Time To Saddle Up

Like many of you, my professional life has been in limbo since roughly the 20th of December. Sure, I’ve been into the office on several occasions since that last Friday before Christmas, but not an awful lot of serious work has gotten done since the beginning of the Holiday Season. That all ends this morning. I will trudge in early, put on a pot of coffee and gird my loins for my 38th year in my chosen profession.

2020 will be like most of the previous ten years or so. From January through the end of May I will cram my schedule full of appointments with clients, one annual review after another. I will meet with them, go over their accounts, access their results, update their risk tolerances and suggest any changes that might be appropriate. When I walk out to the reception area to greet them I will immediately notice when one of them is ill. It happens almost every year, at least once. In the 12 months since I have seen him or her, they’ve gotten sick. I can see it in their eyes. It always stops me short. It is a disturbing thing to be confronted by the relentless pursuit of mortality.

By May 31st I will have grown extremely tired of the sound of my own voice. At least once during this five months of frenzied activity I will loose my voice entirely. It will occur to me more than once that I probably should space these reviews out over the entire year instead of front-loading them into the first five months. But, I will remind myself that there is a method to this madness. By doing 70% of my year’s work in the first five months of the year, I free myself up for a summer and early fall full of...Maine. This year there will be two trips, the entire month of July and two, hopefully three weeks in late September, early October. Once I have scratched my Maine itch, I will return for two more intense months of client meetings, then things will slow down again over the holidays. I have used this strategy for several years now and am happy with it, my attempt to achieve the much ballyhooed life-work balance that all the smart kids are talking about. The plus side is that I get to recharge the batteries and step away from the incessant pressure of this business for an extended period of time every year. The down side is...I walk away from a lot of money. As a business owner, I am afforded no “vacation pay.” Time spent away means that productive activities are placed on hold. No work? No new business gets done. Luckily, I have a cracker-jack assistant who keeps the place from catching on fire while I’m away. 

Is the money I lose worth the time I’m away? It’s a fair question for which I have an unequivocal answer...Yes...a thousand times YES.

I do not live to work. The end goal of my life is not the accumulation of wealth or the illusion of safety. I have learned through hard lessons that all of this could be over tomorrow. I am one car wreck, one shadowy x-ray away from losing everything...and so are you. I don’t dwell on this hard truth. If I did I would be miserable. But I do keep the tenuous nature of this life in mind when I make my plans. Ultimately, I work to live and find ways to serve. I battle to keep my eyes and energies focused on the eternal, not the temporal. That’s not always easy, but each year I get better at it.

So, this morning it’s time to saddle up. July will be here before I know it!

A Word About Our Troops

Over the past few days I’ve seen the pictures on television and the internet, long lines of young men and women in dusty brown fatigues loaded down with fifty pounds of gear, marching across tarmacs, climbing into those enormous C17 transport airplanes. There are no military bands playing, no crowds of well-wishers sending them off, just a long line of twenty year olds who volunteered for the job of going to war.

I am always stirred by the sight. Who are these men and women? What possesses them to sign up for such duty? Who do they leave behind? How many will never come back? I am stirred because I am proud of their courage. I am stirred because so many of my ancestors were in the military. And yes...I am stirred because I am a patriot. I love my Country and when I see long lines of troops being deployed I know that we are sending the best men and women we have to offer. But I also know that most of us will forget about them in a week or so once the football playoffs get going. They will fall out of the headlines in our newspapers. Once again it will be impeachment news or campaign coverage. So, while the feelings are tender, I write.

But there is another emotion besides pride that rises in me when I see these long intrepid lines. Sadness. My patriotism is always tempered by sadness. I love them. I’m proud of their devotion and willingness to fight our battles...but why do we keep asking them to do this? Why do we insist on sending thousands of them, year after year, to the same hellish place? Why is every fight our fight?

Our military exists to fight, to attack and defend, to break things and kill people. I fully understand their mission. But what is the existential threat that requires them to give the last full measure of their devotion...in Iraq? Tribal, barbaric, eternally dysfunctional...Iraq? 

When we lost 50,000 men fighting Nazi Germany we all understood that the sacrifice was worth it. When this nation lost nearly 600,000 Americans fighting the Civil War, the cause was just. But what of the modern Middle East? Our Allies are despicable authoritarian regimes (Saudi Arabia). We are killing horrible men with dangerous intentions. But other horrible men rise up like mushrooms after a week of rain as their replacements. They attack our embassy somewhere, a garrison somewhere and we have to respond. Then the cycle continues for what feels like eternity. Why is it that they always attack us? Mostly, because we are every where they look. Our presence in that part of the world is ubiquitous. We are the target because we choose to be. As the world’s policeman, we insist on having a precinct in every God-forsaken neighborhood on the planet. What do we get for all of this police work? Long solemn lines of men and women in dusty brown fatigues, loaded down with fifty pounds of gear climbing into C17 transport planes...and a lump in our throats.

Yes, we pray for them. But perhaps we should also pray for our civilian leadership as well, that at long last there will arise in the halls of  power...wisdom and sound judgment worthy of our military’s courage and devotion.

No Stupid Wars

So, a few days ago a mob of Pro-Iranian protestors attacked the American Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, this in retaliation for an American military attack on a group of Pro-Iranian fighters in Iraq. Today comes news that the United States has retaliated by unleashing the American military to assassinate the second most powerful man in Iran, a general with a menacing glare named  Soleimani. Now, the Iranian government is issuing threats of massive and relentless retaliation. In other words, absolutely nothing has changed in the Middle East in the 61 years I have been alive on Planet Earth. It is the place where endless retaliation is a reality of daily life, a place where every President in my lifetime has gone searching for a Nobel Prize. It is also a place where American military personnel have been fighting and dying non-stop for the past fifty years. I am told by sophisticated people that we have no choice. American leadership in the Middle East and our participation in the never ending peace process is critical for stability in the region, that if we were to wash our hands of the place it would leave a power vacuum which our enemies, presumably the Russians or the Chinese would be more than happy to exploit. If I persist in arguing otherwise I am dismissed as an isolationist, which I am assured is a terrible thing to be.

Thirty years ago, it was hard to overcome the argument that getting out of the Middle East would jeopardize access to the world’s oil supply. Today, the United States is a net exporter of oil. Forty years ago we were told that our alliance with the State of Israel was not only part of a divine edict from scripture, but crucial to that besieged country’s survival. Today there are twice as many Jewish people living in the United States than there are living in the State of Israel. Meanwhile the Jewish military is routinely ranked among the most powerful and sophisticated units in the world. Past attempts by her enemies at invasion have been embarrassing and disastrous failures. Yet, still, American foreign policy remains firmly committed to an unending military presence in the Middle East and an undimmed determination to support the foreign policy and military goals of the Jewish State. Which brings us to the current President of the United States.

One of the few items of Mr. Trump’s policy agenda that I was on board with back in 2016 was his oft repeated slogan...No Stupid Wars. Moreover, on more than one occasion on the campaign trail, he looked straight into the eyes of the empire wing of NeoCons and flatly declared that the days of endless Middle East wars was over. Now, this.

Donald Trump certainly wouldn’t be the first President to lob a few missiles when in trouble domestically, wagging the dog being a thoroughly bipartisan enterprise, but if he were to do so now, he will have to eat a very bland diet of his own Tweets accusing Barack Obama of doing the exact same thing. Perhaps this missile attack on the Iranian general will be a one off and the routine bluster from the Iranian Government will prove to be just that...bluster. But if not, if we are now once again headed straight for another hot war in the Middle East, somebody please explain to me why we would not want to hand this job off to our enemies?? Let the Russians get bogged down in this quagmire for the next thirty years or so. I can’t think of an authoritative government anywhere who deserves to spend the next thirty years dealing with the hell-hole that is the Middle East more than the Chinese Communists. If either of them would like to fill the void that us leaving would create, I say, let them have it. If they want, we could even throw in the Korean Peninsula in the bargain. Once divested of the headache that is Arab-Israeli conflict the United States could save enough money to balance our budget. We would have enough time and energy left over to cure cancer, figure out health care, provide high speed, low cost internet access to everyone and figure out a way to run the DMV more efficiently. This new foreign policy would even have a name...Instead of “Making the World Safe For Democracy” or The War To End All Wars” or even “Containment”...this new thing would be AMOOB...

America Minding Our Own Business.

New Year’s Eve Plans

Today is New Year’s Eve, the second dumbest holiday of all time, Labor Day being the all-time dumbest. The million or so people who cram themselves into Times Square to watch the ball drop are exhibit A in the case against human’s being the superior species on our planet. New Year’s Eve is when every restaurant has a line out the door, a limited menu, watered down drinks and inflated prices. No thanks.

In the old days when our kids were little and all our friends had little ones, Pam and I used to throw a huge New Year’s Eve bash at our house which featured kid-centric activities, games, and arts and crafts. We all wore goofy hats and ate fantastic food all night until the kids were exhausted. Then a few years later when I was working in the Youth group at church, our house was crammed full of teenagers, sometimes over fifty of them. We fed them, gave them free reign of the place and successfully kept them off the streets and out of harm’s way. When the ball dropped, they all gathered in our living room, began jumping up and down in rhythm and throwing homemade confetti skyward. it was a madhouse and we cleaned up confetti for literally months afterwards. Looking back on those years causes me to question my sanity. What on earth were we thinking? 

Now, the kids are gone. We have had tons of people and dogs traipsing through this house for the last two weeks. Now that they are gone we are thankful for the peace and quiet and just a little bit disturbed by it at the same time. All we see when we look around are all the Christmas decorations that need to be packed back up and taken to the attic. Looming out there in the future is the beginning of a new year, a new decade. We need to get to it but we can’t yet because of the dead days surrounding this random, disjointed and non-sensical New Year’s Eve...thing.

Our plans for the day involve a nice lunch out together and then a shopping trip to buy clothes for me. I don’t trust myself to make fashion decisions. That’s why I bring Pam along. I also don’t care for shopping of any kind, especially clothes, so I only do it once or maybe twice a year. I remember one time a couple of years ago when we were at Kohl’s and I was having a terrible time making my mind up about what kind of underwear to buy. It was a moment of....brief indecision.

Happy New Year’s everyone!

The 2020 Plan

“I have no list of resolutions for 2020, not that I can’t find things I need to be resolute about, but rather the things I need to improve about myself are eternal, always on my list of things to work on. I will forever struggle to be more patient, kind, and understanding. I will for the rest of my natural life battle the accumulation of unwanted weight. Making a list of my personal failings only serves to remind me of their continued existence and my past failures at self improvement. So, instead, I have condensed my goals for 2020 to a workable phrase which I hope to pursue consistently throughout the year...

...Love people, use things, and worship God.”

I wrote these words on this day two years ago. I have changed the date and submit them again for your consideration. I have had no new insights that improve on these sentiments. Although I have made advancements in their application since 2018, there is still much more work to be done. The actual room for improvement is still large enough to land a plane. Learning how to consistently and without prejudice love people is as daunting as it is difficult. Unfortunately, the teachings of my faith offer me no other option. I am instructed to love even my enemies, especially my enemies. This sometimes unreasonable directive requires giant infusions of that other unique quality of my faith...grace. It is my intention and sincere hope to become better at this with each passing year. There will be failures along the way. I am a flawed human being. There are others to whom love comes more easily. There are many others with much less guile than me. I’m not even as kind, loyal and forgiving as my dog at this point. But each year I learn more and more. Each year, with practice, I hope to get better at this love and grace thing. That’s the plan.

As 2019 comes to a close, I would like to thank you all for reading this blog. It astonishes me how many of you do. I hope that 2020 brings you much happiness and success. But more than anything else I hope each of you find...peace.

Happy New Year.

Dog Tale

So, Dunnevant Central has been home to three Golden Retrievers for the past 48 hours plus now, and I’m sure that all of you are dying to hear all about the path of death and destruction they have visited upon our home. Before I get to all of that try to imagine what it was like when Patrick and Sarah arrived Christmas night...

It was around 7 o’clock. There were 16 people and two dogs crammed into my house. We had all had dinner and were now opening presents in the den, boxes, packages, bows and ribbons strewn about like confetti. Into this caldron arrives a seven month old puppy who has spent the past 10+ hours in the back seat of a Honda Civic, having never made a trip of any kind that lasted anywhere near this long before. It had the potential for Hitchcockian terror, a recipe for a potential repeat of Lucy’s famous poop lap fiasco of 2017. While it was crazy, and eventually required some time out and one three minute trip to the penalty box for roughing, there was no feces deposited anywhere (that we are aware of). Once everyone left, things calmed down. I use that phrase—things calmed down—with great care. The word calmed is doing very hard work in that sentence. In point of fact there has been very little that has transpired in my house that can fairly be described as calm since three dogs have taken up residence. However, it has not been the full-fledged disaster I was worried it would be. The three of them have gotten along reasonably well. Lucy still guards our bedroom as if her very life depended on it—no dog of any description is allowed entrance. Jackson has experienced an epic dose of payback for all the times he annoyed Lucy by biting her ears and slobbering all over her. Frisco has put on a clinic in that regard. Most of the behavior problems have involved the two of them with Lucy serving as the above-it-all eye-rolling grownup. 

It occurs to me that any words of mine will fail to accurately describe what a few well chosen pictures would convey more accurately. So...enjoy!

A rare affectionate hug

An even rarer moment of group rest

Our Chairs used to be for humans only...


Frisco bobbing and weaving, looking for an opportunity to go for the ears.

“Ok boys, this beef jerky belongs to Pops and Pops only!!”

The calm after the storm.

Christmas Eve Eve and a Family Scandal??

Me:  

For Christmas morning, I'm going to make Eggs Benedict, and I'm going to serve them on hubcaps from a 1962 Ford.

Pam:  ??

Me: Because there’s no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise.

Pam: Geez...

And with that stellar exchange of deep thoughts, Christmas Eve Eve is off to a roaring start. At this hour I am still awaiting my marching orders from Pam. In between my assignments, I will begin the process of wading through the “simple step by step instructions for uploading your manuscript to Kindle/Amazon for self publication.” I am skeptical that anything involving the word uploading will be “simple.” I also doubt my ability to get this done without assistance from either my wife or one of my savvy adult children. But, my wife will be otherwise engaged and my adult children haven’t arrived yet, so my goal of having Saving Jack self published and for sale by Christmas looks like a lost cause.

So, my son-in-law is up in Maryland visiting his family. Somehow, among all the activities, he has managed to find this...

This is a Census for Buckingham County from 1930, the year that my mother was born. She had not yer arrived apparently since her name does not appear. Neither had my Uncle Jim. But everyone else was there...Granddaddy, Grandma, Auntie Ruth, John, Harry and Lloyd. Then, a mystery. Carrington Ewers, who is listed as “brother-in-law” must have been living with them. He was Grandma’s brother, I assume. I wonder what the story was? Why was he living with his sister and her family in 1930? I publish this in hopes that one of my cousins up in Buckingham and Nelson County will have the back story. Without any hard facts, I am capable of spinning a fantastic tale to explain his presence there, and while a writer should never let facts get in the way of a good story, I feel an obligation to do so in this case because...well...family.