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I have always believed that much of the story of Thanksgiving is an American myth. We want to believe that early European settlers were able to co-exist with native Americans and even that the Europeans survival depended on learning and adapting from the Native Americans.
In spite of the historical murkiness of Thanksgiving, the notion that we should, as a society, set aside a day each year is important and not frought with religious overtones. Being thankful in life is important. I don't want to judge what readers may be thankful for, however, I would hope that material things are low on your list. Here's my short list: --a life where I can pursue my creativity --a caring, loving relationship with my wife --two great sons and two wonderful daughter-in-laws --my granddaughter --my two grandsons --my siblings --friends --the resources to have experiences leading to growth --opportunities to volunteer, give back and pay forward So, don't forget to give thanks for what you cherish on Thanksgiving Day 2014
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Like most of you I had a great time as a kid on the teeter totter. At my elementary school the teeter totter was a heavy wood plank, painted green with most of paint gone from years in the sun, rain, snow and ice. On each end there was a metal upside down U also worn from many sweaty hands to hang on to for dear life. The teeter totter was perfectly balanced across a four inch metal pipe; I don’t remember how it was attached.
There’s some dispute over the correct name. The name ‘seesaw’ got its name from the French ci-ca, meaning this-that after the English butchered the French language. The name may also derive by combining the French word scie (saw) with the English word “saw” to become ‘seesaw’, again with apologies to the French. The origins of the name teeter-totter are too complex for this little blog. It was tricky to hop of the teeter totter at the same time as your friend so that the thing balanced. Once straddled across the plank we would race to push off with our legs first to thrust ourselves into the air and force the other person to use their legs like a spring to avoid the end of the teeter totter banging into the ground with a chance of falling off. Two kids could spend an hour lunging back and forth with that momentary thrill of being propelled into the air. I don’t have any idea who invented the teeter totter, but that person was a genius who understood kids. The risk was always that one person jumps off so that the other person plummets to the ground. Looking back I now realize that the teeter totter is a metaphor for life. We cannot journey through life alone, we need other people – in the same way a child can’t teeter –totter alone. In life we need to learn to trust others, in the same way you trust your partner won’t jump off the teeter-totter. Finally, the good life requires balance. In the same way, the principle of the teeter-totter is all about balance. So there you have it. Accept life as a teeter-totter and you can have a satisfying, balanced life. I have an eighteen month old granddaughter, Vivian Grace, who lives with her parents in Omaha, Nebraska. Distance dictates that we see her, in the flesh, about every six months. We supplement these visits with an hour Skype visit every two weeks. Last week we spent four days in Omaha visiting with parents and Vivy. Our daughter-in-law, Sandy, had told us how she has taught Vivy sign language to help her communicate. A friend of the parents taught their children sign language and claimed it made a significant difference in their language, reading and thinking skills. Of course, I was skeptical. When we arrived Vivy was in a playful mood and like any good grandparents we joined her on the floor to play. Soon she was making these wild motions. Her Mom calmly told us she was signing that she wanted water. I gave Vivy a sippy cup; she smiled and took a long drink. I was dumbfounded. An eighteen month old was able to tell me what she wanted without verbal language. She understood thirst, water and how to ask for the water. Over the next few days the challenge was to get white bearded grandpa to complete a crash course in sign language, taught by my eighteen month old granddaughter. Vivy can sign for: eat, milk, tired, thank you, please, cookie, all done and book. These eight words accomplish a lot in the life of a toddler. One morning Vivy woke very early because she was busy cutting her molar teeth. Her Mom was exhausted from being up tending to Vivy during the night. I told Sandy she should return to bed and I would feed and care for Vivy. I was able to “talk” with Vivy through sign language and understood what she wanted. She had a breakfast of fruit and oatmeal, milk, and water. She would ask for more cereal if hungry and let me know when she was finished. Vivy’s life and mine have been enriched by the magic of sign language. 
Growing up my Mom worked at home. She had a set weekly routine that varied very little. Mondays were washing. Tuesdays were ironing. Wednesdays were for vacuuming. Thursdays were for special projects like cleaning windows, polishing silver, dusting etc. Fridays were for sewing. Saturdays were for grocery shopping and all other forms of commerce. Sundays, except preparing dinner after church, were for resting.
This organized, orderly life made me a person that appreciates routine and cleanliness. Some have called be fastidious but that’s someone else’s judgment. I know what makes me comfortable. As I’ve grown older I must admit that my standards for housecleaning have become lax, or more flexible might be more accurate. My office isn’t tidy but everything has a place and I depend on that to find things when I want them. About once or twice a year I do a cleaning and toss out what’s not been used in several months. Unlike my Mom, I don’t have a routine. I’ve come to practice ‘just in time cleaning’. There’s minimum amount of house cleaning that my WASP upbringing demands. However, dust balls have grown in the living room, the duster doesn’t see the light of day often and the vacuum doesn’t leave the closet very often. I have developed the demand model for cleaning, which is my confession. We invite people over for a meal or some other social event and to prepare for their visit the house gets a thorough cleaning. I’m lucky that my wife and I divide the chores based on what we can each tolerate. I clean bathrooms for instance and either vacuum or steam clean floors. My wife dusts, organizes the kitchen and makes sure the living room is comfortable and presentable. How many of you wait until company is coming over to clean your house? It’s ok. I have one huge pet peeve. “Pet peeve” is my Father’s language and the older I get the more often I hear my Dad’s words escape my mouth. A peeve is a particular grievance and mine is people who don’t respond to a specific request. For example, if I write a friend an e-mail asking if they would be available for coffee on a specific day and time, I EXPECT an answer. If that friend doesn’t answer – that peeves me.
In my journey to market MURPHY’S TROUBLES I make my initial contact through e-mail. I was asked for a blog interview, completed it and was told it would be posted in a week; that was on December 1st. There was no post. I waited until January 15th and sent a follow-up e-mail, no response to my follow-up. That peeves me. On November 29th I sent our book group leader a copy of my book and asked if it could be included in the group’s fall 2014 session. No response. Why? Don’t I deserve a response? Even if the response is – NO – NO WAY – it would be an answer. Silence peeves me. I placed on ad on Goodreads. I spent good money on the ad. In 10 days I had 3893 views of my ad. Not ONE click to purchase my book. Not ONE. What are the odds that not one in nearly 4000 people would click into my ad? At least I have the opportunity to change the ad to try to fix it. I’ve also sent e-mails to several bookstores asking how to schedule an author reading/signing and offering my book for sale on consignment. Guess what? No response? I have been under the impression that business courtesy was to respond within at least a week. I haven’t had any responses. I suppose I’m old fashioned in expecting a business response to a business request, it’s easier just to ignore me. I’m not giving up. This week I’ll follow-up with a phone call. With my luck, I’ll talk to a voice mail. So, if I ever contact you with whatever media (e-mail; phone-call, text) please have the courtesy to respond. I always respond to requests, even if I say – no thank you. Several years ago the director of our local library asked if I would be willing to serve on the Sun Prairie Library Board. I was thrilled to be asked and of course accepted. Before officially being appointed, at the director’s invitation, I attended a Board meeting to meet the other members and observe how a meeting was run and the topics they made decisions on.
Then there was a glitch and I couldn’t be appointed because I live about ¼ mile past the city border. I was disappointed but said I would be willing to serve on the Friends of the Sun Prairie Library Board. The Friends don’t have residential restrictions. A week ago I was asked to serve on the Board of the Friends and accepted the offer over the phone. On Monday night I attended the annual meeting and along with two other volunteers I was elected. At our local library the “Friends” raise funds by operating a small bookstore within the library. The funds are donated for a variety of purposes including maintaining an aquarium ecosystem, the summer reading program, equipment purchases and other special projects. Growing up in a small community in northwest Indiana our library was a lifeline for me. I am looking forward to making a commitment to our library in Sun Prairie where my nearly three year old grandson Ross can have the same opportunity I had growing up. (Ross loves talking to the fish in the aquarium.) For my parents’ generation it was December 7, 1941. For my generation it will always be September 11, 2001. That year it was on a Tuesday. This year it’s a Wednesday, time marches on. Like most of us I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing.
The tragedy of so many innocent lives lost in a single day remains incredulous. For us survivors it has been the twelve years past that weigh on us. As recently as the last two years, NYC firefighters had to fight in Congress to receive benefits they deserve for health care. My brother-in-law works for FEMA and he spent months at ground zero. To this day he can’t, he won’t talk about his experience. That day we all became hostages to terrorism. We have fought a twelve year war against an enemy that isn’t a state but a movement. Killing Bin Laden didn’t have the emotional satisfaction we all anticipated. When President Obama announced Bin Laden’s death there were impromptu demonstrations in streets with cheering, flag waving, and singing. The jubilation faded as quickly as it began. For several weeks CNN and other news media flooded us with the details of the seal team’s mission. Yet, it wasn’t satisfying. We all knew the war goes on. Try flying anywhere and you’re reminded that we continue to live under the anvil of terrorism. Terrorism is based on fear, the unexpected and continuous danger. The Provisional Irish Republication Army invented modern day terrorism. The Provisional IRA was the first officially internationally designated terrorist organization for their unique form of warfare from 1968-1998 called The Troubles. I don’t know if either the national psyche or our individual psyche will recover from terrorism’s threat in my lifetime. Blog 9-10-12
Growing Up in the Library My father didn’t believe in buying books. I don’t know why. He was a gifted student himself and graduated from high school at 16 because he was allowed to skip a grade. He didn’t attend college because he graduated from high school in 1928 on the eve of the depression, his father lost the farm in central Indiana and Dad wanted a job. He worked for one company 45 years, hard to imagine today. We did have three or four books, other than the Bible, that were stored in a box on the top shelf of the front room closet. My Mom read to me before I was sent packing to kindergarten. I loved the special time and attention that reading represented. To this day I believe that Mom is my source for the love of reading. Those few books didn’t last long. I discovered both the library at Foreman Elementary School and many of the teachers kept books in their classrooms that we could borrow, I did. Summer was a bleak time until I discovered the Public Library which I found only because it was across the street from the Methodist Church we attended. I had to get my parents’ permission to get a library card. I guess the word was out that we didn’t have any books at home and I would be a risk to not return books to the library. I was steeped in the honor system and there was no risk of that. A kind librarian taught me the Dewey decimal system because they tired quickly of me asking where a book was located. I thought the process to categorize and then shelve books was pure genius. I was a known person at the library by 6th grade. The library out grew its original building and a brand new concrete library was built near the shore of Lake George. It was an ugly building but had twice the space of the old library. Most important it was air conditioned. My father also didn’t believe in air conditioning. In the summer I was allowed to ride my bike to the library to bask in the air conditioning and read in peace. Any library is still one of my favorite places. When visiting Ireland I visited the Library at Trinity College. The library is 300 years old and the Long Room contains 200,000 old books and manuscripts. I also saw the Book of Kells, which because of the lighting to protect it from deterioration, was disappointing. |
rex owensI write to tell the story of our human saga. Categories
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