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.

A Muncie Boyhood-Racism and Innocence

In honor of Black History Month, here is my Muncie Boyhood discussion of the racism around me in my youth in that “Model of Middle America" known as Muncie.

I am finding that this particular article is difficult for me to begin.  I suppose because it remains such a delicate subject in so many ways, and even though I am strongly opposed to any sort of racism, I could easily be taken out of context.  Therefore, I feel compelled to be so very careful in how I write this, that I am slow to get going.

I was born in 1961.  So, by the time the Civil Rights Movement was gathering steam in the mid-60’s, I was still a small boy.  A small white boy. 

I was watching a History Channel story today about African-American history and to my surprise…well, maybe not surprise…perhaps chagrin…Muncie was mentioned in the context of the early 20^th Century rise of the Ku Klux Klan.  I am grateful to say that my family was never a party to that hatefulness and I never was aware of any active members, but I’d be willing to bet that some members lived in my neighborhood… nearby.

As a young white boy in Muncie in the 1960’s, life was simple to me.  I had no understanding of the long and intense history of prejudice, racism, and bigotry that had plagued our society.  My family didn’t promote racism, but they weren’t particularly outspoken about it either.  And while there were many cuss words that were heard around our house, “Nigger” was never one of them.  I might have heard it from a neighbor or an extended relative from time to time, but it just wasn’t in my family's regular vocabulary.  Without any training that I recall, I just disliked the word from the earliest memory I have of it, and I could not understand why anyone would call someone else a hateful name simply because their skin was darker in color.

I have to admit, though, that as a young boy, I lived a life that was very isolated from other races.  My entire neighborhood around the intersection of Hackley Street and 21^st Street was completely made up of industrially supported, lower middle class families and were without exception white.  All of the black families lived on the other side of Heekin Park.  Even my school, Roosevelt Elementary was all white.  I don’t recall ever seeing anyone there…teacher or student…who wasn’t white.  Basically, the only time I saw African American folks was when they drove their cars down Hackley Street and passed by our house.  So, my entire early cultural education on black folks was based on the TV and what the other people in my life said.

That provided a conflict in my mind.  Most of the adults that spoke about race relations in my early life in Muncie were bigoted, but the TV news depicted a grand struggle for equal rights as well as the obvious mistreatment of innocent people for no good reason and that seemed unreasonable to my sensitive mind.  I had no personal knowledge from which to build an opinion, however it seemed to me that it was inherently wrong to pre-judge someone based on what they looked like.  It seemed to me that the hateful words that I heard spoken by folks around me were just that...hateful.

So, I rejected racism very early.

That doesn’t mean that my mind wasn’t tainted by it.  Fear was imbedded.  I saw the news on TV of the race riots in other cities.  I can remember hearing the kids at Roosevelt talk about “another riot at Southside.”  In the early days of Muncie South…the home of the Rebels…their mascot was a Confederate Rebel and I think they did make some use of the Confederate Battle Flag as well.  When you consider that a large part of the student body was black, that didn’t sit too well.

It was also during this time that there was a good deal of unrest down the road near where Hackley Street intersected with Willard Street and the surrounding blocks.  I can remember riding in the back seat of my dad’s new Chevy Nova as we went to pick him up from work at the Chevrolet plant late one night, when as we stopped at a stop sign to turn west on 8^th Street, a large rock landed on our rear window.  My mom sped off and I can remember the talk being that it was a race thing.  The window didn’t break and everyone was okay, but it fed my fear.

That scary event was offset to a degree at Tuhey Pool.  My dad used to take me swimming at the pool, and it was one of the few places (Heekin Park being the other) where I would have the opportunity to interact with black kids prior to middle school.  I don’t remember much, but I do remember this one smiling black boy that was so friendly…I liked him a great deal and had fun playing in the water with him.  It helped with the fear to a degree, but it couldn’t completely offset the feeling of anxiety that was developed inside me both by the news media and the gossip of the prejudiced people around me.

It was with this brew of fear swirling in the pit of my stomach that I approached the prospect of moving on from the entirely white Roosevelt Elementary to the fully integrated Wilson Middle School.  Not helping the matter was a little tour our sixth grade class took the spring before I was to attend there.  Here I am, with the irrational fear of other races testing my tentative courage as I walked down the strange hall in the strange school, when a large black boy…probably one of those huge 8^th graders (All 8^th graders looked huge to me back then.)…well, this boy menacingly lunged at me as he passed our group.

He scared the ‘stuff’ out of me.

So much for what little courage I had.  After that, I had nothing but that encounter to think about as the summer before my 7^th grade year whizzed by.

Fear led to anxiety.  Anxiety led to worry.  But there was no way out.  I had to go.

Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I had heard.  Maybe I wouldn’t get beat up by someone just because I was white.  I’d never hurt them, and I couldn’t understand why they would want to hurt me for no reason.  Today, I understand that the same fear was residing in the hearts of many of the black kids as they prepared for that same first day of school on the other side of Heekin Park, but back then I had not yet learned the full history of the way that black folks had so bitterly been mistreated.  My innocence blinded me to the deeper plight held by my classmates.

When the start of school came, I entered in the morning with fear in my heart, but left in the afternoon with the joy of new friends!  In the days that followed, that irrational fear subsided as I playfully bantered and goofed off with new friends like Marvin and James.  They were funny.  They were fun.  I forgot they were black because in my inner being, I never really cared what color anyone was on the skin-side of their soul.  I no longer feared the black kids because they were black.  From then on, I was just afraid of mean kids… because they were mean…white or black.

But, there was another fear that hid itself in my heart…and one that I am still ashamed that I allowed it to control me.  You see, I liked James and Marvin a lot.  We had fun at school.  So much so, that I often thought about having them come over after school.  But, I was afraid to ask them.  It seems weird to me now because my folks weren’t outwardly bigoted.  I think it was more the influence of the neighbors.  I was worried about how they would react if I had my black friends running around the neighborhood with me. 

As I type this, shame is resting on me.  Marvin or James, if you are reading this, I am sorry.  Please accept my apology for ever letting that fear prevent me from being fully a friend to you.  I don't know if you would have wanted to come over...I don't know if your folks would have allowed you to either...but, it sure would have been fun if you had.

After Wilson Middle School I headed on to the dreaded Muncie Southside High School…the home of the race confrontations of the late 60’s and early 70’s.  By the time I had arrived there, the Confederate (and the flag) had been replaced by a cannon (Ole Reb), and the outward racial animosity between most of the kids was gone.  In my four years there, I developed more friendships with guys like Donnell S., Dante S., Tyrone H. and Tyrone P.  I wasn’t close with them, but I liked them a lot and I have many fond memories.  Donnell has passed away, but I am pleased to say that I’m connected to Dante and Tyrone H. on Facebook.  Another friendship that I started in high school was with a guy named John Benford.  Great guy.  Basketball star.  He was cool and I was sort of nerdy, but we always talked some at school and had a class or two together.  The last time I saw him was after he graduated, and we ran into each other in a parking lot near the old A&P Grocery on south Madison Street.  He was in his car and I was in mine.  We stopped, driver’s-side to driver’s-side, and talked for a few minutes.  It is funny how sometimes you speak to someone and you don’t realize that you may never see them again.  I think I heard he was in California now…I sure hope he’s doing well.

I suppose that if we couldn’t see the color of one another’s skin, we’d find some other reason to be hateful toward each other, but I must say that my idealistic nature wishes that we could put this one issue aside.  I wish we could just stop considering it at all.  I wish we didn’t have “White” Americans and “Black” Americans….or “Native” Americans…or “Latino” Americans.  Maybe if we stopped with all the labels, we could just see each other for who we are…and start assessing people by the “content of their character” instead of the color of their skin.  That is a dream that I share with a rather famous man…Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

So, I suppose this Muncie Boyhood story is simply one that describes the fact that even though a white boy is surrounded by racism as a child, he doesn’t have to grow up to be a racist.  And, even though I may have been too innocent as a child to understand the full historical plight of my African American friends, simple compassion was enough to tell me that bigotry was wrong. 

And, hopefully one day I can watch the History Channel and see some story of how racism was replaced by friendships in a small city in middle America called Muncie, Indiana.

Anonymous?

One of my best and worst personal characteristics is my curiosity.  Sometimes it leads me into trouble, but more often it leads me to new knowledge and new understandings.  It can be my undoing and it can be my drive toward self-development. 

It can also be like a piece of fried chicken when you’re on a diet…or a like that last piece of pizza that your date picked up before you could get it.  If you ask my wife how to drive me crazy, she’ll tell you to play on my curiosity.  Start to tell me something and then stop.  Hint that you know something I’d be interested in but don’t reveal it.  Give me a glimpse of something and then pull it back.

Or….

Comment on my blog without identifying yourself!

Mr. or Ms. Anonymous…you are driving me crazy!  You are finger nails on the chalkboard to me.

Some of you log in.  Some of you sign your name.  THANK YOU!

But some of you…and you know who you are (I don’t, but you do.)...make comments on my stories and hint that you are someone I know, but you don’t reveal yourself.  Maybe you don’t mean to be, but you’re being mean to me!  You are pulling my curiosity cord with a vengeance.

Help a guy out, will ya?  Tell me who you are!

So, if I ask nicely…say “pretty please”…will you do me a favor and sign your name to your comments?  Or, at least send me a note to tell me that you commented?

Pretty please.

Fried Bologna and a Good Book

Today, I visited the Gerst Haus in Evansville, Indiana to enjoy one of their wonderfully delicious fried Bologna sandwiches.  It is a great German restaurant and the bologna sandwiches are one of their loyal customers’ favorite menu items.  Thick cut.  Fried.  Pepper Jack cheese.  Grilled onions.  German mustard.  And, a side of German fries.  Great stuff!

Check it out at this link:

http://www.gersthaus.com/

Often when I eat lunch alone, I am accompanied by a book.  It could be anything from the Bible to a Dean Koontz adventure; from Baldacci’s intrigue to something on Civil War history.  Today, it was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  When the waitress arrived to take my order, she excitedly told me how fantastic it was that I was reading that book!  Later, after I’d completed my sandwich and was paying the bill, she told me to enjoy the book, and that she was glad it was a real book and not “one of those Kindles.”

I really enjoy a good book.  I especially enjoy fiction.  Even more, I enjoy it with a hint of horror, fantasy, or science fiction.  Thus, I am especially fond of Dean Koontz…he is my guilty pleasure/vacation writer…the guy I turn to when I want to escape on an adventure that will both carry me someplace exciting, and make me laugh while scaring me to death.  That said, I often push myself to indulge in other genres as well, and try to mix it up with spiritually enriching works, classic literature, and various studies of history.  In an average year, I’ll read 12 to 15 books of various types.  I don’t set any reading records, but I think that is pretty good.

So, what about those Kindles?

My wife got me one for Christmas.  So far, I’ve read two books on it: Norma Jean’s Sun by Kris Courtney and Running Blind (Jack Reacher #4) by Lee Child.  (You can find them both on Amazon, and while they are very different, they are good reading.)  I like that Kindle thing.  It is light.  It is convenient.  The books are generally less expensive than buying paper versions.  It is easy to carry from place to place.  And, it is easy to use.  I will continue to use it, no doubt.

But, I have to say…there is just something about the real thing!

I like books.  Real books.  Books with paper and ink.  Books with pages that you have to turn.  Pages you can dog-ear.  Pages you have to mark.  Lines you can highlight.  Words you can underline.  I like the feel of them in my hands.  I like the smell of them as I strum the pages.  I like the look of them as they collect on my shelves.

If my wife and I are out and about, one of the most financially dangerous places for us to go is Barnes and Noble.  Books stores to us are like candy stores for kids or crack houses for addicts.  Well, that last example might be a bit over the top, but you get the point.

While my wife reads nearly as much as I do…or maybe sometimes more…, she doesn’t seem to feel an attachment to the actual tangible book after the story is over.  She reads it and she’s done with it.  The Kindle is her ideal tool.  For me, I’m also a collector.  If I particularly liked a book, I want to keep it.  If it is a classic, I want to keep it.  If it is in a series that I’m enjoying, it stays around.  If it is by Dean Koontz, it goes into the collection.  I may never read any of them twice, but I like to see what I’ve accomplished.  I guess it makes me feel smart.

I think my ideal house would have a huge library like you see in the old movies with volumes and volumes of books of all types and sizes; some that you can only reach by climbing on one of those wheeled ladders.

So despite how good that little Kindle is, I will never completely part with my paper versions.  I will have to feed my book addiction, and the Kindle placebo just will not cut the yearning for the real thing.  My drug of choice is a good story contained in a paper container.

So…if you happen to wander into El Rodeo on Franklin Road, or any other restaurant that I might frequent, and you see me perusing a book as I nibble on tortilla chips and salsa…well, you might want to consider the following video before you interrupt me:

 Julian Smith: I'm Reading a Book

Good readings to you…and see you at the book store.

Mike 

A Muncie Boyhood-Cannons in the Street

Growing up in Muncie, my friends and I shifted from one favorite activity to another about as quick as the weather changed…and, in Indiana that was pretty quick.  One summer, we might all be into baseball for a few days, then it would be neighborhood-wide games of army or hide-n-seek.  Another summer, we’d be into jumping ramps with our bikes or building a fort on someone’s seemingly abandoned piece of property.

One particularly dangerous period involved the creation of “Tennis Ball Cannons.”  I think it was my friend Jerry who introduced it to me.  Now, before I explain it, you, the reader, need to understand that you cannot build these “safely” with today’s materials.  The materials just aren’t as robust as they were back in the 70’s.  And, I put “safely” in quotation marks because even then, we really couldn’t do it safely.

A tennis ball cannon was made from three soda cans and duct tape.  In those days, pop cans were more cylindrical than they are now.  They didn’t taper down on the top and bottom and they had nice heavy rims.  Anyway, without giving enough detail for some ridiculous kid to duplicate it, you duct-taped the three cans together, removing some specific layers (I’m not telling you which layers and how much) in the middle, and completely removing the top of the top can inside the heavy rim.  Then, by putting a hole in the side of the bottom can, you could introduce an accelerant…lighter fluid.  By pushing a tennis ball into the top (and it fit very nicely…quite snugly), and by squirting some fluid in the bottom, you got a very potent cannon.

I can recall standing in the middle of 21^st street and shooting a tennis ball into the sky so high that you couldn’t see it anymore.

Phlummpp!

Then, a few seconds later it would reach its pinnacle and start to fall back to earth.  After it bounced a few times, you’d go collect ball with all the fuzz singed off and reinsert it for the next shot.  Cool stuff.

That’s what my teenage mind thought.

I am pleased to say that this particular activity got nipped in the bud before anything tragic happened.  There was very little that I did that I didn’t introduce to my nephew, David.  He was four years my younger and we were really more like brothers than uncle/nephew.  (In fact, that is still the case.)  So, eventually I carried my cannon to Monroe Street to show him how it worked.

With him in tow, I sat it up in the middle of the street.  Loaded it up.  Squirted in the fluid.  Lit it.

Phlummpp!

It was a beautiful shot.  You could see the flames of the fireball as it rose out of sight!  So cool!

My sister, his mother, stepped out on the porch.  “What are you doing?” she asked.

I was just innocent enough to not realize that I needed to hide this wonderful, little homemade disaster-waiting-to-happen from the wandering eyes of the adults in my life.  “I’m shooting off my tennis ball cannon!  Come on out and watch.  It is soooo cool!”

So, I shot it off for her a few times.  Phlummpp!  Phlummpp!  Phlummpp!

She watched.  She seemed to think it was pretty neat.  She didn’t say much.

She tattled on me to mom.

And before the night was over my cool cannon was history.  Mine was gone and so were the ones that my friends had made.  Our foray into the firearms business was brought to an abrupt conclusion.  We didn't even get to join the NRA.

Now I do realize that it was for the best that she brought that segment of creative play to an end.  However, at the time, I thought she was worse than the offspring from the union of a Klingon/Romulan marriage.  I decided to shun her.  Shut her out of my life.  I vowed to never speak to her again, and I was true to my word for about a month.  She would come over…I’d leave the room.  She’d follow me…I’d ignore her.  Not a word.  Anything I needed her to know went through an emmisary. 

It was about the worst punishment my fourteen-year old mind could come up with, and in her case, it was quite effective.  Pretty soon, she was nearly begging me to give in…so much so that I began to feel sort of sorry for her, and ultimately I decided to forgive her...well, maybe not forgive.  I decided to "let it go."  To her relief, I relented and allowed life to return to its normal, dysfunctional self.  And, we moved on to other, safer activities…like hurling steel darts as hard as we could across the basement…perhaps, that’s the next story.

So, to all you grudge-carrying folks out there…let this be a lesson to you…whenever your older sibling decides to treacherously save you from your own sorry self-destructive actions…

You should forgive them.  And, hopefully before you’ve reached age 51.

Smoker's Rights? Nope.

Out on the grass in my front yard, near the road, is an empty cigarette package.  I keep hoping it will dry up enough so that the wind will blow it somewhere else.  I ought to pick it up and put it in the trash, but I have an aversion to all things “cigarette.”  I can’t stand the smell.  I can’t stand the smoke.  I can’t stand the mess.  I can’t stand what they do to people.  And, I can’t stand the litter.  I don’t even like to touch anything related to it.

A little extreme…I know.

It started when I was a kid.  Almost every adult in my life smoked, but I saw the news stories and the anti-smoking TV ads, and I believed them.  While my mother believed all the Surgeon General’s edicts about smoking causing cancer and emphysema were lies, I was convinced that it was as terrible as they said it was…plus, I just couldn’t breathe around it.

I can’t recall a time in my life when I haven’t HATED cigarettes.  From my earliest days, I worked hard at avoiding the smoke.  I’d recline on the living room floor instead of sitting on a chair or the sofa so as to be under the floating vapors of death.  I spent countless hours isolated in my bedroom.  I escaped outside or down in the basement.  As a child, I would rather suck in the mustiness of that old basement than the odorous fumes from the cancer sticks.

Car rides were the worst…especially in the winter.  The summers weren’t as bad in the old ’68 Chevy Nova with no power nuthin’ because we had the window and vents open, but winter was a killer…some would say “literally.”  It really bothers me today to see parents driving around with their kids in the back, windows sealed up tight, and the smoke just rolling around inside.  If that isn’t child abuse, then we need to redefine it.

When I turned sixteen and got my license, I suddenly took control of the car.  Whenever mom and I drove somewhere, I was behind the wheel.  Combine the natural lack of respect present in most every teenager with my obsessive hatred of tobacco products and you have someone who is going to go over and beyond to ensure that he doesn’t have to deal with smoke in the car.  One of two things would happen if mom insisted in lighting up while I was driving: 1. I’d turn up the radio as loud as I could take it, or 2. I’d stop the car, then get out and sit on the hood until she was done.  Soon, she pretty much refrained from smoking in the car when I was driving.  I’m not recommending those steps, but it’s what I did.  Call it a confession.

It’s funny how time changes things.  As a child, all the adults smoked and all the kids went outside or to the basement to avoid it.  Now, many fewer people smoke and generally they have to go outside to partake.  In this one way, I like how society has shifted.

Back to that empty cigarette packet on my front lawn…

What is it with smokers?  Why do they feel so free to leave their mess everywhere?  I took a walk today too, and in the one-mile I trotted I saw a number of other empty cigarette packages and many more old, nasty cigarette butts.  Here’s an exercise for you…the next time you’re sitting at a traffic light with the motor idling and you’re waiting for your turn to go…take a look out your window and along the median curb…see if you can count ALL of the butts lying there in the dirt.

Further, I wonder if that empty cigarette pack was left there by the same goofball that has been leaving his or her cigarette butts on the end of my driveway for the last ten years.

I remember as a kid going to Ross Supermarket in Muncie, Indiana with my mom.  She would smoke all through the store, and when she was done with one, she’d drop it on the floor and step on it.  That was common practice “back in the day.”  Being a slob with smoking materials seems to be built into the DNA of our addicted society.  But, dear smoker, the next time you are lamenting how your rights are been so severely restricted in today’s anti-smoking culture, you might want to consider all the ways that you have cut off your own nose.

·         Contaminating other people’s air

·         Locking up your kids in smoke-filled cars

·         Causing health problems in others through your second-hand smoke

·         Dropping your used butts in every conceivable location

·         Burning down your families' homes

·         Causing economic and emotion devastation for you family as they cope with your cancer and death

·         And, dropping your trash in my front yard!

My mom did eventually quit smoking.  In 2002, after she was diagnosed with throat cancer, she gave them up.  And, in mid-2004, when the Smoker’s Rights representative called to ask for her help in petitioning the state to prevent smoking bans, I had to tell her that she had died.  Because, you see, she died in 2003 from the side-effects of fighting the cancer.  That woman from Smoker’s Rights suddenly apologized for calling, and then said:  “It’s just my job.”

I sure hope she found a better one.

In memory of:

Uncle-- Keith Terrell (Lung Cancer)

Mom-- Marge DeCamp (Throat Cancer)

Brother-- Bob Nicholas (Throat Cancer)

And others…