A Thousand Words

My big brother is ten years older than me. He’s retired and lives in Maryland. He’s the oldest and I’m the youngest of the four Dunnevant kids born to Emmett and Betty Dunnevant. Even though our father passed away eight years ago, Donnie never fails to remember his birthday. Today he posted a short tribute to him on Facebook along with a very rare photograph that I never remember having seen before. From looking at it I’ll estimate that it was taken probably 60 years ago. I have been mesmerized by it all day.

On the far left are my grandparents, my Dad’s folks. Then Mom and Dad. Donnie is standing next to Dad, then to his right is Linda. Next to her is Paula, and on the bottom row is me, maybe four or five years old. Looks like we were probably at a picnic. Dad and Donnie were playing badminton. Almost everyone was wearing white so it was probably in the summer. It is an image frozen in time from long ago when we were all different people. John Kennedy was in the White House, still a year away from his rendezvous with an assassin’s bullet. My Dad was 38 years old, my mom 32. I look at my Grandparents and notice that they are the only ones not smiling. It wasn’t because they were unhappy. It was because they were both born in the 19th century, and back then people their age never smiled for photographs. I wish I knew who took this shot.

But there’s something else, something that I have noticed in similar photos from back in the day. Linda always is pictured holding tightly onto my shoulders. And behind her, our mother seemed to be holding on to Linda. I’m wondering if they were concerned that I might make a break for it and ruin the picture. And…what’s with my shirt? There are stains all over the front. Everybody else looks fresh as a daisy. Paula looks like she doesn’t want to get anywhere near me, afraid I might get her in trouble or give her cooties. But in fairness to her, I look like I am up to no good. But seriously, what was going on with that haircut? No doubt it was one of those at home specials, probably given to me by Linda who did everything she could to make me look like Adolph Hitler.

60 years ago. Its just the four of us now.

Attention All Husbands

I have been married to the beautiful and beguiling Pamela J. Dunnevant for nearly 40 years now. It has proven to be the single finest decision I ever made. Nevertheless, after all these years one would think that I would know everything there is to know about her. You would think that I would have picked up on all her unspoken idiosyncrasies, all of the non-verbal cues that woman are famous for. Well, imagine my surprise when during lunch with friends a couple weeks ago, I discovered that for 38 years, 8 and a half months, I have been folding the towels incorrectly. Not to put too fine a point on it but actually I’ve been folding them just fine—but I have been placing them in the linen closet totally wrong.

Ok, I should admit up front that before Pam and I entered into marital bliss I had never folded anything that came out of a laundry basket. when I was a kid my Mom did that sort of thing. When I moved out of the house after college, I shared an apartment with my sister who did that sort of thing. So, everything I know about folding clothes I learned by watching Pam.

So, there we were at Glory Days after church having lunch and the conversation drifted into the dangerous waters of stuff my spouse does that annoys me. Like any self-respecting husband who knows what’s good for him, I couldn’t think of a single thing, at least nothing that I was dumb enough to bring up. It was then that I was stunned to learn of my towel-folding inadequacies. Pam says to my sister, “Yeah, he folds them right but then he always puts them in the linen closet wrong side out!! Can you believe it?”

Since that bombshell discovery, I have been hesitant to remind her of my past failures. Consequently, this has been sitting on the floor in our bedroom for several days now…

…mocking me. Today when I was home for lunch I made a command decision that I would dive right in there and get it right this time. So, I folded the towels and laid the finished product out on the bed and tried desperately to remember which side goes in first??!!

This way??

…Or this way?

Then as I looked at the two options it occurs to me that having the rounded edges outward would perhaps look better. Perhaps they would also be easier to grasp when removing them for use. But then I thought…there are only two human beings who will ever see how these towels were placed in this linen closet, and one of us could not possibly care any less. So, this is all for Pam’s benefit and the benefit of her advanced organizational mind.

Which brings me to today’s lesson. Gentlemen, it matters not whether you are a newlywed or a 50 year veteran, there is always something new to learn about your wife. The key is always…communication. Everybody remembers that Christmas years ago when instead of getting anything fun all you got was dumb stuff like…underwear. Well, even Santa and Mrs. Claus have had trouble communicating…

Men, don’t let this happen to you!

An Act of Kindness

My back is better, although still not 100%. I’ve been laying low, taking muscle relaxers and pain meds at night to help me sleep. The most frustrating part of having a bad back is when your wife stops you from attempted even the most common of household tasks with, “Get away from that! Don’t even think about lifting that until your back is all the way healed!!” But the absolute worst thing about these past six days has been the fact that I have not been able to do yard work, which has allowed the falling leaves to take over, making my yard look like nobody lives here!

So, there I was this morning around 10:15 sitting at my library desk when I heard the sound of a leaf blower next door. Immediately I was jealous that it wasn’t me. But then I noticed that the sound of the thing was getting louder and louder. That’s when I got up and walked over to the window. There was my next door neighbor, Stewart Garland doing this…

He had blown all the leaves onto the lawn and was now mulching them up with his mower and bagging up the clippings. This man is a married father of three high energy kids less than 12 years old. It’s not like he doesn’t already have enough to do, but there he was cleaning my front yard like a boss.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we love our neighborhood and our neighbors. Its also one of the reasons why we still live in the same house we had built 26 years ago. I suppose its also fair to say that this is what happens when you spend almost an entire decade spoiling the Garland kids to death. Their dad has pity on the old guy and takes care of his yard when he throws out his back. No matter the reason, I am so grateful and thankful that I get to live in a neighborhood like Wythe Trace.

Good News/Bad News

What follows is a good news/bad news story. First, the bad news.

Despite two solid months of diligent work done clearing my yard of fallen leaves cumulating in the pre-Thanksgiving sweep, the relentless downfall continued over the weekend. I was informed Sunday evening by my ever-vigilant wife that the County of Henrico was scheduled to visit our neighborhood to pick up bagged leaves this week. So, when I finished lunch yesterday afternoon I thought I would at least make a start. I decided to use the leaf blower to collect all the leaves in my driveway into a large pile first. After this uneventful task I turned my attention to the back yard, where I decided that I would simply pulverize the offending leaves with my lawn mower and dispose of the resulting mess into bags. This took a little less than an hour. At that point, I probably should have called it a day and gone back to the office. But for some reason I decided to bag up the leaves in the aforementioned pile in my driveway. Once the bag was in place I bent over to scoop up my first armful of leaves when I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. It was excruciating and quite familiar…almost one of those seeing stars moments which may or may not have resulted in a brief face-plant in the pile of leaves. Fortunately for my self-respect, there were no witnesses to this episode. Once back on my feet, I eventually managed to get inside the house where I spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between heat and ice compresses.

I know what some of you are wondering. So, you went to the doctor or Patient First or something, right? The answer to that question is a resounding “NO”. Could I use a few muscle-relaxers right now? A couple decent pain pills? Sure. But in order to obtain them I would have to go to a doctor’s office and sit next to germ-spewing, flu-besotted people for half an hour. That’s a hard pass. Besides, I know how this throwing out your back business works having experienced it many times before. It’s painful and annoying for three or four days before it eventually works its way out of trouble and back to normal. I would rather suffer through the next few days than risk coming down with the FLU. 

So today, despite taking almost ten minutes putting my shoes and socks on, I limped in to the office for a while and actually accomplished a couple of things that were on my list. I intend to keep a lunch appointment at noon with a friend. After that I will collapse into my recliner and set my vibrating heating pad to STUN for the rest of the day.

So, what’s the good news? Well, the good news is that this back thing didn’t happen the last day I was getting leaves out of my yard…Thanksgiving Day. What a bummer that would have been. There’s always a silver lining to every dark cloud. Mine was timing…and the fact that there wasn’t anyone with their cell phone camera filming me in that pile of leaves!

The Blank White Paper Protest

Well now. It would appear that the Chi-Com government is having a moment. It seems like only yesterday that Xi Jinping granted himself another five year term as supreme leader, looking for all the world like an autocrat at the peak of his power. Thomas Friedman’s man-crush had never been more fervent. The next thing you know, there are thousands of Chinese citizens in the streets holding up blank pieces of paper demanding freedom. What in the name of Mao Zedong is going on?

It appears that the teeming masses in China have about had it with their government’s Zero-Covid policy. Apparently, even a population that has lived under communism for nearly three generations now can tolerate only so much oppression. Lockdowns enforced by armed troops is proving to be a bridge too far for a people who have endured everything from the Rape of Nanjing to the Cultural Revolution. 

It has always been a subject of fascination to me how any totalitarian enterprise could exercise autocratic control over a population of 1.4 billion souls. Just think about how difficult a time America has governing a mere 330 million Americans. And yet, with the notable exception of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the people of China have been amazingly docile under Communism’s heavy hand. Until this weekend.

Still, if history teaches us anything its the painful fact that he who has the guns makes the rules. It’s hard to imagine these protests ending well for those brave souls holding up blank white paper…

A Defense of Family Photographs

After each major holiday on the American calendar, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram become filled with photographs of happy families enjoying the day. Then, like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, come the denunciations of these platforms as phony, guilty of painting false narratives of American life and, worst of all, the sin of being…boring. I wish to offer a defense.

Long before the internet got invented by Al Gore, if you wanted to see family photographs you had to break out the moldy old picture album. This thing weighed ten pounds and had loose pictures falling out of it all over the place. You would sit on the sofa with ten other people all leaning in to catch a glimpse of old black and white shots of your glum looking grandparents dressed in wool suits in the middle of July. With each turn of the page the pictures looked less bedraggled and just a bit more clear, but still very few frivolous moments. Back then taking pictures looked to be deadly serious business, no time for tomfoolery. But then, somewhere around 1960, the photographs began to show signs of life. There were more shots of kids, dressed in more comfortable clothing doing more normal things. Less posing, more smiles. With each turn of the page and each subsequent decade the pictures became more entertaining. Then suddenly…color. All bets were now off. It became a free for all of goofiness. Thats when the ten people on the sofa began to laugh and point and say, “remember when?”

But nowhere in even the oldest family photo album will you find somber shots of your Aunt Ruth trudging across the courthouse parking lot, leaving her divorce hearing. Nobody ever took a candid picture of your Mom and Dad in a knock down drag out fight over the family finances. There aren’t any photographs of your sister sobbing in her bedroom after her boyfriend broke up with her. No one ever thought to bring a camera along when the family dog got hit by a car and had to be removed and buried in the back yard. There are several good reasons for these omissions from the official record. First, its none of anyone else’s business. For another thing, why on earth would any family wish to immortalize their dirty laundry for perpetuity on the public record?

So, families have been careful what images they allow outsiders to see long before Zuckerberg came along, and I for one am eternally grateful for this discretion. Nobody cares or desires to hear or see other people’s dysfunction for the simple reason that we have plenty of our own to work through. When I see thousands of photographs of happy people sitting around Thanksgiving tables, I smile and am glad to see them all together. At the same time, I am grateful that they weren’t stupid enough to publish the screaming, alcohol-fueled political debate between Uncle Ben and Aunt Betty.

When I often hear the phrase, keeping it real, my eyebrows raise a bit. Really? Do we really want people on social media to keep it real? A quick google search of social pathologies plaguing the American family will disabuse you of any desire to keep it real. I’ll take the pictures of three generations of Smith’s sitting on the front steps of the house any day of the week and twice on Sundays compared to some somber testimonial to despair.

So, keep those beautiful family shots coming people! I love them all.

A Memory Painting

Pam came home with this painting a couple of days ago. She’s into seasonal artwork, and this one spoke to her in a Thanksgiving/Christmas sort of way. Like any painting it is best appreciated when examined closely, something that a mere photograph cannot do. We’re not talking Rembrandt or Picasso here. This was probably brushed together in a sentimental art factory owned by some Chinese conglomerate by child artists working 16 hour shifts for all I know. Be that as it may, whoever painted this managed to capture something.

I look at this painting up close and I want to walk through that door. I already know what it looks like inside because I’ve been there before. There are old, scarred oak pews with straight backs and no cushions and a single aisle dissecting the room. Its cold inside and I’m the only one in the place. At the front there is a mahogany sacraments table with a large bible opened to the 23rd Psalm, with two brass candle sticks on either side. To the left is a black spinet piano with two or three dead keys. On the podium sits a beautiful polished wood pulpit with a cross carved in the front. Behind it to either side are two high back cushioned chairs. Behind the chairs there’s a recessed chamber that holds a baptismal pool. On the wall above the pool there is a painting of a receding river lit up by an oversized ray of sunshine, a white dove soaring in the air.

 I take a seat halfway up on the aisle. The place smells familiar. It is the smell of old men’s after shave, of dust and candles. A memory drifts by of animal crackers, kool-aid and vacation bible school. I am transported back to a simpler time when bald-headed men and white-haired women rustled my hair and tried to teach me important things. I remember all the squirming done in these pews, all the restlessness. But now, I am still. My eyes are closed and I feel an overwhelming gratefulness for this old building. I attempt a quick prayer of Thanksgiving but the words seem listless and ineffective. So I stop trying. Instead I open my eyes and look around again. This time the pews are filled with my family. All of them are there, even those long passed. I see friends I haven’t seen in years, every one I’ve ever been lucky enough to make. They are all here in the beautiful old church. I hear the piano come to life. We all stand to sing an old song…We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing. Suddenly I feel the warmth generated by the crowd of witnesses.

Thanksgiving is nothing without memories. And this marvelous painting has brought them all back to me this morning.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.