Decline?

June 13. 5:46 AM

This morning I wake up with my usual Monday morning anxieties. After a rough week, I see that the news isn’t good for today’s opening on Wall Street. I read about a potential compromise on guns brewing in the United States Senate. I see where its supposed to be in the mid 90’s with oppressive humidity all week. I’ve got a guy coming to the house in just over an hour to trim back a few overhanging tree limbs. Meanwhile, the iPad I am typing this blog on has suddenly started behaving strangely, with an irritating gap between what I type and what appears on the screen. 

Yesterday morning I finally went to Patient First to deal with the pain in my left elbow. I’ve had it for over two months now but unlike in the past, the pain now doesn’t come and go—instead it has taken up permanent residence. The perky doctor instantly diagnosed it as lateral tendinitis and proved his diagnosis with a couple jujitsu moves using his gloved hands and my left arm which hurt like hell, but served to bolster his assertions. He slipped a brace on my elbow that instantly relieved the pain which came with certain movements, then he prescribed a gel to apply liberally, then shuffled me out the door. The good news is that nothing is torn.

Pam and I find ourselves in a show hole, reduced to watching a Danish political drama with subtitles and rapid fire dialogue which gives you a headache, and is difficult to watch while eating. Take your eyes off the screen for ten seconds to cut up your steak and you’ve missed a key plot detail. It’s called “Borgen” and if you pay close attention to those subtitles its actually pretty good. Still, we keep hoping to discover the next Foyle’s War and we keep getting disappointed when we don’t.

I suppose we could always tune in the January 6th show, but my overpowering sense of self-preservation prevents me from doing so. I catch the thumbnail summaries the morning after and watch a few of the videos and thats bad enough. I have made the executive decision not to voluntarily watch what is basically an infomercial about the official decline of a nation. I understand enough about history to know that world dominance has a shelf life. The Romans had their time, the Greeks before them. The British ruled the world for a while and the United States has stood astride the globe as a colossus for almost a hundred years now. Nothing lasts forever. Maybe our time is up, our years of power and prestige is in decline. We seem hopelessly divided, increasingly brutish and nasty to each other, and led by men and women unequal to the task. Heck, we can’t even agree on a working definition of treason anymore, let alone convict anyone of it. Although our public schools can’t dependably teach kids how to read, write, add and subtract, we are well on our way to confusing the Bejesus out of them with regards to sexuality and the proper pronouns used to describe the burgeoning number of genders available for them to choose from. Its hard not to conclude that I live in a nation in decline.

Of course…I could be wrong. Many people before me have come to similar conclusions about the fate of our Republic and wound up spectacularly wrong. History is complex, the forces that drive it are often unknowable. Just when national decline seems assured someone invents the computer and all bets are off. So, my conclusions might be equally wrong. 

I don’t know that I have ever needed Maine any more than I do this year.

Lucy at the Lake

I have mentioned often how much Lucy loves going to Maine, what a marvelous traveler she is, how much she adores the water. But its hard to explain it adequately with words. Explaining anything about the time we spend in Maine is a challenge. Although I’m pretty good with words I never feel like I’m able to convey the emotional impact the place has on all of us. When I scan through the thousands of pictures we’ve taken, the ones that come closest to capturing the feeling have one thing in common…Lucy is in them. Here are just a few:

I am the boss of the dock.

Always willing to assist Dad when he takes a nap.

And make sure he stays safe when he takes the kayak out.

I can’t let this one out of my sight.

Fetching my frisbee like its my job…because it is.

Guarding dad whenever he goes on a hike…

And, there are LOTS of hikes…

I help Dad fish.

…by inspecting each catch.

For some reason, whenever Mom and Dad leave me at the cabin alone they feel the need to spy on me…so I make sure to give them many different poses.

…then every now and then I act like there’s an intruder just to mess with them a little.

I love our house…

Sunsets are the best.

My happy place.

Beware The Thieves of Wonder

Famed New York Times outdoors columnist Nelson Bryant wrote what follows to his two daughters shortly before his death at age 96.

“The secret I would have you know……is that even though the years will steal your fresh beauty, it need only be, in truth, a minor theft. What you must guard against is that jaded state wherein there is nothing new to see or learn. Marvel at the sun, rejoice in the rhythmic wheeling of the stars and learn their names, cry aloud at the swelling beauty of an orchid in the white oak woods, or December’s first snow; slide down the wind with a hawk and cherish the smell of woodsmoke and mayflowers, or the caress of a warm wool blanket; tarry by a stream where willows bend and flee tedium’s gray embrace. Cherish laughter and whimsy, but battle unrelentingly for what you know is right and be aware that the thieves of wonder can enter any heart.”

Dodging Bullets

Nearly eight decades ago, wave after wave of American, Canadian and British teenagers were dodging bullets while storming the beaches of Normandy to begin ridding the world of the Nazi menace. Seventy eight years later, here’s what was going on in America yesterday:

For the first time in my life I spent $90 for a tank of gas.

Meanwhile, the Congress of the United States has hired a former ABC news executive to produce the upcoming Thursday night hearing on the January 6th riot, to be broadcast in prime time at 8:00 eastern time. While nothing can apparently be done about runaway inflation, this Congress may be the first to be nominated for an Emmy.

The Carolina Panthers of the National Football League have hired the first ever bald, transgendered female cheerleader. Now, if only they could find a quarterback.

I received a letter delivered by the United States Postal Service a mere 13 days after it was placed in the mail…from six miles away.

A reporter with the Washington Post was suspended from his job after it was discovered that he had “re-tweeted” a joke posted by someone else. The re-tweet set off a firestorm of protest throughout the newsroom with colleagues demanding the re-tweeting reporter be disciplined. The offending joke was:

“All woman are bi. The hard part is figuring out whether its polar or sexual.”

I shared a joke via social media which did not result in nearly as much controversy…

I think I dodged a bullet.

Dealing With Lucy’s Embarrassment

The Dunnevant Estate has a new house guest. Ever since our kids moved out, Pam and I have enjoyed opening up their end of the house to a series of temporary tenants in need of a place to live. We have hosted groups of students on choir tours. We housed several semesters of Liberty University nursing students in town for their clinical studies. Most famously, we housed our nephew’s then fiancée—Bernadette—for eight months while she was homeless and  stranded between college graduation and matrimony. Now, Bernadette has struck again, a little over a week ago asking us if we could possibly house a youth intern at Hope Church whose housing had fallen through. Since neither Pam nor I are able to refuse Bernadette anything, we have a new house guest for the next 10 weeks or so. This time, its a boy. He arrived here tall and thin, quiet and well mannered. From the looks of it, after eating Pam’s cooking this summer, he will leave here much thicker but hopefully still well mannered. Lucy seems to approve, always a good sign.

After months of longing we have finally entered the 30 day window on our annual Maine summer season. Actually, we enter it tomorrow morning, but who’s counting? We finally have commitments from the kids on their weeks of participation. We are thrilled that they will both be joining us this year but disappointed that they will be with us on different weeks. Once again Pam gets to celebrate her birthday at the lake (July 19), and this year our stay will be for six weeks, our longest sabbatical to date. Miss Lucy will be joining us and is delighted to have a place to go to hide her hideous haircut from all the other neighborhood dogs, who she claims have consistently mocked her since that horrible day at the groomers. Look at Lucy! She look like lab!! Yo, Luce..did you get cookie wid dat cut?? Hahaha. Your human must be blind as bat. He probably say ‘it grow back’…hahaha. Maybe by winter…bruhahaha!! Lucy can’t wait to see the expressions on all their faces when we back out of the driveway heading for Maine. Lucy will be like…Good luck with hot and hoomid, suckers. When I comes back, I will be gorgeous again and you will all still be ugly mutt-face!! I tell Lucy that the only reason the other dogs tease her is because they are so insanely jealous. I remind her of the many advantages that she was born with and that she mustn’t stoop to their level, that she must rise up and be the better dog, to which she sneezes and snorts her frustration…Easy for you to say, you not one with hack job cut…even squirrels laugh…squirrels!!

As you can see, Lucy has not gotten to a place of forgiveness. She has kept me at paws length ever since the Petsmart debacle. But whenever I mention the upcoming Maine trip her face brightens, her tail—or what is left of it—wags enthusiastically, and she allows me to give her head scratches. I’m thinking that by the time we return from Maine we will all have put the whole nightmare behind us.

Old Men Planting Trees

One suicide. Cancer. A heart attack while throwing football in the front yard with the kids. Kidney failure. Old age. Covid. An automobile accident.

I have lost clients in a variety of ways, more in the past five years than the previous thirty-five combined. There is a reason for this. Like me, my clients are getting older. With age comes increased chances for all sorts of surprise endings. On very rare occasions I allow myself to reflect on my mortality. When I do I quickly realize why I do it so rarely. It is not a pleasant experience.

It is said that no one knows the time or place, the day or hour of their own death. It’s a good thing. When life is lived with the assumption that it will continue indefinitely, it encourages us to make decisions we plan on having to live with. Maybe if we knew when we would die it would release all the selfish demons of hell into the world. 

When I was younger I never thought about what the world would look like after I was removed from it. That’s because when you are young such thoughts are incomprehensible. Once you reach a certain age, that all changes. You begin to think about it a lot. There’s even a buzzword for it…legacy.

I’ve always loved that old proverb: Blessed is he who plants trees under whose shade he will never rest. Let the old men plant trees, though they will never expect to eat the fruit of them. I can think of no better way to live life after 60 than this. Finding a way to leave your part of the world better than you found it seems like the most golden of rules. Its why parents want something better for their children than what they themselves had. Sometimes I hear people say that they want their kids to go through the same battles that they endured. “Why should I shelter them from hard times” the reasoning goes, “If I do they won’t become tough enough.” My reaction to this sort of thinking has always been, “What…are you nuts??!!” Why would I want my kids to have it as hard as I did? First of all, my kids will be dealing with problems that I never dreamt of when I was their age. So why not make it easier for them where I can so they can be freed up to tackle these new problems?

Leaving things better. That’s the goal. Its not always achievable. Some things can’t be fixed. Some struggles are eternal. But when we can, when we are able, we need to plant some trees that someone else will picnic under.

Unspeakable Tragedy on the James River

Whenever this happens, it becomes clear to me that it is time to go to Maine. Unfortunately, we have 35 more days to endure before the glorious day when we arrive at Quantabacook. A friend in Maine replied when I sent him the above photograph, “It’s 75 with 40% humidity here.” He loves doing this to me. 

But as I spent half my day sweating through my shirt whenever I got in the car before the AC finally kicked in, I thought of the family of the girl who went missing on the James River this past Sunday and what their day has been like. For the entire week they and their friends have been walking along the banks of the river, mile after mile searching for their daughter. In 98 degree heat and stifling humidity, they have trudged through the trees, bushes, underbrush for miles while rescue and recovery efforts on the water by local officials has been underway. We are told that every day that passes, the odds of finding anyone alive get slimmer. At this point, they are most likely searching for her remains. And yet, they soldier on in the heat, hoping against hope. I ask myself what I would do if I were them after so long and I realize that I would be doing the exact same thing. Losing a child, losing a 28 year old young woman full of potential and promise, her entire life of endless possibilities in front of her, sounds like among the worst of all human experiences. Pam and I know the family. Although we were not friends, we attended the same church for many years. They were talented musicians who played in the church orchestra. Their beautiful daughter is the same age as my nephew. I have followed the parent’s updates on Facebook with a mix of profound sadness and admiration at their spirit, determination and their amazing grace. I have stopped several times throughout the week to lift prayers for them, feeble as they were. I have detected no self pity in any of their updates, just faith in God for whatever happens and gratitude for all the support that has come from lifelong friends. I wonder if my faith would be as strong. I wonder if I could maintain their hopeful spirit, their trust in a loving God. I hope so…but I’m so grateful I have so far never had to find out.