A Parenting Win?

I just saw a post from a friend of mine who is in the midst of a three week adventure with his wife and two kids, touring a half dozen of our National Parks out west. He made the observation that it felt like a parenting win.

He doesn’t know the half of it.

Choosing to spend your money on introducing your kids to the beauty of creation is world class parenting.

Spending three weeks of your summer with them, being present with them is the very definition of parenting. It communicates to them their value....Mom and Dad must love us, if they want to be with us for three weeks!!

The experiences they will have on a trip like this are worth more than a hundred creature comforts. When those girls are grown, they will both talk about that time Mom and Dad took them out west long after Mom and Dad are gone. 

Our National Parks are a treasure. They contain some of the most stunning real estate in the entire world. When we visit, we are reminded of the vastness and wonder of creation. We discover something much bigger and deeper than our day to day problems. It invites big thoughts, and stirs the imagination. Hopefully, it also instills a reverence for the natural world and a desire to protect it.

A three week camping trip with kids is no picnic. I’m sure they will get on each other’s last nerve several times along the way. But, here’s what I know. Material possessions are great. I have nothing against having nice things. I would rather drive a nice car than beat up rusted hulk. I would rather live in a nice house than a shack in the woods. I would rather have nice clothes than walk around in rags. But, there is so much more to life than...stuff. Prosperity is great but if it only results in shinier stuff, it’s wasted. If the power of prosperity is turned to providing life long experiences with the ones you love, something magical happens. Something like conversations around a campfire late into the night. Something like laughing together all afternoon in floats on the lake. Something like watching the sunset to the sound of burgers sizzling on the grill. Something like the thought that comes over you that no matter what life might have in store, there will always be these people, this family, who love you.

A parenting win?

 More like a triumph.

Thanks, golf.

Couple of days ago, a friend of mine says, Why don’t we break away Thursday morning to play golf? I was reluctant since this week has been full, the kind of schedule one has when preparing to go on vacation for three weeks. But, my appointments on Thursday were in the late afternoon so I said yes. Our tee time was at 9:30. He calls me at 8:50...How far away are you? I worked it out so we can go off of 10 if you get here early. That way we’ll have the course to ourselves. I was just leaving the house when he called, so I raced over, walked straight from the parking lot onto the 10th teebox and we were off! Three hours and fifteen minutes later, we were having lunch on the patio, smoking cigars. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how golf was meant to be played.

The fact that we never encountered another living soul on the golf course was not the only reason we finished so quickly. My friend and I have one thing in common when it comes to golf. We both play fast. We are see ball, hit ball players. Our “pre-shot routine” takes all of ten seconds. There are no ponderous debates about club selection, the vagaries of wind and yardage. You will never catch one of us tossing blades of grass in the air or gazing at the top of trees as if a better understanding of wind direction could possibly make a discernible difference in the result. That stuff is reserved for guys who play golf for a living. My friend and I would much rather spend our time talking trash, questioning each other’s manhood, planting seeds of doubt by reminding each other of the hazards of each shot...Alright Dougie, don’t worry about that lake. You hardly ever slice and besides, you’re too weak. You probably don’t have enough length to even reach the water! Or even better, our pre-putt advice...Hey, don’t hit this one too hard. If it rolls past the hole it might go all the way off the green. On the other hand, if you don’t hit it hard enough it it might roll back to your feet! 

I hate everything about golf except actually playing the game. I never practice, never “work on my game.” I don’t warm up before a round. All of that bores me to tears. What I love about golf is the fact that I’m outside for four hours in a beautiful setting with good friends. My cell phone is turned off. Sometimes there’s a friendly wager on the table. I get to smoke a cigar. You get to disengage from the real world for a while, escape fluorescent lighting, and return to a more natural setting. It frees you up. You find yourself having real conversations. 

I shot an 86. Played pretty well. My friend played out of his mind and shot 82. He still has manhood issues.

The real world was waiting for me back at the office. It never goes away. But yesterday, I escaped it for a few glorious hours.

Thanks, golf.

Why Maine?

My first Maine vacation of 2018 commences in 10 Days. Pam and I will drive up over two days, have one day to buy groceries and set up, then both sets of kids will fly in to Portland. All of us will be together for the first week, then Kaitlin and Jon will stay for a second week, then Pam and I will have the place to ourselves the last week.

I’ve spent lots of time in this space extolling the virtues of Maine, although all the words in the world can’t properly communicate it’s charms. Maine has to be experienced. To that end, I have selected some of my favorite photographs from my years of vacations there. My hope is that they will communicate in ways that words cannot, the delights of the place. So, why Maine?

The beauty. The serenity. The food. The weather. The wonder. 

That’s why.

The Letter

I received a letter in the mail about a week or so ago. A real, old fashioned letter, hand addressed in cursive, with a stamp in the top right hand corner instead of the metered postage stripe common to mass mail. The trip to the mail box has lost all of the romance it had when I was a kid. I would send away for stuff all the time, from cereal box offers of spy decoder rings to requests for autographed pictures of my favorite athletes. You never knew if this would be the day when that 8x10 of Joe Namath would come! Now, everyday it’s the same...random bills, coupons for discount pizza, slick little catalogues from bizarre stores I’ve never heard of like JJill, along with the ubiquitous Kohl’s circular and a ton of Bed, Bath and Beyond 25% off coupons. During an election cycle, my mail becomes a month long primal scream of propagandized bulls**t. Getting the mail has become a depressing exercise, a symbol of yet another charming grace that has been taken from us by technology. So, this letter, this hand written address, this plain white envelope got my attention.

I opened it and found two single spaced typed pages...a serious letter. I had received it the very day that Pam and I had gotten home from Nashville and the wedding. It was in the stack of mail that had come while we were away. I had slumped down in my recliner, completely exhausted. After the first paragraph, I hastily glanced at the second page to see who it was from. Instantly, a knot arrived in my throat.

It’s going to be difficult to describe the contents of this letter without it sounding like self promotion. But, I will give it a try.

It was written by a young woman who was in the large youth group that I served over a decade ago as a teacher and adult leader. I have largely lost track of her, since she and her husband and child have moved to another city. She was writing to thank me for what she described as the pivotal roll I had played in her development, and to list for me the many lessons I had taught her in those days. She spoke of conversations we had had which shaped her and still today are with her as she leads a department of 100 employees in her job. I was overwhelmed by her words, astounded that she would, after all these years, take the time to write such a thing. I sat in my chair, trying to recall the specific details. Some of them came easily, others, not so much. But, I remember this girl. She was the one everyone loved, but who had a hard time loving herself.

To hear her tell it, I was this towering pillar of wisdom and righteousness. Nothing could have been further from the truth. I was an uneven leader at best. I was often rough on the kids, short tempered, and improperly blunt. Half the time I was the ring leader of ill-considered pranks that wound up getting kids in trouble. I could be dismissive and insensitive at times. In other words, I was the ultimate imperfect vessel. The fact that I was able to be used by God to have an impact on a group of kids despite those shortcomings remains in my mind, a miracle. My Dad always used to tell me that people who say they can’t become active in ministry because they aren’t spiritual enough, don’t understand ministry or spirituality. I believe his exact words were...God can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick.

I was the mother of all crooked sticks.

But, apparently, along the way some straight licks were hit. That this beautiful, accomplished professional woman, mother and wife would take the time to write me a letter of thanks all these years later is something I will never forget. 

The Power of Fading Photographs

Yesterday, my son and his wife, the newlyweds, excitedly sent all of us a picture of their first furniture purchase. It was some sort of love seat thing that was perfect for their tiny living room. In response Pam dug up an old photograph of the very first piece of furniture we had purchased as a married couple...a hideous floral patterned sleep sofa which practically screamed 1980’s. While searching for this relic among the thousands of pictures floating around in the mysterious cloud, Pam found several others from our first year of marriage. Since Patrick and Sarah are leaving this week to go on their honeymoon, my wife thought it appropriate to send them a picture taken of us when we were on our honeymoon...

This was taken with an automatic timer on her non digital camera propped up on a table across the room of our suite at the Ocean Creek Resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in May of 1984. It was a lifetime ago...and strangely, feels like last week. We had no earthly idea what we were doing, no clue what wonders lurked in our future. We were broke, or would be by the time we returned from this trip and spent our way through the wedding cash. She was a first grade teacher, and I was a struggling insurance salesman. My car was a used VW Scirocco with red fake leather seats. We would return to Richmond and spend our first year of married life in a two bedroom apartment off of Hungary Springs Road.

There were no cell phones. It was three Golden Retrievers ago. We had no children. There was no Facebook, and only three channels on our 19 inch color television, four if you counted the fuzzy and inconsistent reception of the Public Television station...channel 23 WCVE. Ronald Reagan was in the White House, and the Dallas Cowboys were actually good. Apple Computer was a niche company who nobody had ever heard of, and Amazon was a river in Brazil. If either of us had randomly started giving voice commands to someone named Alexa, we would have been declared insane.

It was a much less convenient time. Information was exceedingly more difficult to come by, and if you were serious about being informed, you took the paper...both of them, The Times Dispatch in the morning, and The News Leader at night. But, oddly, I felt I understood the world better. Now, everything there is to know is at my fingertips, yet I’m more confused than ever.

But, you know what? Not everything has changed. That girl sitting next to me is still as hot and beguiling as ever. I didn’t fully understand just what I had back then. Now I do and can hardly believe it. The picture is grainy and a bit faded. I like that. It’s as if it’s holding something back from us...No, I’m not clear and precise. Allow room for mystery...

Heaven

While I have been distracted with weddings, family and friends, I’ve noticed that the world has continued on its merry way, enjoying its window seat on the Straight To Hell express train. Trump is still Trump, determined to make tariffs great again, elevating lying to dizzying new heights of acceptability, and still Tweeting like a middle schooler. Meanwhile, the face of the Democratic Party has become an increasingly deranged Maxine Waters. But Maxine’s days could be numbered since the arrival on the scene of a beautiful Marxist barmaid from the Bronx who, on the power of 16,000 votes has become the latest heart throb of practically every journalist in America. If I didn’t know better I would suspect that the Democratic Party was on a mission to insure Trump’s second term...but what do I know?

Meanwhile, in other world news...the World Cup plods on. The best soccer players in the universe continue to throw themselves violently to the ground at the slightest suggestion of physical contact with another player in spasms of what appears to be excruciating pain in hopes of securing a free penalty kick...or something. Once secured, the seemingly mortally wounded player bounces up fresh as a daisy, penalty kicks apparently possessing miracle curative powers. These past couple of sentences contain the sum total of what I know about soccer, so maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe when another player comes within two inches of colliding with another player it really does cause excruciating pain because of some sort of soccer force field or something. As far as the actual games go, I’m told that there have been a bunch of upsets, teams that don’t normally advance this far have surprised everyone, chief amount them...the team from the host country...Russia. This isn’t suspicious...at all.

Two weeks from today, Pam and I will set out for the 13 hour drive to our happy place. This time it will be at a place called, I’m not even kidding,...The Chill House, on Pemaquid Lake near Damariscotta, Maine.

Kaitlin and Jon will spend two weeks with us, and Patrick and Sarah will spend the second week of their honeymoon here. Once they are gone, Pam and I will have one week to ourselves. Trump isn’t invited. Neither is Maxine Waters. None of us will be throwing ourselves onto the ground feigning injury...unless it’s possible to suddenly become violently ill from too many fluffernutters or too much lobster or ice cream, or too much time spent on floats out on the lake. The rest of you will have to contend with the madness of 2018. We’ll be in heaven.

The Wedding....Part Two

CHAPTER FIVE...The Ceremony

I sat on the front row, on the aisle. Pam and I had both just escorted our son to the front while a jazz ensemble played Zelda’s Lullaby or some other piece of video game music. When Sarah came down the aisle and everyone stood, my heart was full. Although the planning of this day had taken a toll on us, this moment was the payoff. This girl was the right girl. She was the one we had both been praying for for the better part of two decades. That realization is a feeling like no other for a parent. Our boy had found the right girl.

The minister, Jason Shelton, was a gem. He is a good friend of my son, a minister of music in the Universalist Unitarian Church, and a fellow composer, the director of a choral company that Patrick and Sarah are a part of, and a committed liberal/socialist who is fond of carrying signs and protesting stuff...which meant he felt right at home at this wedding since throughout the proceedings, a crowd of such protesters was gathering in an adjacent park! It was so nice of a thousand strangers to show up to celebrate with us. Nashvillians are super friendly! It didn’t take long for Jason to earn his meager pay. As soon as he began with the Dearly Beloved...it became evident that his microphone was one of those that only works sparingly, as in...every fifth word sparingly. If it bothered him, you would never know, since he soldiered on like a pro. Then, it was time for some very special music. Back during their courtship, Sarah had written a poem about the first time Patrick had said I Love You. Patrick had decided to set the poem to music, complete with orchestration. When he proposed, he sang her poem to her accompanied by the recording of the orchestration in the background. I know, I know...romantic kid. Anyway, a special recording of that song was to play through the high dollar sound system while Patrick and Sarah poured sand into a jar to symbolize the two becoming one thing. Only...when they pressed play...nothing but silence.

Although silence is a very lovely thing at times, this was not one of those times. As the silence ground on, the awkwardness began to build. Then Jason turns to Patrick and Sarah and says...So, you guys got any fun plans for tonight? Perfect.

They never got the sound fixed. A faulty plug was blamed. Although it was extremely disappointing and infuriating to this father of the groom and bankroller of this event, this, like everything else about this wedding, worked out perfectly in the end. The sand pouring thing was done during the reception as the song played, only this time, the picture slideshow blazed out on the walls. As my son’s voice sang Sarah’s poem I watched a picture of my Mom and Dad holding him as an infant. It was a powerful moment...

After they were pronounced husband and wife, they were supposed to march out accompanied by the theme to Star Wars. But, with no sound track, they had to settle for the thunderous applause of one hundred of their closest friends and family. The cheering kept up its intensity all the way through the last groomsman and bridesmaid. And, just like that, it was over.

CHAPTER SIX...Reflections 

Here are a few snippets of memories I have of the time after the ceremony. They are starting to become hazy and I list them here in no particular order.

Chicken and waffles were delicious and very popular.

Patrick and Sarah are huge board game players. It’s been a big part of their dating life so they wanted games to be played at their reception. Pam and I weren’t sure how this would go over since we had never seen it done at a wedding before. But, I counted ten separate games going on simultaneously during the reception. People were having a blast, including  a contingent of the White family...

Groomsman Elias Salazar, Venezuelan born trumpet player, educator, orchestra conductor, and unrepentant soccer fan had sworn us all to absolute radio silence about the progress of the two World Cup games going on during the wedding. He was afraid someone was going to leak the results, robbing him of his plans to watch the recorded games later while drinking beer in his pajamas, apparently his World Cup tradition. Every time I walked up to him during the reception he practically covered his ears as a precaution!

Another hero of the weekend was bridesmaid Katie Kelly. When she arrived at the bridesmaid luncheon straight from the airport, Pam noticed immediately that Sarah instantly relaxed. Here was a ball of positive energy and enthusiasm who changed whatever room she entered for the better. During the reception and afterwards during the cleanup, Pam and I both noticed her take charge style. At one point Pam heard her giving out some rather pointed orders to some of the staff at Ruby. When Katie noticed that Pam was watching, she deadpanned, I’m being extra so Sarah doesn’t have to be! 

Andy Upchurch, father of the bride took this picture...

My new daughter...

Us, back at the hotel after it was all over.

After we gathered everything up that needed saving, we loaded it all up and delivered it to Patrick and Sarah’s already cramped apartment. Sarah said...We can finally hang this!!

There’s no turning back now...there’s a D on their door!

So, that’s about it. There’s more I could say, more stories I could tell. But, hopefully you have an idea of how how the weekend went. In short, it was a wonderful celebration of everything all of us hold dear in this world...love, family, and lifelong friends.