THE YELLOW RIBBON

                                               

 About ten years ago, I tied a wide yellow ribbon around an old oak tree outside my back door, as a symbolic gesture to my nephew Robby who was going over to Afghanistan with the military to fight. Other nephews and friends have followed Rob and now I fear it will be my grandchildren next, in a war that seems no closer to ending, then it did on that day, so many years ago.

It was 1973 when Tony Orlando and Dawn first brought that yellow ribbon song out. Ironically it was one of the few times when we weren’t at war. But then the song really makes no mention of being away to war does it. “I’m coming home. I’ve done my time. Now I’ve got to know what is and isn’t mine.” He was in prison, the song says in a later verse. But that yellow ribbon was a symbol to him that he was still welcomed home. Then as he arrived, there it was. Not one but a hundred yellow ribbons tied around that old oak tree. Victory, and home again, at last.

That song inspired a campaign called “Beyond the Yellow ribbon” and there was no doubt about it’s meaning. It was a campaign to bring our service men and women home again safely and to reconnect them and their families to society. A very worthy organization, with a worthy cause. Sometimes it’s hard to feel good about what you have accomplished when there is no clear victory, but we need to thank our troops for trying. It wasn’t their fault the way it turned out but they answered the call and you can’t ask for any more than that.

Today as I look out the window at the yellow ribbon, I tied there so many years ago; it is all weathered and torn. No longer yellow, just a dirty shade of silver. Some days my heart feels the same way as that ribbon. Weary of wars and so sad, over the deaths of so many people and for what you ask? Georges Clemenceau said “I don’t know if war is an interlude during peace or if peace is an interlude during war.” Lately we have had no interlude, to even talk about. When that symbolic yellow ribbon you put up, just so you could take it down in a victory celebration, rots right off of the side of the tree, what does that tell you? When the school has a pep rally every week and the football coach gives rousing pregame speeches but victory never comes, soon it all falls on deaf ears and becomes meaningless.

Dwight Eisenhower, himself a military hero, and later our president and leader said,” I think that people want peace so bad, that one of these days Government better get out of their way and let them have it.” Strong words from a man schooled to fight but still one who saw the awful realities of the death and destruction from the fighting in World War II. I think my friends that the time that ‘Ike’ talked about has come. In fact I think it has been here for some time.

  

WHAT I BELIEVE IN

                                                

My parents brought me up with a Christian upbringing that I strongly believe in. They told me that, while I was here on earth, I would lead two lives. A physical life and a spiritual life. That, at some point, my body would wear out and my physical life would come to an end. My spiritual life, however, would continue on in a far better place. That belief has brought me immeasurable comfort, and especially now, with the loss of a loved one who has gone on before me

I have always tried to be tolerant and understanding of others’ beliefs and religions. I have tried to not use my writing as some bully pulpit to try to tell others how to live or what to believe. I have friends who do not believe in a life hereafter, and I respect that, even though I don’t personally believe that way. I have listened while people have ridiculed my beliefs, and I always try to go back in my mind to that place that tells me they are entitled to their opinion. I can always walk away from them if I don’t want to hear it and I have.

The people I dislike the most are the ones that are hypocrites and climb on the Christian bandwagon for attention but don’t walk the walk, or talk the talk. They do those of us, who are Christians, a great disservice. I have found that most religions try to make us better people, but I recognize that there are many people who don’t subscribe to Christian views.  They are wonderful people, and great members of our society, and I applaud them. For me, however, my faith is a booster shot—that I think makes it easier for me to live because it is my moral compass—and I don’t have to leave it all up to my weak conscience to keep me in line.

Many years ago, I listened to a man who told me I was crazy to believe in some higher deity. He went on to rail against organized religions. For a long time I just listened, but the longer he talked the angrier he got because I refused to be drawn into his conversation.  Finally, I could control myself no longer, and I asked him what it was he despised so much about Christianity. His answer was “they had no right to tell me what to do, or to take my money, or ask me to go to church.” I asked him if they had come to his home on Sunday morning, dragged him out of bed to go to church and took money out of his wallet. He didn’t answer me and he stomped away.

We live in a big homogenous society with believers and non-believers and people of all faiths living and working side-by-side, day in and day out. When we are tolerant of each other’s beliefs—whatever they are—it goes a long way in making peace and harmony amongst us. John Lennon sang in his song, “Imagine,” You may say that I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will be as one. His lyrics start out talking about a world without a heaven, but I am not so sure he isn’t talking about a heaven right here on earth. As for me, in the meantime, if I die and there is no heaven, I will have been a better person while I was here on earth, for believing as I do. I truly believe that if I have a talent for writing, God gave it to me. I always want to use it for good things. 

MOM'S DAY

 I wanted to write about Moms today, even though all the Moms I knew and loved are gone from my life, except my daughters and daughter- in- law. My birth mother was gone before I was four. My stepmother, who was the best ever, passed when I was in my thirties, and the one who was mom to my kids and me for forty-nine years, was taken from us last year. So you try to get logical, and you say, ‘What is Mother’s Day to me, anymore?” Well, Mothers Day is when we honor ALL our mothers. That maternal bond that we all have, is so strong, it never leaves us. Moms may hold our hand for only a short while, but they hold our hearts all the days of their lives.

There is an old Irish proverb that says. “A man loves his sweethearts the most, his wife the best and his mother forever.” I was so amazed, when our first child was born, to see the transformation of my wife in becoming a mom. She had, before that time, been my buddy, my lover and my best friend. Nothing much changed when we were married, except we were now husband and wife. But the day she became a mom, it was as if some inner talent, that she was never really taught, went into effect and she literally glowed in her new responsibility. I think she realized that, for the first time in her life, someone was totally dependent on her. She had grown this child in her body and had given birth to it and now, for the next eighteen years, she needed to take care of it the best way she knew how. This process would be repeated two more times, and each time, it seemed that she found the time to give them all the same amount of attention. There were no favorites.

As for me—yes, I had responsibilities, and they were my kids too, but it seemed like I had to learn to be a dad, and I wasn’t preprogrammed like she had been. You see it in the animal kingdom, when the female dog gives birth to her pups; she licks them clean and nurses them. She usually puts the run on the male at this time, because she knows he’s no help, and is more of a threat than anything. It’s her responsibility and she accepts that. Forgive me, moms, for my analogy using an animal, but I’m trying to get a point across here, and it’s the only way I know how. The point being—that true motherhood is inherent.

When my wife died, my kids weren’t the only one to lose their mom; the whole family lost its mom. I have, in the last few months, realized all of the things she did for me, too. I can cook and clean and wash my own clothes, but I can’t take of myself physically and emotionally the way she did. Think about walking in the sun someday, and suddenly realizing you have no shadow. That’s what true loneliness is all about.  Maybe she knew that, when I left my mom to take her as my partner, there was going to be some mothering involved with it. I think all wives will agree, that the biggest kid they have, is the one they married. That man never really grows away from his mom, and she now has to fill that void. There has to be a special place, in heaven, for mothers. I only hope, if I get to heaven, they will let me visit.

                                                          

 When we get older, we get more nostalgic and maybe its because we want to hang onto the past more than embrace the future. Old memories can be hard to recall for some of us sometimes so we need a little help and pictures are the way to the means. I surround myself with pictures because I don’t want to forget those who are so precious to me, and those who have gone before me.

Pictures aren’t something new by any means. They’ve been around from the caveman days when they had to draw their own pictures with a colored rock or some dinosaur dung on the wall of their sanctuary.  Later-- paintings and sketches remembered many people. But then along came photography and our whole world changed because pictures were within the reach of most of us and not just the rich. I still have some black and white photos that were taken in my grandparent’s days. Remember the old albums with the little corner holders glued in place to hold the photos. Yes because of these photos, these people may be gone, but never forgotten.

My father liked to take pictures and had one of the old Brownie Hawkeye cameras that he swore revolutionized the camera industry and would never be improved upon.. You had to physically insert a blue flashbulb in the holder above the camera. Turn the knob on the side of the camera to a fresh spot on the film. Ask everybody to smile and then viola! The preceding flash was like welding without a helmet or watching an A bomb go off in the Nevada desert. White spots would float around in your eyeballs for the next hour. But you did have some time to recover for the next picture because that same flashbulb stayed hot in the camera for a while. Dad got smart however and used a leather glove to dig them out and once his jacket pocket caught on fire from the hot bulbs he had deposited in there. There was absolutely no problem getting us kids to smile for the next picture.

The problem was pictures get stored in albums and shoeboxes and they in turn get stored in cupboards and under beds and unless you are prompted they largely remained forgotten. Flash forward to today. My phone takes better pictures than any camera I ever had and it’s always with me. I download the pictures to my computer and they are constantly played in a revolving picture show whenever the computer is not being used for its intended purpose. If a picture is especially poignant, I print and frame it in the comfort of my home. Yes sometimes us old buggers get sold on technology too. --- I said sometimes.

My wife was a neat freak and rarely displayed pictures. My office looked like a gallery. Her end of the room, in her sewing shop, had a largely sterile look. Well no more. I know you’re telling the angels up there right now dear, “That there will be a day of reckoning if he ever gets up here.” Sorry honey I couldn’t help myself but sometimes I need reminding of how blessed I’ve really been. Those pictures go a long way towards doing that.

PARTING THOUGHTS

                                                

On Saturday the 28^th of April we would have been married fifty years. It was a day she was so looking forward to because she always remembered a few relatives who told us we were too young and it would never last. That we were a couple of snot nosed kids who had no idea what we were getting into and didn’t understand what true love was all about. Those who said that are all gone now too, so there would have been no victory toast to relish. No crow to eat and no one to wink at and say “I told you so.” For me the satisfaction of still having her would have far out weighed anything else vindictive. We didn’t get married to win a contest, we married because kids, or not, we just enjoyed each other so much and that enjoyment never stopped.

It’s so different now that she is gone. I’m getting used to living alone but one thing that does bother me is when I see other older couples still enjoying each other’s company. I never had the “why me,” syndrome after she died but it does get me into a pity mood sometimes when that happens. I guess its human nature to be envious.

My wife was fun loving and gregarious and the last thing she would have wanted was for me to be moping around the rest of my life. If she could text me right now she would say “Suck it up Mike. But behave yourself.” There was a time when I would wake in the morning and think, “I would trade my tomorrow’s for those yesterdays in a New York minute but I know now that life isn’t about tomorrow’s or yesterdays but it is a trail of now’s and that’s what I need to be thinking about.

I have gone to a lot of weddings over the years and heard so many times the song Endless Love being sung. Not always like Diana Ross and Lionel Richie sang it-- but it’s the title of the song I wanted to talk about and not how it was sung. I have found out what endless love really means in the last few months. It’s a love that doesn’t go away even when physically there is no one here to love. Can it be replaced? Maybe, I’m not sure. Not sure because first of all you would have to want it to be replaced and then the answer to the question, can it be replaced, might be more obvious. But maybe replaced is a bad choice of words and it’s not another chapter in the same book but a whole new story. Time will tell I guess.

The other day I was sorting through the freezer when I came across a loaf of frozen pumpkin bread. There were so many people who gave me food after she passed and I froze a lot of stuff. But as I looked at the freezer bag, there was writing on it and it was hers. She had baked it a month before she died. I could only stare at it because here was something she had prepared for me to eat. I plan to have a piece of that bread on the 28^th. I will go to the grave with some flowers and that bread and we will celebrate together our anniversary. It won’t be the party I had planed, but there will be a party.

MY DAD THE ENTERTAINER

                                                

 I think my dad thought he was a modern day Confucius because he had a saying for everything. The biggest difference, between dad and the old Chinese scholar, was that most of the sayings from Confucius made sense. Dad would say things like, “I intend to live forever and so far, so good” or “a clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.” My mother would just roll her eyes, and shake her head, whenever he would get on one of his philosophical tirades. He, on the other hand, would smirk and shake his finger at you like listen up my son. He was like Donald Trump, without any money. Speaking of money, he told me once, “Always borrow money from a pessimist. They don’t expect it back, anyway.”

When I was a young man, and out cruising for chicks until three in the morning, he would ask me where I was last night. When I told him I was at a Bible Study class, he would tell me, “Good one,” and make a mark in the air with his finger. “I was born at night but it wasn’t last night,” he would say. “So start over or I’ll have to refresh your memory for you.” I swear the guy never slept because you could have come home, flown into the upstairs bedroom window on the wings of angels, and he would still have heard you.

I love good quotes, and frequently read books of them, or go on the Internet. It’s hard to come up with new ones nowadays because these wise old codgers, and doting women of days gone by, have been spouting them for five hundred years, and there “Is only so many ways to skin a cat,” and there I go again. I have often wondered if Ben Franklin’s wife didn’t tell him, once in a while, to “Go fly a kite,” with his constant stream of wisdom. Come to think of it, he did fly a kite and maybe, after he got hit by lightning a few times, he did shut up.

My mother only had one saying that I remember, and it was, “What was left unsaid, was best said.” When she would say that to our dad, he would scratch his head and give her his best Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy imitation—which would get all of us kids laughing and stifle poor mom in her tracks. “Yes, my dear,” he would say, smacking his lips and trying to sound like W. C Fields. “That would have been best left unsaid.” I remember my brother once, when he was about twelve, raising his hand at the supper table and asking to go to the bathroom. Dad said, “You may—but not there—go in the biffy with that.”

Yes, dad was an entertainer first and foremost, but you know what—we all loved him for it, and so did mom. There was never a dull moment in our home. I remember talking to you once before about the difference between a house and a home. Our house was a shack by the railroad tracks, but our home was a vaudeville theater, filled with laughter and love. Of the eight siblings in our family, there has been one divorce in fifty years. Dad and Mom should be so proud. So, for now, I think I’m done because, “A conclusion in my life is the place where I got tired of thinking,” and I am.

DRUGS

                                                            

 For the past few weeks, I have listened to the many accolades for Whitney Houston, who passed away so suddenly. The words were very deserving, as Whitney was a wonderful singer, and we are in an era where music plays a huge role in how we feel about life.  Whitney’s death has been ruled to be caused by drowning but drugs played a big part in her demise. She had a long and sad history of use. If this is true, she joins a long list of celebrities who met a similar fate. Always, after sad events like this, we ask why. Why, when someone is at the top of her/his game, would they get caught up in this? They are not alone—read on.

After forty years of the war on drugs, the cost of this to our country is over a trillion dollars, and if anything, it is increasing. The cost in lives is incalculable because of the far-reaching pain and suffering it has caused. There have been over forty thousand Mexican citizens alone—killed in the last few years—caught up in drug wars while supplying this country with its insatiable appetite for drugs. Maybe if these people, and the others who died, were held in the same light as Hollywood celebrities, we would pay more attention. But they’re not because, in our eyes, they are insignificant and the demand for drugs is so great.

Imagine yourself, standing at the top of a high cliff with a lake below. On one side of you is a man telling you, if you jump, you’ll very likely be hurt badly or killed. On the other side of you, is a man telling you this could be the biggest thrill of your life. You choose to jump, just this one time; but now you’re addicted, so you jump time and time again, from higher and higher up the cliff, until one day your luck runs out. That’s what drugs will do to you. At first, they will be taken “just for fun,” but gradually, the fun becomes tame compared to that ultimate high you are now searching for. Stronger doses, stronger drugs, and an insatiable appetite for that ultimate high will now control you. Tomorrow doesn’t concern you any more, it’s today and now that’s important. You used to be popular—a good student and an athlete—but that’s no longer fun. You had a job, but they let you go. Your friends drift away from you, and your parents won’t leave you alone, so you hide in your bedroom and withdraw from society. You hang around with the low life’s that got you here. If you’re a boy, at some time the money will run out, and you will steal or rob to get it, even if it’s from those you love. Right now, you love the drug more. If you’re a girl, you will most likely turn to prostitution, and do things that will morally sicken you, to get the money, risking unwanted pregnancy and disease. Along with this goes the loss of your self-esteem and self-worth, and most of the people who loved and believed in you. Now, you’re left alone with your drugs.

I’m not a former user, but as a fireman, I saw the results of people using drugs over and over again. I helped bag up their overdosed bodies, and I pried them out of car wrecks. I fished them out of the river when they became so desperate they ended it all. I cried with their parents, who sobbed over their lifeless bodies, and could only say over and over again…“Why?” If you are using drugs, stop before it’s too late and you become just another statistic. Look at your friends and family and think of what you are doing to them. God gives you second chances—and so will they.

HONEY

                                                            

 She used to take so much pride in her vegetable garden. I wasn’t allowed in it except to till the earth in the spring and pick the fruits of her labor in the fall. She would sit for hours on end, on her little mat, with her garden tools, stripping away each and every weed and imposter that didn’t belong there. Nothing was allowed there but what was intended to be there—the vegetables and the rich black earth they grew in. She would often work her way, from the far side, to the garden gate, so even her tracks wouldn’t show. Like everything she did, pride always took over and she made it so perfect.

After the angels came that July day and took her away, the garden quickly turned to weeds. I was overwhelmed with her passing and knew I couldn’t grow, or tend, a garden that would be up to her standards, so I didn’t even try. It would have been almost sacrilegious to her memory. So, on a warm summer day, I took the fence down, tilled it up, and planted grass seed and two apple trees. Now I wait patiently for spring, and for apple blossoms to bloom over that special spot.

Years ago, Bobby Goldsboro sang a song called, “Honey.” Some parts of it are so reminiscent of her, and the words and melody filter through my mind whenever I walk past that tiny plot of earth.

“One day when I was not at home while she was there and all alone, the angels came. Now all I have is memories of Honey and I wake up nights and call her name.  Now my life’s an empty stage where Honey lived and Honey played and love grew up.  And a small cloud passes overhead and cries down on the flowerbed. And honey I miss you and I’m being good and I long to be with you if only I could.”

Who knew that a song that I listened to, so many times over the last fifty years, would someday fit my mood so closely and seem so relevant. As if it had been written, with my situation in mind, as a melodious expression of how I feel today. Music has always been special in this way. To say something is one thing, but to put it to music makes it so much better. How many times have you searched for the words to say what you want to say and then—there they are—already written and put to music.

People tell me that someday I will turn a corner and the rest of my life will start again. I believe I am on the right path, but it’s not a journey I want to hurry. I can wait to get to that corner. For, you see, my life really started with her. It didn’t amount to much until she came along and completed me. Somehow, no matter what life brings from here on in, I am sure it will end with her, too. It would only be fitting. In the meantime, I’ll buy my vegetables; and the fruit from those apple trees will be awesome.

BRING IT ON

 Today there is a spring in my step again. The spring I am talking about may be only an analogy, as it pertains to this story, but the spring taking center stage here in the Northwood’s is not. I am talking about the season, when that “warming star” we all revolve around seems to overcome the cold of winter, and melts, not only the snow and the ice, but it warms the cockles of our hearts and the smiles on our faces as well. True, here in God’s country we had a weenie winter, as far as winters go, but it’s not only the cold we don’t need or want anymore. It’s also the darkness that envelops us for a good share of our waking hours in winter.

For me, it’s more of a new beginning happening, than just the rebirth of our earth. It’s my first time going into summer without her, and that tempers the joy that used to be there, no doubt. It’s my first summer with a new pup. Although a lot of work right now—I need this relationship in my life. It’s lonely living alone and responsibility breeds self-satisfaction even if it’s only caring for a dog. It’s been a reunion of old friends and old faces, back from their winter hiatus, at the coffee shop. It’s not a sudden epiphany on springtime I’m feeling here as I write. I’ve been here many times before and they have all been unique.

We heard the words “Arab Spring” last year in the Middle East, and it had nothing to do with the weather, but it did have a lot to do with a new beginning. How that will work out is yet to be seen. They, too, want to come out of their darkness and have a new beginning. Mother Nature seems to be more in charge of her version of springtime than we do. But then, mankind has never been a formidable foe for nature, except to unbalance it. Left alone, nature will repair that damage, but that would mean us disappearing. If we keep going the way we are—that just might come to pass.

But for now, let’s focus on the impending spring season, and what it has always meant to us. It means crocuses and daffodils, poking their heads out of the earth once more; green grass and bubbling brooks and ice-free lakes and ponds. It means there will be babies, of every species, filling in the holes in their ranks and ensuring the continuation of their kind. It means the smell of freshly plowed dirt as the farmers try, once again, to feed a hungry world; fish, thrashing in the shallows, spawning more fish; colorful birds, filling the air with song and building new homes to raise their young in; trees budding and sap running.

But for me today, it’s almost a melancholy mood while I cash in one more spring coupon out of life’s book. Today is a time to sit on the porch, let the sun soak in and reminisce of the times when we had so many dreams left unfulfilled, and our own babies to raise. Now, I can only think of the words from the good book, for they seem so relevant right now, “For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” It puts it all into perspective, doesn’t it?

MEET MISS MOLLY

                                                

I have shared a lot of sad things with you folks the last year or so. Talking about what my family and I went through, with my wife’s death and then the demise of the family pet, Gus, shortly after. So today I want to share a bright spot with you. At least, I hope it turns out to be a bright spot. When my wife passed away I knew there was little chance I would ever find someone to replace her. Yeah, she was that good, and she could have done much better than me, but thank God she didn’t. I think she felt sorry for me. But when Gus went away I knew there was another dog out there for me somewhere, someplace, because...well...they are a whole lot less complicated than finding a good wife. They are also a whole lot easier to keep happy.

So I am going to introduce you to Molly, and those of you who love dogs like I do, know what I am talking about, and the rest of you—well, I understand why some of you don’t want a dog, but I will never understand why someone would dislike dogs. Yes, maybe an unruly dog, or one that just dragged a dead skunk home, but all dogs? No. Those same people that hate dogs don’t hate all of mankind for the bad ones we see in that category, and believe me, there are quite a few of them. At least in the circles I run in.

“Molly” is a white Lab puppy and I got her when she was seven weeks old. A new puppy is as much work as a new baby but you can’t put a diaper on them and you can’t put a cork in them. I’m not a math major but I did work out this formula as it applies to a puppy. W + PC – SQ = Poop squared. For your info W is water and PC is puppy chow, and poop—well, come on—I don’t have to explain that, do I? I was asked to give her a more formal name than Molly for her American Kennel Club papers. Something more regal, more aristocratic, they say, so I have named her, “Madame Poops a Lot of Big Pine Trail.” I certainly hope she outgrows that name as time goes on.

Gus lived fourteen years so I forgot a lot of things that puppies do. I now have no shoelaces in three shoes. My hooded sweatshirt has turned into bedding for her, and it is just a matter of time until she eats the zipper out of that. It’s a Vikings sweater so no big loss there. Yesterday, she chased her tail until she fell in her water dish, and the teething toy I spent four dollars on, still lies untouched. The company that makes them would make more money bagging up old tennis shoes and selling them. I usually sleep seven hours a night, and Miss Molly’s potty breaks are not that far apart, so I have put some papers down for her. With the news we read nowadays, I think that’s a fitting use for newspapers.  I let her out during the night and she did her mess in front of the door and I stepped in it this morning, on my way to the mailbox for fresh newspapers. It could have been worse; she could have lit it on fire and rang the doorbell.

If I live to the average age most men in my family live, then Molly and I will be ready for checkout about the same time. But no more talk of death and dying—long live Madame Poops a Lot of Big Pine Trail.-- Bye for now.-- Mike and Molly

DRIVING

                                                           

I remember a time a while back, when my brothers and I had to ask our dad to quit driving, because he was going to have an accident if he didn’t. The meeting didn’t go very well, you would have thought we were asking him to have a sex change. It was only through trickery, deceit and some smooth talking that we were able to accomplish it and I’m not so sure he went to his grave, liking us as much as he once did.

The other day, while driving down the road, I kept hitting the rumble strips on the side of the road while daydreaming and I thought to myself when is it going to be my turn? I’m seventy now and true, I am a very young seventy in my estimation, but dad was about eighty when he quit driving, so time is not on my side. In defense of myself I know for a fact the lanes are narrower than they used to be and my truck is wider. But be that as it may be, I have taken some steps to protect my driving privileges as long as possible. One is, whenever I am with my kids in my vehicle, I ask them to drive, saying, I don’t know where we are going anyway. Two, my wife is no longer here to tattle on me. She was like having a cop and a driver’s instructor with you in the car. She had imaginary brakes on her side of the car and she would steer me by holding her hand up and waving it in one direction or the other. If I hit the rumble strip it was time for a lecture and that kissing the driveway thing she did when we arrived at our destination, was only funny once. The only way I could calm that women down was to threaten to shut off her airbag.

I find myself sticking to the posted speed limits most days now. They-- meaning the cops-- probably already have enough reasons to think about stopping me so no reason to push the envelope. I don’t talk on my phone while I am driving and I eat my food when I’m at the burger joint, in the parking lot before I leave. I hate eating inside those places because of the potential for catching Ebola from that kid in the booth next to me with the runny nose and watery eyes who just stuck a wet french fry to the back of my neck, but back to my driving. Old people seem to last longer in their lifestyles, if they don’t get too stubborn about the changes and adapt. You can’t see as well at night, so try not to drive at night. Your reactions are slower, so give the guy in front of you a break and stay back a ways farther. If there are people who want to get around you on the road because they like to speed, pull over and let them by and don’t give them the finger when they do. Remember your blood pressure.

I do enjoy driving and I like my vehicle and take good care of it. I’ve been spoiled rotten with all of the gadgets in it and I’ll trade it off when I find one with more gadgets. I grew up in a family that always drove jalopies and somebody else’s junk. If I wanted to take a girl out I always had to go with a friend who had a car. I couldn’t afford one myself and my dads fifty-four Chevy station wagon with the usual cord of wood in the back, permeated with cigar smoke and chain saw gas, was not cool. So as they say in show business “We’ve come a long way baby.” Lets hope it lasts awhile longer. Bon Voyage

IT CAN BE A CRUEL WORLD FOR A SINGLE MAN

Yesterday I went out to the garage to get my Sawzall because I needed to cut some steel. This necessitated me changing the blade in the saw, which I can handle. The part I can’t handle is getting into the package the new blades came in. After a few futile attempts, I took the package over to the workbench, got another saw and cut them out. That’s right—I had to cut out the blades-- to get one, to put in the saw. I used to, when my wife was alive, cuss enough that she would take the package away from me, and with a disgusted look, open it up. She would say, “I would rather do it for you than see you rot in hell for your use of language.”

Men that have been around women—and particularly wives—long enough, learn a few tricks to make life easier for themselves. Men know, if you don’t want to paint, just make a big mess of it and she will do it for you. Don’t want to wash pots and pans? Leave a little sausage in them and quickly put them away. With any luck, you might not be home when she next uses the pan. You’ll never have to wash it again. You might get some flack, but heck, that’s water off a duck’s back compared to painting and doing dishes. On the other hand, if you like fried chicken and dumplings, tell her that her’s is much better than your mother’s ever was.  But here is a caution. Don’t tell her she is pretty when she’s a mess; and for sure, don’t tell her she’s a mess. That’s just crazy talk. They know what they look like, and that reverse psychology you think works will boomerang on you, and you might be snoozing on the couch for a while. Not that that’s all bad—if you got the dog and your flashlight with you. It’s kind of like camping out, but be careful with the snacks. I once got in the doghouse by spilling sardine juice on one of her couch pillows. Not a good thing. I thought the dog would lick it clean, but he just rubbed his shoulder in it. Some buddy he was, huh?

Anyway, I got off-track here but I could write a book about this, and maybe I will—but back to the packaging. I know that, someday, I will be found deceased on the kitchen floor, with an unopened bottle of pills in one hand and a hammer in the other, the childproof lid still intact on the bottle of life-saving pills. It’s providence, my friends, and there is no use fighting it.  I have many electronic devices that I can manage the bare necessities on, but I am stymied on most of it. Unless the grandkids come up, I’ll never learn how to use them.

I once went with my neighbor to pick up some lumber and we had a flat tire on his vehicle. Now men do change tires ladies, but we couldn’t find the jack anywhere in the car. We read the Owner’s Manual in our search for it, but he spilled coffee on the English section of it, and the Spanish section was no help to two guys that struggle with English, unless the jack was at Taco Bell.  Some woman finally lent us her jack, and we did get it changed. However, we did lie a little, and told her we didn’t have a jack because we lost it while changing a tire for a bus full of nuns—on a railroad crossing—in a snowstorm. Oh man, I hope my priest doesn’t read this, and none of you women at the church need to bring it to him, either. I got enough problems right now trying to fold clothes.

A PRIVATE PARTY

                                              

 Many years ago, on a cold New Year’s Eve, my wife and I found ourselves alone at home. No parties to go to and no one coming over. We both sat quietly, watching the tube, and wishing away the last few hours of the outgoing year. It was about ten p.m. and we both had drooping eyelids when I said. “Let’s go outside and have some fun.”

“Are you nuts?” she said, pulling her snuggie around her. “It’s cold out there.”

“I’ll warm it up,” I said. “Trust me on this one.”

So we both bundled up, and walked down the road to where I had a big pile of brush piled up from the summer. I brought along two lawn chairs, two cans of beer and a book of matches. “Yes, my friends, that was the night we burnt the brush pile.”  She was skeptical at first, grumbling at me in her bunny boots and parka; but as the fire grew, and the warmth radiated at us, and the stars winked down on us from an endless cloudless sky, I could see the reflection of the flames in her wet eyes, and the beginning of a smile on her face as she looked at me, and said. “This is better than the New Year’s Eve that you took me to the party at the Radisson.” We both had tears in our eyes. For me, at least, it was a Hallmark moment.

I learned two things that night in the woods. I learned that it didn’t matter where you had a party, it just mattered who was at the party. The simplicity of it all simply added to the ambiance. We sat there and held hands like two teenagers; we talked about how good our life had been for both of us, and how much we truly cared for each other, our family and our friends. Yes, we felt so blessed.

If I told my granddaughters about this New Year’s night, they would just say, “eww grandpa. Seriously, you need to get a life.” That’s what has happened in our society today. We acquaint happiness with momentous events and expensive trips and gifts. I have a friend who sends me a Christmas letter every year, and all of it is about her world travels. There is never a word about her and her husband, who rarely goes with her, or their kids and grandkids. “Just look at me in front of the Taj Mahal,” the captions say. Would I like to go to the Taj Mahal? Yes, if I had my wife to go with me. I traveled a lot with her, but it wasn’t the place that was so special, it was our happiness together, and that is what I will always remember.

My dad used to say, “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” I have found this to be so true. The other day I read this quote by an unknown writer, “When I was in grade school, they told me to write down what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down happy. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment. I told them they didn’t understand life.”

When I think of the last time somebody made me really happy—I was with her. I don’t remember where it was—but I was with her. You can travel a long ways, and do many things, but true happiness will never come from new experiences. It will come from sharing those experiences with someone you love. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in each of us. Yes—even if it’s burning the brush pile.

GEESE

                                                            

 When I was young boy, I used to watch the geese flying overhead in the fall. I often wondered why they flew in that perfect V formation, and all at the same speed. It was years later when I found out that it was nothing more than teamwork. That each bird, except the lead bird, provided lift for the others behind them. It made the long trip much easier. The geese honk when they fly to encourage each one to do their best, and like the little engine that could, they are saying, “I know you can. I know you can.” They take turns flying the point, and when one bird drops out for any reason, two others accompany it to the ground. They leave no man behind. They mate for life. I told my son this one day, to make a point, and he said, “Well, Dad—it’s not like they are going to find a better looking one.” I had to agree with him on that, but it goes much deeper than that.

Sometimes we realize that, as humans, we are at the top of the food chain. The alpha dog, you might say. But when you look at the geese, and how they act, you realize how selfish we can be. That goose has a brain the size of a plum, and we have one the size of small melon. But somehow, in many cases, there seems to be more of a sense of caring for their friends and family, coming from that goose, than us. We don’t have to look far in the bird and animal kingdom to find other instances of this. We also don’t have to look far to find cases of not caring and neglect in our society. So why is this?

Have we evolved to a point where we became so self-centered and greedy that this virtue, of caring for each other, gets lost in the shuffle of everyday life? My dad used to tell me when I was a young man, “Always look out for number one.” It took a few years, but I discovered that “number one” was not always me. When my wife was sick and in the last months of her life, I put my life on hold to care for her. I thank God I was allowed to do that, and deem it a privilege, even though she had to “drop out of the flock” and I came down to be with her. I’m not trying to be sanctimonious here. My children were there with me, and they came down from their formation, too. It was our job, our duty, and it happens every day in our society. But if you look at the people abandoned in nursing homes, and the lost and neglected children in our society, all too often it doesn’t happen. Even a wolf would not abandon her pups.

Fifty some years ago I grew up in a town where we never locked our cars, or in a lot of cases, even our houses. Now we pay for security systems, and lock packages in the trunk, far from prying eyes. A few years back I had a young lady working for me in the cities, and when her shift was done late at night, I made someone else on staff walk her to her car in the parking lot. There are places in the cities you would not think about driving through at night, let alone walk. We have to always be aware of our surroundings because, like the zebras on the Serengeti, danger lurks behind every bush. Yes, even though we have cured many diseases and put a phone in every pocket; even though we have been to the moon, the deepest parts of the sea, and climbed the highest mountains, many of us still prefer to fly alone.

SHARING OUR LIVES

                                                

A while back one of my friends sent me a video that was a New Years greeting. It was Auld Lang Syne being sung in Norwegian with some beautiful visual effects. A singer named Sissel Kyrkjebo from Norway sang the song. If ever an angel sang, this lady’s soprano voice would sound just like it. I shared it with few a friends and got some nice comments back. But the crux of my story is not how Sissel sings but how we find beauty and feelings on this earth in so many different places. I have talked about music before and have used its words in a lot my writings. So many of my memories seem to have a song tied to them.

Pictures are another inspiration and not only pictures about this earth and its creatures but also pictures that are a snap shot in time. Our memories are a wonderful way to visit the past and often a picture can open the floodgates and make remembering them so much more enjoyable. Especially when you are sharing them with someone else because they know exactly what you are talking about when they see it. There comes a time when life has nearly passed you by and about all you have left are your pictures and your memories.

I have found over the years that sometimes it’s very hard to transfer how you feel about things to another person. You want them to see things exactly as you see it but it’s just so hard to get on the same wavelength with them, because that’s how different we are. We are all unique in our own way and thinking and sometimes we have little choice but to keep it to ourselves. Every once in a while though you are moved so much, you have to share and you hope that this time, is the one time, they will feel like you do.

Feelings are another thing we share with others and be it friendship or a deep and abiding love for someone, you share this in the hope that they will reciprocate in kind. It’s not always successful and there is a certain amount of salesmanship involved in it. I remember the first time I told a woman I loved her and my biggest fear was she was going to say. “That’s nice.” But this one didn’t and she loved me for forty-nine years and I never stopped loving her to this day, even though she is no longer alive. Have I told others I loved them? Certainly because I believe the words ‘I love you’ can be all encompassing with different degrees of it. How I loved my wife and how I love my children and my friends, differs greatly, but anyway you look at it, it’s still love. Valentines day is right around the corner. It’s not just for lovers but a day when love does takes center stage. Be sure to tell someone you love them, because they need to hear it from you.

HOUSE OR HOME

                                                

 When I was a young man, and married for just a couple of years, my bride and I decided to look for a house. We had one child and another on the way and it was time to put down some roots. For me this was just another piece of the puzzle in my on- going life with my growing family. I guess at the time this house was in reality just boards, shingles and nails but I was going to find out how to turn it into a home.

For me the words house and home had always been synonymous in my mind. They both meant nothing more than a shelter but now that was changing and the meanings were taking on separate distinctions in my mind. The recipe for a house was as always, cement blocks, boards, wiring and plumbing and a way to put it all together. A coat of paint, some grass and a doghouse in the yard and you had a house. The home however was more complicated, needing all of that and more and the house basically was just a part of it. For you see bit-by-bit that house was taking on a human touch and that is the real recipe for a home.

In my home, to start with, the main ingredient was she and I. She was the foundation and the mortar in the bricks. She held it all together and the home was built upon her. Then the kids came and we had important parts too but she was the choreographer and we were content to just play our parts and take her lead. In many homes this is reversed between husband and wife, or is shared so equally there is no real clear-cut distinction. It’s not that important who drives the boat. What’s important is that it isn’t rudderless and spinning in circles. In the end however in our case, we all played a part in making the house a home.

When people came to our house I always said, “Welcome to our home.” That is what I wanted them to see. Not the pictures on the walls or the walk-in closets. Not the cupboards in the kitchen or the spacious yard. Those are just fixtures and not what the home was really made of. I wanted them to feel the love and compassion that existed there. I wanted them to leave talking about the home and not the house. From my days as a fireman, I remember standing with people in front of their burnt out houses trying to comfort them. Always I would tell them that as long as they were all safe, the house may be ruined, but happily the home survived. The house will rise again and then the home will be whole once more.

In my case, with my wife’s passing, it’s the home that has suffered and the house is fine. Fixing the home will take a lot more work then fixing a house. Houses can last for centuries and the family that once called it a home will fade away. But new families may come and make it a home again and the house will once again be a happy place. So be proud of your house but be prouder yet of your home. You see in most cases the house is what the builder built-- but the home-- that’s what you built.

CREATION

                                                           

 There are days when I go to the woods, across the road from my house, and find my spot on the bank of the river; and just sit down with my back to an old oak tree and soak it all in. It’s ironic, because I used to do that as a kid, too, and I’ve never tired of it. Basically, the scene is the same, and so are the actors when they are there. It’s just my perception that has changed. You see, as a child, my world and the people in it were virtually unblemished, or at least to me they were. The world was far more peaceful and unspoiled back then, at least, what I knew of it was. I never worried from one day to the next that anyone would, or could, harm this unspoiled jewel of nature that lay out before me. Even back then, what I actually saw was far from perfect. I just didn’t know the difference. My life back then was built on dreams, and you see, dreams rarely have complications.

Now, as an old man, I still dream but instead of dreaming of how I want it to be, I now dream of how I wished it had been. If age brings us anything, it brings us a sense of reality, and as the old “Serenity Prayer” says—“The wisdom to know the difference.” The wisdom of having seen so many things go wrong, and also go right, in life. Basically, it’s what worked and what didn’t work. You learn so much from your mistakes, but there is a much better way to learn your lessons. That way is when you learn from others’ mistakes, or discover your own mistakes before anyone knows you made them, and you correct them. 

I believe in creation. I believe this world is just too perfect for someone to not have had a hand in all of this. I also believe that “the someone,” who had a hand in this, must be very sad when he sees what has happened. But it was predestined to happen because we ourselves are so imperfect, and he knew that. Mankind has been driven to find new and better ways to do everything, and often at the expense of others and our world. It’s our definition of “better” that comes into question for many. What could be better than what I am looking at right now? A lazy river that is a refuge for so many creatures, and me, slowly winding its way to the sea.

But we are an inquisitive bunch, and we churn out new inventions and products; sometimes long before we have gotten used to what we have. There seems to be no way to slow the pace. To try and make the world a better place to live in, is admirable, until greed raises its ugly head. I read a quote from a man, one James Roberts, that said, “No matter how much we consume, we never get closer to happiness; we only speed up the treadmill.” There is an answer, however, and what I am doing today is part of it—just stepping off the treadmill for a while. I hope that fifty years from now somebody will sit in this same place and soak it up, too. That this place will still be somewhat pristine; and in the mad rush to make it all happen, we can still go and find this peace. “The New Year lies before us like a spotless tract of snow. Be careful how you tread on it, because every track will show.” Author Unknown.