Why My Church Runs a Thrift Store

This is going to be a long but fun day.

My church runs a thrift store in the West End that Pam and I have been volunteering at for a couple of years now. It’s a typical thrift store in many ways except it has really nice stuff priced really cheap, so they move merchandise like nobody’s business. The store makes a lot of money and  plows it back into a wide variety of charities and ministries here in our city and around the world. The stories I could tell about what a blessing that place has been to people down on their luck are incredible. It’s been a great place to volunteer our time, along side people who want to make a difference in the lives of people who enter the building.

Well, today, we are opening a second store over at the Belgrade Shopping Center south of the river. Pam and I took a shift from 11:00 to 3:00. I haven’t seen the place yet but I’ve heard the stories and can’t wait. I blame Renee Norton for getting me hooked up with this thrift store gig. She is, for lack of a better term, the general manager of the operation, the boss lady who happens to be in our small group at Hope. But she isn’t the only passionate cheerleader of the store, I could rattle off the names of at least a dozen others who have devoted large chunks of their time to make the place work. There are only a handful of full time employees of the store. The vast majority of those who work there are volunteers like Pam and me. You can imagine how difficult it has been to get the nearly 190 such volunteers to venture back out to work once again after the shut down caused by COVID. I mean, this isn’t exactly what anyone would call a sterile environment. (There are dumpsters involved!!). But, here we are, opening a second location in the year of a pandemic. 

One story...a year or so ago there was a young mother with three elementary school aged kids. She was clearly struggling with the enormity of the task of getting three young children ready for back to school with very limited resources. As she got to the register she laid out a ton of cute clothes that looked like new clothes, enough to give each child several outfits for the new school year. When the order was rung up it was an insanely small amount of money. The look on her face...the relief, the gratefulness that she had found so much for so little shown from that face like a beam of light. Tears welled in her eyes.

That’s exactly why my church runs a thrift store and why we are opening a second one in the middle of a pandemic. Stop by if you get a chance.

The Conventions

There will be a virtual political convention this week for the first time ever. The Democrats will nominate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It will all be live-streamed and covered on the networks and many cable channels. I will read reports about what happened later but I won’t be watching. Whenever it’s the Republican’s turn, which I assume will be sometime later this month, I won’t watch that either. It’s not that I don’t care what goes on at these things. It’s not that I don’t think it’s important and all. The thing is, I just don’t have the stomach for it anymore. Whenever I see a high profile politician giving a speech at a high profile television event like a convention or, even worse, a debate, part of me really does want to watch. Sometime, I even start out watching. Then after ten or fifteen minutes I start getting sick on my stomach. Not throwing up sick, but more like a queasiness that you know won’t end in vomiting, but will still be quite uncomfortable. I find myself sitting there offering my silent objections after every third sentence or so...that’s bullshit...that was taken out of context...that’s a half truth...what a lie...that’s a deliberate distortion...and that’s just when the journalist are talking! Once the politicians start in, these silent objections become not so silent. My blood pressure starts going up, and before long my entire week gets ruined. So, no. I will not be watching.

Another reason I won’t be watching is that these things never—-and I mean never—change anyone’s mind. Political conventions are for the party faithful. It’s like a pep rally for the already converted. If I was a partisan Democrat or Republican, I would love a convention. What partisan wouldn’t, right? There you are surrounded by like minded people getting fired up about the man or woman you are convinced is the only person who can save the country. Back when I used to tune in, from about 1968 thru 2000, the delegates all looked like they were having a blast, well, except for the Dems in ‘68. Some of them would dress up in crazy patriotic costumes and stuff, parade around with huge elephant hats and carrying donkey shaped purses, all looking ecstatic to be there saving the world.

Then, there was the big balloon drop on the last night after the nominee’s speech. When I was a kid I thought it was so incredibly cool watching those red, white and blue balloons filling the arena, a sea of color and fun. It all seemed so magical. 

Now everything seems poisonous. Where once these events radiated a sense of joy and possibility, now they seem angry and out for blood and revenge. The other guys aren’t just wrong, they’re evil. They’re not just mistaken on policy, they want to destroy the country, strip us of our freedoms, turn us into a communist state, destroy the environment. It’s all so overwrought and pompous, their comportment about as self absorbed as it is possible to me. 

Somebody once described politics as the art of the possible. Nothing could possibly be further from the truth. There is no art, and the only thing possible is whatever we have enough votes to pass and then shove down the other guy’s throat.

Nope. No sale.

Missing Pam

So, Pam’s girls weekend has been extended for another day because of this rain. She doesn’t feel comfortable making the drive carrying three of her family with bladders the size of thimbles. She also has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the the time we drove to Maine in a driving rainstorm a few years ago. It took very little coaxing to convince her to stay another night with Kaitlin. Of course, this means that I will have to actually cook something for dinner tonight.

Now that I think about it, this is the first time I have been separated from my wife for three consecutive nights in I don’t know how long. It’s been a strange experience. Lucy and me alone in the house...while it rains outside. Lucy has been discombobulated by the lack of women. She wanders around, looking out the front door windows waiting for Bernadette to come for a lunch time visit. When Bern didn’t come yesterday, she was quite put out. Once she remembers that it’s just the two of us, she sighs heavily and plops herself on the floor at my feet, dejected. Even now as I write this, she sits at the front door waiting patiently for someone more interesting than Dad to show up...

So, what have I been up to since Thursday? Gallivanting with the boys, drinking copious amounts of adult beverages at a sports bar somewhere, making inappropriately large wagers on a golf course?? A. My gallivanting days are over. B. COVID and C. It’s pouring down rain. Instead, I have busied myself doing a few things around the house trying to distract myself from missing my wife. I spent nearly an hour inside our large shower scrubbing mildew stains and disgusting grout. I vacuumed the house. I cleaned the bathrooms. Then, I flipped the mattress, changed the sheets and dusted the furniture. Which brings me to the task at hand...making dinner.

So far, I have gotten by with left overs and a hearty dinner of tuna fish and crackers. Tonight, it’s time for me to actually cook something, and to that end, Pam left a handy suggestion for me...

That’s right, a Dunnevant family standby...beef nacho Casserole...only Pam has substituted chicken for steak, owing to what she knew would be my horrible eating habits while she was gone. I have taken the time to set out all the ingredients in preparation for the job...

If Pam were here, this meal would be served with a salad to provide vegetables. But, Pam is not here, so tonight’s dinner will be served only with two fine beers that my son bought while in Maine. No vegetables, unless you count hops. Wait, that’s a grain. Yeah, no veggies. I will post an “after” photograph once this comes out of the oven.

As far as the missing my wife thing goes, listen I make no apologies. Can I help it that I would rather be with her than anybody else? She’s smart, pretty and fun. So, shoot me for missing her after only three days!

Six Months of COVID

It’s been six months since I first wrote the word Coronavirus on this blog. Six disturbing, unprecedented months. The sum total of inaccurate predictions about COVID made by very smart people in this country has been staggering. Almost all of us, smart or not, have been spectacularly wrong about everything from how long it would last, how many people it would infect and how many would perish. Wrong. Consistently wrong. The World Health Organization, the Center For Disease Control, and politicians from Bill de Blasio to Donald Trump...wrong. In six months we have been told that mask wearing did little to protect against the virus, only to see mask wearing become ubiquitous as well as a symbol of both virtue and rebellion. Almost weekly some new development shakes our understanding of the thing, and calls into question past assumptions, leaving all of us feeling battered by conflicting and inscrutable data. Some point to the constantly changing official narratives as evidence of some grand conspiracy on the part of either Donald Trump or the Democratic Party to advance nefarious unarticulated agendas. I propose a different interpretation for all of the tumult.

Has the government response been a third world dumpster fire of incompetence? Yes. Has some of the incompetence been intentional and politically motivated? Probably. But incompetence and treachery should to a certain extent be expected when you’re dealing with A. An unprecedented pandemic and B. Politicians who have long traded in the currency of treachery. A better explanation of the constantly changing narrative has to do with the fact that every single day of this fight we are learning something new. Right now, not just here but all around the world, the very best minds on Earth are working on the science of COVID 24/7. Doctors, scientists, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, think tanks, universities, all delving into the nuts and bolts of this virus, scrambling for a vaccine and in the process, the universe of knowledge about COVID-19 continues to expand daily. With all of this brain power, money and institutional focus, we are discovering that earlier information we thought to be true was not true. This isn’t the result of some convoluted Rube Goldberg conspiracy, rather, its the result of the scientific method of trial and error yielding new information. What do you do when you obtain new information that calls into question what you thought to be true in the past? Hopefully, you use this new information to make smarter decisions going forward. Or...you could just say, “what the hell? I’ll just keep doing things the way I’ve always done them.” I personally expect the government to adapt to this new information, even if it means contradicting a previous position. Heck...especially if it means contradicting a previous position. That’s not weakness, that’s simple intelligence.  

So, hearing one thing from leaders one week and something else a couple weeks later might be frustrating and confusing, but it’s the nature of what we are up against. For someone like me, who instinctively distrusts politicians of all stripes, this has been a very difficult six months. It has taken much effort for me to guard against easy cynicism. But there’s nothing easier or quite as intellectually lazy as the false comfort of conspiracy theories. If something goes terribly wrong in the world it’s so much easier to blame it on your political enemies, even with thinly sourced and unverifiable plots undertaken by some shadowy confederacy of dunces on the other side of the aisle. It’s far harder and much less emotionally reassuring to acknowledge that highly contagious and deadly viruses are complex and devilishly difficult to overcome quickly and painlessly. 

So, I’ll wear the mask. I’ll try to socially distance myself from those outside of my circle. I’ll wash my fingers to the bone and use hand sanitizer whenever appropriate...right up until the moment I’m told that new and credible information is available that says these things are unnecessary. What’s credible? I would say, scientifically tested and peer reviewed data produced by someone other than the Daily Kos or World News Daily.

Happy Weekend...

It’s Friday. Make of this what you will...

Back in the day, I took my 8-year old girl to the office with me on, "Take Your Kid to Work Day." As we were walking around the office, she starting crying and getting very cranky, so I asked what was wrong with her. As my coworkers gathered round, she sobbed loudly...

“Daddy, where are all the clowns you said you worked with??”

I looked my Pops straight in the eyes and with my best poker face said, “If I had a dollar for every time someone over forty told me my generation stinks...

...I could afford to buy a house in the economy they ruined!”

I was going to tell a joke about COVID-19...

But there’s a 99.42% chance you won’t get it.

Girls Weekend

My wife is leaving me today. No...it’s not what you’re thinking. She has organized a trip to go see Kaitlin down in South Carolina. She has recruited her mother and two sisters. The four of them haven’t gone anywhere overnight together in years. All of them have been driven half crazy by the isolation and monotony of COVID-life. So, my wife hatched a plot to travel down to see Kaitlin for three days and two nights of girl stuff, which I’m told will include such ghastly things as pedicures and the like, long lazy gab sessions where they will talk about whatever it is that women talk about when they are allowed to assemble without the annoyance of their husbands. Sounds dreadful to me, but she is thrilled to be able to spend some times with her girls. This will also be Kaitlin’s last hurrah of the summer, since next week her school year will be revving up.

Of course, any trip that involves two or more Dunnevant women must have a functioning snack table. Long time readers of this space have been treated to photographic evidence of the many snack tables of past vacations. They are a monument to high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes, and represent the complete and total abandonment of all self restraint, and without them we would all perish. So, despite the fact that this particular trip is only for three days and two nights, a snack table still has to be erected. To that end, Pam spent much of yesterday preparing an assortment of trail mixes and cookies. Because she is Pam, she didn’t forget me, or Bernadette and Isaac...

Since this is 2020, planning for this getaway had to include a whole host of safety protocols. (For the record, the word protocol has become my least favorite word in the English language). Pam has packed enough masks, hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes for all of Columbia. The hotel rooms she has booked have already been chosen and set aside for maximum safety and convenience. The next three days will be as COVID-proof as it is possible to be. 

Special prayers should be lifted up on my son-in-law’s behalf, as he must face being the only man in the house with five female members of the Dunnevant /White family. No prayers necessary for Jackson who will think he has died and gone to heaven as soon a Lolly walks thru the door!

As for me, Pam has left me a couple of idiot proof recipes for my consideration. I will miss her. More important, if there is a thunderstorm here while she is gone, Lucy will miss her even more!

Kamala Harris

Joe Biden announced yesterday that he has chosen Kamala Harris as his running mate, making her the first African American woman on a major party ticket, this despite the fact that neither her Mom or Dad were African American, but rather, Indian and Jamaican...so I’m throughly confused. But, add to all that the fact that her husband is a Jewish white guy, and Ms. Harris certainly checks off all the identity politics boxes. So, unless Donald Trump kicks Mike Pence to the curb in favor of Kanye West, the 2020 contest is set. A match for the ages.

I’m told that Kamala Harris’ religious upbringing was split between a Baptist church and a Hindu Temple...think: teetotaler who dreams of being reincarnated as a Confederate General. 

Look, I know that I should have an opinion about this, something erudite and thoughtful, appropriately serious for the momentous moment in which we find ourselves. But I just can’t come up with anything. At a time of such great peril, a time of pandemics, a time when our national finances are as underwater as the Titanic, a time of great racial strife and social unrest, we are running two old men for President, two profoundly compromised old men. Our choices don’t seem to fit the moment. But here we are.

Now, for the next three months I will be bombarded with endless greater of two evils arguments. I will be warned by some that if I don’t climb on the Trump Train, the Republic will be lost. Others will assure me that should we re-elect the sitting President, civil war will be the best case scenario. My facebook feed will soon be crawling with clever memes, grave warnings, over the top fact-free broadsides, and lots of fire-breathing ALL-CAPS screeds from the motivated partisans out there. Part of me envies them their motivation. Part of me wishes I could find a sliver of their confidence. Instead, I wake up every morning, read the news and hope that, like Bob Newhart*, I’ll suddenly wake up and realize that it’s all been a dream.

* For all of you Millennials, Google “Newhart Finale”