Thought I’d Have It Together by Now

I'm Moving!

2005-08-29T19:36:00.000-05:00

My son and his family visited over the weekend so that we could celebrate his birthday, and he told me that he had entered us (him and me) in a contest to win a WordPress blog. Guess what? He won! So I am moving and (hopefully) learning to do a lot more with my blog. My new address will be I Thought I Would Have It Together By Now. I hope you will visit me there. Thanks for coming by.

Volleyball Tryouts

2005-08-24T14:22:00.000-05:00

My daughter is an adult now, but she played volleyball in junior high and twelve years ago this summer, she tried out for the high school volleyball team. She had done well in junior high, but she didn't get a lot of play time until one of the regulars messed up. The coach used Jill to "punish" the other player, making the girl sit on the sidelines and watch as Jill set the ball time after time.

Neither my husband nor I played sports, so we watched her with a mixture of feelings. She liked what she was doing. She was active. She felt like it gave her a place. We supported her decision.

Then came that high school tryout. The same woman coached both the junior high and high school teams, so Jill was familiar with her. She was also young enough to think that life was fair. She worked her rear end off at the tryouts, which lasted two weeks, one of volleyball camp and another of the actual tryouts. The coach said everyone had to earn their spots. She was sure she had a chance. Spots were filling slowly, but she had survived several cuts, so we were really hopeful as I dropped her off for the last day of workouts.

When I came to pick her up, she had a smile pasted on her face and she asked if we could give a certain group of girls, not any of her friends, really, but preppie girls, a ride home. Hers was a country school, and begging for a ride that went to the right side of town could have taken them a while, so I told her we could. I wondered why that group of girls, though, and as I saw them coming toward the car, I asked how she had done. Her voice broke, just once, as she told me she had been cut. The coach who said everyone had to earn their spot saved three spots for girls who had been on vacation the whole two weeks the tryouts were going on. And the girls we were giving a ride to? They had made the team.

I was so proud of my daughter as she steered those girls who would have thought nothing of snubbing her in school into our car. She congratulated them all and spoke brightly of the fun things they had been doing during the camp, of how well she thought the team would do.

When we let the last girl out and headed for home, she didn't say anything. She leaned her head on my shoulder, and then the tears started coming. It wasn't fair, she said. She had worked hard for one of the three spots that were never really available in the first place.

I agreed with her. I have never been a coach, and I don't really care for organized sports, but I think it would have been fairer if the coach had made it clear up front that three of the positions were already full instead of letting the other girls who had worked get their hopes up. I think that would have been easier to take.

My daughter and I were talking about this today as I drove her to the airport. The reason it came up is because the daughter of a friend of hers is starting her freshman year at high school today, and my daughter was talking about the girl's maturity level. This girl was home-schooled (on paper, anyway) last year because she couldn't take people picking on her. While junior and senior high school can be horrible, my daughter thought the picking would happen no matter what. She looked at it as part of growing up.

Growing up IS hard, and I remember how proud of my daughter I was that last day of volleyball tryouts. She was generous enough to offer a ride to girls who really were not her friends. She did not try to take away from their accomplishment in making the team. She did, in fact, encourage them, which is something I don't think I could have done as a teen. I might have a hard time with it now.

I didn't remember if I had ever told Jill how proud I was of her, so I told her today. Better late than never, I guess. She still has a generous heart. She still tries to encourage. She still takes it on the chin and then gets up when things don't go her way.

And I am still proud of her. And glad I got the chance to say it.

Report Finds Fetuses Feel Pain Later Than Thought - New York Times

2005-08-23T20:32:00.000-05:00

This is a bunch of hooey as far as I am concerned. If the fetus moves away when being prodded, as far as I'm concerned, it feels pain. This is just another justification for devaluing life.

Railroad Ties

2005-08-22T19:06:00.000-05:00

For much of our married life, my railroad husband traveled. A lot. I knew that he traveled when I married him, that traveling was part of working on the railroad, but as the daughter of a teacher, I did not exactly realize what that would mean. What it started out as was a two-week honeymoon after which he went to Goshen, Indiana, three hours away from home. He worked ten or more hours a day four days a week,which was really too long for him to come home every night. He would leave on Sunday night and come home on Thursday. The railroad provided him with less-than-luxurious accommodations. Later on, those accommodations were motels, but in the early days they were camp cars.

Ah, the camp cars. These were railroad cars, approximately the same size as a semi box, fitted with metal bunks and showers, one shower and bathroom per car. In the beginning there were ten or twelve men per car. That went on until the union pushed the issue of floor space per man. The upper bunks were eliminated; that meant five or six men per car. Still not a lot of room.

One of my favorite (NOT) stories about the camp cars has to do with chlorine poisoning. The bacteria in the one toilet per car had to be controlled in some way, so chlorine tablets were dropped into the holding tank. One time somebody did it wrong, and chlorine gas filled the car. Several people were hospitalized.

You have to remember that we were married in the pre-cell phone days, so I didn't find out about this right away. As a matter of fact, my husband and I survived on one phone call a week, which we planned for Tuesday night. There was no such thing as cheap long distance then. My husband had to find a pay phone. Local calls had just gone up from ten cents to a quarter. Long distance cost quite a bit more.

Another story involves my husband's working with an employee who was later diagnosed as schizophrenic. As I have said, camp car quarters were close. One night this man had been drinking and stormed into the camp car, grabbed my husband's foot and dragged him off his cot. The reason? He didn't think my husband had paid him correctly. That man is in prison now. He tied his wife to the bed and doused her with kerosene after an argument one night. Not being able to find a match or a lighter, he headed out for the store. Unfortunately for him, his wife got loose during that time and called the police, who were waiting for him when he returned with a lighter and some matches in case the lighter didn't work.

People I have talked to tend to think that having a husband who travels is hard on the wife and kids, and it is, but it is hard on the husband, too. I think about the time our five-year-old daughter was hospitalized in serious condition and I wanted to reach my husband before I gave permission for a medical procedure. I called the office, and the secretary/clerk informed me that you couldn't interrupt the work day for "just anything." The decision had to be made; I gave permission. My husband called the hospital hours later. He would rather have been there.

Or there was the time six years ago when our home was broken into. That might not have happened had it not been known that my husband traveled. My daughter and I survived the whole ugly business and called my husband, who was three hours away in Elyria, as we waited for the police. Our son hurried home from college in the next town to stay with us. I told my husband not to come home. He might as well have, he said. He didn't sleep at all.

The railroad employs men predominantly, and those who have lived under the conditions I just described have a common bond. They survived. They lived in conditions that were uncivilized even under the standards of the day. They ate camp car food like green bologna, which was probably full of bacteria since it was not handled according to today's standards. Most of them, at least in the track department, started out doing physical labor, so they are strong men. Have you ever swung a sledge hammer all day? They probably weigh ten pounds. Such a job is not for the weak.

Mostly, though, these men survive the loneliness. I know many of them are proud to work on the railroad. There is a romance there. It never ceases to amaze me that people come up to my husband when they see him in his truck to ask what he does. Does he ride the trains? How does his truck get on the track? And all that big equipment! The men who are asking these questions, though, have no idea what it is like to live without your family four or five days a week for most or all of the year. They don't know how boring restaurant food can get or how tired you can get of channel surfing when there is just no one to talk to.

The railroad has changed some since those early days. It was bought out twice. Consolidated. Abandoned in some areas. The management moved from local to regional. The territories expanded. Men who used to only have to go two hundred or so miles to the job might now have to travel eight hundred if they want to work. And most of them do. They love the job, even if they don't like the travel. They are honorable men. They pay the bills. They do the job.

My husband is always glad to see the men he knew in the old days, and for a while one of them, Eddie, has been in town. Eddie worked on my husband's gang way back when. He has been around a long time. He knows his job. I think he finds a certain comfort in working with someone that he knows. My husband does. Each of them knows the other's expectations. Each of them knows the way things SHOULD be done. They know about each other's kids. And grandkids. And the knowing gives continuity, stability, to a job that can change from minute to minute.

I saw Eddie today, and we talked for a bit. We talked about kids,about grandkids. About jobs. He mentioned a backhoe operator he and my husband both knew. I asked if the man was still ornery. A little smile crept onto Eddie's face. Yeah, he said. Still the same. The funny thing about this is that at dinner, I told my husband about the conversation and the same exact smile appeared on his face. Some things never change, he guessed.

People think that because working on the railroad is such a physical thing that all there is to the men who work there is brute, but there's a lot more. Just like men anywhere, they need their families. They may not ever talk about it, but they need their friends. They need people around who know both what the railroad is and what it can be.

That's why I also am glad when Eddie is in town. He and my husband share a lot of memories. I'm thankful that though the railroad has changed a lot, they can get pleasure out of sharing their "railroad ties."

Martha

2005-08-21T13:35:00.000-05:00

This is what we sang in church this morning. It is from the hymn “Christ Be My Leader”:

Christ be my leader in age as in youth
Drifting or doubting, for He is the Truth.
Grant me to trust Him; though shifting as sand,
Doubt cannot daunt me; in Jesus I stand.

I like this whole hymn, but I thought this verse really illustrated the differences between being young and being, well…older. I am watching my son and his wife as they look for a condo or a house, my daughter as she seeks to find a life post-divorce. I remember drifting and doubting. Could we afford the house? Was it the right one? What if the lay-off (and there were many) lasted too long? How would we make the payments? I knew that God wanted the best for me, but what if there wasn’t anyone out there who wanted to marry me? How would He fulfill that longing that I had from a very early age?

Truth be told, I still drift and doubt. Quite a bit, more than I should. But I am much better at coming back to the anchor, Jesus. At least I think I am. This looking to Jesus earlier can be best illustrated by two conversations I had with my friend Martha on Friday.

Martha is a blessing to me. Her spiritual light shines in a way that you don’t see very often, and she can quote a Bible verse, without knowing what the problem is in your heart of hearts, that will pierce through to your soul. I am humbled by her faith, and I hope I get there some day.

Martha doesn’t call very often, but she did on Friday. I was glad to hear from her, but I could tell that something big was on her mind. Turns out it was her Army son. He was to ship out to Iraq on Thursday, and she wanted to go to Kentucky to see him, but her car was not in working order. He was set to ship out for a year and a half, and this would be his second tour of duty in Iraq. I knew that weighed heavily on her spirit, although she never came out and said it. My son just completed his service in the Marines. She knew I would understand.

Interestingly, the turn the conversation took was the cancer Martha dealt with this year. She is now cancer-free, but she told me how she wasn’t worried and enumerated the times she could already have died but hadn’t. Obviously, it wasn’t her time. I was interested. She was actually ejected from a car when she was two, in those pre-car seat days, and the car rolled over on her. Obviously, she was fine. Why? Angels were at work, and her little two-year-old body ended up in a depression, a hole just big enough to protect her from the weight of the car. She said that she figured her time had not come yet, but when it did she was ready to go. She wondered if that was fatalistic. Both of us knew we were talking about more than her. We were talking about her son.

This is what we sang in church this morning. It is from the hymn “Christ Be My Leader”:

Christ be my leader in age as in youth
Drifting or doubting, for He is the Truth.
Grant me to trust Him; though shifting as sand,
Doubt cannot daunt me; in Jesus I stand.

I like this whole hymn, but I thought this verse really illustrated the differences between being young and being, well…older. I am watching my son and his wife as they look for a condo or a house, my daughter as she seeks to find a life post-divorce. I remember drifting and doubting. Could we afford the house? Was it the right one? What if the lay-off (and there were many) lasted too long? How would we make the payments? I knew that God wanted the best for me, but what if there wasn’t anyone out there who wanted to marry me? How would He fulfill that longing that I had from a very early age?

Truth be told, I still drift and doubt. Quite a bit, more than I should. But I am much better at coming back to the anchor, Jesus. At least I think I am. This looking to Jesus earlier can be best illustrated by two conversations I had with my friend Martha on Friday.

Martha is a blessing to me. Her spiritual light shines in a way that you don’t see very often, and she can quote a Bible verse, without knowing what the problem is in your heart of hearts, that will pierce through to your soul. I am humbled by her faith, and I hope I get there some day.

Martha doesn’t call very often, but she did on Friday. I was glad to hear from her, but I could tell that something big was on her mind. Turns out it was her Army son. He was to ship out to Iraq on Thursday, and she wanted to go to Kentucky to see him, but her car was not in working order. He was set to ship out for a year and a half, and this would be his second tour of duty in Iraq. I knew that weighed heavy on her soul, although she never came out and said it. My son just completed his service in the Marines. She knew I would understand.

Interestingly, the turn the conversation took was the cancer Martha dealt with this year. She is now cancer-free, but she told me how she wasn’t worried and enumerated the times she could already have died but hadn’t. Obviously, it wasn’t her time. I was interested. She was actually ejected from a car when she was two, in those pre-car seat days, and the car rolled over on her. Obviously, she was fine. Why? Angels were at work, and her little two-year-old body ended up in a depression, a hole just big enough to protect her from the weight of the car. She said that she figured her time had not come yet, but when it did she was ready to go. She wondered if that was fatalistic. Both of us knew we were talking about more than her. We were talking about her son.

I assured Martha, as our conversation ended, that I would pray for her son and for travel mercies for her as she went to see him. Getting the car fixed was the first order of business, and it weighed on her heavily.

Not half an hour later, as my husband and I were leaving, the phone rang. He looked at me, and I could see that he was questioning whether we should answer it or not, but it was his on-call weekend, so I did. It was Martha, and she was crying. I understood through her tears that her Army son had called. What, I wondered, could he have said? I gave up and asked. Much to my delight, her answer was that she cries when she is happy! Her son had called to tell her that he would not have to leave until next year. The Army is going to send him to school, and they decided not to ship him to Iraq and then bring him back for the school. She was so happy that she wanted to share.

How wonderful are the works of God! I do not know what He saved Martha’s son from, but I do believe He intervened. And just like God cares about the lilies of the field, He cared about a mother’s heavy heart.

Martha’s son told her not to worry about coming to see him, not to worry about the car. He was going to try to come home and see her. She assured me we would get together so that I could meet him. And I will make a special effort. I want to meet the young man that God can use better here, in this country. At least for now. As a mother, I can only imagine the joy at that reunion.

I don’t think Martha fears death. Don’t get me wrong. I think her attitude is the one we all should have, the one the hymn we sang in church this morning so clearly illustrates:

Christ be my Savior in calm as in strife;
Death cannot hold me, for He is the Life.
Nor darkness nor doubting nor sin and its stain
Can touch my salvation: with Jesus I reign.

Amen.

Ideas on Graceful Aging

2005-08-17T20:03:00.000-05:00

I read this advice for aging gracefully on another blog, Linda’s Thoughts. It was given by Chuck Swindoll, and I think it is apt.

1. Be bold.
2. Be joyful.
3. Be godly.

Dodging the Bullet

2005-08-17T15:10:00.000-05:00

OK, so this would be why I sometimes hate the railroad.

My husband called me as I was on my way out the door this morning to tell me he had been offered a job in Chicago, something which he did not want. His boss asked him what he would do if he were assigned, and he said he'd take the job. So we both spent the morning wondering if the issue was going to be forced.

There is nothing wrong with Chicago per se, you understand. Real estate costs more there. Maybe everything costs more there. Gangs there have taken railroad equipment hostage and demanded ransoms, which they received. It would be a big adjustment. Not to mention the fact that we are west of all the family we are close to now. We had hoped that if we moved, it would be east.

Anyway, the danger has passed. When my husband didn't jump at the job, they offered it to a guy who is working as an assistant up there, someone they will not have to pay to move. I think that makes good business sense.

I wonder, though, if we will have a chance to move east, which is what I really would like to do. The town in which we live is really economically depressed. Houses here take a year or more to sell. I would like for the company to move us before retirement, when we would have to deal with all of the hassle ourselves.

This is the second or third job my husband has been offered since we moved here, depending on the way you look at it. One was north of us and just outside Chicago, actually, a yard job. He was assigned there during the illness and subsequent death of the supervisor. He doesn't want a yard job, really, because people who work in yards tend to die of stress-related things. Then there was this job. And there was the job in Michigan, which I really wouldn't have minded, except that it would have capped his pay at less than he is making now and kept him inside, which I don't think he could have taken on a long-term basis.

I am thankful, though, that my husband's superiors notice his potential. I wonder if he realizes that, that they have confidence that he will do a job and do it well no matter what. I guess I am back to wanting the fruit that confidence will bear to go on our side of the tree, so to speak.

I don't know what the future holds for us, but for once, I am not a case of nerves about it. I am certain that God has it all laid out, and I am equally certain that He may not be done with us yet.

We shall see.

Sisters

2005-08-16T15:13:00.000-05:00

I have two sisters. One is seven and a half years older than I am, and the other is seven and a half years younger. I don't know why, but the older sister and I didn't ever really get along. The younger sister and I have been friends all of our lives. She is forty-two.

Yesterday, my younger sister was razzing me because I won't leave my husband alone to travel. "You're afraid something is going to happen to him while you are gone," she said.

It's not that really, or maybe it is, but only a little bit. It is more that he traveled for the first twenty-one years of our marriage and he doesn't like being alone. He even said that, which is a lot for him to admit. He is an adult, and I know he could survive without me. I know I could leave him for a while. But I don't want to. That was hard for me to say. My sister's pull is strong.

Later in the evening, my teaching partner from Ohio called. She and I have maintained our friendship even through our move to Indiana. It has been six years since the move, ten since Lisa and I started working together. I had called her because her sister runs a consignment shop for children's clothing near where my grandchildren live. I had thought that I might patronize it on my next visit.

Lisa called to tell me that her sister was....dead. She was forty-one. She stopped at a light and died before she took off again. That was in July, and there is still no cause of death. Her death leaves Lisa, who is forty-three, an only child. Her mom has Alzheimer's and no longer recognizes her. Her father died two years ago.

God worked things out so that Lisa was already on her way to her sister's that day. She arrived to find several police cars in front of the house and accompanied her brother-in-law and her sister's children, aged five, seven and nine, to the hospital. Nobody was rushing around when she got there, she said. So she knew.

The two oldest children, who are girls, took their mother's death in vastly different ways. The oldest was teary. The middle child didn't shed a one. And the five year old, who is a boy, stood at the window and told everyone who passed by that his mom had died that day. I can't even imagine what that was like for my friend. Instead of having a fun weekend with her sister and her family, she planned her sister's funeral.

Lisa is worried about her brother-in-law and the kids. There are some financial problems, and of course they are all dealing with the grief. She sort of wishes they would move north so that she could be of more help. But in the middle of it all, she has her own grief to deal with.

This is what she said to me: "Becky, she was my sister. We were only sixteen months apart. We told each other things we couldn't tell anyone else. Who else can be that to me?"

What could I say to that? I have no way to ease the loss she has suffered, but I could hear the anguish in her voice.

Like I said, I am only really close to one of my sisters, and I don't really know why that is. But I know it would devastate me if I lost her. Razzing and all. I know she is going to heaven when she dies. But what would I do without my friend?

More on Being Alone

2005-08-16T05:20:00.000-05:00

I was mowing last night, and my neighbor was out pulling up her crabgrass. We don't see each other very often, so I stopped to say hi.

As always, Betty asked about my children. I mentioned my daughter, who survived a divorce earlier this year, and her face grew sad. "You know," she said. "you have to admire her strength. My husband had affairs for years, but I had no skills and I was never strong enough to leave."

I was dumbstruck. Betty and her husband seem so happy! Certainly she can't mean this husband. She must have been married before. Widowed maybe? I don't know how old she is exactly, but she has adult grandchildren.

I do admire my daughter's strength. I got married right out of college and although I worked and considered myself independent, I went straight from my father's protection to that of my husband. I have never lived on my own, signed a lease, bought a car. I mean, I have done those things, but not when the final responsibility was mine and mine alone.

I am sure Betty has strengths that she doesn't credit herself with, but she's right. It is brave to face those things alone. And I admire my daughter for having made it.

Words of Wisdom Heard in Senior English

2005-08-16T05:05:00.000-05:00

Part of my job as a special education paraprofessional is to be in the classroom with special education students who had to be mainstreamed because of the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT. That is how I ended up spending fifth period in English 12.

The teacher chose to read Isak Dinesin's story "The Ring" out loud. Being a former English teacher, I thought her decision was wise. The story is steeped in imagery and not the kind of thing many kids today would read or understand on their own. I think understanding always comes more easily when someone reads to you.

The story really concerns the loss of innocence suffered by the main character, Lise. The kids were having problems with that, so the teacher explained. She can't be more than thirty, and this is what she said

"It's all about knowing yourself. To know yourself, you have to be willing to be alone. I've heard all the moaning about needing a boyfriend and a girlfriend, but you don't. I've heard that you are afraid, that you can't leave mommy and daddy, but you can. You will never really know yourself until you are willing to be alone."

I think those are wise words, although I doubt that seniors can actually understand them.

Money and Happiness- Forbes.com

2005-08-15T19:21:00.000-05:00

- Forbes.com

Proverbs 15:16 (New International Version)

16 Better a little with the fear of the LORD
than great wealth with turmoil.

Proverbs 30:8,9

8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.

9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.

The Wedding and the Memory of a Brother Honored

2005-08-14T17:17:00.000-05:00

A while ago I posted on a wedding to which my husband and I were invited, that of his long-dead brother's eldest son from whom we had not heard in fifteen years. Jay is only twenty-three, so the lack of contact was in no way attributable to him. His father died suddenly and accidentally, and his mother, who was young, got on with her life.

Neither my husband nor I knew what to expect. For instance, we did not know if my husband's remaining three brothers had been invited to the wedding, and we were afraid to ask for fear that they had not. We had no idea what Jay looked like. We didn't really know if his mother wanted us there, or what kind of reception we would receive. And we decided not to worry about such things. After all, this was about my husband's brother's son joining his life to that of another and asking for participation from his father's family.

The wedding and reception were held at a little country rental hall. When we drove up, we did not see any cars that we knew, but we were a little early. Chairs were set up for an outside wedding next to a gazebo, and thunder rumbled off in the distance.

We decided to venture inside. We recognized Jay's mom right away; she had not changed a lot in fifteen years. She made no move to approach so my husband (thank God for the supervisorly habits he now has) stepped up to greet her. The ice was broken. She introduced us to the groom, who stood at her side. Before the wedding was obviously not the time to get acquainted, so we went outside to sit down.

There were not many people on Jay's side of the aisle. Jay's mom and her second husband sat in front, holding a baby girl who we later found out was the couple's daughter. We were there, and there were three other couples. Total of ten. I wondered if that kind of thing would bother him. I know a similar situation bothered my daughter-in-law very much.

Jay has a younger brother and my husband and I searched for him, hoping that he would be in the wedding party. My husband did not see traces of his brother in the groom; maybe he would see them in the other son. Then the wedding began.

As the wedding party proceeded down the aisle, we picked out Jay's half-sister, his mother's daughter by her second husband. She is a pretty girl and looks a lot like her mom. We still could not pick out the groom's brother. Like other weddings, this one held the promise of the future. The father of the bride beamed as he led his daughter down the isle. And Jay and his bride, although they may have been nervous, could not seem to stop smiling.

The ceremony was quick, and we proceeded to the receiving line. Jay received our congratulations, but made no other comment. I don't really know what my husband expected. I thought maybe something like saying he was glad my husband was there.

Our sister-in-law (ex-sister-in-law?) came up once we were seated and chatted for a minute or two. She remembered that we lived out of state. We didn't know how to ask her where her younger son was, and we thought maybe our questions would be answered anyway when the wedding party was introduced.

That introduction happened in short order. Jay's younger brother was not in the wedding party.

We tried to decide what to do. My husband and I are not really bold people socially, although he has been a lot more forward since he has been in management. It is awkward to sit at a wedding where you don't know anyone, where you don't know anything, really, about the newly married couple.

We sort of decided that we would leave after the cake was cut, and it was to be cut before the dinner. My husband had done what he came for, really. He was at Jay's wedding since his brother could not be. He stood for a part of the family that we were guessing Jay really knows very little about.

My husband had hoped, though, to get life stories from Jay and his brother, and he finally could not stand it any more. He approached the cake-cutting as pictures were being taken. Jay's stepdad waved him over. My husband got at least a portion of the stories he hungered for.

Jay is an electrician. He had lived in Toledo where his father lived for three years. His younger brother was serving in the Navy. It was not much, but certainly more than he had known before. My husband got a chance to tell Jay and his mother that our youngest grandson is named Tony in honor of Jay's dad. We had met his mom's second husband before, and my husband was glad to know that he was still around, that Jay and his brother had a father-figure when they were growing up.

Then we left. It looked like it was going to be a long night, and my husband saw no sense in waiting around until Jay opened his gift. My husband had chosen to give him a framed family portrait of his family when all the boys were younger. Jay's dad as the oldest of five, stands in the middle, surrounded by his brothers and behind his parents. Maybe that was the whole reason we were invited in the first place, to connect Jay to the father who died when he was three.

I hope our presence did that. I hope Jay is curious enough about to ask questions of my husband or his other uncles. Although it is easy to see that Tony lives on in his sons and his granddaughter, Jay's asking questions would keep his dad alive, at least in a way, in his heart.

Victoria Times Colonist - canada.com network--Of Lemonade and Sweetness

2005-08-14T17:03:00.000-05:00

Victoria Times Colonist - canada.com network

My son sent this to me, and I can't really improve on his comment, which was, "This is a sweet story. Too bad all the sweet stories nowadays come from Canada."

Hope it blesses you like it blessed me.

If Wishes Were Horses...

2005-08-13T07:04:00.000-05:00

...beggars would ride. Isn't that how the saying goes?

OK, so I know we don't always get our wishes, but here is mine.

My daughter has a male friend she has been spending time with since her divorce. He is good for her, and it appears that she is good for him too, since the time they spend together seems to be increasing. I wish things were moving faster since it appears from the outside that they love each other, but these things move at their own pace.

On Monday, this young man has a job interview in Columbus. He wants to get out of Toledo. My husband and I have wanted our daughter out of Toledo and therefore away from her ex for a long time. Our son lives in Columbus, so she would have family support if she moved.

My wish? That he get the job and that it propels the relationship forward (Lord willing, if the time is right) so that the young man is unwilling to move without her.

We'll see if I will ride or not. And thank God my daughter never reads my blog!

MSNBC - Man dies after 50 hours of computer games

2005-08-11T05:12:00.000-05:00

MSNBC - Man dies after 50 hours of computer games

I knew it! Computer games can be bad for you!

I Wish I Could Do More

2005-08-09T09:57:00.000-05:00

I was talking to my daughter-in-law yesterday and telling her that I was praying for a situation she and my son are facing when I heard myself say these words, "I wish I could do more." I can't believe I said that!

I am often frustrated by the physical distance between me and the people that I love. I wish I were closer to help them more. But even if I were, the best way to help them is to pray to the Person in charge.

So here I am, semi-publicly, saying that I am sorry I did not acknowledge the fact that God, not I, am in charge. I know I am forgiven. I hope I will remember not to do it again.

So Much for Premonitions

2005-08-09T09:56:00.000-05:00

The DE is gone with no mention of a transfer. Whew!

I Hope This Isn't True (Planned Parenthood vs. Pro-lifers)

2005-08-09T05:14:00.000-05:00

I receive a daily news update called Citizen Link via e-mail from Family.org. A lot of times this gives me news that does not appear in mainstream media. The item below was in my update yesterday, and I find it disturbing:

A new video produced by Planned Parenthood uses outrageous depictions of violence to illustrate the opinions of those who stand for sanctity of human life, The American Life League reported.

In "Superhero for Choice," an eight-minute animated short
on Planned Parenthood Golden Gate's (PPGG) Web site, the so-called "superhero" drowns an abstinence educator in a trash can, blows up peaceful Christian pro-life activists and, during the closing credits, decapitates a pro-life protester.

Jim Sedlak, executive director of American Life League's
STOPP International, said Planned Parenthood is
glamorizing, and possibly instigating, violence against
people of faith.

"In this post-9/11 era of terrorism, Planned Parenthood
has recklessly crossed the line by promoting violence
against people who do not share the organization's radical beliefs," he said. "This appalling animation, posted on an official Planned Parenthood Web site, demonstrates the organization's complete disrespect for human life."

One of Those Feelings

2005-08-09T05:06:00.000-05:00

Ever get one of those feelings? Like you know something is going to happen to change your life? I get them now and again, and usually, nothing comes of them. When I was younger, I let them really bother me, but now I try not to. Usually.

Yesterday, my husband came home and said that the head of his division was coming to Marion today and that his immediate superior (who is twenty-six and new to the job) was nervous about it. Now, this man comes out to the Hoosier boondocks at times, and he sometimes comes unannounced, but the fact that neither my husband nor the kid knew why, well....given the recent movement in the railroad ranks, that makes me nervous. What if we get transferred?

The only opening that I know of in my husband's division is near Chicago, which I suppose would not be such a bad place to life except I hear that it is really expensive and much farther from our family. We already agreed that if he gets transferred again before he retires, we will live in an apartment because it will be temporary. I am starting a new job, but it is hourly, not salaried, so it wouldn't be a big deal to leave it. I am afraid it would be really hard to sell our house in this area, though, because it is so economically depressed. Most of the houses in my neighborhood stay on the market a year or more.

Probably nothing will happen. But I will still feel better when my husband comes home and tells me that.

Working Vs. Staying at Home

2005-08-08T09:29:00.000-05:00

Two years ago, when it looked like my husband was going to be transferred, he told me that if he was, he did not want me to work. Now, part of the reason I work is for my own sanity, so his comment surprised me. As time wore on, though, and he actually talked to me about work, I began to see his point. He has so much to think about at work that it reassures him to know I have things working smoothly on the home front (well, at least I do MOST of the time).

As we age, we seem to need support from one another even more than we used to. I thought about this a lot today since he gave me a list of things to do before he left for work at a little before 5AM. I was sort of surprised to think that the need for this kind of support would surpass the need for my financial contribution, but I guess that is the case.

Relationships in midlife sure do take a lot of twists and turns. The stresses and the tolerances we have for them are different. I am thankful that at this stage in my life I have the time to listen and observe. And learn. At least I hope I am learning.

Offending People without Meaning To

2005-08-07T13:51:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I received a Mary Kay catalog in the mail. My daughter-in-law sold Mary Kay a while ago, and the person who sent the catalog was her mentor. I am a lost cause make-up-wise. My family knows this, and even though they get me to buy some from time to time, I seldom use it.

I decided to e-mail the lady back and tell her to save her pennies and not mail me one again for precisely that reason. No fault to her for marketing her product. I just know I won't use it, and I would imagine that in a business you are in for yourself, every penny counts. I even commended her on her marketing, meaning that she is several states away and is a go-getter to send a catalog to me. ( And were it Avon, I might have responded.)

She wrote back and said she was sorry she had offended me, and I feel bad. I really just wanted to save her the money. Maybe this is what the Bible means when it talks about sins that you don't know you committed.

I wrote back and told her it was fine, but I will not open any more e-mails if I get them from her. It is just so frustrating to try to do the right thing and have it end up like this.

Thoughts on Change --To Be Continued, I'm Sure

2005-08-06T16:06:00.000-05:00

My husband came home from work Friday with all sorts of news. The job he worked two summers ago is open again because the guy who had it was promoted, and this time my husband was not the one assigned to it. Hallelujah! Also, the job in Ohio, which he initially thought he would try for, appears to have opened up. We have decided, though, that that is one job he should avoid due to past associations.

I start a new job on Wednesday. Truthfully, I am glad in a way since my local school system is so very messed up. I sense change in our lives. In my heart, I believe something good is happening between our daughter and the young man she is seeing, and I don't think anything will happen with my husband's and my physical location until that takes place. Of course, I am not God, so I could be wrong, but those are my feelings.

In a way, it is nice not to feel stuck in a rut, to be looking forward to the future. In another way, it is sort of frustrating because I only feel that this is the way things are going. There is absolutely nothing I can do to bring them about.

Time will tell. The immediate future is filled with....cooking dinner.

Paid by the Hour

2005-08-05T12:42:00.000-05:00

I went to an in-sevice for my new job yesterday, and because it will keep me on my feet as much as being a classroom teacher would, I bought a new pair of shoes, the most comfortable I could find that would fit with the district's dress code, which is much stricter than that of the district where I used to work.

They cost $135! That's twelve hours of work at my new job, and I don't think I am cheap, but that sort of hurt.

Doesn't matter, though. If they keep my feet from hurting, they will be worth it.

There's a Purpose to It All

2005-08-05T12:26:00.000-05:00

I ran into a high school guidance secretary, one of the few who still has a job, when I was at the mall this morning. I asked if she still had a job and she replied that she did. She was on her way there. Grade-level secretaries don't start until teachers do, so she has to rely on parent volunteers to help with scheduling. That will make it a lot harder.

She asked about my job, and I told her I had taken a job as an aid instead of a teacher, that it made me a little nervous but seemed like the right thing to do. She replied that "everything happens for a reason."

Yep. No one asks about somebody else's job...or health...or mate at our age without knowing that the worst could happen to them. Fortunately, a lot of people in my acquaintance are skilled at seeing the hand of God in what does happen to them.

Proverbs 16:9 says,"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps." I have found this to be so true in my life. I decided not to take a teaching job, and I am convinced that I am doing the right thing. The Lord put me in the job that I will start next Wednesday, and although it is not shaping up the way it had been explained to me, I am sure it will all work out.

The big difference, I think, between being in your twenties and being middle-aged is that when you are twenty-something, you often feel as if the bad things that happen in life ARE going to kill you instead of making you stronger. As you get older, though, you find out that you will probably live through them, no matter how hard they are.

In this uncertain world, I think it helps to remember who is in control, both when things go well and when they do not. At least I think it helps to remember that WE are not in control. And although I often have to be reminded of that, I am very glad it is the case. As it says in Proverbs 16:33:

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

Amen.

Corporate Memory

2005-08-03T13:02:00.000-05:00

A long time ago I watched this episode of STAR TREK:THE NEXT GENERATION in which everyone on a certain planet was required to commit suicide on their sixtieth birthday. The scientist in this episode took off on the Enterprise to see if his lifelong work would succeed. It didn't, and it appeared that he knew what was wrong, but he had to go back home. His sixtieth birthday was approaching. During his stay on Enterprise, he fell in love with Deanna Troi's mother ( I forget her name) and she tried to get him to stay on board ship, but his daughter called and shamed him into returning. I was ten years younger then than I am now, and I thought that was a big loss. All of this scientist's experimentation would die with him. Why couldn't he at least teach others about what he had done so far?

The way I understand it, the idea of each generation's NOT having to start over is called corporate memory. Things work more smoothly if there is someone around who knows what they are doing. At the Catholic school where I worked in Ohio, there was a great deal of turnover. The year we moved, they lost four out of six teachers on the junior high floor. Only one of the teachers who was left really knew her stuff, and she just knew sixth grade stuff, not seventh or eighth grade stuff. My teaching partner and I wondered what would happen to all the "traditions" when the people who knew about them were gone.

My local school system, in its not-so-infinite wisdom, decided to fire everyone who was not a teacher and make them interview to get rehired. At a lower rate. Needless to say, many of them were irritated and sought jobs elsewhere. As a result, there is no one left at the junior high where I work who knows how to schedule including the principal, who just moved up from elementary. Welcome to chaos! None of the teachers are looking forward to school's starting.

Today, I had another encounter with what I consider a lack of corporate memory. I called my health insurance company. What I wanted was to know how my arthritis treatment is covered under my husband's health insurance, which right now is my secondary insurance. That will change come October 1, and I wanted a pre-determination. Note the prefix pre. Before October 1.

First I called the company that handles prescriptions, but they said that Remicade, the drug I take, is called a specialty drug and I had to call my insurance company as it would probably be covered under major medical. So I did.

The insurance company told me that I would have a 20% co-pay subject to my deductible. I knew that. What I wanted to know was if the treatment, called an infusion, was covered at all, but when I tried to explain that, the young man at the other end of the line interrupted me and told me to let him finish. He told me I had to call benefits.

OK, fine. I went back to the number on the insurance card and tried to navigate through the phone menu, but none of the options were benefits, and all of them took me back to someone in Customer Service, which is where I started. Maybe they were getting annoyed with that. I know I was. I finally lost it and yelled at the girl on the other end of the line. I told her that I had a degree, that I was not an idiot, that I could read the benefits card and I understood deductibles, I just could not seem to navigate through their voice-mail options and if she could not help me, she ought to connect me with someone who could. I was mad. And teary because I was frustrated, which made me even madder.

This all started out with a simple question, really. My doctor had told me that my insurance company changed Remicade from a Tier II to a Tier II drug, which meant it had a 40% co-pay instead of a 20% co-pay. All I wanted to know was if that was the case and if it was, would it be cheaper for me to switch to Enbrel, which is the same class of drug but might cost less since I would inject it myself instead of receiving it intravenously. And I wanted to know now, before Oct. 1. because 40% of my $6000 treatment every eight weeks is a lot of money.

It just seems to me that there is no corporate memory. The people in benefits only know what the benefits card says, and since I can read it, what help are they? The people in customer service know less. And it wasn't just me that got the run-around. The reason I called was because my doctor had tried and been told that no determination would be made before my husband's insurance was primary, and he thought I would have better luck. I told the girl I ranted at about that, too. If they wouldn't tell my doctor and they wouldn't tell me, who would they tell? Do they even know anything to tell?

I finally ended up with a woman in pre-approval because the one I screamed at transferred me. She was very apologetic, but she said she could not help me until October 1. No pre anything for me, I guess! She did at least give me a plan to follow on that date. I hope it works.

Why is it easier for companies to have a bunch of employees who aren't paid very much and don't know very much instead of a few less who know a lot about their job? How can you work around one part of a job and not know about others? How did we get so compartmentalized in the first place? And where will it all lead?

Water

2005-08-03T12:05:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid, I took water for granted. We lived in the city, and it was always there. I washed in it, cooked with it and swam in it. No big deal.

Then I got married and moved to the country where we had a well. I found out quickly that water was something special. Pumps fail. Not only that, sometimes in the country you are without electricity for quite some time, and electricity runs the well which gives you.....water. When we moved to Indiana, we swore we would get a house with city water and sewage, but we couldn't find a house we liked in town, so we ended up with a well.

This morning my husband, who rises for work at 4AM and obligingly shuts the dressing room door while he gets ready said, "Uh-oh." Hearing those words that early is really not a good thing. I asked him what the problem was, and he said we did not have water. It fizzled out when he was brushing his teeth. He was worried because he did not want to leave me without water.

I was worried because I have a list of things a mile long to do today and tomorrow, and I was wondering how that was going to fit in with waiting for the plumber. Then I worried about the expense of getting the thing fixed.

My husband wandered out to the garage and checked the pressure at the filter. There was none. Then he checked the breaker, which was not tripped. He reset it anyway.

In Ohio, we had a shallow well and the pump was under the house, we could hear when it was running and when it wasn't. Here we have a deep well, so we never know right away if something like tripping the breaker will work.

A few minutes after he reset the breaker, we heard the toilet finish filling, but we thought that was a fluke since there was still no water at the faucet. Of course, if the pump has been off, it takes a while to build up pressure.

When he sat down for breakfast, my husband asked me to try the faucet in the kitchen. It was too soon, maybe, but....

And we had water! Both of us felt better. Obviously the system hiccuped, and unfortunately it will probably do so again. Probably when I am rushing around getting ready for work. And the big test will come with a shower or a load of wash. Still, I am thankful.

I can't imagine what it must be like to live in a country where you do not have water available at the turn of a faucet. I imagine that you would get used to it. But I feel for the people who must live that way. And I am thankful that at this point I do not.

Frist's Folly - Christianity Today Magazine

2005-08-02T19:53:00.000-05:00

Frist's Folly - Christianity Today Magazine

Admittedly this is only one source, but it deserves some comment. Embryonic stem cell research hasn't yielded cures for twenty-four years. Adult stem cell research has.

Senator Frist took a lot of heat for standing up for Terri Schiavo. I suppose that could have caused him to re-evaluate his position on cloning. Nevertheless, his statements do have flaws. If he believes that life begins at conception, why is he condoning the killing of such life?

All of us change our minds about important things at times. All of us have backed down at some point or another when the heat is on. We all have to live with the consequences, both temporal and eternal.

So will Senator Frist.

Who's Your Daddy? For Beth

2005-08-01T18:51:00.000-05:00

My pastor told this story in his sermon on Sunday. I found it online at About.Com's Christian Teens Site. I'd like to dedicate it to my daughter-in-law, Beth, whose earthly family often frustrates her.

A seminary professor was vacationing with his wife in Gatlinburg, TN. One morning, they were eating breakfast at a little restaurant, hoping to enjoy a quiet, family meal.

While they were waiting for their food, they noticed a distinguished looking, white-haired man moving from table to table, visiting with the guests. The professor leaned over and whispered to his wife, "I hope he doesn't come over here." But sure enough, the man did come over to their table.

"Where are you folks from?" he asked in a friendly voice.

"Oklahoma," they answered.

"Great to have you here in Tennessee." the stranger said. "What do you do for a living?"

"I teach at a seminary," he replied.

"Oh, so you teach preachers how to preach, do you? Well, I've got a really great story for you." And with that, the gentleman pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with the couple.

The professor groaned and thought to himself, "Great... Just what I need... another preacher story!"

The man started, "See that mountain over there? (pointing out the restaurant window). Not far from the base of that mountain, there was a boy born to an unwed mother. He had a hard time growing up, because every place he went, he was always asked the same question, 'Hey boy, Who's your daddy?'

"Whether he was at school, in the grocery store or drug store, people would ask the same question, 'Who's your daddy?' He would hide at recess and lunch time from other students. He would avoid going in to stores because that question hurt him so bad.

"When he was about 12 years old, a new preacher came to his church. He would always go in late and slip out early to avoid hearing the question, 'Who's your daddy?'. But one day, the new preacher said the benediction so fast he got caught and had to walk out with the crowd.

"Just about the time he got to the back door, the new preacher, not knowing anything about him, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him, 'Son, who's your daddy?'

"The whole church got deathly quiet. He could feel every eye in the church looking at him. Now everyone would finally know the answer to the question, 'Who's your daddy'. This new preacher, though, sensed the situation around him and using discernment that only the Holy Spirit could give, said the following to that scared little boy...

"'Wait a minute!' he said. 'I know who you are. I see the family resemblance now. You are a child of God.' With that he patted the boy on his shoulder and said, 'Boy, you've got a great inheritance. Go and claim it.' With that, the boy smiled for the first time in a long time and walked out the door a changed person. He was never the same again. Whenever anybody asked him, 'Who's your Daddy?' he'd just tell them, 'I'm a Child of God'."

The distinguished gentleman got up from the table and said, "Isn't that a great story?"

The professor responded that it really was a great story! As the man turned to leave, he said, "You know, if that new preacher hadn't told me that I was one of God's children, I probably never would have amounted to anything!" And he walked away.

The seminary professor and his wife were stunned. He called the waitress over and asked her, "Do you know who that man was who just left that was sitting at our table?"

The waitress grinned and said, "Of course. Everybody here knows him. That's Ben Hooper. He's the former governor of Tennessee!"

You're only ours for a while, Beth. Remember who you really belong to.

Love,

Mom

Memories and Story

2005-08-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

I have always believed in the value of stories. I think they teach us who we are. That's why I think sharing stories about the past, about your childhood, is valuable. Sharing memories comes with a caveat, though. I have found over the years that some of my childhood memories are faulty. I put together the facts that I had at the time, but I didn't have nearly enough facts.

Let me give you an example. When I was six, something was going on in my house, and I, in my six-year-old mind, decided that it had to do with me. This was back in the day when parents didn't share with their kids like they do now. Kids were on a need-to-know basis like you see on TV, and the adults mostly figured that kids didn't need to know. Anyway, I decided that I had been adopted and my parents were going to send me back. In my own defense, I have always been a reader, so I must have read a story like that. Still, I was firmly convinced that was the case, and I was MUCH older when I found out that the big deal had to do with my brother and not with me at all.

This experience, combined with a couple of others, caused me to make the decision to BE an adult at the age of six. I remember doing it. And, being six (and seven and eight and.....), I screwed it up. A lot.

That might be why my husband said he could not envision me as a child until this vacation. I have told him plenty of stories about my childhood. I enjoy the stories that he tells me about his, even though some of them are sad. I can see, in my mind's eye, the little boy who blew up the tree. I smile when I think of the little boy who rode his bicycle out in the country as far as his little legs would take him and came home hours later. I lived in those times. We both lived in the times when summer was sweat without air conditioning and falling asleep meant listening to the crickets and the cicadas and praying for a breeze to come through your window.

On our vacation this year, we went by my Aunt Jeanette's house, which will soon be razed for a highway ramp. Aunt Jeanette's was always the first place we went when we visited Fairmont, WVA, where my parents were born. Aunt Jeanette's husband, Finley, passed away at the beginning of May, and my cousin has been urging me to go back and see if there was anything I wanted from the house. My memories, though, are OF the house, not so much of anything in it.

To get there, my husband and I had to find the house, which involved getting off at interstate exits with which we were unfamiliar, but we managed. We went up East Park Street, where my dad lived until he was seven and his parents lost the house because of the Depression. We went by where the old toll bridge was. I remember my dad paying a nickel for us to cross just so I'd know what a toll bridge was.

Finally, we found State Street. I used to walk down State Street to cross the river and go to the pool. I also visited my Great Aunt Lucy. Good memories. But Aunt Lucy's last house is boarded up, and the house she had before that was not in much better shape. It looks sort of like people have given up on this side of Fairmont already.

Finally, we were at the house. We parked and walked around it. There used to be an orphanage at the top of the hill, and that is gone. One of the neighbors noticed that we were there and came out to find out who we were. She wanted me to call my cousin, who is the executor of Uncle Finley's will. I did call to please her, but I was sort of glad he wasn't home. I didn't want to go in. I wanted to remember the big garden at the side of the house and the black cocker spaniel, Prince, who lived in a house behind it. I wanted to revisit the grape arbor under which I lay on my back and watched the clouds roll by.

Then I decided I wanted to visit the house across the street. I could tell that this surprised my husband, and he actually just pulled the van up and watched. The house across the street housed an Italian family, and the summer I was ten, I played with their youngest daughter, Mary Theresa. I told the mom who I was, but she did not remember me. She remembered my cousins, who visited much more frequently. She invited me, though, to wait for Mary Theresa, who was due at any time.

I was getting a little nervous making small talk, especially since the lady I was talking to did not remember me. Neither did her older daughter. But see, I did not spend time with her older daughter. There was a group of kids just older than Mary Theresa and me, and they did not want "the kids" hanging around. So we played with each other.

Finally, Mary Theresa arrived. She knew me right away, although she had not seen me for close to forty years. I felt a lot better. We made a lot of small talk. She has one son. She showed me his picture. I pulled out the pictures of my kids and the grandbabies. When I left, she gave me a hug.

My husband was quiet after we left, and I was sort of teary. Then he told me that he had actually not been able to envision me as a child before, but as he watched me talk to Mary Theresa, it was as if we were both ten again.

That summer, see, I came back to Fairmont with my Mom's dad because our bathroom was being remodeled. My sister had just graduated high school, and my little sister was three. I guess my parents figured it would be better for me to have my cousins to play with than to be there amidst all the remodeling chaos. We only had one bathroom. Surprisingly, I do not remember putting up a fuss, and I was a homebody as a child.

Aunt Jeanette had a lot of kids in her house, and times were safer then. She really didn't care what you did between meals and bedtime as along as you were there for your assigned chores at the assigned time. So that summer, unlike other summers in my life, I was free to wander. I remember wandering out in the country just to see where a road would lead. And I was all by myself. I probably didn't go more than a few miles, but it seemed like quite a trek to me. I went up the hill to visit Aunt Florence and Agnes, and I came home when I wanted to. I lay on my back and watched the clouds roll by. These are all kid things to do, but that summer is really the only one that I remember doing them.

All the houses on Pleasant Street will be gone by this time next year, so I probably will not go back to Fairmont again. I am glad, though, that I got to see it. I am glad I let Mary Theresa know that spending time with her is a pleasant memory for me. And I am glad that my husband finally got to see me as a little girl.

The stories we tell people, and the stories people tell us, really are a means of understanding them. I have known my husband for over thirty years. We have been married for twenty-seven. I am glad this one finally got told.

The Island, Thoughts on Cloning, Science Fiction

2005-07-24T18:19:00.000-05:00

Since we can't leave on our vacation until tomorrow because of the on call thing, Ron and I decided to start our relaxing by going to the movies, something we have always enjoyed. The movie we chose was THE ISLAND, which deals with the issue of cloning.

Cloning has always made me nervous for this reason: if human beings create life, if the spirit in that life is not God-breathed, then what has been created? You know, like in the story THE MONKEY'S PAW by W.W. Jacobs. When the parents wished their son back to life, they were scared to death of what was knocking on their door. Not who. Not their son. What.

Anyway, the doctor in the movie who runs the cloning business has a real god complex and he is not afraid to share that fact. He creates life. Only he and God can give life and take it away. At least that is what he thinks. And the clones, the ones who "win" a trip to "the Island"? They are innocent. Educated only to the level of a fifteen-year-old, the not-so-good doctor says they are not self-aware, that they are not human. That's the way he markets his "products" too. He tells his clients that he is obeying the Eugenics Laws, that the clones are nothing more than organs growing in jelly.

Now I have always wondered about this. Laws are broken all the time, and if people get what they want when the laws are broken, they usually don't care. So what makes us think that, since animals have already been cloned, human beings will not be? If they can be, they will be. I just hope they haven't been already.

And if you create life, don't you have a responsibility to it? I think that was the question in the movie AI too, although it has been a while since I have seen it. If you have a responsibility to it, then you can't clone a being for organs and such. Can you?

The TV series ENTERPRISE dealt with this issue as well, and although I really didn't like their solution, at least it had heart. Captain Archer had a clone created to save the life of his engineer. When push came to shove, though, he couldn't just kill the clone. The clone made the choice to sacrifice his life.

Just like in the ENTERPRISE episode, the clones in THE ISLAND have the memories of the person from whom they have been copied. At least that gives an answer to my question of what you have created if life isn't God-breathed. God gives life anyway; the memories are imprinted on the DNA used to clone. Another evidence of the Creator? When the doctor in THE ISLAND is questioned about disobeying the Eugenics Laws and bringing the clones to consciousness, he responds that unless that happens, the organs for which the clones were grown fail. And herein lies at least one problem with creating clones. If they have memories of a life, they have something they want to preserve.

The story in THE ISLAND would have turned out differently, I think, if the mercenary hired to retrieve the escaped "products" hadn't noticed an imprint, a brand of sorts, on one of them. He also had a brand, given to him after his father was killed in an African uprising. The brand was to mark him and his brothers as less than human. And he didn't like that at all.

Science fiction has always dealt with possibilities, the "what-ifs", both the good kind and the bad kind. How nice it would be if, like on STAR TREK, one syringe of medicine could cure kidney disease. How horrible it would be if we grew human beings just to harvest their organs.

Road Trip

2005-07-24T11:59:00.000-05:00

This picture is of my husband and me on our last big vacation two years ago. Tomorrow, we leave for a week, and we are excited. This time we are going to Tennessee.

Truthfully, we have spent much of our married life cruising. My husband for his job, the kids and I to join him. The kids seemed to think it was all adventure when they were younger. I certainly did. I am not quite sure why. Maybe because the promise of something new is always just ahead. That's why we normally don't fly. We would miss too much along the way.

Two years ago, for our twenty-fifth anniversary, we cruised to the west coast from Indiana. We saw Salt Lake City. We saw Yosemite, which we had never seen before. That's where the picture was taken. We drove up the California coast.

I saw a lot of places out there where I think I could live. There was a little beach town in northern California and a log cabin in the mountains of Washington state. The purpose of this trip, other than the fact that the two of us like to be on the road, is to look at retirement property. We are a little over five years out from that the way I figure it, not too soon to look.

My youngest sister lives in Saginaw, MI and wants us to move there. It is pretty in Saginaw, but I am personally not a fan of cold. So Michigan is out.

Our kids want us to retire in Ohio. So does my dad. Our son, as a matter of fact, has forbidden us to retire in Tennessee, which is where we are headed. He thinks somewhere in Ohio is best and has even jestingly offered us his basement.

I don't know what we will find, but I am looking forward to getting away and looking. Sometimes the looking is better than the finding anyway. I will write more when we get back.

Date Rape

2005-07-23T02:48:00.000-05:00

It is 2:49 in the morning in Indiana.

My phone has a habit of ringing in the middle of the night. It has for a long time. That's what happens when you have a husband who works for the railroad. That's why it rang at 1:36. My husband called some men out and left for work himself. I was almost asleep when the phone rang again. This time it was my daughter. One of her friends had just called her to tell her that a date had refused to take no for an answer. She had been raped. My daughter was on her way to pick the friend up and take her to the hospital.

Earlier in the evening, my daughter had told me how excited this girl was about her date. It was the first date she had had in quite a while. The girl wanted the perfect shoes and the perfect purse. Just like all of us when we dated, her world was full of possibilities. The date was for dinner and a movie. The friend's birthday is today.

How did things turn out so badly?

My daughter said the girl was afraid to call her own mom. That bothers me too. Evidently the girl thinks her mom is hypercritical. I know that I have been that way on occasion. Still, I hope my kids know that I would be there for them if they needed me. I don't know what happened to this girl to lead to this rape. Maybe if I was her mom I would wonder why she let the guy in her apartment. Maybe I would wonder why the first date didn't end with a chaste kiss at the door. But I think my first reaction would be rage that someone hurt my baby. The girl told my daughter that there was blood all over the couch, all over her.

I have prayed, am praying, for the victim. Am I horrible because, at the same time I am glad the victim is not my daughter?

I did, in fact, voice this thought to my daughter as she drove to her friend. That I was glad it was not her. There was a time when my daughter purposefully did not tell me things about her life that she knew would upset me. Would she have called me in a situation like this?

She thought for a long time before she answered. You see, the marriage that ended for her in January was an abusive one. Then she said that there were some things she couldn't tell me because she hadn't wanted me to see her in that light, to see her as a person who let herself be abused. But did she know that I would have been there for her? Yes. That she knew. And she said that her marriage had done a couple of things for her. She is not nearly as trusting as she used to be. While I am sad that her innocence was taken from her, maybe such knowledge will save her from the horror that her friend just faced, a night full of possibilities gone bad. And she said another thing. If ANY man EVER raises his hand to her in anger again, she WILL call the police.

My daughter's friend did call her mom. She will meet them at the hospital emergency room. My daughter and I talked until she knocked on her friend's door, until they were walking back out to the car in the dark parking lot. I turned on the radio and tried to put it all in perspective. But I couldn't go back to sleep. I will try again in a while.

Right now I need to pray for my daughter's friend. And her mom. And my daughter.

I am so glad it wasn't my daughter. And I grieve for her friend.

Name Change Thanks to My Son

2005-07-22T05:20:00.000-05:00

I have been unhappy with the name of this blog for a while now, but I didn't know what I liked better. Suddenly (OK. Obviously, since I have been blogging since the end of January it wasn't so suddenly.) it dawned on me that the subtitle, which made its appearance in the spring, would be a much better name.

I relayed this information to my son, who is the computer-knowledgeable person in our family. This is why I am thankful to have adult children: out of the goodness of his heart, he spent three hours of time that could otherwise have been devoted to his family changing things for me. (Thanks also to his wife, Beth, who did not smack him upside the head for doing this.)

My son can deal in pixels, things I have only seen mentioned on movie screens (is it Disney?) to get things to look the way he wants them to look. I am limited to typing things in a blank and hoping that they work. He didn't just change font for my title. He designed the way it would look, and he did it bit by bit. His knowledge, self-taught during his time in the Marines, fills me with awe. Many of my friends here in Marion are jealous. They think that I know a lot about computers, and then I tell them about my son.

So. Hope you like the name change. I do. And while it might have happened without help from my son, it wouldn't have had the subtitle and it wouldn't look nearly as nice.

Autism and Behavioral In-Service

2005-07-21T13:00:00.000-05:00

I went to my first inservice for the new job this morning. It is weird to walk in as a paraprofessional rather than a classroom teacher. The topic was autism, but really a lot of the focus was on behaviors and how to get what you want out of kids.

Here are some of the suggestions that I liked:

1. Give guided choices. Don't ask if a student wants to use scissors, but if he wants to cut lines or circles.

2. Try to understand what drives a student's behavior. Is the student looking for escape? Attention? Or some sort of material reward? If you figure that out ahead of time, you might be able to meet the need BEFORE the behavior occurs.

3. Use planned ignoring. You know what little Johnny or Susie do that drives you insane. Ignore them when they exhibit that behavior, but notice them right after and say something like, "I'm so glad you quit making that noise. It was really bugging me."

4. Be proactive, not reactive. Now, this is not as easy as it sounds, and the presenter acknowledged that. If you are dealing with 20+ students and you have to hand out papers or present a lesson, you don't always have the time to figure out why a student has chosen this particular moment to act out.

4. Understand that you will never get rid of all undesirable behaviors, but you can reduce their frequency or intensity.

5. Be aware that sometimes it is best to state your expectations in as few words as you can. Even though some educators believe it is best to state all expectations in the positive (keep your hands to yourself), some kids need to hear the negative because it is more concrete to them (don't hit).

I had to laugh at the presenter, who was not a teacher. A teacher was telling him that it had been decided at an IEP conference that when a certain special ed student acted out in gen ed classes, the teachers were to empty the room of the other kids before dealing with that student. She thought that she would not be able to implement his strategies in a gen ed setting and wondered what she should do since mainstreaming is required by NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND. He stroked his goatee thoughtfully and then said, "Well, good luck!"

Anyone who works with kids knows that just when you think you have a certain behavior conquered, the motivator you have been using ceases to work. Dealing with human behavior is trial and error and although you can identify trends and read up on proven strategies, you have to understand that such strategies will not work with all children or all of the time. NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, as far as I am concerned, has some holes in it when it comes to special ed. The law has always said that children should be placed in the least restrictive educational environment, and I think that gen ed classes sometimes restrict special ed students. They have already been identified as having learning difficulties, and just the stimulation of a gen ed class room may interfere with their learning even more.

I do not claim to have the answers when it comes to education. Maybe it is best to approach the whole thing as this young man did, with humor. When thinking back on teachers who made a difference in my life, the ones that come to my mind first are not the ones who yelled. The teachers I remember fondly are the ones who spoke softly and encouraged me. I know positive behavior even from educators is not going to happen all the time, but it is certainly something to strive for.

The Power of Prayer

2005-07-20T14:20:00.000-05:00

I read this article on Google Health that said prayer doesn't help sick people if they don't know they are being prayed for. I wish I had saved the link. Anyway, I know that prayer works, but I don't know if you would see it as working if you didn't believe in it. I wonder if the people in the study who didn't know they were being prayed for believed in the power of prayer in the first place. And if they did, they probably knew that someone was praying for them.

I was reminded of this when my husband called this morning to tell me about a situation at work. Now I try always to pray for him about work, both before he leaves and during the day as it enters my mind. I even pray for his employees sometimes. This morning, though, I told him that I would pray about his situation, adding it to my list. He responded that that was his reason for calling. How could I pray if I didn't know?

Seems obvious to me that part of the power of prayer is in knowing that your burden is not yours alone. How lucky we are if we have a network of people to pray for us. But even if we don't, we still have God. Jesus promised us this when he said in Matthew 11:28, (NIV)

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Important Happenings on July 20

2005-07-20T14:18:00.000-05:00

1925-My mother was born.

1969-Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.

1997-My nephew Graham was born.

MSN - News - 'Star Trek' Icon Doohan Dies

2005-07-20T14:16:00.000-05:00

MSN - News - 'Star Trek' Icon Doohan Dies

May he rest in peace.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman

2005-07-20T05:28:00.000-05:00

Seems I am on a roll here.

After sending my daughter the book THESE IS MY WORDS because I thought it applied to her life and is about an overcomer, she called and asked me to rent DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN because she thought it pertained to her life. To tell you the truth, the movie had interested me when it came out, but I knew my husband would never go to the theater to see it, so I was going to wait for the video. He had things to do last night away from home. I rented the movie, and I am so glad that I did.

The story is about Helen, who has been married to a successful lawyer for eighteen years. In the beginning of the movie, she tells her diary that she might be able to bring herself to leave him were it not for the fact that she remembers the good times. One night, she goes with her husband to a dinner where he is honored for his achievements. He says all the right words from the podium, including giving credit to his wife of eighteen years. The next day, their anniversary, he throws her out of their mansion in favor of his mistress, with whom he has fathered two children.

Helen signed a prenuptial agreement, so she has nothing. Nothing but herself, the support of her family and faith. Turns out she also has a man, the same one who drove the U-Haul containing her belongings away from her husband's mansion. It takes Helen a while to give up on her husband, though. He is shot in the courtroom and abandoned by everyone he thought he had. She goes to help him recover, but she has some anger to work out in the process.

I thought one of the best lines of the movie was when Helen was contemplating her new love and said to herself that she had at least one thing to thank her ex-husband for. If he had not been so horrible, she might not have known what a good man would be like.

I don't know what kind of reviews this movie got generally, but from me it gets two thumbs up. Here's to overcomers, female and male, everywhere.

These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 Arizona Territories

2005-07-19T18:02:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine lent me this book by Nancy E. Turner. She was worried that I would not want to stick with it since it is not on the best sellers' list, but it has won my heart.

This book is inspired by the memoirs of one of Turner's ancestors who settled the Arizona Territory. She takes her readers along with teenage Sarah as she watches her brother and father die and lives through numerous attacks by Indians. She rescues her soon-to-be sister-in-law from rapists. She outshoots most of the men on the wagon train with which she travels. Sarah faces rattlesnakes and murderers. And she survives.

I enjoyed watching Sarah Prine grow up. I knew she loved Jack Elliot long before she did, and I was sad when she married Jimmy Reed instead. I cried with her when Jimmy's last words were that he loved Ruthanne-not his wife. I cried again when she knew the sweetness of being loved back.

Although young women today do not have to fight Indians or build houses, a lot of the struggles that Sarah went through are similar to today's struggles. She wants to be married and to be loved. She is tired when she is taking care of the house and her babies. Her husband travels and she is lonely.

I liked this book so much that I ordered one and had it sent to my daughter. She also had a bad first marriage. I think the book will give her hope. Every woman deserves her Captain Jack Elliot. Some of us were lucky enough to find them the first time around. Some of us need help in knowing what to look for.

Thank you, Nancy Turner, for a fine book.

Fels-Naptha Soap

2005-07-18T13:49:00.000-05:00

When I was a little girl, my mom had this all-purpose soap called Fels-Naptha. We never washed with it, but it was Mom's remedy for any stain, and when I got poison ivy or oak (which I did quite regularly), she would make a lather of it and let it dry to dry up the blisters. It worked, too.

When I became a wife and mom, Fels-Naptha was a part of my household. Since my husband works for the railroad, he often came home with stains on his clothes, and the Fels generally took it out. It was also good for washing my son's neck one summer. I only remember one summer when he was resistant to washing, but Fels took the grime off before church.

One bar of Fels lasts a long time, so I only bought one at a time. A partially used bar moved from Ohio to Indiana with me six years ago, and since I am now without stain-making children and my husband does more supervising than laboring, it took it this long to get down to chips. No problem, right? I would just go out and buy another bar.

Wrong! Even though I live in a rather small city, I thought that certainly the local supermarkets would carry Fels, but they did not. I looked everywhere. I even tried to convince myself that I would get the same stain-removing power with Lava, but it didn't turn out that way.

So I resorted to the net, and I am now the proud owner of two bars of Fels-Naptha that will probably last me until I don't care about stains anymore unless we retire close to the grandkids. The Vermont Country Store had them; two bars cost a little over six dollars. With shipping, it was a little over twelve dollars.

I know that's a lot to pay for two bars of soap, but I can't tell you all the memories that came back when I opened that box and smelled it. That is just another bonus to add to the fact that I know that it works.

I don't have anything against trying new or improved products, but I will be sad if Fels disappears completely. It is sad to see old products go by the wayside when they do a good job.

Politics at McDonald's

2005-07-18T09:45:00.000-05:00

My dad, who is eighty, is a Republican. Now I know that lots of people, including me, are Republicans, but Dad happens to live in Toledo, Ohio, which is rabidly....Democrat. This is due, in part, to the less than impartial news that is printed by the local newspaper, the Toledo Blade. Dad says that the Republican Party has, in effect, been shut down in Toledo. It is not safe to bring up your political views because people start yelling. If you are Republican that is. If you are a Democrat, it's fine.

So yesterday, my dad stopped for breakfast at McDonald' on his way to church. Two men in the McDonald's were reading the Blade and discussing the fact that George Bush and all Republicans are liars. Loudly. So loudly that they could be heard throughout the restaurant. Their discussion annoyed my father. It probably annoyed a lot of people in the restaurant, but nobody was going to say so because that other party (the Republicans) are not looked upon kindly in Toledo.

Have you noticed that as you get older, you lose patience with some of the dumb stuff that happens in life? I am thirty years younger than my father, and I have already noticed this in my life.

As the men were talking, an African-American (is that the current politically correct term?) man entered the restaurant and seated himself near them. They tried to include him in their conversation thinking, I guess, that he would be a Democrat. Woe to them, though. The man was a Republican, and he said so. He tried to give them some soft answers, but they weren't having it. Finally, he told the men that he doubted they would even have liked Abraham Lincoln. Well, they didn't, and they proceeded to tell the whole restaurant why.

Dad had had enough, and in a loud voice he said that he had political views too, and he figured he should be able to state them as loudly as the two men. That shut them up, he said, for maybe a minute and then they went on. After my dad's comment, the man behind him chuckled and said that he was glad he was a Canadian. I was just worried because being Republican in Toledo has started fist fights. What if the men had followed my dad to his car? What if he put a Republican sign in his yard for the mayoral election? Would his house get egged?

People are always going to have different opinions about politics, I know. But it does create a bad situation when the local media are so obviously slanted. I learned this when I was a freshman in high school on the debate team. We were debating the judicial system, and as I researched both sides, I found to my surprise that the platform for objections is built in to the system. In the courtroom in particular, it doesn't matter if you are telling the truth or not. Who cares if the judge tells people to disregard what you have said? You said it, and you planted an idea in people's mind.

I learned this again when I went back to school for my teaching credentials. Professors stated over and over again that you had to avoid the appearance of impropriety, whether you were female or male. Especially since my certification was secondary, I should never transport students without another adult present and never, ever, should I have a student in my room with the door closed or when we both were not in full view of the open door. Why? Because the charge of impropriety will ruin a teacher whether it is proved false at a later time or not.

I know that the reporting of news and politics itself is big business. But I still think there should be an effort to report both sides fairly. Not that I think it will happen in a country as big and as political as ours. But I think it is something we should work toward.

Certainly, an eighty-year-old man should be free either to express his opinion or to eat his breakfast in peace. That "liberty and justice for all" that we remind ourselves of when we say the Pledge of Allegiance applies to Republicans as well as to Democrats.

The Great Blue Heron, the Turkey Buzzards and the Ring-Necked Pheasant

2005-07-17T19:14:00.000-05:00

It appears that I have a thing about birds.

It all started this year with the Great Blue Heron. He is a pretty bird, and it appears that he knows he has an audience. He makes his appearances along the Mississinewa River in Matter Park. To tell you the truth, I had avoided Matter Park for a couple of years before I saw him, preferring Paradise Spring in Wabash instead. People in Matter Park do not keep their dogs on leashes and then proceed to tell you how friendly they are while they are growling at you. It annoys me.

Anyway, the fact that the heron actually appears to show off amuses me, so I have been walking in the hope of seeing him. Most days I do. He is most impressive when he is fishing and the sun is shining on his feathers. Not so much when he is walking, though. Then, the way his neck moves makes him look like the dinosaurs that spit poison in Jurassic Park.

As I was looking for the Great Blue Heron the other day, I spotted some turkey buzzards. I wasn't sure what they were at first; they were huge and they were landing on a little island in the middle of the river. I went closer for a better look. I had to find a break in the brush, but I got to study them for a while. They looked like turkeys with the red thing (wattle?) under their chins, but a lot uglier. That's what made me decide they were turkey buzzards and not wild turkeys. Some people around here call them turkey vultures, but I think that is the same thing. They creeped me out. As if they sensed I was watching them, all six of them turned at the same time to watch me. Reminded me of the seagulls in FINDING NEMO going, "Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine...." I moved along.

I have been wary of birds since I had a close encounter with a ring-necked pheasant when we lived in Ohio. I know they are supposed to make an elegant meal, but I can't hear their call without getting cold chills.

See, I had surgery on my neck about nine years ago, and the doctor said I should put zinc oxide, the kind of stuff that life guards put on their nose, on the scar if I went out in the sun. He said it would fade faster if it didn't tan. I am female, so I come with a certain amount of vanity. I wanted the scar to fade, but I thought the zinc oxide on my neck looked stupid. My solution was to put the zinc oxide on and walk down my country road early in the morning when theoretically nobody would see me.

I had watched the pheasants for quite some time. A lot of them nested near the graveyard at the end of our road, and I almost always took a turn through the graveyard. On this particular morning, though, I heard a pheasant way before I saw it. She was out by the road, and she was obviously upset. I didn't think her being upset could have anything to do with me. I wasn't near any trees, and that's where birds make their nests, right? So I couldn't possibly have been near her nest.

Wish I could have reasoned with her! She dive-bombed me for what seemed like a hundred feet! I couldn't figure it out, and having seen Hitchcock's THE BIRDS, it really scared me. During her attack, I kept walking toward the graveyard instead of backing up to get away from her, so I felt dumb because now I had to go by her again. She was obviously wacko, and I had no idea what I had to do with it.

I began to wonder. I did have that ring of zinc oxide on my neck. Did the bird just think I was the biggest ring-necked pheasant she had ever seen? If so, no wonder she felt threatened. Not that I was any less fearful of the walk home.

I walked on the other side of the road to get home, and the bird harassed me, but she didn't fly as close as she had on my way down the street. Still, I was glad to get by that turn in the road. Then there were a bunch of birds on the big chicken coop (and it WAS big; it had two stories and was about 150 X 40). Yuck!

My best friend lives down that road, and her dad often hunted. When I told her about the dive-bombing episode, she laughed and laughed. Turns out ring-necked pheasants nest on the ground, so I may very well have been near her nest. That didn't change my opinion of pheasant, though. I would just as soon see one under glass as along the road after that little episode.

Wouldn't want to see that happen to the heron, though. And as pretty as I think he is, he is a big bird, and I'd rather not be any closer to him than I have been.

As long as he stays in the river and I stick to my trail, we'll be fine.

Do You Have to Be Smart to Be Wealthy?

2005-07-16T14:17:00.000-05:00

I had this discussion with my eighty-year-old father recently. I was sort of irritated because someone I barely knew made the comment that she was surprised that my husband and I were as smart as we were. She knew we both had college degrees, and while I know that not all people who get degrees are what I would call smart, having the piece of paper does presuppose a certain level of intelligence.

I am sort of prejudiced against people who have money, mostly because the ones I know who have money flaunt it. I have been bothered by this for a long time. My friend Kathy and I back in Ohio used to talk about the people who had $100,000 houses (back then that was a lot of house) but no furniture to put in them. At least they had the show. Then I went back to college and read The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie. That just ticked me off.

As far as I am concerned, the Gospel of Wealth espoused social Darwinism. I haven't looked at the writing in a while, but the main gist of it seemed to me to be that Carnegie had wealth because he was smart. Since he was wealthy, he felt an obligation to share his wealth with those less fortunate than he, but I didn't get the feeling that he did it just to help. It was more because those poor saps who didn't have money weren't intelligent enough to make it. His obligation was because he was smarter.

Now, I know that Andrew Carnegie was smart, and there is no doubt that he was a philanthropist. I myself have enjoyed many years of using public libraries, for which I have him to thank. I also have no quarrel with the idea that he should have been the keeper for his wealth. I mean, he made it after all. Where I have the problem is that he was better than anybody he helped because he had more money.

My father pointed out a relative that we have who is a retired VP of Lever Brothers. He has a lot of money. There is no doubt that he is smart. But my father is fluent in three languages and has the true mind of a linguist. Is he less intelligent just because he chose to teach? Did he contribute less to society? True, society as a whole did not benefit from my father's efforts the way they did from Carnegie's, but I have seen him interact with former students, and I KNOW he has made a difference.

Maybe the answer lies in how you assess your wealth. I have noticed that two relatives with whom I have been fairly close assess their wealth in possessions. I assume this is at least partly because they have never had children and so have no other way to measure what they have. My father pointed out that Bill Clinton is both intelligent and wealthy, and I do not dispute either his intelligence or his monetary wealth. After all, the man was a Rhodes scholar. And he served two terms as the president of this country. But his private problems were made painfully public, and I wonder if he is wealthy in the way I would count wealth.

See, although I will admit that I like my creature comforts, I count my wealth in the memories, for instance, that I have of my mother. My mother was a very quiet, gentle Christian woman, and she taught me a lot, specifically about patience. She and I may have had words, but when she went to heaven, we had settle things between us. The only regret I feel is that I ever caused her grief, and I know that she forgave me.

Or what about my husband? As far as I am concerned, I am wealthy just because I am married to him. He is in actuality very shy, and sometimes I wonder how we ever got together, but I have watched him blossom as a man and as a father over the years, and I count myself blessed to be his wife.

The Bible says you should store up your treasure in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and thieves do not break through and steal (Matthew 6:19,20). I may not have a lot of wealth in the way the world counts it, but I think mine is the kind that lasts. And I probably shouldn't judge how other people count their wealth. Who am I to know what sorrows they have felt along the way and why their wealth might be counted in a more material way than my own?

I guess, maybe, that I have answered my own question. Maybe you do have to be smart to have a lot of money.

But you don't have to be smart to be rich.

Changing Gracefully

2005-07-13T11:52:00.000-05:00

Before we start, here is the dictionary defintion of graceful. Just so you know where I am coming from:

1. Characterized by beauty of movement, style, form, or execution

2. Suggesting taste, ease, and wealth

Now that we have that out of the way, I should tell you that this isn't me really. It is an artist's rendering of how I look made from a picture that my son submitted to somewhere. I like it, but I don't look quite that way to myself, and I don't wear glasses anymore. Still. Lately, I feel more like this picture.

See, my life IS changing. First of all, I am learning how to wear make-up. Not bad for a person of my advanced years! I am still not real confident about applying it, but I am getting better. My husband originally said he thought the eyeshadow just made me look tired, but the more I wear it, the more he likes it.

I have a new job. Now, some people think I am absolutely insane to give up a position as a salaried teacher to work as an hourly paraprofessional (translation: teacher's aid). However, I have always felt a really strong pull both to maintain a continuous work history and to be there for my family, and I think that this job will satisfy both those needs. Sure, I really would rather make more money. But I'd rather have the time and energy to devote to my family, too, and at this point in my life it does not appear that I can have both. I am a little sad to be leaving the friends I made in the local school system, but the friendships were largely professionally based, and I will make new ones. Maybe stronger ones.

I know that the changes in my life are good because not only am I happy, but my husband is happy too. He is singing songs along with the radio to me, something he has not done in quite a while. And flirting. I know all you twenty-somethings think that people our age do NOT flirt, but you're wrong. Your body gets older. Hopefully you get wiser. But when you are fifty-plus, your head still often thinks that you are twenty and wonders why your body can't keep up.

I started this year of my life wondering about a lot of things: how it would feel to get the application for my AARP card, how I actually got to be a grandma, where the gray hair came from. But underneath all that, I am still growing. And I am still me.

That's a good thing.

Food for Thought

2005-07-13T05:16:00.000-05:00

"An ordering of society which relegates religion,
democracy and good faith among nations to the background
can find no place within it for the ideals of the Prince
of Peace. The United States rejects such an ordering and retains its ancient faith."

-- President Franklin Roosevelt, 1939

114 Pleasant Street, Fairmont, WVA

2005-07-12T08:26:00.000-05:00

My cousin found this photo of our mothers at a garage sale.

When she and I were little, the aunt we saw the most was Aunt Jeanette. She was our mothers' older (not oldest) sister. Mom and Aunt Pat were numbers six and seven out of seven

Aunt Jeanette had two kids, a boy and a girl, but I didn't know them very well or see them very often. They were eighteen years and more older. She was a widow too, something I didn't know much about when I was young. I thought it seemed tragic and romantic. Her husband died in WWII. Aunt Jeanette lived up State Street in Fairmont, on a little street called Pleasant Street. She didn't live at the top of the hill, and I actually had a great-aunt who lived farther up, on the corner of Satterfield Street and State Street.

Directly up the hill there was an orphanage, also tragic and romantic to a reader like me. I don't think I actually ever saw any kids from the orphanage close up, but I did see the horses and the cows that they kept because the barbed wire for the pasture adjoined Aunt Jeanette's property.

There were wide stone steps that led up to her porch which, when I was little, had not been enclosed. The wide stone steps were great for jumping up and down, and in the summer Aunt Jeanette usually had nieces and nephews at her house doing just that. I can't tell you how many hours I spent swinging on that porch. Before it was enclosed, its ledges were wide and great for sitting on.

At the side of the house, there was always a huge garden. This was planted by Aunt Jeanette and Uncle Finley. Actually, they didn't get married until some time in the sixties, but Finley was at Aunt Jeanette's house so often that I always thought Finley was my uncle anyway. He had something called a familial tremor, which made his hands shake. He taught Industrial Arts, and he loved to work with wood. It always intrigued me to watch him because, despite the tremor, his creations were so beautiful.

Having been raised during the Depression, Aunt Jeanette was big on canning, but I think she and Finley would have had the garden anyway because he loved to grow things. He had a lot of flowers, too, and there was a big grape arbor behind the house. The summer I was ten, I spent two weeks with Aunt Jeanette, and I spent a lot of my time lying on my back and watching the sky through the leaves of the grape arbor.

You know how sometimes when you visit people, you remember their living room the most? For instance, my great Uncle Ulysses had a stuffed porcupine in his living room, so you know where I was when I visited him. In Aunt Jeanette's house, it was always the kitchen that drew us. She always had a pot of coffee on, and if you listened, you could learn a lot about the family. Of course, being children we often interpreted the things we heard wrongly, but still, the information was there.

My mother's parents lived in Aunt Jeanette's house after my grandma was diagnosed with hardening of the arteries (which my cousin and I now believe to be Alzheimer's). It was there that they celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary the summer that I was eight. I still remember seeing my grandma come down the stairs. She knew that the celebration was for her, but she didn't really know why. When one of my aunts told her, she looked at my grandfather and stated, "That can't be him. The man I married had hair!"

When I was little, you could walk from Aunt Jeanette's house to the farm where my parents were married. Later on, I-79 interfered with that walk. Now it is being extended, and Aunt Jeanette's house fell into its path. Aunt Jeanette died from Alzheimer's quite some time ago in the late eighties and Finley lived on in the house. Then this spring Finley had an intestinal problem and died. He was over eighty, and sometimes I think he gave up because he couldn't stand the thought of moving. He had planted a garden, but he knew that the move was inevitable.

One of my cousins is the executor of Finley's estate, and he decided to have a garage sale to take care of the household items. His sister, who lives in Maryland attended, and she called me about it last night. She was appalled at the way things had been put together and at the people pawing through family things. I would have been too. That's why I try not to go to those things. She got some furniture that had belonged to our grandparents, and she found loads of pictures. One of them shows my mother standing up for her mother at her wedding.

The garage sale did not go well, in part because my cousin told people a lot of things were not available. She was right, I think. The family should have the chance to go through things before the public does. Just because of the age of the people who lived there, there were a lot of antiques which could generate a lot of money and really shouldn't be sold for a buck or two. But mostly it is the family things that interest me. I have a baby afghan that Aunt Jeanette made for my son and a big one that she made for me. That is where my memories lie.

Time-line-wise, we are not on this earth for very long, but it is still hard to watch progress devour things that were important to us. It saddens me that Aunt Jeanette's house will be demolished for the highway. It is the end of an era for my cousin as well, and she has made the decision to move to WVA when she retires. She says that the hills call her. Maybe if she moves back to Fairmont, they will call me the way they once did. All of the things we do, all of the places that we go and the people with whom we interact, make us what we are. The house at 114 Pleasant Street will live on in my cousin's and my memories, and maybe that is all that counts in the long run anyway.

Company

2005-07-11T08:29:00.000-05:00

My husband and I were blessed with company this weekend.

Since we moved, we have done a lot of traveling. For us, road trips are enjoyable. Even at $2.39 a gallon for gas. Even so, it was nice not to be the one who drove.

We are thankful that we have relationships with our son and his wife and our daughter. One of the saddest things I have done is talk to other parents of children the age of ours and hear that their children don't call or don't write unless they want something. These parents, sadly, are relieved when they do NOT hear from their children. Ron and I tried hard to treat our children as people, even when they were small. We know it is hard for them to balance their family and work commitments and visit us.

One of the blessings of their visits is, of course the grandchildren. We took our own road trip yesterday, and at almost every rest stop we saw grandparents, not parents, with grandchildren. We have discussed this a lot, and we think we see this because grandparents actually have the time to spend with their grandchildren. Young people today are busy surviving.

The house seems empty when everyone leaves, and it often takes me a while to pick up all the toys and wash the fingerprints off the windows. This is not because I am lazy, although housework is certainly not my favorite thing to do. It is because the memory of the ones I love is sweet, and I want it to last as long as it can.

Family.org - CitizenLink - FNIF News - Cost of Government Day Just Passed

2005-07-07T18:58:00.000-05:00

Family.org - CitizenLink - FNIF News - Cost of Government Day Just Passed

Sobering thought, isn't it?

Spouses and Worry

2005-07-07T13:37:00.000-05:00

When I was younger, I worried about losing my husband, but in a really general way, like that it COULD happen, but we were young and it didn't happen very often. He used to travel a lot, and a railroad newsletter he received talked about a railroad employee who was found dead in a motel room. He had knocked the phone off. Evidently he was reaching for it. That gave me cold chills, and I have to admit that I do not like to leave my husband alone because of that story. And yes, I do know that when his time comes, my being there will not postpone it.

Anyway, the worry gets different when you get older and all of a sudden you know a lot of men your husband's age or thereabouts who die suddenly and unexpectedly. Now I don't think that it COULD happen. I know that it will, and while I feel for the people I know who have lost spouses, I look at my own and thank God he is still here.

Should have had that attitude when I was younger.

Youth, Loneliness

2005-07-07T07:53:00.000-05:00

My daughter just told me about a conversation she had with my niece who is eighteen and lonely. My niece's mom, my oldest sister, became ill when Lillie was twelve, so she has been without an older woman/mentor for a lot of the years of her development. I try to help, but being in a different state doesn't make it easy. I am glad she and my daughter have found each other.

Anyway, I think she is searching for reasons that her family life evolved the way it did. She loves to hear stories about my sister before she was married, although she cannot imagine her mom in a two-piece bathing suit with lots of boyfriends. I can relate to that. At a niece's wedding, I did a couple of dance moves to an old song and my daughter looked at me in shock. I immediately quit. Not motherly, I guess. Since then I have come to think that you have a better relationship with your parents as an adult if you can see them as people.

Anyway, my niece is currently "best-friend-less," and in a time when she might have turned to my sister if things had turned out differently, she can't. My daughter, with the wisdom of all twenty-five of her years, told Lillie that you can make ten friends before you make a good one, that that's the way life is, but she could not have advised her cousin in that way when she was, say.....nineteen. It is a lesson, I think, that you learn.

My office-mate last year had a sister who is profoundly deaf. The sister was complaining at a family gathering about how lonely her deafness made her. My office-mate's husband had enough, and he told the sister so. He said loneliness was part of the human condition. He had not married until he was thirty-eight, and until then, he was lonely.

I don't think loneliness is ever easy, and it has been a constant surprise to me that you can be lonely even if there are people all around you. I wish there was a way that I could make such things easier for my niece.

Was Madeleine L'Engle Right?

2005-07-06T08:19:00.000-05:00

Is time wrinkled? Does kairos matter more than chronos?

I know, of course, that she is not the first one to postulate folds in time. But the older I get, the more evidence I see of such things.

My father really misses my mom around the Fourth of July. She enjoyed the holiday, and she and dad most often came to our house so that we could go see fireworks with the kids. I do like fireworks, but Dad is right; they are more fun when you have kids around.

My dad talked a lot about my mom. He was married to her for fifty-three years before she died, and I thought for sure that he would get married again soon after her passing. I was wrong. The reason, he says, is that the women who show interest in him "that way" are too bossy. This is the same father who says he misses Mom's "timely" reminders."

What I miss is her presence, and like my dad, I feel her absence most during the holidays. My grandsons got to see fireworks for the first time, and I remember going to the Wauseon, Ohio fireworks display when my son was not quite two and his sister was seven months old. The fireworks didn't bother my daughter, but my son did NOT like the noise, and he sure let us know about it! I remember my mom holding my son trying to quiet him, and I marvel how things have changed in twenty-five years. Can it really be so long ago?

My daughter has, in some respects, taken over the role I played with my mom. She is no longer a little girl; I think I have come to grips with that. But now she watches out for my comfort more than her own. She takes pleasure in doing things for me that she knows I would not do for myself. When I was younger, I did this by taking my mom out to eat every payday. My daughter did the manicure/pedicure thing.

It doesn't seem that long ago that I did those things for my mom. It does not seem so long ago that she held my son and comforted him. She has been with the Lord for nine years now, and the Fourth of July before she died, when my teenage children saw to her comfort as we sat outside for a fireworks display seems like yesterday.

It is comforting to think that time is connected in wrinkles. It keeps the people that we love alive. I am convinced that time-line time does not matter in the long run, although it matters what you do with the time allotted to you. Those memories of times with my mom were spent in real time, kairos, where the ticking of the clock did not matter at all. I think she would be (or is, since she is one of the great cloud of witnesses) pleased with the memories we have of her, pleased that she was a faithful servant. And I am thankful for the little everyday wrinkles in time that let me catch glimpses of her until I see her again in heaven.

Songs and Tears

2005-07-03T18:21:00.000-05:00

You know how some songs just bring tears to your eyes? So it is with Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American." The sons of a local Social Studies teacher, ages 8 and 10, sang it in front of our congregation this morning. Unlike some other churches where I have been a member, we were free to offer them a "clap offering." Their offering, at least for me, was extremely poignant because I looked at them and wondered if they will experience the freedom that I have been privileged to have for as much of their lives as I have had it.

The words of Lee Greenwood's song appear below in case your memory needs refreshed.

Artist: Lee Greenwood
Title: Proud To Be An American

If tomorrow all the things were gone,
I'd worked for all my life.
And I had to start again,
with just my children and my wife.

I'd thank my lucky stars,
to be livin here today.
'Cause the flag still stands for freedom,
and they can't take that away.

And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

From the lakes of Minnesota,
to the hills of Tennessee.
Across the plains of Texas,
From sea to shining sea.

From Detroit down to Houston,
and New York to L.A.
Well there's pride in every American heart,
and it's time we stand and say.

That I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

And I'm proud to be and American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

Food for Marital Thought

2005-07-02T18:50:00.000-05:00

I heard a good teaching on the radio concerning I Corinthians 13. It was either on Hope for the Heart or Revive Our Hearts; I can't remember which. Anyway, it came to mind because of what I heard in the beauty parlor on Wednesday. Women all like to talk, and they like to say things about their spouses or significant others like, "If only he'd...."

The point of the talk that I heard was to look to yourself. The speaker felt that women in particular like to quote I Corinthians 13 to their husbands as a means of pointing out their shortcomings. You know: if only you were patient, if only you were kind. And so on. She thought it would be better to substitute your own name in these verses and see if you are doing what you should be doing. Is Becky patient? Is Becky kind? Hmmmmm. Changes your perspective, if you know what I mean.

I Corinthians 13:4-8 is listed below. Substitute your name and see if you are being the spouse you were meant to be.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails

Darn That Manspeak!

2005-07-01T12:38:00.000-05:00

My husband came by after a frustrating morning with his assistant yet again, and what did I do? I reacted as a woman which, of course, is natural to me because I AM a woman, but it isn't very helpful to my husband.

I prayed a lot between his initial phone call and when he came by because my first reaction was not helpful to him at all. He needs to do what he thinks is right, but the task is made doubly hard for him because he is a middle child and he tries to make everybody happy. That's fine with me except when trying to make everybody happy makes him sick.

Well, the good Lord intervened, and through an unusual sequence of phone calls, he got the opinions of his two immediate supervisors and felt better. I am so glad, but I have to admit I don't get manspeak sometimes. Especially the part where the squeakiest wheel gets its way whether it is right or not, but maybe that is genderless. My first impulse is to tell my husband what I think he should do when really all he needs me to do is listen.

Many Thanks to the Great and Wonderful Finder of All Things Except Her Own

2005-06-30T15:41:00.000-05:00

....who is otherwise known as my daughter, Jill. She found the Philip Yancey book that I got for my birthday and misplaced shortly thereafter.

I like to read Philip Yancey, but his books give me a headache if I read too much of them at one time. He includes quotes like this one from Martin Luther:

"Even in the best of health, we should have death before our eyes [so that] we will not expect to remain on this earth forever but will have one foot in the air, so to speak."

Such things are certainly worth pondering. But they are awfully deep.

Fixed on My Feet

2005-06-30T09:35:00.000-05:00

I am not proud of it, but yesterday, my attention was on my feet. I am that way sometimes. I have had my quiet time today, and my goal is to set my sights higher. I would like to say that I was fixated on my feet because I was having my first ever manicure/pedicure, but actually, my feet have gotten my attention intermittently for a long time

See, my feet are big. I am tall, so you may not think that is abnormal, but back in the sixties, it was hard to find pretty size twelve shoes. I was teenage, and that is what I wanted. I had corrective surgery on my right foot in both seventh and eighth grade. The surgery was a blessing because it took away the pain when I walked, but the right foot ended up completely flat and, well....ugly. For a while I had to wear corrective shoes, and the only thing that was available in my size was red. My mom, knowing that I hated them, dyed them for me, but I sometimes limp when I walk, and I managed to scrape the dye off the heels so that the red showed through.

I have to say that my parents really tried. When I was about to start high school, we couldn't find any pretty shoes in Toledo in my size, so my mom ordered a catalog from New York that had large sizes. I had pretty shoes to start school. I didn't realize until I was a parent what a sacrifice those shoes were for my parents. I started high school in 1969. Those shoes cost $50. That was a lot of money even then.

I like shoes. It is summer, and people wear so many pretty sandals and slip-ons. My Sunday School teacher, who is just a little older than I and hails from California, has a whole collection of them. Plus, she always wears an ankle bracelet. Always. I like the ankle bracelet, but I never saw the sense in putting one above my ugly right foot.

Anyway, right before the pedicure, my daughter and I had lunch with my friend Donna. Donna is just a little older than I am, but she has had RA about ten years longer. I have to admit, sometimes I am fearful when I look at how the disease has ravaged her body. I wonder if that is what the future holds for me.

Donna has a lot of problems with her feet, and she was telling my daughter about them. My daughter works in a physical therapy clinic, and she knows a lot about such things. Donna still wears corrective shoes, not the New Balance that you see on so many people our age who are on their feet. I had a pair of slides on in preparation for the pedicure, so I stuck my right foot, the really ugly one out, and said, "Come on, Donna. It can't be worse than that." RA has caused the toes on my right foot to drift outward. The second toe actually manages to be under the big toe most of the time now.

Donna continued to explain. I listened. Maybe it was worse than that.

Soon we were on our way to the beauty shop. They weren't quite ready for me, and I told the other technician in the office that I wasn't sure a pedicure would help my ugly feet. She looked down and studied my feet, really studied them. "Honey," she said. "those aren't ugly feet at all. Not at all."

It was a young woman who worked on my feet, and she really did work, for almost two hours. The whole thing started with a foot soak. My feet were in and out of that soak several times. They probably had more lotion on them yesterday than I have put on in ten years. And how did I get to be fifty and not know that people actually use emery boards on their toenails? My feet were dipped in paraffin and then wrapped in plastic bags. My previous exposure to paraffin was to make candles before it was deemed unsafe and to top jelly before the boiling bath became the recommended method. Then this young woman, without any repugnance at all, massaged my feet, even the ugly flat one. And it was heavenly! I didn't think my feet were even particularly tired, but I felt muscles relaxing anyway. The pedicure ended with a careful application of not one, but three coats of brightly-colored polish to all of my toenails, even the toe that manages to hide under the big toe on my right foot.

All this brings back memories of another time I was fixated on feet. I was teaching junior high at a Catholic school, and I saw my first foot washing. Lutherans are not big on foot washing, although I know that some other denominations are. My school did a lot of dramatizations during the weekday masses, and this foot washing occurred during Holy Week.

The priest we had was a small man, well into his sixties. I never will forget how it felt to watch him take off his outer ceremonial robe and stand there in his tunic. He picked up a towel and draped it around the rope belt at his waist.

Before him sat twelve great big eighth grade boys.

Father Wilhelm knelt and got to work. Oh so gently, he picked up each boy's feet, left and then right, and dipped them into his basin of water. He dried them with the towel that was draped at his waist. When that got too wet, he began to use his tunic. The boys squirmed and looked decidedly uncomfortable. The small children in the mass were silent as they watched.

What is it that's so humbling about having another person care for dirty, smelly, downtrodden and sometimes downright ugly feet?

It brings tears to my eyes remembering the look on my daughter's face as she watched me watch what was happening. It gave her great pleasure to see me smile at a part of my anatomy I would usually rather not look at. For her, the pedicure was an act of love. Just like the foot washing was for Father Wilhelm and, of course, for Jesus. And just like the squirmy eighth grade boys and the dusty uncomfortable apostles, it was my job to receive. Therein, I am convinced, lies my lesson. Jesus, Father Wilhelm, my daughter. They all said pretty much the same thing. It is not about me. It is about Him, the Author and Finisher of all things.

Abba, help me to keep my eyes on You, the rock that is higher than I. Not on my feet.

The Firefly Who Lost His Light

2005-06-29T20:40:00.000-05:00

I found this poem at 4to40.com

There sure were a lot of fireflies out when I took my walk tonight. I don't remember seeing wo many since I was a child. My children never caught them like I did. We were afraid the mosquitoes in the country would carry them away if we let them out after dark!

Poems: The Firefly who lost his Light

Freddie Firefly, late one night
Discovered he had lost his light.
And while the others danced about
He sat and cried, "My light's gone out!"
No one heeded Freddie's cry
As gaily they went flitting by.
Freddie sadly crawled along
And wondered where his light had gone.
The moon cast moonbeams all around
And saw poor Freddie on the ground.
She asked him why he fretted so,
And Freddie told his tale of woe.
"Don't worry," said the kindly moon,
"You'll get your pretty light back soon.
Just fly into the moonbeams' glow-
The light will stick to you," and so
Freddie did as he was told.
The moonbeam bathed him all in gold.
His light shone brightly in the sky,
Once more a proper firefly.
A little torch up in the air,
He danced away without a care.
Poems: The Firefly who lost his Light

Today's Comment

2005-06-29T16:43:00.000-05:00

"I'm But a Stranger Here"
by T. R. Taylor, 1807-1835

1. I'm but a stranger here,
Heav'n is my home;
Earth is a desert drear,
Heav'n is my home.
Danger and sorrow stand
Round me on every hand;
Heav'n is my fatherland,
Heav'n is my home.

2. What though the tempest rage,
Heav'n is my home;
Short is my pilgrimage,
Heav'n is my home;
And time's wild wintry blast
Soon shall be overpast;
I shall reach home at last,
Heav'n is my home.

3. There at my Savior's side
Heav'n is my home;
I shall be glorified,
Heav'n is my home;
There are the good and blest,
Those I love most and best;
And there I, too, shall rest,
Heav'n is my home.

4. Therefore I murmur not,
Heav'n is my home;
Whate'er my earthly lot,
Heav'n is my home;
And I shall surely stand
There at my Lord's right hand.
Heav'n is my fatherland,
Heav'n is my home.

Hymn #660
The Lutheran Hymnal
Text: Hebrews 4:9
Author: Thomas R. Taylor, 1836, alt.
Composer: Arthur S. Sullivan, 1872
Tune: "Heaven Is My Home"
The Lutheran Hymnal Online

On Self-Renovation and Daughters

2005-06-28T13:58:00.000-05:00

I have had a lot of firsts the past few weeks. On Friday, June 10th, my right eye saw 20/20 for the first time probably ever. The next week, my left eye was only a little behind. There went the glasses that had been a part of my face for forty-four years! One of the first things I noticed, though, was that maybe a little cover-up (something I have never used, being a no make-up semi-hippie kind of person) would be in order. The blue under my eyes wasn't nearly as noticeable with my glasses.

The next thing I noticed was that pretty much everybody but me and one other much-older lady that I saw had nicely sculpted eyebrows. I had mine plucked, once, many moons ago, but I didn't think they looked too bad. Beside, behind the glasses they didn't really show, I didn't think, and I was waaaaaaaay too nearsighted to do anything about it anyway.

My daughter is visiting, and she knows that I have been noticing things about my face that I have never noticed before. On Sunday, we bought eye-shadow. This morning, she showed me how to put it on. She thinks I am going to use mascara too, but I don't know. You should have seen how my eyelids shook when I put on the shadow.

Then she decided that I should have my eyebrows waxed. She had to push me in the chair, and they are still red, but I think they look some better. They aren't any sorer than I remember the plucking being, and the whole process was a lot quicker.

Tomorrow, she bought me a manicure and a pedicure. We are going at 1:30. This is also something that I have never done before. I am thankful for her support. These are things that I would never have tried on my own, and although I realize most mothers teach their daughters about how such things work, that is just not the way it worked for us.

New bathroom accessories. New eyes. New eyebrows. Soon, I hope, a new job.

The second half of my life certainly is proving to be an adventure!

The Economy and Renovating the House

2005-06-27T13:51:00.000-05:00

We are not really renovating, just sprucing up a bit. We eloped when we got married, so we didn't get a lot of fancy gifts like some couples do. The early marriage stuff worked, though, so we kept using it.

That was OK until recently when, knowing I am currently jobless, I watched the price of basically everything creep up. And up. I don't like to think of myself as cheap. Just frugal. But the fact of the matter is that I am here alone a LOT since my husband works long hours, and how the house looks does matter to me.

I never bought a new set of matching bedroom anything until we moved into this house six years ago. I remember telling a friend that it griped my soul to pay over $200 for what I wanted, and she laughed at me. I don't want those kinds of things very often.

Right now I am in one of those moods where I do want some things for the house, and so I have purchased them. I got matching ceramic accessories for the master bedroom bath, and I got blue rugs and accessories for the guest bathroom. Altogether they cost almost as much as the six year old bedroom set. I was going to put the ones in the guest bathroom out to cheer myself up, but my husband doesn't want me to put them out unless we have, well, GUESTS, so that might be a while. In Marion, everybody pretty much meets at restaurants; they don't go over to one another's houses. At least not the people that we have met since we have been here.

I am now in the process of cleaning so I can put the new things out. That is why I am glad that my daughter is visiting. She, like her dad, is a whole to parts person. My son and I are, I think, parts to whole people, so we look at big jobs and sometimes get overwhelmed. My daughter is giving direction to my cleaning efforts and overseeing what she calls my pack-rat tendencies. That's OK with me. We downsized when we came to this house, and we might again when we retire. I don't need a lot of junk.

But I'm looking forward to see my new "junk" set out!

As for the Females in Our Family.....

2005-06-26T10:47:00.000-05:00

This is my daughter Jill with her brother and RJ. It is easy to see that the red hair is a genetic trait. She, however, most often does NOT display the temper for which redheads are famous.

Vacation Bible School

2005-06-25T19:32:00.000-05:00

I was "bag lady" at Vacation Bible School this week. It would take too long to explain to you what that is except that it involves paper bags with handles and an efficient means of getting information and crafts home.

Our count was 130+ on Monday and 140+ the rest of the week. The ages of the children were four to eleven. I always like doing this job even though I don't work directly with the kids because many of them are hungry for just one smile, and sometimes I am the one who is lucky enough to deliver it.

Our church spends a lot of money on VBS T-shirts, which is something I had not encountered in Ohio. All of the staff wear them as a means of identification; the kids wear them off and on. You might think that this is not a witness, just a sort of advertising for the church, but that is not what I think. Here's why. I have been out in the community when a small child will tell me that he knows me. I look at the child, and most of the time I do not remember him. But what does he say? "You put what I made in a bag." Oh, I think. Bible School. The child connected me with the location. Did my behavior toward him help connect him to the message?

Matthew 18:10 says you should "see that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven." I think of this when I am working at Bible School. That one smile might be the one that wins a little one over.

If you did't have time to work in VBS as a mom, do it as a grandma. For, as Matthew goes on to say in Chapter 18:14:

"Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish."

The Strength of Solitude - Christianity Today Magazine

2005-06-24T12:05:00.000-05:00

The Strength of Solitude - Christianity Today Magazine

This article from CHRISTIANITY TODAY is really good, and it gave me insight, I think, into the spiritual things that have been happening to me since we moved to Indiana.

When I lived in Ohio, I taught junior high and lived near both my children and miscellaneous other family. When we moved to Indiana, the closest family was suddenly three hours away. As we got established in the community, I spent a lot of time alone. I didn't know anyone, and my husband was busy learning his new job.

Two years after we moved, just as I felt I was getting settled, I was diagnosed with a chronic disease and I took an itinerant teaching job, one in which I have often been hungry for adult interaction. An itinerant teacher, by definition, moves from school to school. I had not thought that anyone could be more invisible than a substitute, but I know better now.

The end result of this was that I had time to think. I also had time to listen. And although I thought I had been sensitive to spiritual matters, I began to see them in a new way. I had a lot of time to listen to Christian radio as I drove from school to school, so I heard a lot of good teaching. I also had down time, so I had time to pray. Lots of time to pray. And I was reminded that prayer is a conversation. You don't just talk; you listen for an answer.

Ruth Haley Barton says in her article that "the quietness of solitude and silence was becoming an inner condition within which I was able to recognize and respond to the stirrings, the voice, the very Presence of God himself." I would have to agree.

The most recent change I have noticed, which I pray is not fleeting, is a change in my speech patterns. This is what Ruth Barton has to say about that:

"Our speech patterns are refined by the discipline of silence, because growing self-awareness enables us to choose more truly the words we say. Rather than speech that issues from subconscious needs to impress, to put others in their place, to compete, to control and manipulate, to repay hurt with hurt, we now notice our inner dynamics and choose to speak from a different place, a place of love, trust and true wisdom that God is cultivating within us."

I have caught myself being ready to fly off the handle but instead wondering how I could get some perspective without upsetting anyone. Some things resolve themselves if you deal with them calmly. And I think that I am slowly learning to listen for the needs of others, rather than breaking in with my own. I still have a ways to go, but once you are in motion, things are easier. At least I hope they are.

Ruth Barton goes on to say that without solitude, we are "at the mercy of our compulsions." I think that is true. It is sort of scary to be by yourself. You can either learn how to handle it, or you can seek out busyness to cover the noise of the quiet.

I have a friend who was recently widowed, and she is experiencing solitude in a much different way than I am. I am sure the experience is unique to the individual. I am not God, but I wonder if the purpose of solitude is not to learn to like it.

Maybe it's to get closer to God.

Insurance and My School System

2005-06-24T11:50:00.000-05:00

I just heard a nasty rumor and of course no one is in downtown to answer it. I don't know if they are not in because it is summer and a Friday or if the superintendent has finally managed to get rid of everyone.

The rumor that I heard was that if you resigned before June 30th, you would lose your insurance. I don't really see why that would be because I had insurance into August last year when I didn't think I had a job, but with the "cost-cutting" measures that our superintendent has invoked, one can never tell.

I resigned June 6th because that was when my resignation was requested. Actually, it was more demanded, though that demand was delivered in terms of supposedly friendly advice, that being that it would look better if I resigned in case I return to teaching instead of being terminated. The director of human resources said she would terminate me when my license expired.

I don't see how things could go wrong here. I mean, I have letters that say the school system recommended my rehire. It is just that, with all of the power stuff that appears to be going on in our school system, I don't trust them.

I paid my union dues, although I have never called upon the union. If this turns sour, I might.

The Demise of Bowman Pool and Roy C. Start High School as I Knew It

2005-06-23T19:25:00.000-05:00

BUILDING FOR SUCCESS

Roy C. Start High School

In 1965, the West Toledo YMCA built an outdoor, Olympic-sized outdoor swimming pool. I was ten. The pool had a shallow end, a deep end, a slide, an island, and a diving pool. It had Olympic race lanes where I swam many a quarter-mile. I walked to Bowman from my house, which was half a mile away, pretty much every day that it was open. The neighborhood kids and I would watch the weather report or call Time and Temperature to make sure that it had opened on iffy days. One of the nice things was that even when the weather was chilly, if it had been warm for a couple of days before, the water was still warm. I remember swimming at Bowman one fall weekend and hearing the cheers from the the football field at Roy C. Start High School next door.

I graduated from Start in 1973. I have to admit that high school was not a favorite part of my life, but still, I spent a lot of time walking to and from that school, attending classes and going to football games and basketball games. My older sister was a member of Start's first graduating class in 1965. She started high school at DeVilbiss High, from which our older brother graduated, but once Start was completed, our house was past the DeVilbiss line. She had to change schools.

Out of the two structures, I think I will miss Bowman more. It was a place to get away, a place where you could meet friends or be occupied all by yourself. The new, improved Start will have its own swimming pool. Will the kids who swim there hear echoes of the ones who swam at Bowman so long ago?

Equal Time for Baby Tony

2005-06-23T13:13:00.000-05:00

The Most Recent Male Addition to My Family

The Rons

2005-06-23T12:56:00.000-05:00

Three of the Most Important Men in My Life

I Saw One of These Today

2005-06-22T17:49:00.000-05:00

The Great Blue Heron

I live by the Mississinewa River in Indiana, and I like to walk in the river parks. I was surprised to see a heron, and I had to ask some older gentlemen what it was for sure (I am fifty; old is relative).

My pre-cataract surgery 20/40 eyes may have noticed the bird, but not the blue. I was so impressed with the blue. I had not realized that I was missing so much color. I even saw it catch a fish. The older gentlemen told me that herons are patient fishermen.

Just like Genesis says: God saw what He had created, and it is good.

The Wedding Invitation and Brothers-in-Law

2005-06-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

When I married my husband, he had four brothers. Seven years later he was down to three. This is what I remember about the day Tony died and the time that followed.

It was early April and it was chilly and gray, but I don't think it snowed. I was at my friend's house down the road when I saw a company truck pull in my driveway. I didn't think too much of it because my husband sometimes drove the company truck home; I just told my friend that was my signal to get going.

In a few minutes, though, the truck went past her house again and it was NOT my husband at the wheel. That didn't seem right. I hurried the kids into the car and went to investigate.

At the time we had a wood burning stove. When I entered the house, my husband was loading it. He did not turn to greet me as he usually would. That was odd. I asked him where his personal truck was, and he said that "they" brought him home. I told him I had seen the company truck and asked him again about his. Because he would not turn around, I imagined all sorts of things. You don't have to be a railroad wife for long before hearing the horror stories about injuries. The worst I could imagine was that my husband had been hurt and he wouldn't turn around because he was afraid I would freak when I saw. I was thirty; I probably would have. Not knowing was worse, though, so I went to him and turned him around.

"Ron," I said. "Where is your truck?"

NOTHING could have prepared me for his response, which was, "Tony got hit by a train today."

Most people think of railroad work as riding the trains, but there is really a lot more to it than that. My husband works in the track department, which maintains the tracks on which the trains run. He had been working on a production gang with his oldest brother, Tony.

As you can imagine, I was sort of in shock. My first question was, " Is he all right?"

My husband's response:"Oh, he's quite dead."

We were kneeling in front of the stove. With his announcement, my husband turned back to the stove.

Stupidly, I started with, "....Your truck....?"

His response: "They didn't think I should drive."

No duh!

At that point he couldn't talk about it. I asked him what I could do for him, and he asked me to find his father who had a bad habit of moving around to avoid his debtors. I set to work and finally, with the cooperation of a Florida sheriff and a Georgia sheriff, I found out where he was. The Georgia sheriff delivered the news.

I don't remember if I told the kids anything or not. They were five and six. I might have told them that Daddy needed them to be good. They always seemed to sense that, anyway.

About an hour later, Tony's wife called our house. She had just received the news of his death, and she knew that my husband was with the gang. She wanted to know if he had suffered. My husband thought it was quick. She wanted to know if he was in heaven. Tears ran down my husband's cheeks, although his voice never changed. Tony called himself an agnostic. My husband told his widow that no one knew what Tony was thinking in his last moments except God, so by the grace of God he was.

My father-in-law called from Georgia and told us he would be at our house the next day. So did the brother-in-law from California. I don't remember if the two local brothers called or not. They must have. Or maybe Ron called them. He didn't talk, though, and I didn't either. I just watched him and worried.

Tony died on a Monday. Ron did not sleep until Thursday night.

On Tuesday, because I knew he had not slept, I called our pastor, who came over. As they talked, I saw a tear run down my husband's cheek. He told our pastor that he should have been able to do something. After all, he was there. If he had blown the horn on his machine....

See, we had somehow gotten hold of these little powder blue circle stickers. That day, Ron had taken some in to work, maybe for Tony's oldest son Jay, who had just turned three. Tony had wanted some of the stickers on his hard hat to mark it, and Ron gave him some, which he very carefully stuck on. Did he know, somehow?

My sister-in-law wanted Ron to go with her to make the arrangements. I wasn't very happy about that because I knew he had not slept and he still wasn't talking, but he went. I had to take him to get his truck.

The wife of the California brother-in-law called. She wanted to know if Ron had cried yet. She said she kept at her husband until he did, and she thought I should do the same.

Her husband wasn't there.

The funeral was on Thursday, the first viewing on Wednesday. My sister-in-law, Tony's widow, wanted to see him. The funeral director was reluctant and said he would not open the casket unless someone would stand with her. My brothers-in-law, as always, looked to Ron. He turned green. The casket did not get opened.

The supervisor of the gang on which my husband and his brother were working showed up Wednesday night. By that time, I had found out some of what happened.

My brother-in-law was the foreman on this particular gang; my husband was running a piece of equipment. You know how tracks are often double, side-by-side? Well, they were lining (straightening) the track, and the piece of equipment that was supposed to do that had a malfunction, so my brother-in-law was on the side of the equipment between the two tracks, watching what the machine was doing. You aren't supposed to be on the side between the tracks, but he had a job to do and he was trying to get it done. Then a train went by on the other track. Most people don't know that two trains passing creates a sort of vacuum.

Somehow, that train caught Tony's sweatshirt and threw him. Fortunately, my husband was NOT running that piece of equipment. He saw the operator run by his machine and knew that something had happened, though.

I don't know where my brother-in-law landed; I have never asked, and it doesn't matter. I do know that his red sweatshirt, just like the one my husband wears, was up over his head. Or where his head should have been. I assume it was there, but there was a lot of damage.

When my husband went up to see what had happened, that is what he saw. Where he was, it was raining. He stood in the rain and stared at his brother's body. I think he said somebody covered it finally. Then "crazy" Ralph took my husband away to sit in a truck. I probably met Ralph at the funeral, but I don't remember. He is now a supervisor in the territory just south of my husband's. If I ever do meet him, I am going to thank him for what he did so long ago.

No wonder my husband couldn't talk.

I asked the supervisor why he hadn't taken my husband away from the scene more quickly, and he responded that nobody ever died on one of his gangs before.

OK. I can see that, I guess. But it was my husband's brother!

Thank God for Ralph.

We lived through the funeral. Tony's widow had his sons, Jay and Lee, with her. At the time they were three and three months. She was twenty-three. She didn't want any other children at the funeral, so we didn't take ours. I have always felt sort of bad about that because they liked their Uncle Tony. But it was what his widow wanted.

In the receiving line, one of the other railroad wives came up to me with tears in her eyes and said it should have been one of us. My mouth dropped open, and I asked her why. She said, well, Tony's widow was so young, and there was the new baby....

I wanted to scream, but I didn't. It shouldn't
have happened to anyone! Would we or our children have missed our husbands less?

After the funeral and the subsequent wrangle with the railroad for a settlement, Tony's widow, quite understandably, had some difficulty adjusting. Someone, I don't remember for sure who, suggested that she break contact with Tony's family. And she did.

Sort of harsh, but I could sort of understand it. What my sister-in-law thought she was going to have as a life and what she got were vastly different. She had to do whatever was necessary to cope.

Why do I bring all of this up now?

Well, a couple of months ago, we had a message from Tony's widow on our answering machine. She said that her oldest son, Jay, was getting married and wanted to invite my husband. I don't know how she got our phone number. She left a call-back number, though, and my husband called back and talked to his brother's baby, Lee. He gave Lee our address, but he said he wasn't holding his breath. He had wondered, often, how the boys turned out. Did they look like his brother?

My husband is a very deep man. I never knew he wondered that. He never talked about it. But it doesn't surprise me.

Today we got the wedding invitation. The wedding is August thirteenth. It was addressed to my husband and "guest". It came from Jay, who maybe doesn't know he has an aunt and cousins. He does not know he has a baby cousin who is named after his dad.

I am glad we got the invitation, but sort of wary, too. After no contact for so long, why now? Does Jay just want to see where he came from?

My husband and I have talked about what to give as a wedding present, and we have an idea. We have a family picture: his grandma and grandpa, his dad and all of his brothers. I doubt he has ever seen it.

As he starts his own family, would that kind of knowledge give him hope? Would it connect him to the dad he barely remembers?

It would at least be a start.

My Dad: How Different Are Eighty and Eighteen?

2005-06-21T14:04:00.000-05:00

Today is my father's eightieth birthday. He lives three hours away, so while I will not be with him today, I was on Sunday, Father's Day, as were many members of his family.

I always enjoy hearing my dad tell stories about when he was younger. When we picked him up for dinner, he said he had a Navy picture from 1943 to show me, but somehow it got lost in all the family doings. I will have to remember to ask again.

In 1943, my dad turned eighteen in June, my mother in July, and they were married in August. Two weeks later, my dad left for boot camp.

I bring this up because on Sunday, my nephew was relating the story of how he waited until his dad came around to dealing with his intended before he married her. My brother-in-law is nice; he just has his own ideas. Anyway, that got Dad talking about when he asked my grandfather if he could marry my mother. Grandpa said yes; he just asked that they be married in his house. My mom was one of seven children and the only one that her parents saw married.

My husband made a comment about not being able to relate to waiting one or two years until your spouse's parents came around, and I told him that the reason he can't is because we wouldn't have. We didn't. My father objected big time to my marriage before it happened, although he has treated my husband like a son ever since. My father, in his patriarchal role, said it was always better to have the blessing of both families, and at that point, I could not help myself.

"Dad," I said. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't I remember hearing that you and Mom had an alternate plan if the grandparents said no?"

My father actually blushed, something I had never seen before. He said (as he looked at the top of his shoes) that he and Mom did have another plan and were glad they didn't have to use it.

Looking at my dad as he blushed, it was easy to see the eighteen year old boy in the eighty year old man. Obviously I did not enter the picture until later. I am so thankful that I have this memory to carry with me. Although I miss my mother very much, her death left a benefit I never imagined. I began to know my father as a person, not just as my dad.

I am richer for the knowledge.

If Tomorrow Starts without Me

2005-06-21T05:11:00.000-05:00

I received the following in an e-mail and thought it was worth sharing.

A few weeks ago a woman was killed in an auto accident. She was
very, very well liked, so the office shut down for her funeral and it
was on the news and so on. On the day the workers came back to work, they found this poem in their e-mail that the deceased woman had sent on Friday before she left for home.

If tomorrow starts without me, And I'm not there to see,

If the sun should rise and find your eyes all filled with tears for me;

I wish so much you wouldn't cry the way you did today,

While thinking of the many things, we didn't get to say.

I know how much you love me, as much as I love you,

And each time that you think of me, I know you'll miss me too;

But when tomorrow starts without me, please try to understand,

That an angel came and called my name, and took me by the hand,

And said my place was ready, in heaven far above,

And that I'd have to leave behind, all those I dearly love.

But as I turned to walk away, a tear fell from my eye,

For all my life, I'd always thought, I didn't want to die.

I had so much to live for, so much left yet to do,

It seemed almost impossible, that I was leaving you.

I thought of all the yesterdays, the good ones and the bad,

I thought of all that we shared, and all the fun we had.

If I could relive yesterday, just even for a while,

I'd say good-bye and kiss you and maybe see you smile.

But then I fully realized, that this could never be,

For emptiness and memories, would take the place of me.

And when I thought of worldly things, I might miss come tomorrow,

I thought of you, and when I did, my heart was filled with sorrow.

But when I walked through heaven's gates, I felt so much at home.

When God looked down and smiled at me, from His great golden throne,

He said, "This is eternity, and all I've promised you.

Today your life on earth is past, but here life starts anew.

I promise no tomorrow, but today will always last,

And since each day's the same way, there's no longing for the past.

You have been so faithful, so trusting and so true.

Though there were times you did some things, you knew you shouldn't do.

But you have been forgiven, and now at last you're free.

So won't you come and take my hand, and share my life with me?"

So when tomorrow starts without me, don't think we're far apart.

For every time you think of me, I'm right here, in your heart.

A Letter to My Nephew Concerning Education

2005-06-20T07:20:00.000-05:00

Hi Russell,

Since you said you would like to discuss education, I thought I would get the ball rolling. When I was your age, I thought I would have most of the answers by the time I reached the grand old age of 50 but I don't. These are just my thoughts.

It may have happened before the eighties and I just didn't notice because didn't have kids in school, but educational philosophy has become one of a process that yields a product. That works OK when you are making auto parts and every starter for every Neon is milled and installed the same way, but human beings come in much more individual packages, so I don't think it works so well there. I think there is a need for standards, don't get me wrong. I just don't think that every person in the US can achieve them in the same way. So, while I do see some reasoning behind the No Child Left Behind Act, I think it is absurd not to exclude, for instance, people who are mildly mentally handicapped (IQ below 80). People with a mild mental handicap can achieve a lot, but much of their achievement cannot be measured by a proficiency test or a grade card.

I also think that the majority of responsibility for education rests with the parents and the home. Part of the problem in my town is that many of the parents cannot help their elementary children with their schoolwork since they were not educated themselves. And who do they blame when their children do not meet standards? Why, the school, of course. And they blame the school even if their child says outright that he or she has no intention of cooperating in class or doing the assigned work!

Having said that, though, I am not so sure where I stand on private education and home-schooling. I would not have home-schooled my children because we lived in the country and I felt that they needed social interaction. Your Uncle Ron and I supplemented their learning, though. A lot. I even got a call from college asking me how to write a paper. Seems the papers that got an A in high school didn't cut it in college. This kind of thing is an obvious drawback to public education, but if you go with private, which is out of reach financially for many people, how are you obeying the Biblical command to be in the world but not of the world? And if I, as a parent, solve the problem of education for my children by putting them in private school, don't I as a member of the body of Christ have a responsibility toward those children who, for whatever reason, are stuck in public education?

I think the world in which you and Melissa will raise your children is a much tougher one than the world in which I raised mine. If you put your children in public school, counteracting the influence of the world is going to be a lot of work for you. But if you put them in private or parochial school, those influences are still going to be there.

I guess I have rambled enough for now. Feel free to disagree. I am always happy to discuss, and like I said, I do NOT have all the answers.

Love,

Aunt Becky

The Jane Pauley Show: Show Info--Inside the Male Mind

2005-06-15T12:01:00.000-05:00

The Jane Pauley Show: Show Info

One of the benefits of being temporarily visually impaired is that I watch a little more TV than normal. Today I turned on the Jane Pauley Show.

I have written before about the differences between men and women. I get a little annoyed, frankly, with women who want their men to be....women. That's not why I married my husband, and although we do occasionally have communication difficulties, I often learn from the differences between us and have become a better communicator because of my learning.

One of the women on the show wanted to know why her husband couldn't or didn't express more emotion. The brain mapper, Dr. Amen, said it was because men's brains were generally less active in the centers which register emotion. This I disagree with. My husband works in a sort of macho industry, that being the railroad, but the men with whom he works and he himself express a lot of emotion. You just have to learn how to read it. And you have to get them when they are ready to talk, which is often NOT when I am ready to talk.

Another woman noted that she should give her husband time to unwind when he gets home rather than hitting him with problems the minute he comes in the door. It seemed to me that she did really care about her husband. She did not want him to end up having a heart attack in his late fifties like his father had, so she wanted to destress the home environment as much as she could. This "wind-down" time is a complaint I have heard from a lot of men over the years. Many of them don't mind helping or talking; they just want time to switch gears.

Michael Gurian,a family therapist who wrote the book What Could He Be Thinking: How A Man's Mind Really Works made another interesting point; he said that there are "bridge brains" that are more capable of thought ascribed to the opposite sex than most are. Jane thought that Mr. Gurian, being a family therapist, would be a good example of a bridge brain.

Mr. Gurian and Dr. Amen thought that we could reprogram our brains to an extent by increasing both exercise and our intake of Omega-3 fatty acids. I have to admit that I missed the Omega-3 connection, but the purpose of the exercise was to keep everyone calmer. Besides, as Mr. Gurian pointed out, it is a lot easier to have your husband's complete attention when you are alone with him on a walk rather than in front of the TV. (I personally get more of my husband's attention in a moving vehicle, which may be why I like to cruise so much.)

And why do we women want our men to meet all of our emotional needs? Well, Dr. Amen said it started about a hundred years ago. Before that, women got their needs met by meeting with other women, but with the industrial revolution and the expansion of our society westward, somehow emotional fulfillment became the man's job. Dr. Amen said that the average man can fulfill only 30% of his wife's emotional needs, so in order to stay happy in a marriage, a woman needs other outlets. I think women need to be careful of what other outlets they choose, but I believe the statistic Dr. Amen stated that a high percentage of divorces occur because the wives do not feel that their emotional need are being met.

My own personal feeling? I think I married a guy with a "bridge brain" and I feel blessed to have found him. He is capable of translating things into womanspeak when he really wants to communicate, and I try to do the same with him when I see that I am not reaching him (prolonged efforts do tend to give me a headache). I guess I think we should all strive to act like adults and not make other people responsible for all of our emotional well-being since, as husband and wife, we are not wired the same way.

Aren't the differences what make marriage intriguing in the first place?

Respect and Being a Good Wife

2005-06-14T10:07:00.000-05:00

Proverbs 31:10,23 NIV

10 A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
23 Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.

Sometimes being a respectful wife is hard for me, although I don't always recognize respect as being the problem right away. I know that I am supposed to respect my husband and I do. I really do. It is just that sometimes, as a supervisor and a Christian, he reacts in ways that I think are not respectful toward himself (if that makes any sense), and I get upset about it.

Take the assistant. Please. He is back to work after four weeks off for his back (which I know he couldn't help) and is up to his old tricks again. My husband is taking time off to spend with me after cataract surgery, and the assistant does not want to take weekend call. I don't know why. Most often he doesn't answer the phone, and most often he doesn't go out, so he could do what he does best....nothing....just as easily on the weekend as he does during the week.

However. As I was praying about this yesterday, the answer that I received was that I needed to let my husband do what he could live with in this situation and support him in his decision. When I see how tired he is because he does both his and the assistant's job, that is NOT my first inclination. I don't understand why the assistant still has a job except that somewhere in the world of manspeak, he hasn't messed up enough yet. Either that, or what my husband was told when he took this job is way too true. He was told that an officer of the company would never be fired; he would just be put where he could do the least harm. What better place to put him than with my husband, who will make sure the job is done and done right no matter what?

There are two men at work, the assistant being one of them, who from all outward appearances do their work the way their wives tell them to. This makes them the subject of ridicule among the other men. I don't ever want to make my husband an object of ridicule, so I know that I have to honor his decisions. I have made the mental decision, and I will do my best.

But why can't I slap his assistant too?

Moral Authority

2005-06-13T05:03:00.000-05:00

Yesterday in Bible class, we started watching TIME CHANGERS. This is a movie with a Christian theme that had played at our local theater, although it was not very well attended. In the movie, a seminary professor from the 1890s is trying to publish a book in which he says that we can and should teach about morals without using the name of Christ, as His name may offend some people.

An older professor in the movie makes the point that Satan himself is not against good morals. He is against the name of Jesus Christ, which is exactly why we have to tie Biblical teaching to the Bible, giving credit where credit is due like you do when you cite sources.

I have been thinking about this in terms of the Howard Dean flap over the GOP. Haven't you wondered how Christianity became a dirty word in our society? Seems like the movie gives a possible answer for the objection to the name of Christ.

I don't mean to oversimplify this, but there has to be a reason that, when Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert, He responded with Scripture. Of course, to live out our lives this way requires that we know the Word, and at least in my case, I am finding that to be a life-long process. But I can't think of a better way to answer when the world questions. I'm not saying, either, that you won't be persecuted if you answer someone this way, but evidently as Christians we have to be prepared for persecution. We just have to trust the Holy Spirit, I think, to do His thing. As it says in Hebrews 4:12 (New International Version)

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

One Detriment to Cataract Surgery

2005-06-10T13:29:00.000-05:00

My glasses always hid the bags under my eyes. Who said, "Vanity, thy name is woman?" Guess I might have to do something about them.

My husband lent me his reading glasses so that, with my left eye closed, I CAN see the computer screen. I am thankful. I was feeling deprived.

One Cataract Down, One to Go!

2005-06-09T14:58:00.000-05:00

I didn't feel any7thing when they worked on my eye, and I can see more than I imagined possible, but I am having a hard time with the computer screen. Don't know if that's glare, the clear shield I have to wear for the rest of the day, or my uncorrected left eye. Either way, I'll be back, but maybe not right away.

Ecclesiastes8:1-9

2005-06-08T11:46:00.000-05:00

The rest of Chuck Swindoll's leadership points.

3. a discreet mouth, complete with tact

4. keen judgment

5. stability under pressure

Enough Blog for Today

2005-06-08T11:40:00.000-05:00

Maybe I am a little more distracted by tomorrow's impending surgery than I thought. I am sure that posting pictures to your blog is easy, but I have downloaded Picasa 2 and Hello and I still can't seem to get the hang of it. My daughter says to wait and ask my son, but I thought I was intelligent enough to do this myself. I AM! Maybe just not right now.

Hopes and Dreams

2005-06-07T15:13:00.000-05:00

I just had lunch with a friend, and we were talking about our adult daughters. Mine is twenty-five; hers is twenty-seven. Mine went through a bad marriage; hers has not yet married. What do we want for them? Happy marriages, of course.

This is an area where I really have to watch how I pray because I do want my daughter happily married, but I want what God has planned for her. I know His plan is way better than what I could plan for her.

NEVERTHELESS...I could not help but smile when she told me that her current friend called her and asked her to go walking at Maumee Bay State Park. That is my idea of a nice, romantic evening. I can't tell where they are heading, but at the very least they make each other happy. I do not always wait patiently for things to happen God's way, but I am thankful for the dash of happiness He added to my daughter's life today.

Leadership: Ecclesiastes 8:1-9

2005-06-07T10:03:00.000-05:00

I enjoy my local Christian radio station, WARN, and this morning I heard a good program on leadership. It was on INSIGHT FOR LIVING with Chuck Swindoll. His definition of wisdom was this-looking at life objectively and handling it with stability.

He only gave the first two characteristics of leadership today, and here they are:

-a clear mind

-a cheerful disposition

My husband is in a position of leadership, and I think he has these qualities. I will be interested in hearing what else Reverend Swindoll has to say.

About Taking a Lower-Paying Job

2005-06-06T17:39:00.000-05:00

Rumor has it that the special ed director in a neighboring community will be calling me about a paraprofessional job. I hope so. The district is similar to the one in which I raised my children, and it would be nice to find a home there.

When we lived in Ohio, I worked at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a Catholic school. One of the fifth grade teachers there resigned her teaching job and took much less pay to serve as parish secretary. Nobody else could really understand why she had done so, but I did. She told me that she liked having summers off when her kids were at home, but they were gone, and the full-time classroom was a lot of stress. She thought she would rather be dome with work when she left the job site and be free to spend time with her husband. Being parish secretary allowed her to do just that.

I know I could get a higher paying job than being an educational assistant, but there is hardly any other job that will allow me to take time off when my husband needs me, and I like to be available to do that. I would also like to spend time with him when he is home instead of grading papers, going to meetings and talking to parents (some of whom tend to scream back).

Money isn't everything.

My Last Thoughts on My School System. Maybe.

2005-06-06T17:28:00.000-05:00

I know. I complain and complain. Last Friday I got a phone call from the principal at the high school who wanted me to put it in writing that I was not going to accept the English position there. I did that. Can't blame the man. He just wants to get his staff lined up.

Today, I got a call from the director of human resources, with whom I had spoken before. I had told her that I did not intend to renew my license at this time. When I told her that, several months ago, she didn't mention anything about a letter of resignation, but boy did she want one today. I typed it. It was one line long.

This all wouldn't bother me so much except that I think it is a PR issue for the school. In actual fact, my job was eliminated and my transfer involuntary, but since I resigned, it can look like it is all my idea. Just like having all the clerical staff reapply; the public doesn't know that their time has been cut and so have their wages.

I know that economic times are tough, and I know that the school system is not the only one that suffers as a result. However, I would think it would be better to keep the secretaries that you have, the ones that know how to run things (and we all know that they DO run things) instead of spraying the dandelions.

Nobody who works for the school system will tell the public. And maybe they couldn't understand anyway. But a district that is more worried about top-end help (TWO assistant superintendent jobs at $95K a year were created) and less about the way actual schools are run does not, in my opinion, have the interests of the kids in this community at heart.

Things for Which I Am Thankful

2005-06-05T15:19:00.000-05:00

My salvation, which was freely given by a God who knows how imperfect I am and still wanted me with Him.

My husband, who works harder than anyone I know. He treats company resources as if they were his own. He is concerned about his employees and his family.

My children. My son is safely out of the Marines and establishing his own life. I am thankful that he did not have to go to Iraq, and I am thankful to know that his country means enough to him that he would have. My daughter works hard and is getting her life together after a bad marriage. About this time last year, her dad and I were worried about her mental health. Things are better.

I am thankful for my daughter-in-law, who is not the stereotypical daughter-in-law. There is an old saying,"A son is a son until he takes a wife, but a daughter's a daughter all of her life." My daughter-in-law has called me for advice and trusts me to take care of her sons. We have had words, but I think that she hasn't said anything about me to others that she hasn't said to me. And I am thankful that she loves my son.

RJ. I didn't think it was possible to forget the wondrous discoveries of toddlerhood, but I am having a blast seeing them again through his eyes. The other day he was talking to me on the phone and wanted to know if I was in there. How can you not be thankful for a boy who runs to you, arms outstretched, saying, "Hold me, Grandma."?

Tony, who is as good-natured a baby as I have ever seen. I am thankful that he made it here safely, that he is hitting milestones at a really fast rate, and that God allowed me the privilege of holding him and attending his baptism.

My dad, who will be eighty next month. He's not perfect, but he loves me and he loves the Lord.

My little sister, who finally got to get away without her kids for her 20th anniversary. She cares enough to call me, and she never forgets a birthday.

And while we are on birthdays, I am thankful for the mother I had who never forgot mine, who called me every birthday as an adult and sang to me, a tradition my sister struggles to uphold. My mom was one of the most gentle people I have ever met and a model of what a Christian woman should be.

My niece, Lillie. She cares enough to come to family events, which has not always been the case with her family. She is trying to live out her Christianity, and she too works hard. At eighteen, she has two years of college behind her. She cares enough about her mother to hang around and check on her.

I am thankful for how God works through doctors and medicines to sometimes make our lives better. I would rather not have RA, but since I do, I am thankful to have found a doctor who listens to me and has found a combination of medicines that make me feel, if not like my old self, a whole lot better than I did.

I am thankful for my job teaching visually impaired students, although I wasn't always. Dealing with the handicapped has given me new insight into humanity and a gentleness that I do not think I possessed before.

My dishwasher. I didn't have one until I had been married for more than twenty years. I was shy about using it at first, but I'm not now!

This blog. I have a venting outlet, and it is always there for me. I am a nicer person when I write.

This country, which I think is the most free in the world; the people who fight for it; my church; my friends; and my life.

Lord willing, I will use it wisely.

Things I Mind

2005-06-05T15:13:00.000-05:00

I am about to complain, so if you can't deal with it, don't read on.

I mind it when people tell me cataract surgery is no big deal I know that, and I am not worried about the surgery itself. I am worried about what I will be able to see in between the first and second surgeries and until I get my new glasses. I don't care if I need new glasses, really, although being able to go without them would be nice. My eyes are bad enough that I have "high myopia", and sometimes the correction on people like me isn't as great. I would settle for less eye strain and clearer vision.

I mind being without a job.

I mind not wanting to go back to school because I am so disgusted with the process of public education.

I mind the fact that pretty much everyone in the local school system, both certified and non-certified, is being treated poorly by the superintendent.

I mind being along a lot, although I am really grateful that I have not had to spend my life that way.

I mind living so far from my family.

I mind having RA and being concerned about using up my husband's and my retirement savings on my medicine.

Cataract Countdown

2005-06-05T15:12:00.000-05:00

Four days until the right eye. Eleven for the left.

CNN.com - Bibles 'may spread superbug' - Jun 3, 2005

2005-06-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

CNN.com - Bibles 'may spread superbug' - Jun 3, 2005

To quote Iain Mair, executive director of Gideons International UK headquarters, this move against Gideon Bibles is indeed "political correctness gone mad". I have never really understood why the presence of the holy book of another faith would be offensive. If, as a Christian, I saw the holy books of other faiths, I actually might pick them up and leaf through them. I certainly would not find them offensive. Why is it that the Bible in particular is offensive? Would people complain so much if the Qur'an alone were placed?

According to the CDC website, "MRSA is a type of staph that is resistant to antibiotics called beta-lactams. Beta-lactam antibiotics include methicillin and other more common antibiotics such as oxacillin, penicillin and amoxicillin. While 25% to 30% of the population is colonized with staph, approximately 1% is colonized with MRSA." I realize that any staph infection is more dangerous in the hospital, but the CDC site goes on to say that the most frequent infections come from skin-to-skin contact. Sounds to me like the hospitals are not really worried about MRSA at all.

They seem more worried about the spread of salvation.

Translating English into ......English?

2005-06-04T17:34:00.000-05:00

I noticed a long time ago that men and women often do not communicate the same way. When I read Deborah Tannen's book YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND, I gained some valuable insight. Men relate in facts; women in feelings. Just because I tell my husband about a problem does not mean I want him to fix it necessarily; I just want to tell him about it. Believe it or not, although the translation into "manspeak" gives me a headache sometimes, I have become a more successful communicator because I acknowledge the difference.

I have heard other talks about the languages of love. I know there is a book out by Gary Chapman about it, but the talk I heard was given by June Hunt on HOPE FOR THE HEART. Her point was pretty much the same as Deborah Tannen's really: if you want to show someone that you love them, you had better figure out how they think love is shown. It has been a while since I heard this show, but I remember two of the "languages". One was that love was shown by gifts, and another was that love was shown by spending time together.

I personally am a spending time together kind of person, and I think my husband and kids are too. My father and my daughter-in-law, on the other hand, are "things" people. Bear in mind that I am not saying their view is bad. It is just different from my own. My father measures things in accomplishments. He is convinced that my younger sister is a better money manager than I because she has more money. I don't think that is necessarily the case, but I know that is the way he sees it. He is very attached to possessions. I have often thought his attachment came from growing up during the Depression, but I think maybe there is more to it than that. My grandparents both worked--hard--while he was growing up, and while they could not give him much time, they could give him some material goods.

My son's oldest son, RJ, I think is a time spender. This is why I think so. We spent last weekend at his house for his brother's baptism, and it seemed to me that RJ's greatest joy lay in getting someone's complete attention. I was trying to get dressed and did not really want his attention in the bathroom, but he was so insistent that I let him in once I was decent. He watched what I did, and when I was brushing my hair, he asked if he could brush it. I have long hair, and it gets tangled, but I can't resist my grandson, so I let him try. And he was just as gentle and careful as his grandfather would have been.

I think it takes a quiet spirit to discern how love is communicated to those that you love. Even if their way is not your way, you can be rewarded if you take the time to translate.

Why Is NO So Hard to Understand?

2005-06-03T12:18:00.000-05:00

I have told the people here in Marion repeatedly that I would not be renewing my teaching license. I even told the director of personnel, but still they gave me an involuntary transfer to the high school. Now the principal wants something in writing stating my intentions. I don't blame him, but I haven't been shy about my plans and I just wish the right hand could communicate with the left!!

Word Choice

2005-06-02T13:13:00.000-05:00

I received notice in e-mail to look at an article by Jennifer Warner published on WEB MD HEALTH
entitled SWEAT OR SWEET? WORDS AFFECT SENSE OF SMELL. I received the e-mail from one of my special ed buddies. The gist of the article is that the right word choice can affect whether a subject perceives an odor in a positive or a negative way.

I think that one of the things I have learned during my time in special ed is that word choice matters a lot (and this should have a lot of meaning since it is coming from me, a linguistics and English major). In special ed, you can often soften an inevitable and hard decision for a parent by your word choice. Hearing what a child can do is more meaningful to a parent than hearing what he or she cannot accomplish. And hearing why a certain placement is the right choice is often easier than telling them why a mainstream classroom would not be best.

Madeleine L'Engle, one of my all-time favorite authors, says that we should pick the simplest words we can to describe things, saving the more complex words for when nothing else will do. I think that as educators, and certainly as people, we should pick the most positive words as well.

Too Pushy?

2005-06-01T13:31:00.000-05:00

Today I did something I don't remember ever doing before. I heard about a clerical job that interested me, and I called the person involved to let her know that I was interested. She just received the budget go-ahead and had told me that she was considering me for another position, but I didn't know if she would see this one as a possibility if I didn't bring it to her attention.

I did not seek my last two jobs; they sort of fell into my lap. And I am not complaining. I learned a lot from both of them. But now that it is time to move on, I am thinking about "expanding my horizons" so to speak. I read on the net the other day that one way to keep your mind sharp is to change jobs. This job would still be in education, but it would be serving behind the scenes. I told my husband it would be like riding with him when he patrols the tracks; he sees the same towns that he sees when he drives through them on the road, but from a different perspective.

We shall see, I guess. I don't want to hope too much. I got notice from the director of personnel today that my name was officially give to the board of education to teach at the high school next year, but she and I have discussed the fact that I have no intention of taking that position. I hope the posting does not eliminate me from the running for some non-certified positions in which I have expressed interest. And I hope the lady I called today did not think I was too pushy.

Stress and Lies

2005-06-01T13:20:00.000-05:00

My husband came home really tired last night and did something I don't remember his ever doing before: he told me he needed to take a nap.

Part of the reason, I think, is the stress that he is under. We came home from a pleasant weekend celebrating our youngest grandson's baptism to find a message about something his assistant should have handled and apparently didn't. This is normal for his assistant, and I often wonder why he still has a job, but he does, and it isn't my place to decide otherwise. Anyway, my husband called the assistant and was told that the whole thing had been blown out of proportion and that the assistant had handled it. Good.

Only thing is that later the man who really assists my husband called him to tell him the real story, and that did not involve the assistant's "handling it." Actually, it involved the assitant's not being available when he was supposed to be yet again and my husband's immediate superior handling it. My husband got the scoop from the superior who, as of this morning is in a higher position in another state, so he knows the truth. And it doesn't surprise him. But what do you do with an assistant that lies? In this instance, my husband did not suffer repercussions from the lies, but he could have.

I know that in the male world you do not confront a liar, but I figure it is a lot of stress on my husband to double-check things that he knows are important rather than trust this man's word. I guess all I can do for my husband is listen and pray, but I wish I could do more.

Potty-training and Power

2005-05-31T08:46:00.000-05:00

I spent much of my weekend playing with my oldest grandson, who is 2 1/2 and in the process of being potty-trained. I did not notice this when I was going through the process with my own children, but what power that child wields! He gets attention if he goes or if he doesn't. He gets prizes. He has just discovered that he has at least some control over his bodily functions, and now he knows that he can manipulate them to control the adults in his life.

Actually, I think he is doing pretty well. He uses the potty a lot of the time. I have met a lot of parents, particularly parents of boys, who are tearing their hair out because their boys are over three and not even interested in the process.

Tony's Baptism

2005-05-31T08:37:00.000-05:00

My newest grandson was baptised yesterday. He was very well-behaved. I wonder if he will ask who came to the ceremony later? He had four grandpas and three grandmas there! I did not see this because I was at the end of the row, but my husband told me that the pastor was thrilled because Tony took hold of his finger as he said the Lord's Prayer. I know it could have been a random grab, but I choose to believe that this baby's simple gesture is a foreshadowing of things to come.

Closing Doors and Tears

2005-05-26T08:34:00.000-05:00

It is necessary to close doors as you move on. Last year when I was told I did not have this job, I did not feel the doors closing, but this year I do. Tears come readily to my eyes as I hug friends I did not realize I had made. You know the old saying, the one about God's never closing a door without opening a window? I can feel the doors closing, and I am not yet aware of any open windows.

I have one last school at which I will say good-bye.

Today is hard.

I received the story below in e-mail, and it seemed appropriate to put it here. It came with graphics, but it says a lot without.

Why Women Cry

A little boy asked his mother, "Why are you crying?" "Because I'm a woman," she told him.

"I don't understand," he said. His Mom just hugged him and said, "And you never will."

Later the little boy asked his father, "Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?"

"All women cry for no reason," was all his dad could say.

The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry.

Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on the phone, he asked, "God, why do women cry so easily?"

God said:

"When I made the woman she had to be special.

I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world,

yet gentle enough to give comfort.

I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children.

I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining.

I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly.

I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart.

I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly.

And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed."

"You see my son," said God, "the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart - the place where love resides."

LOWRY/ Dangerous women

2005-05-25T19:13:00.000-05:00

LOWRY/ Dangerous women

I think the article says it all.

Food for Thought

2005-05-24T19:04:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went to meet my husband in Wabash, and there was a big accident right by the intersection where we were to meet. Fortunately, it was NOT his big white truck, and I called him to make sure that when he ran into the backup, he would know it wasn't me. My heart has not beaten that hard since there was a fatality the night of Delta's homecoming and my teenage son was unaccounted for.

Someone who is bad news has made a reappearance in my daughter's life just as it seems she could be happy. Fortunately, God appears to have provided a way to lessen her temptation with another job.

I got a hug from one of my student's teachers, which is something that I did not expect, and it made me cry. She thanked me for a job well done because she said that usually you never see a special ed teacher when the student is only on consultation, and she told me she would miss me.

The kindergartener's last day is Thursday. He tells me every day how much he is going to miss me when school is out. I tell him that I will miss him too; only maybe my family has an idea of how much I will miss him. Thursday will be hard. If I end up crying, I hope I make it to the car first.

I never thought there was a job as invisible as that of substitute teacher, but being an itinerant teacher is darned close. I think I am ready to have a home. Wonder what God has picked out for me.

My husband got news this morning that his ADE (assistant division engineer) has been promoted to division engineer in WVA. The man is happy; his family is in PA. My husband's new ADE comes from Cincinnati. He has only been a track supervisor for a year. He is twenty-six. I wonder how he will get along with people who have 20+ years on the railroad.

I think I have resigned myself to the fact that the railroad probably won't transfer the people who have been around a long time since many of them are at the upper end of their pay ranges and could retire in the next few years. If they are going to pay for a move, they need to make it worth their while. I sure would like for them to pay for our move out of Marion, but not badly enough to see my husband take a high-stress job like a yard.

Thomas Sowell's Article on Judicial Bigotry

2005-05-23T20:12:00.000-05:00

reasoned audacity at charmaineyoest.com: "
Bigotry and the Bench: Sowell is Brilliant

In her blog REASONED AUDACITY, Charmaine Yoest quotes an article by conservative columnist Thomas Sowell. Her quote is as follows:

"Maybe the non-stop denunciations of judicial nominees by Senate Democrats will seem relevant to some people but it is in fact wholly beside the point. Senators who don't like any particular judicial nominee -- or any nominee for any other federal appointment -- have a right to vote against that nominee for any reason or for no reason. . .
. . .The real issue is whether those Senators have the right to deprive all other Senators of the right to vote on these nominees. . . The essence of bigotry is denying other people the same rights you have. For generations, it was racial bigotry which provoked filibusters to prevent the Senate from voting on bills to extend civil rights to blacks. But bigotry is bigotry, whether it is racial bigotry, religious bigotry or political bigotry.
The truth is, the Left lost the election in November. And they simply refuse to accept the loss. After all, 'those people' couldn't have won, could they?
Case in point: Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation, on This Week yesterday talking about those 'right-wing Christians.' Voice dripping with scorn. That's bigotry. And it's not any prettier dressed up with intellectual pretension."

This article interests me because of another opinion that I saw posted on the blog
TEMPUS FUGIT TEMPUS FUGIT at TXFX.NET. The article, entitled 'Don’t Like It? Walk Away"
was talking about walking away if things you did not like did not affect your personal freedoms. At least, that is what I think it was saying. So I agree with Mr. Sowell in that, while senators have the right to vote against nominees, they do not have the right to deprive others of the right to vote on the nominees.

I had not thought of this as bigotry, exactly, but it does seem as if the left has defined any conservative view as Christian. And while I AM a Christian, I don't think that many moral things can necessarily be defined solely as Christian. There were other codes of law, Hammurabi's being one, that laid down MORAL statutes that were not defined as Christian.

Why is being Christian or conservative such a bad thing nowadays? Why is it only OK to voice your opinion if you are liberal?

As Mark, who wrote the post on TEMPUS FUGIT, put it, "There is no “right to remain unoffended."

Envy and the Rear View Mirror

2005-05-23T08:36:00.000-05:00

I don't think of myself as a particularly jealous person, but maybe I am since I have recently suffered from both mother and grandma envy. The reasons were that I am not geographically close enough to my daughter and my grandsons to do things with them as I might like, but other people are....hence my envy. I don't know what good it does to pine, and I know I should just make the best of the time I have with them, but still, it would be nice...

You never know, though, what the other person's life is like. Not very long ago, I told a lady I know I was jealous because she has better health insurance than I do. We both have RA, and I am soon to lose the good teachers' insurance and go on my husband's crappy management insurance. I could go on about why it is crappy, but that is another story. Anyway, this lady told me that she was jealous because I have two grandchildren. She has one daughter who is twenty-seven and not yet married. I got to thinking, and she was right. I would rather have the grandsons. Then her husband died. I see some of how hard her life is since she lost her husband at the age of fifty-eight and I do not want her life. At all.

So what makes me want the lives that other people have instead of my own anyway? I have been richly blessed. Someday I will blog about how I fell in love with my husband when I was thirteen and read S. E. Hinton's THE OUTSIDERS, but that too is really another story. I didn't meet my husband until I was nineteen, but how many people find the man of their dreams in that way? My son and I survived toxemia; he and his son both survived meningitis at six weeks unscathed. I know children who were not so lucky; one ended up deaf and the other brain-damaged. My daughter is finally free of an abusive marriage and appears to be getting her life together. I worked this job, which I had not sought, for four years, and I learned a lot about handicapped people which, I trust, will be useful in my future.

I guess the envy comes from the fact that, at least from the outside, the people that I envy appear to have something that I would like to have. My daughter loves me, and the fact that she can also make another mom feel loved should not threatened me. Any time with my grandsons is to be cherished. And any time with them is a gift; it is something that God bestows upon me, not something that I deserve.

Unfortunately, like Eve I want to be like God sometimes and know what He has planned for me. I want the best, and sometimes I don't like His best, even though intellectually I can grasp the fact that His best is better than anything that I can imagine. And like Eve, when I grab for that knowledge, the lack of trust that grabbing illustrates dims the knowledge of what I do have, in effect barring me from Eden.

I am human, and so I see through a glass darkly. I know that I will not lose this poor vision until I get to heaven. But I cherish the moments when I am aware of the blessings God has bestowed upon me.

For now, I guess I will have to be content with seeing the majority of them in the rear view mirror.

Support Systems

2005-05-19T15:05:00.000-05:00

My father wanted to know when the family reunion was going to be held this summer,so I contacted my cousin, who has helped with it the past two years. The reunion is in West Virginia and has been held for ninety-one years. My dad lives in Ohio, my cousin in Maryland.

I was dismayed but not surprised when my cousin got back to me and told me that she did not think there would be a reunion this year as she could not get anyone to help her. It is awfully hard to coordinate everything yourself when you don't live in the same state.

There has been a similar problem on my husband's side of the family. I have always enjoyed going to his reunions. They are a lot closer, and I got to know cousins, aunts and uncles that he had only talked about. As the older generation dies out, though, nobody else wants to take this one over either. My husband and I hosted it in the past, but we no longer live in Ohio, so we don't anymore. When my husband's Michigan relatives have tried to host the reunion, the attendance has been severely limited, mostly because of the distance involved.

What has happened to family support systems? To support systems in general? In my search to understand what happens with marriages in middle age, I stumbled across an article by James Dobson, an excerpt from his STRAIGHT TALK books. His explanation made sense, although I am sure a lot of feminists would throw rotten fruit at me for saying so.

The way I understood Dr. Dobson's explanation was that women are at the height of their usefulness when they are mothers, and often motherhood is in their twenties. Their husbands, however, have to climb the corporate ladder, so many of them do not reach the peaks in their careers until their forties and fifties. The problem with that is that the husbands are at their busiest when the children are leaving home and the wife is readjusting. So....who needs her? What is her purpose? Her husband can give her all the verbal reassurances in the world, but it is not the same as someone's physically needing her.

Dr. Dobson did not just talk to men. I read the section he addressed to women. He said that years ago, before families were spread out across the US, women got together to can and to quilt. They taught their daughters these skills, and they had the benefits of the years of female experience that were gathered with them. Such gatherings are a rarity today, and so women often do not have the emotional support they need. A lot of work friendships just don't cut it because, while you may be friendly with someone at work, a lot of the time you would be unwise to share the private details of your life with them. Besides--you see each other on workdays, but to see each other elsewhere requires a lot of effort and planning. Many people just don't take the time to bond outside the work environment.

I can see the truth in this. I am blessed with a husband who would send me off to walk with my best friend when we lived in Ohio. He knew that "solving the world's problems" would calm me down. Jackie and I didn't really solve anything, though. We just shared what was happening in our lives, and it was reassuring to know that we weren't alone.

I am no knowledge guru, so I don't know how to handle the lack of support in today's society. Speaking as someone who moved away from her support system, especially in middle age it is hard to break into groups which are already established. I think church provides some help, but what if it isn't Sunday? Is there really anyone you can call?

In a world where so many things are not for sure, my husband and I have always striven to assure our family that we, at least, were there for them to count on. Maybe that is all you can do.

But sometimes it sure does get lonely.