Slaying it Over Here…

Since this will be my last day in the Old Dominion for a while, I thought I would leave you guys a supply of cringe-worthy Dad Jokes to read while I’m away…

My dad was a Communist.

Whenever he told a joke, everybody got it.

Also, our family was starving…

But his jokes always hit the Marx.

They came atcha from all Engles.

You could always see the punch line coming since there were red flags everywhere.

Still, I would laugh Mao ass off.

A string walks into a bar. Bartender says, “We don’t serve strings here.” The string walks outside, ties himself into a knot, messes up his hair, and walks back into the bar. Bartender says, “Hey, aren’t you the string I just kicked out?” The string says…

“I’m a frayed knot…”

I refused to believe that my dad was stealing from his job as a road worker…

But when I got home all the signs were there.

Some guy just told me he was going to smack me with the neck of his guitar. 

I said, “Is that a fret?”

I asked my brother why he still worked as a mailman for such a low salary.

He said, “It’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message…”

I started up a new business. It was a dating site for chickens. But I had to close it down because…

I was having trouble making hens meet.

Post Season Predictions

Entering my favorite time of year, the Major League Baseball postseason. There’s a week left in the regular season and still some races yet to be determined, but largely we know which ten teams will be playing October baseball. My Washington Nationals are in full rebuilding mode, and my Boston Red Sox are fading fast. But for a hard core baseball fan like myself, none of that matters once the playoffs start. I’m all in. Like every year since 2010 I offer up my predictions around this time. My record has been decidedly mixed in this regard. Some years I seem prescient, other years I’m more like an idiot. For purposes of today’s exercise, I am assuming that the Dodgers and Red Sox will be wildcard teams, two outcomes that have not been assured as of 9/29/2021. Here are the ten teams in question:

From the American League:

Tampa Bay Rays

Houston Astros

Chicago White Sox

New York Yankees

Boston Red Sox

From the National League:

Atlanta Braves

Milwaukee Brewers

San Francisco Giants

St. Louis Cardinals

Los Angeles Dodgers 

Ok, first of all we can throw out the Chicago White Sox. They have the privilege of playing in the most pathetic division in all of baseball, the embarrassing AL Central where all the other teams finished under .500. When half your schedule consists of tomato cans, its easy to wrack up plenty of wins. The White Sox aren’t going anywhere.

Same deal with the Milwaukee Brewers. They aren’t even the best team in their division. They are at or near the bottom in most offensive and defensive categories. They pitch well and they strike a lot of guys out, that’s about it. So now that we have the imposters out of the way, here are my thoughts:

Tampa Bay Rays. I can’t figure these guys out. They have really good pitching and they hit a lot of home runs. But they strike out…a lot, more than any other team in the postseason. You would have a hard time naming anyone on their team. They have no “stars”. They basically have no fans either. Nobody attends their games. They won’t sell out their stadium during the World Series, if they get there. Never has such a good baseball team been cared less about than these guys. And yet, here they are again with the best record in the American League.

If the New York Yankees end up playing the wildcard elimination game against the Boston Red Sox, it will be the highest rated game of the year. These are two teams loaded with All Stars…and yet neither of them could beat out the Rays for the division title, leaving them vulnerable to a one and done exit. Although my hatred of the Yankees is legendary, they will win this game because they are a better team at the moment.

The Houston Cheaters aren’t going anywhere, at least I hope not. It’s going to come down to the winner of the Yankees-Red Sox game and the Tampa Bay Rays. Of those three the Rays feel like the third best team. So weird. My gut says “Yankees”

The most fascinating matchup of perhaps all of this year’s post season will be the LA Dodgers vs the St. Louis Cardinals. It will feature the best team in baseball (the Dodgers, hands down) against the hottest team in baseball,(they with the currently 17 game winning streak) in a one game shootout. Hard to pick against the Dodgers who have the best pitching staff perhaps ever. It will be a great game, but the Dodgers will advance and make it to the World Series with little or no interference from either the Braves or the Giants, yet another team I can’t figure out. They don’t have nearly as many great players as the Dodgers and yet they have won more games. All they seem to do is win. But in a short series it boils down to which team has the best pitching and that’s the Dodgers.

So, there you have it…the Dodgers vs the Yankees in the World Series…what everyone in the Commissioner’s office prays for every night.

Dodgers win.

Romans 12:15

I have not made a habit of writing blogs about Bible verses in the 11 year history of The Tempest. In fact, of the 2,485 posts so far, this might be the first. But I ran across a passage of scripture this morning from the 12th chapter of the New Testament book of Romans, verses 9-18…

“ Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

First of all, what an amazing world this would be if we lived this way. But as I was reading this a phrase right in the middle of the thing jumped out at me. I highlighted it above.

I think that most of us have a far easier time mourning with those who mourn than we do “rejoicing with those who rejoice.” Why is that? I don’t know for sure. I suppose every situation is different. But I have a hunch that it boils down to a combination of three of the venal sins…envy, jealousy, and greed.

Pam and I are blessed with many wonderful friends. Some of them make less money than we do, others make about the same and others make more than we do. Some, a lot more. Of course these are guesses since never once have I asked any friend of mine, “Hey, how much money do you make?” But here’s the thing; the very best friends are those where it doesn’t matter. The best friends are those who make it easy to rejoice when they rejoice. But for some weird reason, the human heart contains a grain of resentment. When we hear of a friend who gets a huge raise, sometimes our first impulse is envy. But why? It’s not as if economics is a zero sum game whereby if a friend becomes successful then that means there are less chances available for you. Still, we have to fight against jealousy and resentment. In my life I have struggled in this area at times. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned a few things that have helped me to put this whole rejoice with those who rejoice thing into practice.

First of all, be careful what you wish for. You have no idea what that person may have had to go through for that promotion. We can’t possibly understand the new pressures that this promotion might bring into their lives. Secondly, from the outside looking in it’s easy to make assumptions like…he’s just lucky, or her parents gave her everything. Maybe, maybe not. But who cares? See, there’s another verse somewhere in the New Testament that says that to whom much is given, much is required. Do you want the added scrutiny and accountability that comes with greater and greater financial success? If so, go for it. But I would tread very carefully down that path.

Here’s another thing I’ve noticed about the accumulation of wealth. Sometimes the more you have the harder it is to let go of it. The scriptures refer to this as the deceitfulness of riches. Although this is totally and completely true, I have some friends who have been blessed with an abundance of money and yet are now more generous, more giving than they have ever been. These are the people who make it easy to rejoice when they rejoice. But what about the people who get greedier and more arrogant with each new success? I’ve learned that who the Lord chooses to bless is one of the ten thousand things in this world that are none of my business.

One more thing about this, it has been my privilege to know several people over the years who at one point or another struggled on the edge of bankruptcy, only to come through to the other side of the scale in miraculous ways. The fascinating thing is that a couple of these people were among the most generous people I had ever known…when they were broke! When they became fabulously successful, their generosity just exploded onto another level. In other words, they were faithful with a few things, so maybe the Lord knew they could be trusted with much more…yet another thing to rejoice about.

So maybe the lesson here is that when your friends are mourning, come along side and mourn with them. It’s easy to do. It comes natural to us. But, when something wonderful happens to them, let go of the resentment that comes from the devil, the envy that springs up in your heart. Lay all that down and throw a party instead. 

October in Maine

This Friday, Pam, Lucy and I will leave Short Pump for our last trip to Maine in 2021. This time it will only be for two weeks, and this time it will be on a lake we have never stayed on before…Coleman Pond. The long term weather forecast for the two weeks in question calls for mostly sunny conditions, with high temperatures in the low 60’s and lows in the upper 40’s. It should be noted that the value of a long term weather forecast in Maine is roughly equivalent to the value of crypto futures in China about now, but that’s another story. The house is old school Maine campy, which is a compliment not an accusation. The lake is way too small for our taste, but complaining about staying on a too small lake in Maine for the first two weeks of October is like complaining that the deck chairs on your yacht are starting to look dated. Literally nobody wants to hear it.

So, why another trip to Maine when we spent a month and a half up there in the summer? This is a reasonable question. The answer is simple. Maine in October is a completely different place than Maine in July. We started adding a fall trip four or five years ago and were so throughly enchanted by the experience that it became permanent. Some observations:

The leaves. Fall colors in Maine are all the more stunning than they are anywhere else because of the reflective power of lake water. Some of the pictures that Pam has taken while kayaking in October are among the most beautiful images I’ve ever seen. Also, there is something extraordinarily breathtaking about the sight of bright yellow and red leaves flittering in an…ocean breeze.

Sitting around a campfire beside a lake while listening to loons calling out, the sky resplendent with a million stars, can’t possibly be adequately described or documented. It simply has to be experienced. 

The crowds have thinned out in October. Sure, there is the leaf-peeper contingent, but there aren’t nearly as many of them as there are summer visitors. We can walk the streets of Camden and Belfast like we have the entire place to ourselves. One downside is the fact that after Labor Day, lots of restaurants and shops have shut down for the season. But even that has a benefit…no crowds

Drinking your morning cup of coffee with sweater, hat and long pants, sitting here…

…is the stuff of magic.

Here’s the house, which goes by the unimaginative name of Coleman Pond Cottage.

And, here’s the little lake…

Lucy is especially excited to be making this trip. Like the rest of us, she becomes a different dog up there, drawn to the water like a moth to flame.

Lots of things to do between now and Friday, lots of details to button up.

Can’t wait.

60 Years of Marriage

Last night there was a family celebration, my in-laws’ 60th wedding anniversary. Pam had been slaving away all week getting everything thought out and organized just so. Kaitlin drove up from Columbia straight from work Friday night. She arrived around 9:30 and the two of them were nonstop. This morning it’s all over and I expect that they both will sleep late.

We had dinner at Tarrant’s West then returned to the house for presents, dessert and a rousing game of the Not So Newlywed Game. Patrick, Sarah and Jon were brought into the festivities via Facetime. In total,16 of us came together to make a big deal over the fact that Russ and Vi White have been married for six decades.

I bought them a card, but I felt like the occasion was important enough for something more. So I jotted down a few observations and read it aloud…

“The card I bought for you guys says that falling in love is easy, its the staying together that’s worth celebrating. Sixty years of staying together is a big deal, not just because it is so uncommon and increasingly rare, but because of the multi-generational benefits that everyone here tonight has enjoyed as a result of your steadfast commitment. I would like to list just a few of those benefits:

—None of us have fallen into poverty. The statistics are overwhelming that when a marriage falls apart, so do the living standards of all involved. Not only did you keep your family from poverty, you were willing to pull up stakes and move over 800 miles away to provide for them, not once but twice, first from Rumford, Maine to Richmond, Virginia, then from Richmond to Baton Rouge, Louisiana where Russ endured the hottest and most miserable summer of his life. Fortunately for all of us at this table, the Louisiana thing didn’t work out!

—Neither Pam, Sharon or Angie ever had to go through the debilitating pain and self doubt that accompanies watching your parents go through a divorce. All three of them grew up with the assurance that each of you loved them and each other. That stability allowed them to grow up in an emotionally safe place, something that continues to pay dividends in the lives of their husbands and their children.

—Both of you have taught all of us through the example of your lives that service to others is what makes a good life. Between the two of you, I count over sixty years of teaching Sunday School, Children’s Church and Awana. The countless hours of planning and executing over 9000 lessons to young children is the kind of selfless act that makes an indelible impression on those with a front row seat…your family.

—Bernadette, as the latest person to marry into this family, you too are the beneficiary of this legacy. You have married a man who grew up with this example before him, grandparents who loved him, and parents who love each other and share the same life long commitment to each other. This makes it possible for you to live your new life with Isaac with confidence and trust in the power of his character. When it becomes your turn to have children you will get to experience what it is like to have the full support of your in-laws, something that Pam, Sharon, and Angie have all experienced.

So, Russ and Vi, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for doing the hard work of making your marriage something worth celebrating.”

The Power of Smell

Last night I asked Pam what was for dinner? She answered by handing me step by step instructions for Brats with Stewed Spicy Peppers, a recipe she got from this amazing book…

I had made this a couple times in the past but it had been a while. Of course, she had done all the heavy lifting. All I had to do was follow these instructions:

…which I did.

Yes…that is a Baxter, one of Maine’s finest adult beverages.

It was pretty easy to grill this all up, but it took a while. The three steps took up a total of 40 minutes. But there was a tremendous side benefit associated with this dinner. For nearly an hour my backyard and by extension probably the entire culdesac…smelled like the State Fair. I remember when I was a kid, going to the State Fair was a big deal. This was back when it was over on Laburnam Avenue. We would walk through the big field that had been transformed into a parking lot towards the ticket booths off in the distance. The closer we got, the more smells there were, the aroma of the barnyard, of farm animals. Then the sweet whiff of cotton candy. But as soon as we were admitted onto the premises we would be bombarded with the powerful force field of Polish sausage, fried onions and green peppers. For a ten year old boy, this was an exotic aroma. We were a meat and potatoes family, not a lot of foolishness at the dinner table. But this…this smell… was the smell of the other, something European, something from far away. It made me think that the State Fair was somehow an international extravaganza, even though there was nothing in the entire world more uniquely American than the State Fair of Virginia. But I didn’t know any better. To this day I remember the first time my parents allowed me to actually buy a Polish Sausage to eat. They had warned me that I wouldn’t like it, that it was too spicy for me, that I would take one bite then be pestering them for a hamburger five minutes later. Lies…all lies. When I took the first bite of that gigantic, greasy feast of flavors that was three sizes too large for my mouth the first thought that went through my mind was…I wonder what else my parents have been lying to me about!!”

Thus began a life long love of sausage. Links, patties, pork, spicy, mild, Polish, German, Italian, brats, it matters not. If there was a Pakistani sausage I would probably love it too. To this day whenever I go to a restaurant for the first time and am confused by the menu, I simply look for the word “sausage’ in the entree description and go with that, a strategy that has seldom failed me.

So, to all of my neighbors who may have been wondering where that heavenly smell was coming from at 6:30 last night? You’re welcome!

Why Do I Run?

I have a presentation to make at 8:30 this morning so naturally I’m awake at 4:30, drinking a cup of coffee and getting ready for a four mile run at 6:00. I have no idea why I do this. I am not fond of running, have never been. I am still sore from my last run two mornings ago. But here I am. I think it has something to do with the angst brought on by my advancing age. When a man turns 60 he becomes keenly aware of time…of how short it is. You become aware of subtle changes happening to your body. You can feel yourself getting soft. You can actually see the softness in your skin, how it has suddenly become stretchy and thick in places. So partly out of vanity and partly out of anger you step up your exercise routine, part of which involves hitting the road at ungodly hours to do something that you have always hated…running.

So far this year my handy running app tells me I have logged 382.5 miles, burning 51,886 calories in the process. Have I lost any weight? Not really. But I haven’t gained any either which feels like a victory. The only good thing about running is that when you arrive back at the house dripping with sweat— it is a profound paradox—you feel great for about fifteen minutes. You feel like you’ve accomplished something. You ask yourself, “How many 63 year old men can run 4.25 miles in 41 minutes?” You ignore the companion question…How many 63 year old men die every year trying to run 4.25 miles in 41 minutes?

You take a screenshot of your latest run and send it to your son in Nashville who is training to run a half marathon this November. Running has become something that brings you together with your boy. Out of nowhere he decided that he wanted to run a half marathon, this from a kid who has never been in to fitness or exercise. You worry that you have passed along your tendency towards dangerous schemes of self destruction to your children. But, its been fun to compare our running struggles. You are proud of him. This isn’t his thing, but he’s sticking with it and working his tail off, yesterday running in a driving rainstorm. Chip off the old blockhead.

Somewhere around the 2 mile mark this morning I will think to myself, “Why are you doing this? You hate running.” By mile three my hips start to hurt. I am no longer asking myself questions by the time I get close to the end. For reasons that escape logical inquiry, I am sprinting at this point. When I’m done I will consult my running app and discover that once again my fastest mile was the last one. It’s like I have somehow convinced myself that if I sprint to the finish I will have taught running a lesson…not to mess with me! But the only real lesson is that I am a weird dude with strange motivations.

At some point I won’t be able to do this anymore. I will have to find a less physically punishing exercise regimen. Unlike my son I have been into exercise all of my life. When I was younger I would often quote that tired old gym mantra—pain is weakness leaving the body. But there is an addendum to that hackneyed phrase once you become a man of a certain age…pain is stupidity entering the body.

Scandaleux!!!

Suddenly, submarines are in the news. Normally, this would be a topic about which I would have no opinion. But if you throw the French government into the discussion I’m all in. Also, I’m not much of a Joe Biden fan. I mean, I voted for him and everything but only because the other guy was nuts. So, the best thing I can say about Joe is that he isn’t nuts. But when it comes to this submarine thing, I’m 100% Team Biden.

Ok, since most Americans are too busy talking about Nikki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles, I’m thinking an explanation might be prudent. Yesterday came news that the United States had entered into a strategic partnership with Great Britain, and Australia to provide nuclear submarines and related technology to the Land Down Under. In so doing, the French 60 billion dollar contract with the Australian government was scrapped. The French Government was so outraged that they cancelled a gala dinner in Washington, accusing us of treachery and some kind of anti-French bigotry.  Scandaleux!!!

I probably should have a better reason for being in favor of this Anglo-alliance thing other than the fact that the French are so pissed about it, but honestly, there’s nothing that makes me happier than French angst. Ahh yes, the gallant French, with their vaunted Maginot Line, their Vichy capitulation, and their seven decades long whining about lack of respect. I’m thinking that if somehow your country earns a nickname as bad as cheese-eating surrender monkeys, it may take a century to live it down.

So, I’m delighted that the French got hosed in this deal for two reasons. First, I’m all for the English speaking countries sticking together here. Great Britain and Australia have been stalwart allies of America for a very long time. And secondly, we will get to hear Macron’s whiny little voice crying about how terribly unfair it all is for months now. Talk about entertainment!!

What Has Happened to Men’s Fashion. Part II

“Fashion contributes to pollution of the earth and the exploitation of workers to an unparalleled degree; the fashion industry makes, say, manufacturing fridges look like growing wildflowers on an Alpine mountain in terms of its war against nature. The Met Gala will increasingly become a wake for the Woke wealthy, as their mockable costumes and sad faces say ‘We may be rich famous but look – we’re not having any fun – please don’t burn our gated communities down!’.

                                     Julie Birchill

Seeing as how it no longer matters how anything looks anymore, I’ll just leave this wacky script running off the page…

                                    

Shopping For Pants

 I used to brag about my uncanny knack of being able to shop for clothes with far less drama and angst than my wife. In fact, eight years ago I wrote an entire blog about it HERE. If you click on that link you will feel the superiority practically jumping through the screen at you. This was a skill that I was quite proud of. I am here today to tell you that those days are officially over. My experiences over the past couple of days has served to wipe that self-satisfied shopping smirk off of my face. What, you might ask in the name of all that is holy, happened? I’ll tell you what happened, for the first time in five years I went shopping for pants. That’s what happened.

Ok, I’m not a big fashionista. I don’t want to look like a bum or anything, but I’m not the kind of guy who has to have the latest thing when it comes to clothing. Actually I’m confused by changing fashion trends. First of all, who exactly changes them? How does what is considered hip and trendy become so? It is a mystery, one that I suspect is the fault of a small but powerful cabal of conspirators in Paris and New York City. Be that as it may, the fact is that you wake up one day and realize that your pants are looking dated. Suddenly guys are walking around in different styles of pants. Those full cut puffy pleats aren’t working any longer. Besides, they are starting to look a bit frayed. When I look in my closet I see the carnage that has cut a swarth through much of the stuff I used to wear. There must be 6 or 7 suits hanging in there, all lined with a fine mist of dust on the far left of the closet. When I first entered the business world in the early 80’s I wore a suit and tie every single day while sharing a 9x9 office with a guy who chain smoked Marlboro’s. Now, the only time I have worn a suit in the past 10 years has been to weddings and funerals. On the left wall of my closet hangs a tie rack jammed full of silk ties of every color in the rainbow. I currently wear three of them, approximately 20 times a year at the office (never with a jacket) whenever I want to feel more professional. Its all part of yet another trend thats been with us for quite a while now…the drift away from formal and towards casual. I fully expect this trend will one day reverse itself, probably two weeks after I take all my suits over to Hope Thrift.

So, my collection of pants were old and unstylish. Big deal. I would just run over to Joseph A. Banks like I did the last time five years ago, spend ten minutes or so roaming around then see what I want, buy it, and be back home in less than an hour. Only…something strange and disturbing has happened to men’s pants over these past five years. Its as if a group of rogue tailors have colluded among themselves and decided what American men need is 15 different cuts of pants. 

The guy who drew the short straw over at J.A. Banks says to me, “So, you want dressy casual pants, do ya? What cut would you prefer?”

I look at him with a blank expression. “Wait…what?”

“Well, lets see, you can get this particular pant in straight leg, classic cut, athletic, trim fit, slim fit, or skinny cut.”

Having zero patience for this nonsense, I walked out and decided that Kohl’s probably had exactly what I wanted and would be cheaper too. I drive over to Kohl’s and discover the same dizzying array of cuts. Different brand, cheaper prices, but still with the cuts. Plus, what the heck has happened to Kohl’s? That place used to be a pretty buttoned up place. Now there are clothes laying around all over the place, picked over and disorganized. When I went to the changing room, every stall was full of discarded clothes from whoever had used the place over the last week! 

Undeterred, but feeling slightly annoyed, I went across Broad street to another of my old reliables…Men’s Warehouse. Here I was confronted not only with the cut business, but a new vexing problem. Color. I’m a rather conservative guy. For me, pants I’m planning to wear at my office, among other places, need to not be…how shall I say this…loud. When did men’s clothiers start offering khaki pants the color of pumpkin pie? Where was the great hue and cry among men for    Mauve and magenta? Who among us has ever walked into a clothing store looking for banana yellow pants? 

At this point I am completely annoyed and ended up going home. As I drove down Three Chopt I thought about all the times my wife has gone out clothes shopping, only to come back three hours later in tears. I wasn’t crying at this point but was beginning to feel an introduction to what I had always referred to as the shopping blues when it was happening to Pam.

The next day I go out again with a new game plan. I have done some googling and now had a better understanding of the subtle differences between Slim, Trim and athletic. Further, I had discovered that L.L. Bean might work out quite nicely. I had found a type of pants I might actually like on their website.  “Breathable fabric, water resistant, appropriate for the office and the golf course”, the sales pitch went. I show up over there and found more appropriate colors for a 63 year old man…black, gray, navy blue. Also, after an eternity in the changing room, I decided that straight leg in a 35x30 worked just fine. While I was at it I bought a new pair of stonewashed jeans using the same tyrannical new cut regime. However, L.L. Bean had no khakis that were khaki-color. if I wanted to walk around looking like yellow squash I was in luck, but since I don’t, I had to go to yet another store…Dillard’s, where I was commandeered by a super aggressive middle aged woman with a thick and menacing Russian accent…

“You not need skinny pants. They make you look like fool. You  need straight or classic. These. You try these on…now!!”

I hurried into the changing room as fast as I could and locked the door! The pants she had given me were actually perfect khaki pants. They fit beautifully and were exactly the right color. When I exited the changing room the Russian woman was standing like five feet from the door. She took the pants from me quickly, “You buy these now!”

When she rang them up they were insanely expensive…but there was no way in hades I was going to give this woman any trouble. I paid for them while flashing a nervous smile. To break the considerable tension I attempted to make conversation…

“So, you have an interesting accent. You from Russia?”

At this point, my mask-wearing saleswoman stopped what she was doing, stared at me while slowly lowering the mask, revealing clinched teeth, “I am Lithuanian.” She spoke the country of her birth an octave lower…then smiled broadly, replaced her mask. “You nice man.”

Finally, my two day pants buying mission was over. An international incident was avoided and I spent more money on a pair of khakis than I ever have my entire life.

Mistakes

        I mostly remember two things from my high school biology class several decades ago. One was that I was deeply in love with Arlene, a fellow sophomore who was also in the class. Alas, my love was unrequited: She broke my 15-year-old heart by asking one of my best friends to the Sadie Hawkins dance.

​The second thing is the project we did late in the school year called the Vertebrate Study. We had to write a fairly lengthy report on backboned creatures and on the day we turned it in, we were handed a test to gauge what we’d learned from our extensive, pre-internet research. I can’t tell you how many questions there were on that test because I only remember one: Birds are able to fly more easily because their bones are (blank). This was not a fact I’d turned up in my research and I had no idea how to fill in that blank, so I put some spectacularly incorrect answer. 

I will know until my dying day, however, that the bones of birds are hollow. 

​We really do learn from our mistakes. (Well, most of us do. I’m not sure Arlene did.) Our miscues have a way of lodgingfirmly in our memory.Maybe that’s why God seems to revel in using our frequently misguided efforts for good, to teach us some of life’s most important lessons. It’s so in character for him to take something we’ve done wrong and use it to make us wiser and more faithful than we were before. 

​It’s all grace.

​I’ve made, at last count, approximately a zillion mistakes way more serious than the hollow bones thing, and I have a tendency, at times, to think God must be pretty disgusted with me for all that. Lucky for me, and for all of us, he’s never thought the way I do. Maybe it’s that whole “my ways are higher than your ways” thing. His ways are certainly kinder and more patient than mine.

I can cite, for instance, some amazingly inappropriate things that have come out of my mouth at times when I’ve spoken before thinking about it. Some of these episodes are probably where the expression “cringe-worthy” originated. When I’ve consulted with my Maker about episodes like those afterward, I like to think he’s revealed to me not just the errors of my ways but how I might use a more thoughtful, considerate way to communicate in the future. I’ve rushed through events, conversations, tasks, days—all kinds of things, blundering past opportunities that might have been special moments or chances to do my best work. As I’ve thought about those times, I’d like to think that God’s shown me a slower, more present and deliberate approach to the days he’s given me now. I’ve made snap judgments about people and situations many, many times, only to discover repeatedly that this person is totally different than I thought or that something very different than I believed to be happening was really happening. Looking back, I’d like to think that God has used those moments to speak to me about a slower, more present and grounded way to go about my life.

​Spiritual writer Henri Nouwen suggests that we look at our lives with gratitude—the entirety of them. “True gratitude embraces all of life,” he says. “The good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, the holy and the not-so-holy. We do this because we become aware of God’s life, God’s presence in the middle of all that happens.”

​Later, he adds, “Everything that happens is part of our way to the house of the Father.”

​That’s a very redemptive perspective, something else so characteristic of our God. So, despite my life’s wrong turns, I’m working on being grateful for what God has shown me as I live them, and relying on his forgiveness for when my mistakes have caused others pain.

​I think of that sometimes when I see birds soaring by, no longer earthbound thanks to their strong, light, and hollow bones.

       

        Tom Allen

P.S. When I asked Tom to send me a photo of himself that I could put with his column the first one he sent was this…

Robert E. Lee

Yesterday, Robert E. Lee’s monument came down. For me it was a bittersweet moment. Most of my younger friends were ecstatic. Indeed, many of you can’t possibly understand my ambivalence. Much of it is generational. Some of it is the fact that when I was a young history major in college I read scores of biographies about the major players during the Civil War, Union and Confederate. I came away with a profound respect for many of them, great but flawed men. However, my feelings about many of them have changed over the years. The two portraits in the picture below once hung on a wall in my library. They no longer do for a variety of reasons. But in light of yesterday’s events, I remember now a blog I wrote just after the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville several years ago. I have reprinted the salient passages below:

When it comes to this entire statues controversy, I am not an absolutist. Each generation should have some say in how they interpret history. Although I happen to believe that the Monument Avenue statues are astonishingly beautiful works of art, and think that they are a valid record of the fact that our city was, in fact, the former capital of the Confederacy, I also understand how they might be viewed differently by a rather large segment of the city's population. The legacy of the Antebellum south was one of human bondage, the buying and selling of human beings. This is a fact of history that for many Americans is something that can't and shouldn't be celebrated.

 I am conflicted even as I write this. For over my shoulder on the wall behind me are two portraits hung in my library, one of Robert E. Lee and the other of Thomas Stonewall Jackson. I studied each of these men extensively in college and found them to both be fascinating men, complex, and tortured, whose lives were shot through with great tension and contradictions. Jackson, perhaps the finest  tactician in the history of this country, also nearly was kicked out of his Lexington Presbyterian church for teaching a class full of slave children how to read. The ironies were overwhelming. But, I came away from all of that study with a profound respect for each man's character. So their portraits hang in my library. For some of you reading this, you might be nodding in agreement. Others might be scratching your heads. I get it. I understand the tension, and the disagreements that flow from different readings of history.

But, here's the thing. What would I do if I knew that a family of African Americans were coming over for dinner? And suppose that this particular family had just lost a child at the hands of a white supremicist mob. What would I do with the portraits? You know what? I think I would remove them before they showed up. Not because I no longer cared about Lee or Jackson, but because I care much more about the tender feelings of my friends than I could ever care about a couple of dead generals. This is the essence of my position on statues. Let's all be a little less entrenched in our own positions, and more in tune with the point of view of people who might view them in a different light.

I suppose my bottom line is that I’m glad the Civil War turned out the way it did. Robert E. Lee made the choice to defend his home state of Virginia rather than honor the vow he took upon graduating from West Point as an officer in the United States Army, a decision that caused him a great deal of soul-searching anguish. But, ultimately he made the wrong decision. While his primary motivation may have been a sense of devotion to Virginia, his armies also were defending the institution of slavery, a crime against humanity that no amount of post-war rehabilitation can erase. Had he prevailed, thousands of African-Americans would have been kept in human bondage for years longer than they were. Ultimately, this is the verdict of history, one for which I am grateful.

So, where are these two portraits now? In the attic. The thirteen biographies of Lee, Jackson, Grant, JEB Stuart and Sherman are still in my library, but the portraits are not. They are still worth reading about, but the time for enshrinement has passed.

Father/Daughter Conversations

My daughter and I sometimes have strange text conversations. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is the fact that I am a writer and she is something of an expert in the fine art of understanding the English language…not to mention a fine editor. Consequently, a few days ago this happened:

Me: Hey, I found a list of some of the best words of all time. What do you think?

Bamboozled

Flabbergasted

Discombobulated 

Shenanigans

Cattywampus

Lollygag

Malarkey

Kerfuffle

Brouhaha 

Nincompoop

Skedaddle

Pumpernickel 

Kaitlin: ….Rutabaga

Me: And I would add asshattery, balderdash and knickknackery.

Kaitlin…Hullabaloo

Me: Rhubarb…I think that a day should not pass without using at least five of these words in a sentence.

Kaitlin: Agreed. We may bamboozle people with our shenanigans, but there’s no time for lollygagging!

Me: Enough with this discombobulated asshattery! If that rhubarb pie doesn’t come out of the oven pretty soon, there may very well be a brouhaha amongst the guests!

Kaitlin:…macadamia is another good one, and pomegranate.

Me: How about tomfoolery and pollyanish?

Kaitlin:…Flippertigibbet

Me: Wait…isn’t that Flibbertigibbet?

Kaitlin: Quite right!

Me: Not really sure what that even means.

Kaitlin:…Will-o-the-wisp… something you fiddle with, I think. No, actually it is a frivolous, chatty person.

Me: Now we know then…I’ve always been partial to the word Haphazard. Any word with a P AND a Z has to be on this list.

Kaitlin: Look up Batty-Fang—one of Jon’s favorites. 

Me: You should compile this list for your students and challenge them to write a 200 word essay using all of them!!  Yes. Batty-Fang…what Donald Trump did to the Republican Party.

Who says fathers and daughters don’t have anything substantial to talk about these days??

It’s All About the Throw Pillows…

4:45 AM is a dreadful time of day to wake up. It’s just a bit too early to give up on the idea of drifting back to sleep, yet close enough to your normal wake up time to consider getting up. So, a decision needs to be made. Unfortunately, no one does their best decision making at 4:45 AM. I glance over at Pam and she is enjoying the deep, peaceful sleep of the just. I crawl out of bed, give Lucy a scratch and head downstairs…where I hardly recognize the place. That’s because over the past couple of days, Pam has done a thing.

I believe that I am like most other men in that I could live in a house for two or three decades without ever feeling the urge to…redecorate. If I like the furniture, what on earth would possibly make me not like it? As far as the color scheme goes, I have no opinion one way or the other. I mean, once you hang curtains I feel like they are there for life unless they catch on fire or something, right? But Pam tells me that styles change and that our decor is dated. Our color scheme has outlived its useful life. She is tired of red. I am relieved to learn that our furniture will not have to be replaced since it is a neutral color. But, everything else will. Out with the decade-long reign of red. It has been determined that blue is now the thing. Everything must now be blue…and in our house, there is a lot of everything. Rugs, curtains, bath towels, kitchen towels, pillows, runners, throws and art work all must now conform to the new regime. She left the house two days ago with the credit card. By last night we had accumulated enough points for a trip to Aruba.

The deed is done. Well, nearly done. We still haven’t found art work for the wall behind the sofa. I’m told it is a crucial detail of the project because it will tie everything together. I’m sure this is true and I nod my head as if I completely understand.The problem is, this new artwork will replace my favorite wall hanging in the entire house…

As I recall, this was my only contribution to the last decoration scheme. I love it so much. There’s a Casablanca vibe and the umbrella’s color was perfect. However, it just won’t do any longer. It had a great run though. I’m thinking I will move it upstairs to the TV room. There’s no way I’m putting it in the attic or donating it to Hope Thrift. Plus, if you knew how long it took me to get that whole thing hung perfectly straight you will understand my reluctance to take it down.

But, I must say now that Pam has put all of the new blue stuff in place, it looks amazing. It really is like a new space, all freshly reimagined. It would never have occurred to me that it needed reimagining. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why men like me should always marry women like Pam.

No More COVID Jokes

I’ve learned something the hard way recently. I’ve learned that if you attempt to make a COVID-related joke on Facebook, the comment section turns into a contentious back and forth of name calling, anecdotal evidence which proves nothing, ad hominem attacks and lots of profanity. In other words…The Housewives of Beverly Hills. And while that might be great fun for some of you, I find it tedious, pointless and boring. So, no more virus jokes from me, which is just as well since most COVID jokes are…tasteless.

Here’s the thing, its not like there aren’t some really great COVID jokes out there, but if I post one, someone will inevitably chime in with, “Funny, but actually…”

For example, I could say…What’s the difference between COVID-19 and Romeo and Juliet? One’s the coronavirus and other is a Verona crisis. To which someone would reply, “But, to get the vaccine or to not get the vaccine, that is the question.”

Or I could go with… Back in my day, you would cough to cover up a fart. Now, with COVID-19, you fart to cover up a cough. But if I did someone would point out that the farter in question needed to be wearing a mask!

Of course I could just go with quarantine jokes instead, but they would be problematic too. I could say, “My Mom used to tell me that I would never amount to anything just laying around on the sofa all day. But look at me now, Ma! I’m freaking saving the world!” Or how about, “After years of wanting to thoroughly clean my house but lacking the time, this week I discovered that wasn’t the reason.” Or even, “The World Health Organization announced that dogs cannot contract COVID-19. Dogs previously held in quarantine can now be released. To be clear…WHO let the dogs out.” But if I did, someone out there wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to point out that the World Health Organization is a tool of the Trilateral Commission or something. So, since half of humor is reading the room, I have decided to take a step back from anymore COVID-themed humor.

Its just as well. With COVID jokes it takes two or three days before most people even know they got it.

Trying Times for Optimists

We’ve been at this for 18 months now, this COVID thing. I can hardly remember what life was like before. The virus seems to have changed everything, serving as the catalyst for the ascension of madness in our world. It is the single greatest dividing point in society, having vanquished even Donald Trump, who actually got booed for suggesting that people get vaccinated at one of his recent rallies. The United States of America has jumped the shark.

Here’s how it goes. Normal, well educated people come to wildly opposing conclusions about…literally everything having to do with COVID-19. Someone posts a chart that says that 95% of current hospitalizations for COVID-19 are of the unvaccinated. Someone else then claims that the chart is rigged by lying doctors and hospitals who are making up the admissions data out of ulterior motives like money or pressure from their superiors. So the rest of us are left to try and decide who we chose to believe…the chart or the alleged crooked doctors and hospital administrators. If we side with the chart we are assumed to be liberty-hating authoritarians. If we believe that the vast majority of public health officials across the country are all in on some kind of giant information conspiracy we are left with the obvious conclusion that we are living in the last days. When a conspiracy comes along powerful enough to persuade the nation’s doctors—a notoriously prickly and independent lot—to falsify admissions records in masse, can anything stop it??

Wearing a mask helps stop the spread of the virus.

No it doesn’t. It is simply a tool to enslave us.

The vaccine is enormously effective in not only preventing getting the virus, but also lessening the severity of the symptoms if you do get it.

No. The vaccine is worthless and could possibly contain microbes designed to manipulate the brain, making us more susceptible to mind control.

Wearing a mask is an act of selflessness and a form of respect for the most vulnerable around us.

No. Wearing a mask is a virtue signaling pose by people who want to feel morally superior to everyone else.

It is virtually impossible to find a common ground between these two schools of thought. Where would the point of agreement come between these two world views? I can’t imagine where…and this is why I have never been so discouraged about the state of public discourse in my 63 years.

I am at heart an optimist. When I contemplate the future I tend to think of innovation, progress, and opportunity. It is my belief that the arc of history bends decidedly towards those three things. I mean, 100 years ago the number one cause of death in America was diarrhea, people. The progress we have made in quality of life measures is astonishing and unprecedented. So, I have great reason for optimism. But it is becoming more difficult with each passing day to imagine how the great COVID-divide gets bridged…that doesn’t involve an awful lot of death.