EIGHTEEN AGAIN

                                              

I was listening to the radio the other day when they played an old rendition of the late George Burns singing, “I wish I was eighteen again.” Well, singing might be a stretch. Old George sounded more like a combination between a bad auctioneer and a Hindu priest chanting, but the quality of the music is not what I want to talk about. What it really brought to mind for me is, what if there was a magical way to do it--- would I want to be eighteen again?

Life is a journey through time and for those of us who have the good fortune to live to old age we went through many trials, tests and experiences to get there. These may be bad, good or indifferent, but all of them are a learning experience and if you are paying attention things should get somewhat easier as you go along. But on the way, make no mistake about it; you will have to pay your dues.  The greatest part of this escapade takes place after you are eighteen. Before that you should have had parents or guardians to lean on when things got sticky.

Back to the question would I want to be eighteen again? I really gave this some thought and as much as having my youth back seems so desirable, being eighteen today-- and being eighteen back in nineteen fifty nine—well it was a whole different world back then. When I was going out into the world in 1959 our country was far more prosperous and much more respected then it is today. At least in my mind. Jobs were available for those who wanted to work and working was what people wanted to do with their lives. This was long before the government tried to feed everyone and run their lives. Fresh from the victories of World War II our country was looked upon as a symbol of peace and freedom. We had just won the last war we would win in the next fifty years although we would participate in several more.

Yes, the world has evolved into something most of us old codgers are not sure about. But in the other hand there are those of us who don’t like change at all. We liked it the way it was and we gripe about people who are always trying to reinvent the wheel. But progress always comes with some decent and always has. If it were up to some of us the roads would still be filled with model T’s and the Dodgers would still be in Brooklyn. But there are different kinds of change in the world today that we feel are eating away at our moral fiber and I feel that is where the real problem is. We can cope with new fangled electronics and cars that are homes on wheels. We can’t accept some of the changes that seem to go against Gods laws that we were brought up with.

So would I like to be eighteen again? Well if I could have my youthful body back and all of the knowledge I have accumulated over the last fifty some years—yes. But we’re dealing with a little bit of fantasy here and truth be told it isn’t going to happen To those who are eighteen today and just going out into the world. I envy your enthusiasm and the opportunity you have to make this an even better place then we did. We’ve passed the torch and if it seems somewhat reluctantly-- please understand. Because all to soon your babies will be asking you for that same torch and time will have marched on and you will be asking yourself the question. Would I like to be eighteen again?

THE FOURTH OF JULY

                                              

Last night was not just any Monday; it was the Fourth of July. I turned on the television to watch the Boston Pops and the fireworks from Boston—a yearly ritual for me. For the better part of an hour I listened to the patriotic music, so meticulously synchronized with the fireworks that were spiraling up from the Charles River. For a while, at least, I felt some of the patriotic fervor I always feel on such occasions. Outside my window, you could hear the celebrations going on all around the area in the tiny hamlets that surround Crosslake. Then, in our community, the finale—the fireworks from Sand Island.

Long after the smoke had drifted away, and the silence of the night had enveloped me once more, I sat on the porch swing deep in thought, my eyes still wet. I thought to myself, what a testimony to the people of this country that, for one short evening, they celebrate their freedom as if nothing is amiss in this great nation. At suppertime I had watched the news. I heard about our dysfunctional state government and the looming debt crisis in Washington; I heard about Generals in Afghanistan that want more war, not less; I listened to parts of a presidential news conference where the tone was so rancorous the President spent the whole time trying to explain why we are in the mess we’re in and not moving forward.

I wanted to stand up and scream, “What a charade!” But then I thought—NO! We need this. We need to keep the spirit alive, in spite of what the politicians have done to our country. Because when that patriotic spirit is gone, it will be over. Our battle is two-fold, my friends; it’s the enemies inside, and outside, of our country. I fear that it is the enemy within we need to fear the most. Our enemies outside know this, and they would just as soon we destroy ourselves. It saves them a lot of trouble.

I have heard the battle cry at political rallies, “Take back our nation!” Yes, we are thinking it and saying it—but we’re not doing it. We’re sitting on our hands while our nation heads down this path to ruin. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and at least they got some music out of it. We get lies, and empty promises, and a mess no one will ever be able to fix. There were state politicians walking the parade routes yesterday—smiling and shaking hands. I wish someone would have told them to go back to the capitol and get the job done and quit raining on our parade. We have no room here today for hypocrites.

When my time on this earth is over, the last hymn to be sung at my funeral must be God Bless America. I want every person in that church to join voices and sing about the country I loved so much. I want people to hear that this great country professes an affiliation with God. That our foundering fathers felt it was important that our faith was mentioned in the formation of our government. One nation, under God – a God who was the cornerstone of the ideals this country was formed under.  Ideals of love, peace amongst your fellow man and liberty and justice for all.  God Bless America.

IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMER TIME

Back in the late forties, there was a Broadway musical called” In the good old summer time.” From that musical came a song with the same title that has always stuck in my mind. I think to be truthful that song has been with us a lot longer than that, but it was made most popular, at least for me, by that musical. But then music is only one of the things that jogs my meandering mind when we talk about summer.

What is it about summer that seems to be so magical and so much more dramatic than all of the other seasons? What makes us have such pensive thoughts about soft summer breezes, singing cicadas and the sweet smell of clover? Of warm days at the beach and star filled nights around a flickering campfire. Precious memories of holding hands in the moonlight, and waking in the morning with the one you love to the music of the songbirds. Ah yes it has been said that a life without love is like a year without summer. Well the analogies abound, but it’s the ambiance of course that inspires us. It was said by Shakespeare “All of the world is a stage.” A stage that in the summer time, more then the other seasons, is so beautifully choreographed that it invokes a treasure trove of memories in all of us that we never seem to forget.

To the school age kids it’s a respite from the pressures of learning and studying. To the famers it’s time to plant and reap the crops. To the golfers and fisherman the game is on. Like the animals that emerge from their burrows in springtime, we too come squinting out of our shelters to face the suns warm rays and enjoy yet, another summer. As I look across our small lake this morning I see the trees and houses on the opposite shoreline mirrored in the placid waters. From somewhere around the point a loon is calling to its mate and high overhead our resident Eagle pair, silently and seemingly so effortlessly, patrol the shores.

We are blessed here in this heartland to have this performance put on every summer for us. This is a special place on earth where no words can do justice to a perfect June day. Gertrude Jekyll said, and I quote, “What is one to say about June, the perfect time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promises of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh beauty will ever fade.” But fade it will and so with that in mind we tend to overdose on it, while adding yet another summer to our resume of life. Like the growth rings on trees, in the end our lives will be counted more by the summers we have lived, then anything else we have experienced.

Summer has something for everyone in the lake country. There are beaches and warm water for the youngsters and waterskiing, camping, fishing and a chance to get back to nature for moms and dads. For the elderly it’s warm sunshine on old arthritic bones and the sweet aroma of a fresh rhubarb pie cooling on the porch rail. Tulips and daffodils and fragile irises showing off their delicate blooms. They grow, they blossom, and then they quietly fade away, much as we do. But unlike us they have the power to reincarnate themselves and their summers will last for all eternity. 

KILLEBREW

                                                

I remember it as if it was only yesterday and the night John and I went off to a Twins game at the old Met Stadium. We had high expectations for a Twins victory on that warm summer night, but everything went wrong from the start and the Twins fell into a hole and were five runs behind, when the eighth inning came to a close. John said let’s get out of here and we weren’t alone that night. Lots of disappointed people were leaving just like we were. The traffic was slowly snaking its way up Cedar Avenue, trying to thin out and disperse into the dark side streets, when suddenly John reached down and turned on the car radio.

Herb and Halsey seemed to be too excited. Their mood didn’t seem to match the dismal display we had witnessed. The bottom of the order had been due up in the ninth but they were talking about Oliva at bat and the score was now 6-4, with two out. Tony hit a soft liner into center field that fell in front of the center fielder and a murmur was going through the crowd. The killer was up and a new pitcher was coming in. Common sense said they wouldn’t pitch to him, but they did, and they paid. They put the Killebrew shift on with all of the infielders on the left side of the infield daring him to try and go to right filed. They could have put all of the infielders and outfielders too over there –it wouldn’t have made any difference. The ball ended up in the left field bleachers. I’m not sure if the Twins won that night in the extra innings. I’m only sure I was so sad to have not seen that ball go out off the killers bat. I take solace in the fact I saw many more go out, as only he could hit them.

That’s the kind of player Harmon was.  He made you sit on the edge of your seat whenever he came to bat. If you had to go to the bathroom you held it. The odds were that he would strike out more times than he would hit a home run, but it didn’t matter, you could only hope-- not this time. It was the thrill of that mighty swing you came to watch because only Harmon could drill a ball 520 feet into the upper deck of the old Met and who cares if the Twins won or lost, you saw our own great Bambino at his best. He never celebrated his hitting feats, he just calmly set the bat down and circled the bases and even the opposing pitchers would look with awe.

I never forgave the Twins for trading Harmon to Kansas City that last year of his career. He was our hero and he deserved better. But when it was all over and number 3 laid down the hickory or ash for the last time, it was he who forgave and came home from Kansas to be a Twin for the rest of his life. The only other baseball side trip he ever took was to Coopers Town where he was immortalized and enshrined with the other greats. But there was more to Harmon than hitting baseballs. This was a man who epitomized sportsmanship and his love for the game and his devotion to his fans. He was as revered on the day he died, as the day he retired. We’re not used to those kinds of athletes anymore. They don’t come along very often. I cried when I heard of Harmon’s death and someday soon, when I start chipping away at my bucket list, one of my first orders of business will be to drive to the Baseball Hall of Fame and go touch his plaque and cry some more. It’s the least I can do after all he did for baseball, the Twins, and me.--- God bless you Harmon.

COMING OF AGE

COMING OF AGE

Last night we attended our granddaughter’s graduation. Maybe it was the music that brought tears to my eyes—Pomp and Circumstance always brings that out in me. Maybe it was just the fact that our little girl was all grown up, and seemed to really have a glow about her I have rarely seen before.  She looked so regal in that cap and gown and I saw her in a whole new light. I have so many questions that plague me right now about her future. Is she ready for this, or is it just  me, not wanting to let go?  Then my eyes panned the rest of her class, and suddenly, I realized that all of those questions were on a lot of people’s minds about their children. Yes, you cry when they get on that bus for the first time, and you cry once more when they get that diploma. It’s just a conglomeration of emotions, all mixed up with pride and a sense of a loss of innocence, coming at you at the same time. They are so hard for me to separate.

My gaze went to her father—our son. It wasn’t that long ago I remembered him in that same cap and gown, and even farther back through my foggy memory, I remembered me on that stage back in Staples fifty-one years ago. How had I felt that night about going out into the world? How had our son felt? We both did just fine, so why all of this concern about her tonight. I had asked her about her plans and she seems far more organized than I was. She is off to college with a fistful of scholarships and seems to know what she wants. I went to the big city, way back then, to look for a job—any job—with thirty-five dollars in my pocket. She comes from modest means, but has her sights set much higher than that. I came from poverty and only wanted to, somehow, do better than that.

But here the comparisons must stop, because the world has changed so much in the last half century, and I’m seeing everything through my eyes—and not hers. Life has taught me to be cautious, to worry and be wary. I have lived through wars and political upheaval. I have seen the seamy side of life and learned how to be careful. That is something she isn’t worrying about right now, and neither did I way back then. For eighteen years you are in this transparent cocoon, built of your parents loving arms, and you want out. You want to be you—and parents, grandparents and guardians only muddy the waters from here on in. We understand that, but still we are so reluctant to untie that knot. We want to spare you the same hurts in life we experienced, but somehow, we know that you will have to live though them yourself because it’s all part of the growing-up process. For us to take the bullet for you will not work. It’s like a puppy playing with a bumblebee. The sting isn’t going to kill him, but it will make him a whole lot smarter.

So, just for tonight, I need to believe that your parents and teachers have you primed and ready for this and my foolish fears are unwarranted. That it’s time for all of us to now step aside. That tonight, we took the training wheels off for good, gave you a pat on the back, and a gentle push in the right direction. Now, as we watch you ride away, we will hope and pray for the best. We ask only that you will look back over your shoulder from time to time because, although we have stopped mothering you, we can’t stop loving you. God speed little one.  

FATHERS DAY AGAIN

                                            

 I sat down yesterday and paged though an old album that my wife put together of my thirty years on the fire department. There were pictures of me early on when my hair was dark brown and thick and my face unwrinkled. There were lots of pictures of fires and burned out buildings and terrible accidents.  There were many old newspaper clippings and articles, pertaining to my exploits over the years, but there in the back of the book was a picture of a fire truck my son had colored when he was a little boy. You know the kind that we usually hang on the refrigerator door for a while and then quietly throw it away. She had kept it and put it in this book and for a brief moment I looked at it and tried to imagine what was going through his young mind when he colored it. Oh I’m sure he was caught up in all of the pride small boys have of their fathers and what they do with their lives. It moved me to tears. Tears not for the part of my life that has passed, but tears of love for the son that was given to me and the relationship we have always had.

 How many fathers now days realize that their children are watching every move they make as they grow up. I know I didn’t when my son was that little. I was to caught up in my busy life to be that deeply involved in his life. It took that picture, forty-five years later, to bring to mind how involved my son was in my life, even though I wasn’t always there for him. It’s scary how easily it is to mislead a child. How much we as dads mentor them even when we don’t realize we are doing that. I think of my own father and ask myself what did I take from him? He never did anything that would have got his picture in the paper, because just being a good dad is not that news worthy. But it was his actions that showed me how to try and be a good dad. It has been said, “When you raise your son you raise your grandson too.” For a long time I never knew what that meant-- but now I do.

There have been things in my life I have done that I’m not proud of but I thank the good lord my children were not witness to it.  I’m glad that I had the good sense to keep my failings to myself and try not to repeat them. Today’s world is far different then the one I grew up in. Absentee fathers are commonplace. I’m not talking about guys like me that just weren’t paying attention. I’m talking about guys who felt their involvement ended with the sperm donation and now are out trying to get another woman to trust them so they can do it all over again. It’s beyond me how anyone can father a child and then turn their backs on her and the child. I have seen countless marriages that were forced to split up, for many reasons, but yet there were dedicated fathers who stayed connected and did the best they could under the circumstances. Someday your children will understand why mom and you were not a good fit, but they will never understand why you left them.

So to all of the dads who did their job as fathers and you know who you are. God will reward you even if nobody else does, because you weren’t just a parent. You were a good dad.

To Allie and all of our 2011 Graduates

                                   

Dear readers. As a point of explanation, Allie is our granddaughter, who graduates this year. This letter is for her and all the other graduates.

I have listened to many commencement speeches over the years, and the one recurring theme always seems to be how the future is now yours, and what we would do with it if we had the opportunity once again. I am here to tell you today, that out of all of the teachers you have had over the years, the greatest teacher is yet to come— and that is life itself. You have already had many experiences with this, but believe me, the best is yet to come.

Every time there has been change in this country it was done, seemingly, to make something work better. That is our hope—that you will make this place a better place to live for all of us. Change is not always better, and change is not always easy. We, in my generation, have found this out numerous times sadly, and in many different ways. The good that comes from making these mistakes is only beneficial when we are willing to admit that what we did was not for the best. That maybe, what we had in the first place was simply better to start with. That yes, maybe we went in a wrong direction, and our change was simply for the sake of change. I say this because I am trying to point out that good solutions to problems are made mostly by trial and error. You young people do have one advantage over my generation, and my parent’s generation. We have made most of the errors there are to be made already. So before you look to the future, look to the past, and investigate what didn’t work for us and why. I can show you many examples of how our generation made the same mistakes over and over again and continue to do so. Don’t do that. It’s a waste of time and energy and the clock of life is always ticking.

There is something exciting about a fresh start in life and an almost-clean slate. It’s a chance, for the first time in your life, to show the world what you can do, what you are made of, and to tell the world—now it is your turn. I am here to tell you I am excited for you. As we go through life, personal achievement always makes us feel good about ourselves. I know this because we did do a few things right. You’re an example of that, are you not? I’m not here to steal your thunder, but when you do well, so do we. After all, you were our idea weren’t you, and we’re still trying to get a little credit for something.

I am in my seventh decade as I write this. I don’t think of the future in the same way as you do anymore. I’ve had my chance and history will, someday, tell if I blew it, or made it, or not. In the end, all of us want one thing out of life more than anything else. To go to our maker, knowing we made a difference in this world. That fifty some years ago, we too stood on high school stages, our faces beaming with pride, with our diplomas in hand, just like you are today. That we, too, had all of these dreams and aspirations you have today, and we never lost sight of those things.  Although life didn’t turn out exactly as we wished, in some small way I hope we made this world a better place to live in. That should be your goal in life, too. No, I take that back. Your goal should be to do us one better. To Allie, make us proud sweetheart.

Wooden Heart

                                                WOODEN HEART

I like to surf the internet, and the other day I came upon a clip of Elvis Presley, singing an old German song, called “Muss I Denn.” I ‘m not sure what the English translation is, but it was the first line of the song “Wooden Heart” sung by Joe Dowell and Elvis Presley back in the early sixties. It started out, “Can’t you see—I love you. Please don’t break my heart in two. That’s not hard to do, ‘cause I don’t have a wooden heart.” Listening to it brought tears to my eyes because it was our song, way back then, and she was my new-found, little leibchen.

I think, for many of us, there was a song from our courtship days that defined us. A song that, even today, brings back a floodgate of memories—a song that will always be “our song.” I clicked on the lyrics, and turned to watch her face—seated across the room from me—as the music started. She was seemingly asleep, but then a faint smile came to her face—she opened her eyes and turned and asked me. “Where did you find that?” I wanted to go and take her hand, pick her up, and dance to it once more with her, while singing softly in her ear like I did so many times before. But we both remained seated, smiling through our tears. Our dancing days are over, but our unwooden hearts are still intact.

The words in the song, by themselves, are meaningless unless you put special meaning to them, and we had done that so long ago. But for me, today, it asked the question, “Why a song?” What makes music seem like love in search of a word? Why, on the breath of music, are we able to say what we can’t find the words to say otherwise? Gustav Mahler said, “If a composer could say what he had to say in words, he wouldn’t bother trying to say it in music.” Yes, sometimes to me, music is what feelings sound like. I read another quote once that said, “Painters paint their pictures on canvas but musicians paint their pictures on silence.”

Our music has changed so much over the years that, sometimes, I scarce can define it as music. So many singers of my era could melt your heart with their singing, but to many times today, whatever they are yelling into the microphone is drowned out by the din of musical instruments being abused in the background.  What was meant to be music is, simply, unrecognizable noise. The radio is always on in my vehicle and there have been times, in my travels, when the signal has faded. When that happens, I scan the airwaves for something to my taste, and then often give up in frustration. Thank God for CD’s.

 I’m getting off the track here—no pun intended—but back to her and me, and “Wooden Heart.” For the first time in our lives, the words seemed truer and more relevant, and I fear that my heart will really find out what it is made of. “Can’t you see I love you. Please don’t break my heart in-------- ."

MOTHER'S DAY 2011

                                                

 Each year on Mother’s Day something stirs within my writers soul and says you must write about her. It’s a little bit ironic but men usually have three meaningful relationships in their lives with women and they are comprised of their sweethearts-- then their wives-- and always their mothers. The first relationship is for all practical purposes a fleeting introductory with the opposite sex. A feeling out, on the job, education of women, and guys don’t take that feeling out phrase to literally or you’ll get slapped. The second relationship that develops is the one woman he loves the best in life and usually comes about because one of those sweethearts made her mark. Subsequently, he frequently does his small part in making the world, another mother. But then last, but not least, there is always his real mother who he loves for as long as they both shall live. This is the one woman who is still looking for improvement in him, even as he is having his midlife crises. No matter how old she gets, he will always be her son and she will always be his Mom.

Wives and mothers aren’t always a good mix. The good book tells men to leave their mothers and cling to their wives. When reminded of this by wives most men will wring their hands and in that whiny little voice, that is a cry for some kind of pity, say. “What can I do honey, she is my Mom?” It’s at this point that you want to be able to fast-forward the whole conversation twenty years in the future to when her precious little boy is in the same boat as her husband and she is the MOM. I learned over the years that there are something’s you never tell your wives about your mom. Cooking is one thing. Your wives cuisine frequently mimics her moms. If you want some of that good old Norwegian cooking from your German wife—well you best go visit your mom. To criticize your wives cooking is taking not only a shot at her but her mother as well. Raising kids is another topic best left alone. Just because that no good brother of hers is bringing shame to her family, that’s not her moms fault. It was her dads-uncaring attitude.

You must try and make some meaningful effort to love her mom and not involve your mom in the conversation. The good book would have said it better if it would have said. “Leave your mom and cling to your wife and her mom, if you know what’s good for you. Your sister, can love your mom if she needs some attention, after all that’s her job.”

So now enough of the goofiness and lets get serious about our Moms and wives. The hand that rocks the cradle truly is the hand that rocks the world. Any man with a lick of brains can see that. This is hard to say being a man, but most of the trouble on this earth doesn’t come from women. This would be a far more peaceful earth if it were left up to women to run it. On the other hand, our kids would be far better off if when they got home from school and opened the door and yelled, “Mom,” if the answers was always “What?” Men are not as well equipped to live alone as women. Back to the good book. It say’s, “It is not good for man to live alone.” It doesn’t say much about women. I salute you Mom’s and wives, and happy Mothers Day.

                                                 

Blue blood

                                                                                                                                  

 I didn’t get up at 4 a.m. the other day to watch the royal wedding from across the pond.  I’ll take that back. I did get up about that time for a pressing problem, but it had nothing to do with the wedding, and I did go back to sleep. There was a time in my life, and not too long ago, when I didn’t pay much attention to Royal Families. I figured they put their knickers on just like I did—one leg at a time.  But this week has opened my eyes to something, I think, that bares attention. I say this, after watching the excitement that came out of this event, in both the British Isles and here at home.

Maybe that’s what we need to feel good about our country and ourselves—a royal family that seems to be above reproach. Goodness knows we have our elected leaders, our sports figures and movie stars to dote on—but they will never suffice. Sooner, or later, they will disgrace themselves and leave office, or rent a boat and some hookers, or get in a bar fight, or act like Charlie Sheen. We can’t have that—we need someone squeaky clean, who stays that way, and has nothing to do with politics.

Let’s do this. Let’s find some old mansion somewhere, someplace, maybe a fixer-upper and let’s make it into a palace. The Governor’s mansion in St. Paul comes to mind. Most of our governors won’t live there anyway, and Governor Dayton already has some houses. Let’s find us a king and queen and proclaim them blue blood. Hey, I’m going to go it alone on this one and suggest Joe Mauer. The job would be a lot easier on Joe’s legs than squatting in the dirt at Target Field—and everybody loves Joe—right?  Joe can pick his own queen but maybe we could get him a glass slipper to fill or something like that. She doesn’t need to be a “10” for cripes sake. Look at Queen Elizabeth. I know....I know....she’s an octogenarian so cut her a little slack. But truth be told, she was no knockout even back in her courting days. Her husband married for the money and everybody knows that. OH, and by the way, if King Joe does find himself a babe. Let’s knock off that curtsy crap. That’s just pathetic.

 I know the Twins are paying Joe big bucks, but hey, Jim Pohlad, let’s take one for the Gipper on this. It’s our country we’re talking about here, right? Let’s pony up for this and forget next fall’s election contributions. Hey, it’s a great tax write-off, too. Joe to be fair how about a little cut in pay. You’ll sell more ice cream as King anyway. How about a trade? Bert will come back and pitch again, if Gardy promises not to yank him after ninety pitches, unless it’s still the first inning. Also, we’ll throw in a player, to be named later, and a stack of Minnesota lotto tickets, and dinner at Herbek’s.

 I know it’s late in the game, but even England started someplace, right, and come to think about it, they have a few skeletons in their closet they are overlooking. Cutting off wives heads was not cool. Let’s do this so, someday, some American girl can walk down the isle of a big Cathedral in this country, and be our Princess or Queen, and then I’ll get up at 4 a.m. and get all giddy, too. So chaps, I better bloody well go now.  Cheerio, and all that sort of rot you know.

A Rite of Spring

                                             

There are something’s old men do better then young men and ruminating is one of them. You see we have refined the thought process down to an art because we have so much past material in them old gray heads to work with. Today with the spring sun high in the sky and water running in the ditches, my thoughts go back to my youth and what spring meant to me back then, or should I say-- way back then.

I remember sitting in fifth grade class in Staples School back then. There was just one school in Staples. No Elementary or Middle school or classes for the gifted or the not so gifted. We all just got along in one big building, the big kids on one end and the little ones on the other. But back to fifth grade and those spring breezes blowing in the classroom window. You would steal a trip to the pencil sharpener just so you could get a look outside and see what you were missing. All to often the teacher would walk by and rap you on the head with her pencil to snap you out of your daydreams. Yea, she could do that. If you told your dad on her he would give you another rap and it might not be with a pencil, so you kept those things to yourself.

At recess and before school we would shoot marbles on the dirt playground. Let me define playground for you. A great big empty gravel lot. Each kid had his little bag with cat eyes and crockies and the dreaded steelie’s in it. Steelie’s were easy to come by in a railroad town as they came from the roller bearings in the boxcars. The best ones came from steam engines and they were about the size of a golf ball. We would play pot where everybody anted up and put one mib, as we called them, into the pot.  Then from a line about fifteen or twenty feet away you rolled your shooter and the first one in the pot or the closest to the pot won. Another game was mumbly peg where you showed off your skill with your pocketknife doing different tricks with it. What’s that a knife in school? Yea, you could bring your knife to school.  Every boy had one but he also had something else called common sense. No one ever threatened anyone with a knife. That all started much later, after they banned knifes in school. We caught tadpoles and put them into a fruit jar and watched them grow. The girls made hop scotch grids on every sidewalk in town and showed of their athleticism. There wasn’t much more for them back then. Maybe some jump rope but all in all they seemed happy. So do you think today that boys would abandon their x-boxes for a bag of mibs? Would girls set down their cell phones to go jump rope? Do kids now days even know what a tadpole looks like? Oh, maybe if they saw it on the National Geographic Channel between x-box war games.

Yes. We now worry about our fat kids, and bored kids, and if the schools are feeding them the right things physically as well as academically. We have formed a more perfect world. For every action there is a reaction and I’m going beyond physics here. Guess what? You sit on your duff all day, you’ll get fat. You feed your mind violence and smut on the television or computer, and you’ll get a sick mind.  Now come on over here so I can give you a rap on the head with my pencil. What’s that better not? You’ve got a lawyer.  

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.”