The Paula Deen Syndrome

Here’s a test for you.  I want you to think back to sometime in 1984 to 1986…to a time when you were speaking flippantly or angrily.  You didn’t hold back.  You let the ugly words fly.  Got it?  Remember that time?  It's a little embarrassing, isn't it? 

Now, I want you to remember what words you used?  Got ‘em?

Good.  Now, don’t ever tell anyone what you said because it could just maybe ruin your life!

Consider the case of Paula Deen.  She admitted in a deposition…something that forces you to be truthful to avoid perjury…that she used the “N-Word” some three decades in the past.  As a result, her corporate sponsors are dropping her like a hot potato and the news media is eating it up.  The Food Network started the feeding frenzy and now everyone from Walmart to Sears has piled onto the carcass that was her business dynasty.

Don’t get me wrong.  I detest the use of the “N-Word.”  I have ALWAYS felt it was a terrible word to use to describe another person.  It is a hateful, ugly word.  But, we have gotten so incredibly paranoid about the use of this word that we cannot even use the word when describing the USE of the word!  Good grief.  Even the “F-Word” doesn’t get that level of reaction!

Someday, some random person from the future is going to be doing research on news reports and articles from our time period, and they are going to scratch their head and wonder….Why were they so weird about this one word?  Or, maybe:  What in the world was this N-Word that they kept talking about?

And now, folks are ostracizing a 66 year old woman because she admitted she used it nearly 30 years ago….almost 3 decades in the past!  Folks, that’s simply ridiculous.  If she had used it last week…or last month…or even a couple of years ago, well then you’ve got a case.  But, come on!  30 years ago?

One of my Facebook friends posed the question:  “How many of those corporate executives that are dropping her could pass the same test?”

Excellent question.  I wonder.  Maybe some brave news reporter could ask them for us?

We are so good at throwing stones, aren’t we?  We put up with so many things in our world today, but we just can’t stomach a woman who used that especially notorious word some three decades ago.  Really?  Are you serious?

You may think she’s too sappy of a southern lady.  You may think she promotes unhealthy eating habits.  You may think she’s terrible for having a struggle with a smoking habit.  She’s been a bit heavy.  Maybe she’s even difficult to work for.  Fine.  Take her to task for those CURRENT issues, but folks let’s not be so stupid as to judge someone in 2013 for something they said….words….in 1985.

In the meantime, I think I’ll go out this weekend and get me some fine southern cooking.

So says The Caaamper.

As an addendum, you may want to check out the article thru this link that has more CURRENT accusations:
http://www.blacklegalissues.com/Article_Details.aspx?artclid=7dfdbe0461

And, here is another article giving yet another perspective.  The one above is more anti-Paula and with apparent merit, but the one below is grace-filled.  Both come from prominent African Americans.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mariadixonhall/2013/06/saying-grace-paula-deen-progressives-and-race/

A Muncie Boyhood-The Dream of Baseball

The glove I bought at Retz Sporting Goods to try out for Muncie Southside's baseball team in 1977.  I still have it and it hangs on a wall in our home.

I fell in love with baseball during the World Series of 1972.  Before then, I knew about the game.  My dad taught me how to throw and catch at a young age, but for some reason it didn’t catch on with me until I was ten years old and was watching the Series at my Uncle Clint’s house.  It was a sort of turning point in my childhood.  Funny the random things you can remember. 

Not only did I fall in love with baseball, but I also fell in love with the Cincinnati Reds.

By the following June, I had practically memorized the entire roster, their batting averages or ERAs, number of homeruns, and even the stolen bases.  Johnny Bench became my hero with Pete Rose, Tony Perez, and Joe Morgan close behind.  Not only did I love to listen to them on WLBC on those warm summer evenings in the backyard, or catch them on TV once in a while on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, but I became determined to become one of them.

I became determined to become a Cincinnati Red.

I just knew that one day Marty Brennaman would be calling my name and ole Joe Nuxall would be interviewing me after the game….before “the old left-hander rounded third and headed for home.”

So, I began to work on my skills every chance I got.

First was playing catch with dad.  That was sometimes problematic because he worked nights or afternoons and often wasn’t around to work with me…and, when he was, he wasn’t always the most patient.  One time, we were on the back walk tossing the ball back and forth.  His back was to the back gate and the garage.  My back was to the house…the house with my mom’s bedroom window above my left shoulder and our basement window behind my left leg.

Dad said:  “You better make sure you catch this ball because if you miss and it breaks a window, I’m gonna beat your butt.”  (He didn’t say “butt.”)

His next throw was low and to my left.  It slipped under my glove and made quick work of the basement window.

I think he knew it was his fault with an errant throw because despite his cussing and yelling, he didn’t beat my….uh….butt.  He just fixed the window.

Second, there was playing ball with all the neighbor kids in Cecil’s field.  I’ve mentioned this field before in a previous story, but it was an open field that took up the center of the space between Cecil French’s house on 21^st Street and Odie Belle’s house on 22^nd Street.  It was about three normal lots wide and seemed huge to me at the time.  I go back now and wonder how we ever played any kind of baseball in that small space.  Most of my buddies preferred football, but fairly often I could talk them into baseball.

When sixth grade came to a close, I got my first real taste of organized baseball.  It was the Buddy Closed League...or was that Buddy Open?..., and Roosevelt Elementary had a team.  Real baseball at last.  Real fast pitch.  Actually nine players on the field and a whole field too.  I couldn’t wait.  My pal Tony and I signed up.

For practice, we went to the ball diamond behind Roosevelt.  I can’t remember my coach's name, only that he was huge…way overweight...rotund.  He would stand at home plate and hit balls to us, but didn't move around too much.  He had a couple of guys helping him, and one of them was a real player.  We were so impressed with that guy because he could pick up the ball in deep center field and throw a strike at home plate.  Wow!  Of course, to us it was “deep center.”  To him, it was probably more like just behind second base.

For games, we met our opponents at TV field.  The baseball diamond behind the WLBC radio station, sort of between 26^th and 29^th streets.  I would ride my red Schwinn Stingray bike to the games, and I can still remember the first one very well.  I wasn’t chosen to be a starter…I just knew that was a mistake….and one day my coach would regret it…because I was going to be a Red someday.  Instead, I warmed the bench.

We were terrible.  We were getting blown out.  It got down to the last inning they were going to let us play and we had zero runs…

Coach:  “Okay, Mike.  Go in and pitch hit.”

The adrenaline shot through me!  I was going to bat…in a real game…against somebody throwing fast pitches…and with an umpire calling balls and strikes!  I wasn’t worried though because I knew I could hit…I always hit the ball really well in Cecil’s field.

I don’t know what the ball/strike count was when I took my cut.  I just remember that the ball kind of dropped and I whacked it!  My friend Robert Bertram told me later:  “Mike, that ball dropped like it fell off a table, but you hit it!”  Yes, I did!  I hit it hard into left center, high and deep.  It wasn’t a homerun, but it ended up being a good double.  And it was the first real hit we had gotten.  Two batters later, I sprinted for home from third base and slid in on my backside to score our first run.

We didn’t win that game, but I had sparked a little rally where we scored three or four runs.  After that, I was the primary pinch hitter.  I don’t think I ever out did that first at bat, but it was cool to realize that my coach had some confidence in me.

Unfortunately, that season was the highlight of my baseball career.

In seventh grade, I moved up to Wilson Middle School.  This school was much larger and pulled kids from several elementary schools.  I had a lot more competition, but I was still determined…and I still knew I was going to be playing in Cincinnati someday…so, I tried out.  I wasn’t without some skill and I did pretty well in tryouts, so when the first exhibition scrimmage game was arranged, I was asked to participate. 

Disaster!

Two terrible things happened in that scrimmage game.  First, I went up to bat and got a walk.  Not too bad, right?  Well, it was all good until I got caught looking the wrong way and got picked off first base.  Second, I was playing third base…my position of choice at the time…and some kid hit a little pop up between third and home.  It was my ball to catch.  An easy one.  A no-brainer.  I had one problem:  Nerves!  It seemed that someone had nailed my feet to the third base line.  I froze!  It was like someone had taken liquid nitrogen and sprayed me with it just as the kid swung the bat.  I watched the ball go up.  I saw it sail in my direction.  I watched it fall easily to the ground.

I was cut from the team the next day.

Oh well.  That was disappointing, but I was an optimist.  There’s always next year, I thought.

That was positive thinking, but the seventh grade coach was the assistant eight grade coach, and apparently he had a pretty good memory.  Despite the fact that I did pretty well in the 8^th grade tryouts, and made very few mistakes, I got cut again the next year.

Now, all along, I still kept working on my skills any way I could.  My dad even got me one of those Pitch-Backs.  It was a taunt net inside a metal frame.  You’d throw the ball at it and the net would throw it right back.  I spent many hours in the back yard throwing at that thing and fielding its return tosses.  I was still determined.  I may have been cut at Wilson, but what did they know?  I’d make the team at Southside!

Spring of my freshman year rolled around and I tried out again.  This time, the workouts were a lot harder.  Lots of running.  Weight-lifting.  Batting cages.  Overall, I didn’t do too bad.  I don’t recall any glaring mistakes.  But, I had even more competition…from even more schools that fed into the high school.  Ultimately, I think they looked at me and saw a kid who didn’t really excel, and who didn’t play in middle school, and decided to use someone else.  I was cut for the third year in a row.

One other detail to share was that I had been a “manager” for the Wilson 8^th grade football team and the 8^th grade track team the year before.  A manager is a glorified servant.  I carried equipment.  I carried water.  I cleaned up after the players.  One year of that was enough.

So, when I got cut in 9^th grade at Southside, Coach Lewis came up to me after the roster was posted and my name wasn’t on it and said:  “Mike, we need a team manager.  If you’ll be the manager, you can hang with the team and do some practicing, and maybe you can become a player next year.”

I’d had enough with being the flunky waterboy.  I asked my mom to tell me that I couldn’t do it so I could tell the coach that my parents said no.  She complied and I told the coach that “Mom said no.”  (I’m pretty sure that Coach Lewis was sharp enough to see through such a lame excuse.)

Anybody else would have thrown in the towel already, but not me.  I decided to try out again in 10^th grade.  After all, Johnny Bench was once cut from his high school team.  Surely, I thought, the coach will see my abilities and add me to the team the next year.

Surely.

I wish this story had a happy ending.  I tried out four years in a row and I got cut four years in a row.  After being cut in the spring of 1978, I finally gave up baseball as a career and took up girls as a hobby, and here’s another way that my life turned in the summer of 1978.

I have often wondered how my life would have been different if I hadn’t been picked off of first base and if I’d caught that pop fly between third and home in that scrimmage game in 7^th grade.  I really think that I would have made that team.  If I'd played in 7^th, I would have played in 8^th grade too.  If I had the extra experience in middle school and all the extra practice, I could very well have made the high school team.  Who knows where it would have gone from there?  Cooperstown?  Well, a guy can dream, can’t he?

Anyway, I went on to have a pretty doggone good life without baseball.  I continued to follow the Reds until the strike of 1994, and then I gave up on baseball altogether.  The little boy who could name the whole roster has grown into a man who can’t even name a single player today.  That’s sort of sad, I think.

However, I replaced my idol of baseball with more important things.  I focused on growing in my faith in God as a teenager, and ultimately that led me to meet the woman who would become my wife and the mother of my children.  While things have not been always perfect and I’ve made some mistakes along the way, I’ve really lived a pretty wonderful life over all.

All’s well that ends well.

Still, there are days when I have fleeting thoughts of how nice it would have been if I could have experienced that dream of having a baseball card with my face on it.

A Muncie Boyhood-The Trudging Turtle

When I was a tiny little guy, I had a pet turtle.  Its whole world consisted of a little island of aquarium rocks in the bottom of a fishbowl.  I can’t remember his name…I don’t even know if “he” was a boy or girl.  I just remember that my sister killed him.

About once a week, one of my supervising adults would clean my turtle’s bowl, and that entailed filling it with water and scooping the rocks out for cleaning.  Meanwhile the turtle would swim…swim…and swim.  As it turned out, my sister was the responsible supervising adult to whom the bowl cleaning fell on one fateful day.  So, she filled the bowl with water, scooped out the rocks, and left my little reptilian friend to swim.  Then promptly forgot him.  He swam…he swam…he swam,…and he swam.

He eventually wore himself out with all that swimming around that glass bowl and drowned.

I buried him in my little animal graveyard out behind my dad’s garage.  If an archaeologist dug up and sifted through the soil behind that garage, he or she would find any number of animal bones:  the turtle, Peppy my parakeet, Fonzie my hamster, Sugar my dog, and any number of dead birds I found around the yard.  I even sometimes erected little markers, all of which are long gone now, of course.

I think I always sort of resented my sister for killing my turtle, but that didn’t stop me as a teenager from being excited when her son came home from a few days at some guys house in the country with a large wild box turtle.  It was about six inches long and very docile.  He found it near the White River while he and his mom were staying with this guy for a few days, so he picked it up and took it home as a pet.

My sister had met a man after her house burned…a man she ended up marrying…and a man who turned out to be abusive.  Despite that, she married him more than once and allowed him to live with her even when they weren’t married.  Theirs was a troublesome relationship and he was often just plain mean, both to my sister and to my nephew.  It was during one of their break-ups that my sister took up with this other guy who had the house in the country.  It didn’t last long, but it gave me the following turtle story.

David brought it home and for some reason painted it white, probably my sister’s idea.  Regardless of who thought of it, the poor thing got painted.

I think this little guy had a cat’s set of lives.  First, to even get to be six inches long meant he had already lived for several years, maybe decades despite the perils of the White River.  Eastern box turtles in the wild can live to be up to 100 years old and be only about six inches long.  I don’t know for sure what kind of turtle my nephew’s painted turtle was, but I think he had the potential to be quite old.  Secondly, he survived being painted and the return of my bad-attitude brother-in-law.

After the little guy got painted white, he also fell into tooth range of my nephew’s dog, Smokey.  Smokey was a great dog, but he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to try to eat a box turtle.  So, when he got the chance, he snagged the reptile up and chewed around on him, leaving multiple scratches in the white paint on his shell.  Even so, the turtle was rescued before he could suffer death by dog.

Eventually, as I’ve said, my sister reconciled with “Sicko.”  (That’s the name she ultimately gave her sometimes husband.  When they finally broke up for good, the bitterness he left behind hung around for many years.)  Anyway, when he returned to the house and found the turtle there with the crazy painted and scratched up shell, and when he learned where it came from, he was having none of it.  He took the kidnapped fella out the back door of my sister’s house on south Monroe Street and tossed it all the way across the backyard and into the alley.

Gone.  David’s turtle was gone.  Thrown by a grown man hard enough to fly thirty or forty feet in the air and land hard in the gravel alley.  My nephew was not allowed to retrieve it.  And, it was nowhere near any body of water.  We assumed that he didn’t survive the hard landing.

Okay, so let’s recount the abuse this turtle faced:

1.        Kidnapped by a twelve year old boy from its home

2.       Removed from its normal food sources

3.       Had its shell painted white

4.       Chewed on by a large dog

5.       Thrown forty feet out a back door

6.       Abandoned miles from any natural habitat

When I heard about all this, I was upset.  I had always had a hyperactive sense of empathy even toward animals, and I was especially sensitive toward cruelty.  I couldn’t believe what had happened to this poor helpless turtle.

In thinking back on this series of events, this must have been the spring or early summer of 1978.  It was quite an eventful year for me, and this just adds to the character of that special year.

The reason I say spring or summer was because about a week later, my dad was out mowing the lawn.  We lived about four or five blocks east of my sister.  She lived at about 20^th and Monroe; while we lived at 21^st and Hackley.  Anyway, it was a nice sunny day and my dad was cutting the grass in the side yard near the road.  As he was mowing along, he happened to glance over at the pavement on 21^st Street and he spied our little turtle friend just trudging along, headed east…like he knew where he was going.

My dad must have heard the story of the plight of this little guy because he stopped his chore long enough to pick the turtle up out of the road and put him in our yard.  When I got home, he asked me about David’s turtle. 

“Did you say they painted it?” he asked. 

“Yeah, they painted it white,” I answered.

"Well, you won't believe this," he continued, "but..." 

Then, he told me the story…I went out and looked…and sure enough…it was David’s painted turtle all right.  Safe and sound.  In my backyard.  He was right.  I couldn’t believe it!

But, what to do with it?

I kept it around for a couple of days.  I needed to think about what to do.  Could I keep it?  Maybe.  I considered it.  It couldn't go back to David.  What else could I do?  That’s when my empathy kicked in.  If I were the turtle, what would I want me to do? 

I figured he’d want to go home.  I figured that was where he was headed as he meandered down 21^st Street.  So, I decided to fulfill that desire.  I would return him to the White River.

I put him in a box, loaded him up in my dad’s ’68 Chevy Nova, and he and I took a drive.  We went out Burlington Drive to Inlow Springs Road.  I found a pull off along the river and parked the car.  I then carried my little friend to the water’s edge and let him go.

It was an odd parting really.  You’d think that the turtle would simply swim off into the water and be gone, but that’s not exactly how it happened.  He did scuttle right into the water, but instead of simply diving into the depths, never to be seen again, he came back up and looked at me.

He surfaced and looked right at me.  Then, he went down again for a few seconds before returning once more to the surface to look at me.  He did that three or four times before he finally swam away.  It was almost as if he appreciated what I had done for him and he was saying “thank you.”

I want to believe that anyway.

Now, here’s a thought for you:  Box turtles can live to be 100 years old.  This story occurred in 1978.  That was, as of this writing, only 35 years ago.  There is a reasonable chance that my little friend may still be swimming around the White River out east of Muncie.  So, if you happen to come across an old box turtle with what seems to be the residue of old white paint on his shell…first, leave him be…second, tell him hello for me.

The Journey Back

"Oh, how far I have fallen!"

That's what I told my wife a few minutes ago when I returned from a one-mile bike ride.  Yes.  That is not a typo.  I meant to say:  "One-Mile."

You see, as I sit here, my legs feel a little like limp spaghetti.  I got a bit winded.  I even got a touch sweaty in the 60-degree air.  I just rode to the end of the road and back!  All I can think now is WOW!

Let's scroll back four years.  It was mid-September 2009.  I'd been training all summer, and I'd successfully completed a 108-mile single day ride.  I was in one of the best conditions of my life.  I was feeling great!

Then, I tore my right achilles tendon.

Folks, that injury takes a long time to heal...period.  After surgery, and weeks in a cast and on crutches, I had lost ALL strength in that leg.  It took months and months to gain any semblance of it back.  Then, the left achilles tendon started acting up.  It never tore, but it got very sore and tight which made me very afraid to put much pressure on it.  Weakness and fear led to inactivity.  Inactivity led to gained weight.  Gained weight and inactivity has led to additional weakness.  I've gotten to the point that I just don't feel good physically in almost any respect. 

It is a terrible spiral.

Finally, this last fall, I decided to break the cycle.  I saw a surgeon (Dr. Wendy Winkelbach) at the Southside Foot Clinic in Greenwood, Indiana, and I asked her if there was something we could do BEFORE my left achilles tore to fix the problem.  After some discussions and an MRI, she said that she could in fact take some preemptive measures to loosen up the tendon by lengthening it.  I had that procedure at the end of December, and now I'm ready to begin the journey back to fitness and health.  I am ready to once again become a cyclist.

Today, I picked a new bike at BGI-Indy.  A new Trek flatbar bike that I plan to use in my climb back to health.  It is my short-ride bike, and will be my primary bike until I can get my distance back up to ten miles or more.  And, my goal is to build myself back up to the point that I could attempt a 50-miler by September of this coming fall.

Each journey begins with a single step.  Or, in my case a one-mile bike ride.  I've got to start slow and cautiously; being careful and thoughtful in the process.  I'm the tortoise, but I plan to use this summer to morph back into the hare. 

And the journey begins.

A Muncie Boyhood-Procrastination and the Term Paper

I’ve grown to the point in my life where I take the process of writing something sort of for granted.  Further, the actual act of typing is now second nature.  That wasn’t always the case…especially during my senior year at Muncie Southside High School.

As a senior in the graduating class of 1980 who was taking some college-prep classes, I signed up for a Term Paper Writing class.  Ruth Hillman’s class was designed to teach us how to properly research, prepare, and write a term paper once we were actually in college.  Instead, it just scared the living…uh…stuff out of me.

Overall, the process wasn’t all that bad except for two significant problems that became very apparent over the course of time.  The first is a problem I’ve struggled with all my life:  procrastination.  In high school, I would always put off homework assignments to the last possible moment, and then I’d cram it like crazy and get it done in time to turn it in.  Overall, it worked for me.  I was a solid “B” student.  But, sometimes it was a really tight situation and I barely got things done.  That was never more true than the deadline for the turning in of my final draft of my term paper.

It was only ten pages.  These days, I could knock out ten pages without too much sweat.  The problem back then was that those ten pages needed to be typed; a concept that I had not yet even remotely learned how to do.

My family didn’t even own a typewriter.  (Some of you are wondering what that even is…aren’t you?)

So, in light of the fact that I didn’t know how to type and we didn’t own a typewriter, I obviously planned way ahead, asked around for someone who could type, and gave them plenty of time to do the job for me…for pay. 

Right?

Wrong.

Instead, my two issues converged.  I couldn’t type…and I procrastinated.  So, the DAY BEFORE the paper was due, I went in search of a typewriter to borrow.  I figured I could “hunt and peck” my way through.  I had no idea how complicated it could be to add footnotes and bibliographies on top of the normal writing/typing process.  My ignorance was nearly my undoing, and I had to do well on that final draft to end up with a good grade.  A good grade in this class was pretty important.  Way too much was riding on this thing.  I had to find a way!

Enter the hero of my senior year term paper class project:  Delores Huffman.

She was the secretary at the Fairlawn Church of Christ, which at the time was located at the corner of 13^th and Monroe streets in Muncie.  I was a member there and an active part of their youth group.  After school at about 3pm, I made my way to the church office.  My hope was that she would let me use the office typewriter to do my project.  Keep in mind, I had no idea how to use a typewriter or any of the tools (carbon paper, correction fluid, etc.) that went along with it.

She said, “No, but I’ll type it for you.”

“Are you sure,” I asked.  “Really?”

“Sure,” she answered.  “I’ll help you out.”

So, she typed…and typed…and typed...and typed.  I had to explain the detailed formatting along the way…and that was coming from someone who didn’t really understand formatting yet.  Spacing.  Footnotes. Indentations.  I think we got done (she was typing, I was keeping her company) sometime between 10pm and 11pm that night.  I could not believe what an ordeal it was, and I was soooooo happy she had agreed to help me out, because if it took her that long, and she knew how to type, then it would have taken me all night…literally...and I still would have failed.

The next day, I walked proudly into Mrs. Hillman’s Term Paper class and handed in my 10-page paper on “The Life of Jesus and the Way His Disciples Should Live.” -- an odd title and subject for an 18 year old boy in a public high school.  And, thanks to Delores' help, I got an "A."  At least that's how I remember it.  (I should dig that thing out again and read it.  I’m pretty sure I found it in some of my mom’s stuff and still have it around somewhere.)

The interesting thing that I missed at the time, and just in the writing of this story have realized was that I may have written a lame paper on how a disciple of Jesus should live, but Delores actually showed me.  I came to her with a desperate situation and no real hope of successfully completing that project, and she cheerfully sacrificed whatever else she was planning to do in order to stay in her office way past her time to go home so she could save my skin.  She could have just said no and went home.  Or, she could have given me the chair and left me to my own devices with that crazy contraption of mechanical letters.  But, she didn’t.  Instead, she stayed, and she typed.  That was a better testament to how a disciple of Jesus should live than any silly paper I could have written.

Anyway, you might think that after that experience I would have entered college confident of my ability to write a term paper, and committed to never procrastinate again.  You would be wrong.

In the fall of 1980, I entered Williamstown Bible College.  I spent two years there and exited with an Associate Degree.  And….I never wrote one single term paper.  Oh, they were assigned.  Nearly every class had one due.  I just never completed, nor attempted to complete one single paper.  That high school experience actually caused me to be so intimidated by the process that I skirted the whole issue.  Rather, I figured out that I could still pass all of those classes without writing the paper if I aced everything else.  So, that’s what I did.  I got top marks in every assignment leading up to the final paper, then skipped it.  I ended up a “C” student, but I passed every class without the paper.

Oh, and I promise you that I’m going to deal with that procrastination problem.  Tomorrow.

A Muncie Boyhood-Curiosity, the Candle and the Curtains

One of my favorite things to do in my formative years in Muncie was to burn the trash.  “What?”  You may ask.  “You didn’t wrap everything up in fancy Glad Bags and put them in fancy plastic garbage bins so that the high tech dump trucks can just pick them up and dump them?”

Nope.

My dad had an elaborate garbage and trash system.  There were three containers in our kitchen: 

1.        A fully-opened paper ½ gallon milk carton for slimy, greasy, wet garbage.  This sat on the counter to the left of the kitchen sink, and you just scraped stuff into it as you cleaned off your plate.  We didn’t have a garbage disposal, so anything that today would go into that contraption would in those days go into the carton.  The thing caught everything from egg shells to bacon grease.  When the carton was full, the flaps would be folded back to a closed position and it was placed in the second container.

2.       A paper grocery sack that sat on the floor of the kitchen under the window in front of the refrigerator was the second level of the system.  This container caught all of the non-slimy, non-greasy trash that could not be burned, things like metal cans or glass containers that couldn’t be redeemed for money.  When the sack was near full, it got rolled closed and carried out to the steel garbage cans in the garage.  They were eventually put out on trash day beside the alley and a big truck with a couple of guys hanging off the rear would come by and empty them out.  Glad style bags existed back then, but my dad was too frugal to let mom buy them.  She would come home with multiple paper sacks from Ross Grocery or Wise Supermarket anyway, so she would just save them for this secondary duty.

3.     We had a kitchen trash basket that was positioned just beside the grocery sack.  Into this bin was placed anything that could burn, but primarily paper.

In my neighborhood, most folks had a place where they burned trashed.  It was common practice.  City ordinances forbid such things today, but back then….well,….it’s just what was done.  Cecil French had the best one in the neighborhood.  It was built up with concrete blocks, had a system for air intake, and the ash could be shoveled out when need be.  My dad, on the other hand, had the simplest.  It was an old oil drum with the top removed and some holes cut in the sides.

Our trash-burner drum was located on a tiny little strip of ground between our driveway and the alley that ran behind our house.  I would drag the kitchen container out there about once a week with a few matches or maybe someone’s cigarette lighter and burn the trash.  No big deal and not all that dangerous….unless….

Unless I decided to give the fire a little boost with the gasoline that my dad kept for the mower just inside the garage.  I’ve got to tell you, sometimes I think it is a wonder I survived my childhood.

I don’t think you could call me a pyromaniac.  I’ve never burned down a building or anything more substantial than trash or some brush.  My cousin Greg used to build these elaborate “houses” out of boxes and cardboard just so he could burn them.  I never got into that.  But, fire did sort of intrigue me.  Call it science.  Call it curiosity.  Call it stupidity.

I enjoyed small experiments.

I liked to augment the trash fire with different materials….rubber (makes noxious black smoke) or plastic (makes noxious, but colorful smoke).  I liked to see if I could get the fire going again when it was almost out.  Stuff like that.

The experiment that scared me the most though, didn’t involve the trash barrel.  Nope.  In this case, it was a simple candle.

My mom had some little candles in glass bowls.  The openings at the top curled in so that the bowl was wider than the opening.  The wick was about halfway down the bowl.  You know what I’m talking about, right?  Anyway, I had one of those in my bedroom, and I used to “mess” with it.  Light it.  Blow it out.  Light it.  Suffocate it.  Relight it.  See if I could suffocate it until it was almost out, but then give it the air back again just in time to revive it.  The trouble wasn’t this game.  The trouble was the tool I was using to suffocate the candle.

I was using my bedroom curtains.

You are saying something else right now.  You are saying:  “Was he nuts?”

You are right to ask that question.  I ask myself that every time I think about this story.  I think I'll plead temporary insanity.

Anyway, what I would do was light the candle, and then lay the curtain over the top of the candle bowl and watch the flame die down inside until it was just about gone, and then pull the curtain back to see the flame jump back to life.  I did this several times with no incidents….until one time I noticed that as the curtain lay over the bowl, its white color was turning black and a little tiny bit of smoke was rising from the material.

“Crap!” I said in a hushed scream!  And, I pulled the curtain free!

I was lucky.  It didn’t actually catch fire.  But, I think I was VERY close to catching my folks’ house on fire.   Another couple of seconds and this story would have had a very different ending.  That close call put an end to my fire games and experiments.  As I’ve said before in this series, it was one more thing that I never did again.

Curiosity almost burned down my parents' house.  I don't play with fire anymore, but if there is anything that causes me more grief in my life than anything else, it is my curiosity.  I have an intense amount of it, and it is a blessing in some ways, and a definite curse in others.

 

The Blessing & Curse in Pictures

Me....just trying to catch up on some rest!  Don't poke me though.  I'm grumpy when I'm poked.

Creativity is both a blessing and a curse.  It is a blessing as the juices are flowing and you are swallowed up in the process of making something…something new…something never seen before.  Oh, the joy of being enveloped in those artistic juices!  But, it is a curse when you are stuck.  Stuck with either a stifling inability to think or act creatively, or stuck by the circumstances of life that are stopping you from exercising those artistic genes. 

I’m afraid I’ve had more of the curse lately.  I've been stuck.



I promise...I'm really trying to bridge this creativity gap!

 

My money-making occupation has dominated my mind-time of late, and I have had real trouble thinking creatively.  Thus, so few new blog entries in the last couple of months.  Frankly, it is kind of painful.  I want desperately to write something, but I’ve had nothing to say.  No sparks of creativity to ignite into a new story or a new blog entry.

I think I left my ideas up there.  It's a long climb up, but I need 'em.

I did start a new short story about a guy named “Rolly Shamus,” but I have had trouble finding the “mind-time” to develop the story and get it written.  (I was going to say “on paper,” but nobody actually uses paper anymore.  I guess I could have said “on memory,” but what does that even mean?)



I'm sure there's something just around the corner.

 

So, basically, I’m just writing to let you know I’m a bit frustrated.  And to share these pictures with you.  At least it gives you something to look at.  And, despite my frustration…and my temptation to just bag the whole writing thing…I will be back soon with something more interesting…interesting to me anyway.



Sometimes, being creative becomes a real battle.

 

This little bout with writer’s block can’t last forever.

Mike



Soon, the ideas will flowing so strong, it'll be like they're shooting out of my hair!

 PS: I wrote this, then picked the pictures at random.  The fun part was making up the silly captions to make them fit my writing.  Just a fun little exercise.  And, I bet that picture just above made you smile.

Cake and a Deeper Experience

I’ve been thinking a lot about cake lately…and not just because my wife made a delicious banana pudding cake for dessert yesterday.  And, not because of that bread pudding cake dessert I had after dinner tonight.  Not even because I haven’t had a Big Wacky Cake for a couple of months. 

Nope.  None of those reasons.

I’ve been thinking about cake as it relates to God.

I bet you’re scratching your head on that one.  Did it make you go “Hmmmmm”?  Are you wondering if maybe I’ve loosened up the old screws that hold my mind together?  Let me explain.

Well, you see, someone asked me to help with a discussion a couple of weeks ago, and my answer to him on the spur of the moment has been sitting on my mind ever since.  This friend was having a bit of a time explaining how the study of the scriptures differed from the study of God.  In my answer, I changed the topic.  I said: “Let’s say it’s like the study of the wording and language of a cake recipe versus the study of the cake itself.  Either way, if you never experience the actual cake, then you’ve wasted your time.”

I think that often Christianity can be the same way.  We get all caught up in the study of the semantics and language of the scriptures.  What does this mean?  What does that mean?  What did the Greek say here?  What was the Hebrew word used there?  Or, we talk and rave about the wondrous things that God has made, and we marvel at what must be His character or what He may be like.  How can He be everywhere at once?  How could He have been here forever? 

All the while, we don’t really experience God.

You know how when you have that slice of cake in front of you…and you slide that fork down through that sweet cream icing and the moist body of delicate deliciousness...how excited you become in anticipation?  How about when you slide that fork into your mouth and the flavors burst onto the taste buds?  How you make those “mmm, mmmmm” sounds as it dissolves on your tongue?  Wow.  It is a marvelous thing!

Could this describe your experience with God?

Could you imagine spending years upon years just looking at a cake?  Never taking a bite.  Just looking at it.

Or, maybe instead, you spend years upon years studying a cake recipe.  What are the nuances of how much vanilla to use?  How much egg?  Butter?  And again, you never…ever…take a bite.

I think some Christians do that with God.  They look at Him.  Study Him.  Consider Him.  They read His Book (recipe) over and over and over.  They even gather in large groups every week to talk about Him or his Book.

And yet, they never take a bite.

They never really take the fork out and experience the impact of God as His flavors explode in their hearts.

I’m going to have to think about this some more.  I just thought I’d share this train of thought as it rattled through my brain, but....

One last thing…it really is a shame too for so many people who are missing out.  Because….in this case…you CAN have your cake AND eat it too.  It never runs out…it never gets stale…and you don’t even need a scoop of ice cream to make it go down.

Grace and the Waves of Life

Over the last few years, I’ve written a good many blog posts.  Many of those posts were spiritually oriented, and several of them focused on the subject of Grace.  So, when I got copied on a group email from a man who had attended the same Bible College as I did, and he was struggling with a very real feeling of inadequacy before God…a feeling that he had not lived up to what he believed a Christian was supposed to be,… and was subsequently feeling that his salvation was in jeopardy, I directed him to my writings on Grace.  He read them.  He said they were good, but they were directed toward those just coming to faith… and not to him.  He had come to faith and then failed… ”Is there really any Grace for me?” he was in essence asking.

That’s when I realized that within the various bodies of faith organizations, there are those who have so focused on “doing the right things” that they have convinced themselves that unless they achieve perfection, they will be lost.  And, it’s not just “doing” the right things…it’s also “believing” the right things.  “Thinking” the right things.  “Teaching” the right things.  On and on. 

So many opportunities to fall short.

So many opportunities to feel guilty.

This man asked me to write something for the person who is already a believer and who needs the Grace of God.  Sure.  No problem, I thought.  I can knock that out.  No so fast, big boy!  I started thinking about it, and I realized that I needed to dig into this a bit.  I needed a deeper understanding.  A week turned into a month.  A month turned into a quarter.  Soon, I had drifted off onto other projects, and never completed the response to this man.  Eventually, it became a situation of “out of sight, out of mind.”  I forgot about it.

Fast forward to New Year’s Day 2013.  I opened my email and I had a message from the same guy.  He was thanking me for helping him last year, and he was still hoping I could write something more on Grace.  Suddenly, I was the one feeling just a bit inadequate.  I had let the man down.  Geesh.  Some help I was.  So, I renewed my promise, and I have been digging around this subject ever since…and what you are about to read in this and the upcoming posts in this new series is the progress I’ve made so far.  It is still developing; a work in progress.

I don’t think that I will ever say that I fully understand this subject.  In fact, I don’t think any of us fully understand Grace.  It is a God thing and just a bit above our pay grade.  But, I think I have gained a more full understanding than I had before, and I only hope to share what I’ve been able to glean.  I will start today with one thought and one scriptural message:

THOUGHT:  GRACE is experienced in our lives to the extent that we TRUST in God.

MESSAGE:

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.  After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.  Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.  When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified.  “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

But Jesus immediately said to them:  “Take courage!  It is I.  Don’t be afraid.”

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

“Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.  “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.  Then those who were in the boat worshipped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”  Matthew 14: 22-33

I think that this story is revealing a message about Grace.  It is showing us a quality of Grace.

I asked another man recently about Grace, and among some of the things he said, he described the church’s view of Grace as being like a pendulum.  Some swing way over to works and Grace isn’t really much more than a nice concept to them.  Others swing way over to Grace, and what you do (if you do anything) doesn’t matter.

The problem with pendulums is that they are constantly swinging.  As long as they are working, they never find their middle and stay there.  As Christians, we need to jump off the pendulum.

Several years ago, I was giving a devotional talk, and I was raising the concept of Grace.  One woman said that we should be careful about talking about Grace too much because when people focus too much on Grace, nothing ever gets done….people stop working.  (This was in an organization that is very much performance-based.)  I think that perspective misses the whole point.  Grace doesn't drown motivation.  Grace is the float of motivation in our lives.

Grace is the power of God that gives us the spiritual float in this wicked sea of life.  It gives us the lift that allows us to work.  It moves us along despite the wind and the waves.

So, here’s the thing.  Jesus was God cloaked in a man’s body…a human body.  Human bodies CANNOT walk on water.  It is an impossibility…short of the power of God.  But, in fact, the power of God gave Jesus the lift to stay on top of the waves.  It gave him the ability to function and move and advance.  Jesus perfectly trusted in the power that was provided to keep him above the water line.  His trust led him to act despite the impossibility of the action.

Peter had a different experience.

Peter saw the example of Christ.  He wanted to reflect that example.  He wanted to get out there and be that man.  Jesus invited him to join him, so Peter got out of the boat with his initial enthusiastic trust in the possibilities of God.  He walked on water.

Then, reality set in.

The sea spray was hitting him the face.  The wind was blowing him around.  The waves were lapping at his legs.  He was doing the impossible…until he realized that he was doing the impossible.

Suddenly, his mind shifted from what GOD was doing in his life to the fact that it was impossible for him to do what he was doing.  And, you know, he was right.  It was impossible for PETER to do what he was doing.  Only God could do it through him.  So, when he shifted from what God was doing through him to what was impossible for himself to do, he began to sink.

When he trusted in the power of God, he could walk in safety.

When he lost that trust, he began to sink.

But even in his lack of trust…his battle with his “little faith,”…Jesus was there to pull him out of the waves and get him safely into the boat.

Every day, men and women make the decision to reflect the life of Christ by becoming a Christian.  They accept his invitation, and get out of the boat.  But, living the Christian life is impossible.  The winds of sin buffet us constantly.  The spray of the world hits us in the face every minute of every day.  The waves of temptation lap against our stride as we try to make some headway.  As long as we trust in the power of God…and not in our own ability…we can stand, we can move, and we can accomplish the impossible.  But when we begin to trust only in what we can do within our own ability, we will struggle…we will doubt… and we will sink.  Our failure breeds more failure.

However, we aren’t in this thing alone.  Jesus is right there in the water with us.  Either way.

He will either walk along side us, or he will grab our arms and pull us safely back into the boat until our faith is strong enough to again face the waves of life.