Writing for Sanity's Sake

I thought about a lot of things today, I thought about how we are…our memories. Each of us a unique being with many shared experiences “remembered” differently.

Many days I’m flooded by those memories that belong to me, and I’m out of control and over emotional with the feel of them. Some days, they trickle in, and I am in better control of myself. Is anybody else like that? There are times I begin to write about times gone by, and I cannot finish. My train runs off of the track because tears….either of sorrow or of joy, blind me.

It becomes a bit messy and embarrassing sometimes.

As I rummaged through some old things today, and found some old writings of mine from school, I marveled at how far we have come since those days in the sixties.

I think about our old High School, and the fact that me and the people in my class were able to go to school in what was essentially a museum. We sat in old hardwood desks which still had the holes in the top where inkwells used to sit, so that the students could fill their pens from them. I’ve had some of those old ink jars over the years.

The old wooden floors in that school would creak and groan, as the bulk of students went out and back during classes. The old, huge windows had mechanisms inside them which assisted letting them up and down. Even the tile floors in the “new” wings of the school was the thick rubber vinyl stuff, which had to be coated in wax periodically, and buffed out in order to maintain them. I used to love that smell. I used to love the smell of the sanforized cloth that drifted across the Chattooga river from the mill and in through those big old windows. I used to love the clanking and banging of those old radiators during the cold winter months, as the steam poured into them.

In the first typing class I took, we all had the old “manual” typewriters, mainly Royals and Underwoods. Many, many times we would cross up, and hang up the keys during our exercises, and have to stop and untangle our mess. In my second year typing class we actually had a few new electric typewriters that plugged into the wall. Only the best students got to use those. I’m really thankful that Gary “Chocks” Clark talked me into taking that second year. It has been a gift through my entire life to have learned that skill. Many times I know I would not have “written” anything without that ability to “fly” over the keyboard. I’m sure a lot of people might wish I had taken shop instead.

We had the most unique and unusual gym in the state of Georgia in our town. It had an inside heated pool, a snack bar where you could get cooked little burgers and fries, and the best cokes. There was an upstairs basketball stadium…albeit quite small by today’s standards. We had a pool room, weight room, locker rooms, and various other sundry alcoves and inclusions. It had a movie theatre, and a staged theatre on one end also, although they closed those down very early along. I remember having our fifth year class reunion in that old gym in 1973, not long before they demolished it. What a wonderful place it was.

The most important and beautiful thing about those years, 1964 through 1968, were the people. Of course, I’m not going to sit here and say I loved everybody. That’d be a lie. However, for the most part, the people…my classmates and the “upper and underclass” students, were the lifeblood of the school in our little mill town. I wish I had time to go through and name each and every person with whom I remember going to school. I could do it if I had the time, or took the time, and could tell you a lot about some, but at least a little about most. Most of it would be good. Most of it would be joyful, some filled with a little regret….but, that’s the way of life itself, isn’t it?

I remember the ringing bells, the scurry of changing classes, the daily whispers….who’s dating who, who wants to go steady, who broke up today.

I remember the good teachers, the great teachers, and the ones….the very, very few…who didn’t like what they did, or who weren’t meant to be trying to do what they were doing. Those folks didn’t stay long, because our little school mainly attracted teachers who knew a good thing when they found it, and made a career in our school. I won’t try to name them all. Get out your annuals, and you’ll see their pictures. Mrs. Wingfield, Miss Bankey, Mrs. Myers, Mr. Jug Hayes, Mr. McCain, J.W. Greenwood, so many more. You’ll see yours too, my Facebook friends, because many of you were there. Many of you lived it with me. Many of you share these memories and those times. Most of us are still here, but some are gone.

It was pretty good, wasn’t it? Almost everything since then has also been good. As a whole, life’s been good to me.

Love you all.

That’s What you get for Thinking. A Treatise on the Pandemic.

Back when I was a kid, I often had grand schemes that I would think up. Sometimes good ideas, sometimes a little “hair brained” Just when I thought things were going well, something would happen and the “grand” idea would fall through. When that happened, and I told my Daddy about it he’d just look at me and shake his head and say: “Well, that’s what you get for thinking” Honestly, he wasn’t getting on to me for thinking. It was more about counting my eggs before they hatched, or about being too arrogant or overconfident. I have that irritating trait in my nature and it occasionally overcomes my logical approach to things.

I thought I had a logical approach to the golden years of retirement.

I honestly thought my “golden years” were going to be filled with good times with my family, taking care of the grand kids, going to ballgames, dances, and school functions with the little grand-kids and their parents. I think being around the family and doing things with them was my ultimate goal. It was because of them that I came through four bypasses in 2010. At one point in the first couple of days, the pain was so bad I thought I just wanted to let go. But my wife and my kids….they gave me a reason to go on. I went through a long recovery and only started to really exercise, walk, and watch my weight in late 2004. I decided I wanted to live a few more years. Was that being selfish? I didn’t think so at the time. I was on Ancestry a lot during those years and I saw where a lot of my ancestors died young. Got to be about 60 years old and “BOOM” Gone. It was only through the work of the medical and scientific communities that they had a method by the time I needed it to “patch me up” enough to keep on living. I appreciate it so very much. I appreciate what those doctors and nurses did for me. I appreciate my family helping me hold on. I’m thankful to them all.

But…back to the “golden” years. I “thought” that things would go on as they always have. Work most of the year, maybe take a couple of weeks off….go on a vacation with the family. Be around the kids and help with them. Do my “trade day” thing every couple of weeks or so. Go out to eat at Logan’s or one of our other favorite spots on Saturdays. Cracker Barrel on Sunday. All that stuff. Ordinary stuff. To me it was just “every day” life. Taking that “every day” life for granted was a big mistake. Look at where we all are now. Not just us, me and the wife….but all of the Grandma and Grandpa’s out there who love their families and want to be with them, to see them and be around them. To love, and sometimes fuss over them. To live our lives “normally”. Normally….all of you my friends wanted that also, I know.

But now, there is no “normal” like that anymore. Only the new normal. The quarantine normal. The self-isolation normal. (and thank God for my wife who keeps me sane)

“Thought you were going to glide on through those golden years, huh?” I can hear Tarp Bowers’ voice in my head. “Well that’s what you get for thinking”. And….honestly, he’s right.

How did I dare assume that there would be an in place continued normal for humanity? What gall on my part! I’ve been warning people about stuff like this for years, and it turns out that I didn’t pay attention to my own warnings. “Mother Earth will get us back, “ I said. I never expected the nasty, evil stealth of this disease that has hit us though. I never expected anything which could separate human beings so totally from the natural tendency to be the social animals we have evolved into. A sickness that has never, ever been inside a human body before in the entire history of all humanity! An alien invasion not from outer space, but from within our own world.

Now, I look up at the window and talk to my granddaughters Evie and Ellie…and their Daddy, through a screen 10 ft away. I talk to my youngest son while he’s up on the deck and I’m way down below. I await “drive by’s” from my daughter and her family….my oldest son and his family. I haven’t seen my first granddaughter since Christmas. Watched my second granddaughter who’s graduating from college this year, get married via phone video. The new normal.

Yet, I am lucky. I am so, so very lucky. I can still do these things. I still have hope that our family unit will all get through these hard times all in one piece, so that we may come together….all together again.

Daddy used to look at me at times like these and say: “Alright, quit feeling sorry for yourself”. I’m not really….. Well maybe I am. Maybe we all are a little, and if so it’s really OK to feel that way. It’s just that this new normal is so damn abnormal for me. I’m hunkered down now and resigned to staying put for a long spell. I’m learning new things, and relearning old ones. I’m storing up hugs, tears, and love for the day I’ll be able to use them again. I hope and pray that it will be soon for all of us. God bless, stay home and stay safe.

Worth a thought?

…suppose the souls of all the women who were ever burned at the stake as witches, or for heresy, were to rise in anger from their graves and seek revenge on the descendants of those who murdered them or caused them to be killed?

…or if all of the ghosts of the Shamans and Elders, and the Chiefs of all the first people who lived in the Americas were to magically become zombies, like the ones in “the Walking Dead” and seek retribution for the diseases which decimated them, or the soldiers who cut down their woman and children left alone in their villages.

…imagine the fear which would fill the wind if the spirits of all the lynched slaves, all of the abused and tortured Africans and their children, could haunt the dreams of the offspring of those who caused that terrible and awful abuse.

..what if the Earth itself is silently plotting our demise because of all that we have done to harm her? The scars we have permanently left upon the land, and the species which no longer exist…many simply because they got in our way, or because we could easily exploit and manipulate them. Many died due to our greed.

why are we like this? At what point in human history did we decide that treating other humans as animals was ok, and that treating animals like dirt was our “right”, and that treating our home like it is disposable is even remotely wise? Why do those of us who do not want these things to be so, give power to those who have no remorse or conscience?

I believe that people who care about not letting the terrible things which have plagued our history happen again, should exercise our right to treat those who would do them as criminals and outcasts…. not as leaders. We don’t need destroyers as leaders, we don’t need the self-righteous as our teachers, we need builders of consensus and cooperation. We need people of compassion and love. We need healers.

Can we find them soon enough?

I look to the future generations and hope. I look to the babies who are crawling and toddling for wisdom. I dream of technology which is yet to come for assistance. My time remaining here is short, and my answer is that I am sorry that I have not done enough.

Many people say we should not worry about the deeds of our forefathers, what’s past is past, but every time I look out of my window into the deep woods behind my house, I hear the whispers in the wind, the soft crying in the breeze, the deep anger in the thunder and lightning, and I wonder if those people who want to forget about history are right or wrong.

When I refer to “don’t blink or you’ll miss it” the thing I am thinking about most is life itself. Living our lives.

When I was eight years old, I remember thinking for some reason about the turn of the century. The year 2000. I thought to myself “that’s a lifetime away”. I doubted I would ever live that long. Yet, I blinked…..and there it was. It had arrived in practically no time flat.

I remember thinking in the early 1980’s as I was cleaning up the huge pile of toys laying in the floor back in my three kid’s rooms “I’m gonna be doing this for a long time, because it’ll be forever before these three grow up”. But then I blinked…and they were all grown and moved out on their own, with wives and kids of their own (my grandchildren, who I must admit I love and enjoy more than anything”)

One blink ago I was four…that’s about as far back as I can remember, but at one time I WAS four and then I blinked…..and I’m 71. That’s all it took. Just turned my head and turned back around, and all that time was gone.

My life has been pretty darn good though. If I have regrets, which I do…they would be that I didn’t hug more people and tell them I loved them. What a huge mistake that was. My parents, my brother, my wife and kids and grandchildren. Aunts, Uncles, grandparents and cousins. In not doing enough of that one thing, I’ve probably been deficient. So many things could have been solved, or at least made better by saying “I love you” and giving someone a hug. But….life’s full of things we just “gotta” get done. In the end though, none of those things will have any importance at all.

Not many people will remember how great a worker we were, or how prompt we were getting somewhere, or how good a housekeeper we were. Oh, we will think about those things, but they won’t matter nearly as much as knowing we were loved by those who we loved.

Be careful to have all the really important things done, and don’t worry about what you have to do tomorrow, because you may blink and find your life has gone. That’s how fast life passes you by.

How can a person say that they cannot tell if anyone else is a Christian,… that they only know about THEIR relationship with God…but then go on and say: “well, I know so and so and his values are like mine, so he’s obviously a Christian” and “I think so and so might be a little less of a Christian, and that other fellow well most of us agree that he isn’t a Christian but a cultist”

I am Again copying my post from the other day and while I am not a “great evangelist” like some people, I can read the Bible and this is what it says:

A false prophet can be recognized by the fact that he or she yields bad fruit — distrust, discord, confusion, wrangling, gossip, useless disputes, and divisions within the church, Jesus was very concerned about false prophets:

Mt 7:15 Jesus said to his disciples: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing,but underneath are ravenous wolves.

Matthew 24: 4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ, and will deceive many. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.

How do we tell who is a false prophet? Jesus tells us to look at the fruit:

Matthew 7: 16-20 By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. So by their fruits you will know them.”

We think our brain controls everything, but sometimes I am not so sure, especially when it comes to our deepest most “heartfelt” emotions. That’s right, heartfelt..from the heart.

For eons, before mankind starting looking at everything from a scientific standpoint, humans thought the heart to be the center of all our emotions. Not until the age of enlightenment, and the acceptance of scientific methods did it become widely acceptable that our brains were the center of everything which make us human. Yet we still continue to associate our hearts with love.

All Valentines usually have some tie in with hearts. We give someone our heart when we fall in love. We still get broken hearts. We bless people’s hearts, not their brains!

Of course I know very well, that science is correct yet I wonder why my heart soars, and swells when my little ones do something loving. I feel it with a flutter in my chest, not in my head. I feel that warmth deep in my core when I think of the love I hold for my wife, my family. I still remember the gut wrenching pain which welled up from within me and the sobs of grief which racked me at the deaths of my parents and my daughter. If my brain was in control on those days, it wasn’t doing a very good job.

I really don’t think that even the world’s smartest scientists know everything about the way we humans are wired up. They got the schematics down pat..right down to the DNA. But they haven’t come up with the blueprints for the soul yet. I don’t think they ever will because our Creator hid them….deep down inside our heart.

Thinking back to my childhood, I can remember thinking that I would die young. My Mom was terrified of dying, and unfortunately being associated with that attitude at such a young age somewhat tainted my view of living. It wasn’t really her fault, but was a symptom of her mental illness. Of course, I didn’t know that.

Living was something you did super, ultra carefully. You didn’t want to open yourself up to possibly getting killed by doing something stupid….like playing baseball ( you might get hit in the head with a baseball and get killed….yes it was that bad). I therefore didn’t play little league until my last eligible year…although it turned out I was pretty good at it. Made the All Stars, hit some home runs, had fun!

I tried to staunch my fears when I was raising my kids, but didn’t do well in some cases. They were lucky to have a stable Mom, because I was prone to panic attacks, and had irrational fears of many things: flying, bad storms, etc. I know my kids can remember. I regret those shortcomings, but at the time, I had no solutions. Later on in life, I got medication for my problems, and settled down somewhat. I say somewhat, because I still harbored some of those irrational fears. I did overcome my fear of flying and got a house with a dang good storm shelter!

I feel like that in 2010, when I had my bypass surgery, I became much less fearful of death. I became more capable of living in the day, and appreciating the beauty of the world around me, and being ever so grateful for the family I have to share my life with. Sometimes I still fear the unknown, but not nearly to the extent that I used to.

At my age, I surely don’t have to worry about “dying young” anymore. I do however, certainly want to continue to be able to build memories with my little ones as long as I possibly can.

My Mom lived to be almost eighty one years old, and only in her very final last days do I believe she found some inner strength, and sacrificed her fear of death to the ability to find some peace. I was there with her…almost all her family was there.

Build happy memories friends and family, and do not be fearful of the unknown!

Peace.

Perspective can have a strange meaning. It can be tempered by time, or it can be eroded. It all depends upon the person, or the people involved.

When I was eleven years old, I decided I would read all the way through the Bible. I had not been a Christian very long at that point, so I sought to learn what the Bible offered for me as a new believer. So, I read the Bible from cover to cover. By the time I was through, I was twelve years old. It had taken me over a year, and I found many things I didn’t know. It was a very hard thing to do at that age, because of the way the King James version was written. It was a journey of discovery at that point in my life. It was fueled by love and dedication.

I read parts of the Bible many times during the ensuing years of my life, and then undertook to read it all the way through again in my mid-thirties. At this point, I was looking more for understanding. This time, I read the “New International Version” of the Bible and was able to read it all the way through in a period of several months. This reading was fueled by a need for a clearer meaning to some of the more difficult issues I was having to deal with as a father and a family-oriented person. I found that I agreed with much of what I had read, but had some questions about the meanings of certain things.

I re-read the Bible again in my mid-fifties. I went back and read the KJV again, because I had read research that said the KJV was 98.3% “pure” when compared to the Greek manuscripts from which it was being translated. I found a lot of things, especially in the Old Testament, with which I did not agree. I had read many, many other books in the years since I was eleven years old, including other versions of scripture and the books on which other religions are based. I also factored in other scientific and spiritual readings. This reading was fueled by a need to know if my former beliefs were warranted.

Three different eras of my life where I used my own personal perspective, with three very different outcomes.

I will not say at this point in my life where my personal beliefs now lie. They differ from most other people with whom I have been associated all my life. But, that’s really not the point of this writing. The point is, that no matter what our perspective on some issue is, we can be sure that it is different in some aspect…perhaps small differences, or perhaps very large differences, from other people.

The politics and beliefs of what constitutes a cohesive country and a real democracy, have changed tremendously over the past 15 or so years, mainly due to the difference in perspective between different groups of people in our country. If you belong to one certain group, then you believe one thing, while the other groups believe things which are 100% diametrically opposed. Many factors have gone into these changes in perspective, but I can understand how these things occur. I look at my experience with reading the Bible, and compare it to how people read the Constitution of the United States, and the vast differences which different groups see. To look at the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence and think of how I perceived them when I was a High School student in a Civics class, as opposed to how I see them now….it’s a vast difference.

To know that we were not taught many things in History classes that could have made a difference in our perspective of our country, makes me doubt that the system of government which we now have in our country will “long endure” as Lincoln put it.

I don’t think it will.

Countries change perspective, just as I changed perspective over the years of my life. Our democracy’s life is possibly on life support. But, that’s just my perspective.

I think of a spring breeze, rushing through the air,

It doesn’t have a body, yet it’s there,
And of the sunshine, I give praise,

For turning darkness into days.
Oh, for the things we cannot see,

Without which, we could not be,
I give my thanks eternally.

I wonder how other people “see” their memories, in their mind. Mine come bubbling up in little gray colorless bits and pieces most of the time. If I sit and purposefully try and remember some specific event which has taken place in my life, I fail to rake much information up into the pile. I think the reason I write so much is because once I get onto a tangent of thought, once I get a good smell of a past brain remnant, then more and more starts boiling and cooking up to the surface. I was watching little Eli today, and the thought just popped into sight about Kirsten sleeping on my tummy when she was a tiny baby. I worked at Westinghouse on a night shift back in the early 70’s, and Paula was a Southern Bell operator. She had odd hours. A lot of times when Paula was at work, and it was “baby nap time” I would just lay down on the couch and lay Kirsten on my tummy. It was already quite ample, and I had no fear of her rolling off…She hadn’t mastered rolling over yet. One day though, I was really out of it, and so was she…. and the phone rang. I came out a full sleep and jumped up…And rolled little Kisi on the floor. It was only a short distance, and nothing was hurt but her feelings. I do think I took the phone off the hook after that. File that one under “how children survive inexperienced parents”