a minister and he used to always say about the people he brought into his flock, that they saw the light. I was never sure what light he was referring too, all I know is that night on the dock that celestial light was so comforting, and so peaceful, and it helped me find my answer and more. Had I found the light?

I think our lights and quiet places come in many shapes and forms. It may be in prayer in church, it may be in quiet reflection walking down a country lane. It might come on the end of my dock and it may be at a quiet place in a wood’s or a park. It could be at a special time when you sit in a rocker and bury your nose in your sleeping newborn, grandchild’s hair, or when you just take your wife’s hand and give her that little smile that says, “ After all of these years, you know all to well what I’m thinking don’t you?”

Whatever the place or the time, we all need a quiet pond from time to time. We are so lucky up here in the lakes and woods, because that calm seems to be inherent, and not that hard to find. That is if you can just take time out of your busy life to look for it. There needs to be a part of every day that’s set-aside just for you. That’s how we find ourselves, and that’s how we get to know who we really are. As families and friends, we need to recognize how important this is to each of us, and learn how to help each other find peace and happiness in our lives. We need to remember that happiness is found in who you are, not what you do, or how much you have. Happiness my friends is a state of mind.

Fishing

Well It’s that time of the year when you see this mass exodus from the big cities, and in case you don’t read the papers, or you’re living under a rock, its not a terrorist attack, but the opening of fishing that brings them all up Hwy 10 and 94, heading for the lakes. Boats with enough electronics in them to make Microsoft blush will hit the water and three hundred dollar fishing rods with equally expensive reels will try to entice some wary walleye to a lure that looks good enough for even me to eat. I know when it comes to the fancy boats---I’m being a little facieses and it’s not true for everybody-- but some of the rigs I have seen, left me with my mouth hanging open. When you have to have a super duty truck to pull the rig—Lets face it; you got a lot of boat. The Vikings came from Norway, four hundred years ago in smaller boats.

My dad never owned a boat, but he and I, and maybe one other brother would go out to Wilders Resort on Sylvan Lake and rent one for a dollar a day. We had an old three horse Johnson motor that had the gas tank on top and if you wanted to go backwards you just turned the motor around. Dad would have a pocket full of White Owl cigars and it was hard to judge who smoked more, him or the motor. His old rusty lunch box would be full of liver sausage sandwiches and maybe some pickled herring, No beer or pop for him, just an old Mason jar full of well water to drink. But for us, as meager as it sounds, it didn’t get any better than that.

Fishing together with him is one of my favorite memories. It wasn’t the fish we caught that was important to me. The treat was I got to spend a whole day with my dad without working. My wife fills that niche for me now and outside of the fact she usually catches more fish than I, it’s still a good time. That’s what’s missing in so many peoples lives now days.  A time for fathers and sons, or daughters, or the whole family to sit down and fish together. I have a thirteen-year-old grandson who loves to fish but I’m not sure he will this year. You see his father and mother are both working two jobs just to keep their heads above water financially. It’s a hundred and fifty miles away to his house, but I might just have to go get him, it’s that important to me.

So, to all of the fisherman out there this weekend, whether it’s in a launch the size of a small house or an old tin boat with a leak in the stern. Whether it has a motor bigger than most cars, or an old Johnson like we had that smokes like a steam engine and has about the same power as my wife’s mixer, I wish for you a good catch and a safe trip, but most of all I wish that you make a memory that will have your son someday sitting down and writing about it-- and you know what? He’ll not remember the size of the boat, or if you caught any fish at all that day. He won’t remember if he fished with a Zebco, or a Garcia, or a cane pole. He’ll just remember the time he and his dad went fishing.

About writing

 I remember a conversation I had with my English teacher back in high school. We had all been asked to write an essay on anything of our choice for an assignment, as long as it was about something that was legally and morally right. As a teacher you actually could lay out some ground rules back in those days without the fear that some student would go find the Civil Liberty’s lawyers, who would sue you for infringing on their right of Freedom of speech. That’s not what this is about however but I just thought I would throw it in as some delightful sarcasm as to how things have become in today’s world.

My teacher asked me on the day we turned our essays in, to stay after class because he wanted to talk with me. I used to get this request quite often because when you thought you were the appointed court jester of Staples High School as I did sometimes nerves get rubbed a little thin with the faculty. But this day was different because when the last student left and he gently closed the door instead of slamming it and was actually smiling at me, I was very confused. He came over to me and gave me my essay back and said, “Did you write all of this?”

“Yes,” I stammered. Not sure who I had offended and why.

“This is awesome,” he said. “This is the best essay any student has ever wrote for me in class.  Now I was truly at a loss for words because I wasn’t used to getting praise for much of anything. My father used to sign my report card while he was shaving and paid little attention to what was on it. He once signed my card with an bad grade on it and handed it back to me, while asking me if I had finished shoveling the driveway. To be fair I knew enough to catch him without his glasses on. But back to my teacher.

“You my friend,” my teacher said, “Have a gift here, and I want you to know it. I want you to also take this conversation seriously, for one time in your life. Your passion for writing is what I am talking about. It shows through in every sentence.”

I’m not sure if Mr. Johnson is still alive, but if he is I would like to say to him. “I never forgot what you told me sir.” It was many years before I was able to find the time to take it seriously but always those words would ring in my ears whenever I would write. If I could see my old teacher, Mr. Johnson today, I would say two things to him. First, thank you for encouraging me and thank you for caring. You were a teachers, teacher my friend and although it took a while, you made a difference in my life.” Secondly can I have that paper back? I could probably use it in next week’s column.

I think all of us at one point or another have a similar mentoring story.  Yes, someone who made a difference in our lives, but only because we paid attention and as Mr. Johnson said so eloquently to me. “Shut your trap and listen for once Holst.”

GIVE LOVE A CHANCE

Last week I sat and ruminated one afternoon, and I’m not talking about chewing my cud, but rather contemplating about how the world has changed since my wife and I set up shop some forty-seven years ago. I thought about how people’s values have changed when it comes to the commitments we made to those we once pledged our love and fidelity. My parents, and my wife’s parents, gave both of us good examples of how to live our married life, and I think our children received those same examples from my wife and I-- but for the generation now going out into the world, it seems to have been compromised-- and I’m not sure why. Maybe the outside pressures of this fast changing world have just become so great, that all of that helpful mentoring has been lost in the rush. Soon I fear, it will be lost forever.

I’m not trying to be anybody’s moral compass here, and I realize that some marriages were never meant to be, but we seem to have an epidemic of broken hearts, broken promises, and broken marriages. Kids caught in the middle, are torn between moms and dads who seem to find it easier to start over, then try to fix what has gone wrong. It’s become almost a socially acceptable thing to do and can only lead in the long run, to more of the same. In effect, it’s a sort of me first attitude

I remember a song that B J Thomas sang a while back called “Whatever Happened to Old-Fashioned Love. I quote a verse from that song because it says it better than I could ever say it.

 “Whatever happened to old-fashioned love, the kind that would see you through? The kind of love my Momma and Daddy knew.

Yes, what ever happened to old-fashioned love, the kind that would last through the years? Through the trials, through the smiles, and through the tears.”

Kind of makes you take pause doesn’t it.

As a small boy I used to see the twinkle in my Grandfather’s eye, whenever he would talk about Grandma. I guess I never fully understood back then why he was so proud of what they had together. But as the years passed, and my feelings deepened for the one I chose, I understood all to well where he was coming from. I found that looking out for number one didn’t always mean me, being number one. To those of you who are having problems, I say this. If there was love to begin with, give love a chance. It’s the most powerful emotion the human mind possesses and not something you want to miss out on. If you have children, isn’t that really what you would wish for them someday?