A Muncie Boyhood-Sugar and the Blizzard

My bedroom window gave me a nice view of the corner of 21st and Hackley Streets. The slight slope down 21st toward Hackley made for some exciting, but wasted time during snow storms as my nephew David and I would sit and watch cars slide through the stop sign into traffic. I don’t really remember seeing any real accidents, although David claims that we watched at least one rear-end crash. What I do remember is watching the snow blowing and falling…and blowing and falling…and blowing and falling for what seemed like days during the Blizzard of 1978.


People still talk about that particular snow storm. It’s no wonder. It was the biggest weather event of maybe the last fifty years, perhaps of the century. The temperatures dropped to frigid levels. The wind was blowing at 40 mph. And, it snowed, snowed, and snowed…somewhere between 15 and 20 inches, more in some areas. The drifts were crazy deep. Hackley Street had drifts that were taller than my head. The Army Corp of Engineers had to bring in special equipment to clear all the streets.

I can remember shoveling our back walk following the storm. I did it by hand with a scoop shovel. Luckily, it was drifted away from the door enough that we could actually open it, but after you got outside it was about two feet deep across the balance of the yard. I had to scoop it off in layers. I wasn’t particularly fond of that chore anyway, and to have to scoop off two feet of snow all the way to the garage was nuts. Besides that, I had to scoop off a path to my dog’s doghouse….and an area for her to “do her business.”

The most vivid memory I have of that storm revolves around my dog. The night before the storm really began to nail us, the weather guys (Stan Wood on WISH and Bob Gregory on WTHR) were warning of the intensity and danger of this particular storm. But, the problem was that weather guys were often telling us how bad things were going to be and often it turned out to be a dud. My dad wasn’t buying it.

Sugar was my old dog that lived in the backyard. We got her in probably 1963 or so, and she was getting pretty old. Rarely did my dad let her come in the house. The situation had to be extreme. When she did come in, she got to go down to the basement because she wasn’t house broken and would make messes. After listening to the weather reports and watching the news, I was convinced that this was definitely one of those extreme situations.

“Dad, it’s gonna be really nasty out tonight. We need to bring Sugar in.”

“No.”

“But, Dad…the weather is really bad. It’s supposed to get really cold and snow like crazy.”

“You’re not bringing her in. She’ll be just fine.”

“Come on, Dad. Please. Let’s bring her in.”

“No.”

I walked away quite angry, and concerned. I was worried about my canine companion, but I couldn’t bring her in without Dad giving the go ahead. There was nothing I could do, so I secluded myself in my room and watched the weather out the window until I was ready to sleep. Eventually, I went to bed and drifted off.

Fast forward to 4am. I’m sound asleep. Something is shaking me.

“Mike. Mike. Wake up.”

“Huh? What?”

“Mike, wake up,” my Dad was saying. “It’s really bad outside. You need to go out and get your dog.”

Can you say, “I told you so…”? I wanted to, but that would have made him mad, and I was more concerned about Sugar.

I jumped up, threw on some clothes, and pulled on my rubber over-boots (without zipping them up), and trudged out the back door. Wow! I had never seen so much snow. It was coming over the top of my boots! I had to lift my feet high with each step as if I were doing a high-step march. When I reached her little house, the snow had drifted in a curl around the front leaving only about a two-inch crack through which I could see the opening. That drift was as high as the roofline of the doghouse.

Brushing the snow away with my bare hands, I found my little white dog with the brown ears shivering inside. I had to dig out the opening enough to get her out, and then I carried her back to the house, trying to step into the same spots I had already trudged through before. She was cold, but she was fine.

I think she was in the basement for a couple of days until it stopped snowing and I could clear away enough of the yard for her to go back outside. I know I had several messes to clean up. That was okay though. Uncharacteristically for the Muncie Community Schools of the era, they actually closed the schools for the whole week, giving me plenty of time to scrub the basement floor and scoop the snow off the back walk.

I suppose my Dad looks like the bad guy in this story. But, before we judge him too harshly, maybe we should consider WHY he was actually up at 4am. I think he got worried about her too, and got up to check things out. When he saw how bad it was, he got me moving. I think he loved my dog as much as I did, but he came from a different era and dogs were still considered to be animals….and animals stayed outside.

I write this as the two dogs I have now are sprawled out and snoozing on my sofa in my living room. I wonder what my dad would think of that?

27 Years and Counting

Tomorrow, I will have been married for 27 years. That’s quite a feat in today’s society. While the years and the experience have been glorious, they have not always been a breeze. There were some hiccups…some bumps…some curves…you know…stuff that you have to work your way through. Can you relate? Anyway, I thought I would share with you 27 things I’ve learned from 27 years of marriage.


Here goes…

1. Cherry Cokes make a nasty sound when thrown across the room.
2. By comparison, potato chips make less noise when tossed, but make a bigger mess.
3. “Eat your own stinkin’ dust” sounds an awful lot like “I hate your stinkin’ guts” when shouted from down the hall.
4. Asking your wife how to operate the camera while her intestines are laying open on the operating table after a C-section is not the most thoughtful thing to do, and is a bit embarrassing after that fact is pointed out.
5. Switching which side of the bed you sleep on can be dangerous when the alarm clock goes off.
6. Telling your kids something mean, unflattering, and insulting about your wife while on a vacation at the Grand Canyon can lead to a very nasty argument at the hotel later that evening.
7. You should never make a significant financial decision before discussing it with your spouse and sleeping on it at least one night.
8. Further, couples should develop a mutual financial plan and work it together from the beginning.
9. A mutual commitment to and love for God prevents a great deal of stress and promotes trust in the relationship.
10. Proving you’re right usually means that you lose.
11. Saying “I’m sorry” is always a good idea, but is most effective when you actually mean it.
12. As counterintuitive as this may sound, doing dishes can lead to a very romantic evening.
13. The things that you will enjoy doing together after the nest is empty will be different than the things you enjoyed doing together before the nest was full.
14. Waistlines will expand and contract, but your friendship will make that immaterial.
15. Odd days and even days is a good way to decide who chooses the movie.
16. Anniversaries come around at the same time every year, so it shouldn’t be so hard for a guy to remember to plan for them.
17. Holding in all the tiny little hurts can lead to one massive emotional explosion.
18. Don’t be afraid to admit when you are wrong to your kids.
19. You can teach your kids about grace by giving them grace.
20. Sometimes, chick flicks really aren’t all that bad….but just sometimes.
21. Debt is destructive…avoid it.
22. If your wife says she wants to do something that seems out of character, don’t ASSUME she’s kidding.
23. Never get too busy to spend time together.
24. A wife will cheat in a slap-boxing contest.
25. True love really does cover a multitude of sins.
26. Humility beats pride every time.
27. Twenty-seven years are only the beginning.

If you’ve been married for a while, I’d love to hear some of the things you’ve learned.

Someone told me just before I got married that marriage is a 50-50 thing. I disagree. It is a 100-100 thing. Both of you have to GIVE 100 percent. Sometimes you’ll miss that mark, but always reset your aim to that point and you’ll be okay.

Twenty-seven years have gone by like a blink of the eye. Here’s a cyber-toast to the next twenty-seven.

A Muncie Boyhood-Cost of the Summer Treat

For the sake of argument, let’s just say it’s June 1969. The sun is shining. It’s the first really warm day of the summer. I’m seven and a half years old, and I’m out in my backyard playing with my big yellow Tonka dump truck and talking to my dog Sugar.


What’s that I hear? Music in the distance. Which direction? Where? Is it close?

Back in those days in Muncie, Indiana, one of the favorite features of summer was the ice cream truck. Kids would come running from every corner of the neighborhood to get their frozen treats. Popsicles. Fudge bars. Creamsicles. Rocket popsicles. Nothing tasted better on a summer evening.

You could hear him coming long before he got there. I have no idea what the tune was, but it was distinctive. As soon as it got within earshot, you could hear the kids: “The ice cream man! The ice cream man!”

The truck was my favorite with its larger variety hidden behind those colorful side panels, but there was another option….the ice cream bike. Boys on bikes with large iceboxes on the front. They rode through Heekin Park and anyplace else where lots of people were getting hot and sweaty and in need of something cold, but they didn’t ride down 21st Street all that often. There wasn’t enough bang for the pedal stroke. It wasn’t a big loss for our gang, though. There was more to choose from in the truck.

My mom kept a little plastic cup up in the cabinet with dimes and nickels just so there was change handy for when he drove by. Isn’t that something? You could get an ice cream bar for 15 cents! Anyway, the music would start playing and I would run in the back door, run up the three steps into her tiny kitchen and yell for her to give me some money for the ice cream man.

“Ice cream man! Ice cream man! I need some money for the ice cream man!”

Our backdoor didn’t have your typical screen door, although it was probably typical when it was first installed. It was wooden. It was kept from swinging too far with a chain and a spring. It didn’t have a cool little device to make the door swing closed slowly. Instead, it just slammed back down. We latched it with a little hook and loop, but we usually didn’t. Usually, it was free to open and close. One of the funniest things was to see my dog digging at its bottom edge to get in as a thunderstorm approached. Eventually, she would pop it open enough to get her nose in, and then into the house she slipped.

One particular day…perhaps the day I described above…the ice cream man was coming down my street. Overflowing with excitement, I ran into the house screaming for some change. “Mom! It’s the ice cream man! Can I have some money?”

Way too slowly for my liking, she opened the cabinet and got me some change out of the little cup, and then I was off. Down the three steps to the landing, turn right, throw open the screen door, run out…

BAM! “Owwww!”

The screen door chain had gotten tangled in the spring. It only opened a few inches before it slammed back shut with the same force with which I had thrown it open and hit me square on the forehead!

It raised a really nice swollen lump.

But, priorities have always been important to me, so I just grabbed my head with my change-free hand and kept going. I couldn’t let the truck get away! I chased him down and got my treat.

You’ve heard of ‘shoot first and ask questions later.’ Right? Well, for me it was: ‘Ice cream first and rub your head later.’

I wasn’t sure if I should eat it or put it on my face. That’s a lie. I definitely ate it....every last sweet, cold, refreshing bite.

Time for a National Brain Fart

Has it happened to you? You know. You’re in the middle of a conversation…maybe telling a story…you have some detail you need to share…maybe someone’s name, or the name of a place; a restaurant or a park or a shop…and…and…and…it won’t come.  You can't think of it. You’ve had a BRAIN FART.

It happens to the best of us from time to time.

I think it is high time that we have a national brain fart.

We need to FORGET ABOUT RACE! It needs to slip out of our collective minds. Gone. Zip. Can’t think of it anymore.

I suppose that’s a pipe dream. We spend way too much time defining ourselves with it. Black. White. Hispanic. Native American. Asian. Jewish. African American.

What if we suddenly couldn’t use race as a descriptor when explaining who someone was anymore? Could we manage it? Try it for a couple of days and see how often you do it.

But, why? Why do we need to do that? Why do we need to describe people with skin color? I don’t think we do.

I suppose to bow to the societal pressure, and so you won’t have to do make the description, I should say that I’m a white guy. Now, that I've described myself for you, you can know that I write from that perspective.  Since we can’t seem to get away from race, you might as well keep that in mind as I say what I’m about to say, and then you can judge for yourself as to whether that fact was important with regards to my message…

White folks are oblivious to the racism in our society.

Sure. That’s a blanket statement that is not entirely true…but, it is truer than we fair-skinned folks would like to admit. Some of us see it and wish it would be eliminated from our world. But many of us don’t see it at all because it doesn’t affect us. We assume the civil rights movement took care of that problem and anyone who claims it today is just “playing the race card.”

However, I think it is real. I think it is there. Sometimes it’s blatant, but often it is subtle; maybe even unintentional. For many of us, it was imbedded in us when we were young, and hate it or not, we still find the traces in our minds. For example, why do I get more uncomfortable in a low-income predominantly black neighborhood than I do in a low-income predominantly white neighborhood? It’s that race thing. It is unintentional. I don’t like it. I find it embarrassing and I work to eradicate it. But, it is there.

Some black folks see racism everywhere.

I think this is understandable. When you’ve been directly impacted, or many of your friends and family have been mistreated, you can’t help but look for it. Call it the “flinch.” Someone who has been repeatedly struck will begin to flinch even when there is no punch being thrown. Sometimes there are punches, sometimes there aren’t, but there will be flinches every time.

Is the guy being pulled over because he is a young black guy in a nice car? Or, is he being pulled over because he was going twenty mph over the speed limit? It could be either at any given moment, but just because one happens, doesn’t mean the other one doesn’t.

All that said, I like what Martin Luther King Jr. said:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

To do that, though, it has got to go both ways…or, more accurately it has to go in all ways…all directions…all skin colors. No race has a pass on judging others.

Further, we should take a hard look at the Golden Rule.

"Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31

If you should have the freedom to walk through or drive through a neighborhood freely, then why would you question someone else’s right to do so? If you live in a given apartment complex or neighborhood, why would you keep someone else from doing so? If you deserve personal respect, doesn’t everyone else? If you’re allowed to appreciate Blake Shelton, then why can’t you give room to someone else to appreciate Jay-Z?

See. Like I said. We need a collective brain fart.

We need to forget about race when we live, work, play, and generally interact with one another. Tragedies are inevitable. Accidents happen. Bad decisions are made. But, let’s wipe color out of the equation.

I’m not talking about turning a blind eye to obvious racism. We can’t ignore the evils that worm their way into our lives. We have to deal with that mess head-on. Be careful. Gather all the facts, and then deal with it with swift justice. But, what I am saying is that as far as it is under your control…don’t let race be a factor in your life.

In the words of En Vogue:

“Free your mind and the rest will follow.
Be color blind, don’t be so shallow.”

Let’s enjoy the freedom of forgetting about race. Let’s be color blind and just be good to one another.

So, as crude as it may sound, I’m hoping for a national brain fart.

A Muncie Boyhood-Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Me, Mom, Bob, Grandma Alice, and my niece Debbie.  Four generations.

In 1968, Dionne Warwick had a hit single called “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” I used to listen to it at night on my little off-white (nicotine-stained) box radio that sat in the middle of the headboard in my bed before I went to sleep. In 1973, I learned the answer to the question.


Sometime around the end of my first-grade year or early in my second-grade year (approximately 1970), my brother Bob (or Bobby as I called him then) moved to California. He was in his early twenties, escaping from a failing marriage, mourning the loss of our oldest brother, and feeling that he needed a fresh start. So, he took off with his baby daughter and moved to San Jose, California to start over….and hide from his ex-wife.

About four years later, in the summer of 1973, in between my fifth- and sixth-grade years, my Mom decided it was time for her to go visit him.

Dad wouldn’t take time off from his job at Chevrolet-Muncie, so it was just me, Mom, and my grandma Alice. Mom wouldn’t fly, so we booked passage on Amtrak. This was truly an adventure from start to finish. Muncie to San Jose, California…riding coach.

LEG ONE-Muncie to Indianapolis

Amtrak didn’t run from Muncie to Indianapolis, so Mom recruited my sister to drive us to Union Station in downtown Indianapolis to catch our train. We were supposed to board at 8am, so it was an early morning drive. Now, here’s the thing: My sister was afraid of the interstate, so we took State Highway 67 instead of the much faster Interstate 69. Being a kid, I didn’t realize how silly this was at the time, but as slow as it was, it worked. She got us there in time and dropped us off. I remember thinking how weird it was to see all the steam rising up through the sidewalk grates as we drove into downtown Indy. I’d never been there before, and it seemed so….dirty.

LEG TWO-Indianapolis to Chicago

We got off to a slow start. I’m not referring here to my sister’s aversion to superhighways, but rather to our actual departure by train. Our 8am train didn’t even arrive in Indianapolis until noon. I was excited though. I’d never before been on a real train. I think I’d ridden one at a zoo or a fair, but that was just a tiny, make believe train. This was the real deal. It was huge, and shiny, with bathrooms and restaurants and comfortable seats.

It wasn’t long after noon when we pulled out for the short three-hour ride to Chicago. We had to catch a connecting train that evening at Chicago’s Union Station, but we had a good six hours. No problem, right? That’s what we thought.

This crazy train would go for a bit, then stop. Then, it would sit….maybe back up some…and then sit some more. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

It took us six hours to get to Chicago. We pulled into Union Station five minutes AFTER our connecting train to Los Angeles left the station.

This was interesting. We were stranded in Chicago and I don’t think my grandmother had ever even been to Indianapolis…at least not for a very long time…let alone needing to figure out how to deal with a city as big as this one. My mother wasn’t much better, but I was too young to care. It was an adventure.

I have to admit though that Amtrak took care of us. They got us a hotel room at the Palmer House…boy, was I too young to appreciate that…and they got us a cab to take us there. They even took care of our dinner (It was at the restaurant in the Palmer House where I got my first taste of real cheesecake.). All in all, it worked out. As a young adult, I got to revisit the Palmer House. Only then did I realize what luxury we had experienced.
http://www.palmerhousehiltonhotel.com/

The next day, we had to return to the train station to catch our new train to Los Angeles at 6pm. We went very early and waited, eventually boarded, and departed that evening without a hitch.

LEG THREE-Chicago to Los Angeles

That was a long ride sitting in a seat that only slightly reclined. We spent two or three full nights riding in coach. The days weren’t too bad with lots of scenery, little towns, and interesting people, but the nights were tough. Back then, everyone smoked and the trains were full of it. With nothing to distract me, and no real way to get comfortable, it was difficult to rest.

I loved it when we started to get near the Rockies. I could see them coming for a long time before we got there. Up to that point, the largest “mountain” I had personally seen was the sledding hill at Prairie Creek Reservoir. My mouth probably hung open for hours.

Now remember, I was a child. I was an obnoxious boy of eleven. I liked to joke, cut up, and generally act sort of silly. It was my way of keeping myself entertained, and I liked it when other people laughed too. (Maybe I still do, and that’s why I write this silly blog.) Anyway, when we crossed into New Mexico, somehow the subject of our upcoming stops was brought up, and I tried to say “Albuquerque.”

It didn’t come out as “Albuquerque.” It came out as “Albacookie.”

So, I started laughing and making fun of myself; repeating my mistake.

“Albacookie! Hahahahaha. Albert’s Cookies. Hahahaha! Albert’s eating cookies. Hahaha!”

It was definintely obnoxious, but people all around were laughing with me. I thought it was hysterical, laughed and kept it up for a long time, but eventually it died down. Soon, I had even forgotten it. A little time passed, and I need to go to the bathroom, so I got up and headed down the aisle. I was about to the end, when a lady grabbed my arm…

“Hey!” she said.

“Uh, yeah?” I responded.

“Were from Albuquerque, and we don’t appreciate you making fun of our city!”

“Umm. Okay. Sorry.”

Wow. Touchy.

She let me go eventually, and I made it to the head without peeing my pants…or being accosted by any additional native New Mexicans.

The last night was much better. There was no one in the seat next to me, so I got to stretch out across the full bench. I slept really well until about 5am when we pulled into Needles, California. I was woken up by the conductor…or someone acting on his behalf…because they had a passenger that needed the extra seat I was lying on. It was a Native American woman, which I thought was cool.  I had never seen an "Indian" as they were called then, so it was intriguing.  The unfortunate part though was that she was reeking with body odor. It was a tough couple of hours more into Los Angeles. Can you say WHEW?

LEG FOUR-Los Angeles to San Jose

This was the most beautiful part of the entire trip! The tracks hugged the coastline the entire way, and the scenery was amazing. Los Angeles with its concrete rivers. Malibu. Santa Barbara. Big Sir. I’d do that part again in a heartbeat. I can’t really remember much detail about it anymore other than it was just incredibly beautiful…for a kid from Muncie, Indiana.

SAN JOSE

We didn’t stay with my brother. I don’t think my mom thought it would work out very well. Rather, we stayed with mom’s ex-sister-in-law. We got there in early June, and I know we were there for the Fourth of July, so I guess we were in California for almost a month. I got to visit so many fantastic places. Fisherman’s Wharf. Monterey. Carmel. Alcatraz. Redwood State Park. The Winchester Mystery House. The Boardwalk at Santa Cruz.
http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/

I rode a cable car in San Francisco. I flew in a helicopter over San Francisco Bay. I swam in the Pacific Ocean.

Eventually, though, all wonderful things must come to an end as I suppose they have to, or we would begin to lose appreciation for the adventure. We boarded another train, or series of trains, back to Indiana.

It was during this time that I grew the closest to my grandma. She had been living with us for a couple of years, and initially Dad didn’t think it was going to work. He was close to throwing her out a couple of times because apparently she was being mean to me. If she was, I was oblivious to it. Suddenly, though, that all changed, and we started to become very close. This train voyage to California and back came at the height of that closeness, and we had a lot of fun with each other the whole time; joking, playing, and generally being silly.

It was Allabitquirky….even in New Mexico.

Enough for now.

Life Isn't Fair

Life just isn’t fair.


That’s what I thought today as I sat in a church pew; a pew that is usually reserved for joyful worship, but today was set aside for the comfort of a family as they celebrated the life of a son lost too soon. Songs were sung, prayers were offered, tears were shed, and embraces were given. These things are tough. There are no words that can make it better; no wisdom that can ease the pain. Not really. I say that even though the words offered in Eulogy today were remarkable. Even so, my friend Lois will probably not really feel their encouragement for some time. She will need the strength of her husband, and the shoulders of her friends.

Because life isn’t fair.

A son should not die in his thirties. A five-year old daughter should not die in a school bus accident. An entire family should not be swept away in a terrible storm. All that is true, but it happens anyway. Every day. Day after day. Year after year.

The first time I felt it was when my oldest brother died. I was seven. He was twenty-six. It ripped my mother’s heart out. It robbed me of a lifetime of brotherhood.

I felt it again when my seventy-six year old grandmother died. I had grown so close to her, then she was gone. I felt it with the passing of both of my parents. It’s been eleven years now since Dad passed; eight for Mom. Both of them lived a long time, they had good lives, but somehow it still feels unfair that they are gone.

Life by its very nature is unfair. Every time that we grow close…grow attached…those we love are ripped away. It happens to all of us…and it will happen with all of us.

Even so, we must give life a break.

It really has no choice. We live in a world with limited resources and limited space. Unfortunately, it is the reality of things that everything must pass on in order to make room for those following behind. It is a brutal concept. And after all, how long would it take for us to completely overload our world if all of the sudden there was no more death? If we found ourselves with the magic pill for ultimate health and we ended the process of aging. If we found a way to eliminate all accidents, war, and personal violence; all those things we so desperately hope for,…how long would it take before we could no longer sustain our way of life?

It wouldn’t be long, because even eliminating all those things would only bring on more turmoil and suffering…different, but the same. And that isn’t fair either.

Then, there is the glory of God.

What the physical world is powerless to do, God has the infinite ability to make happen. He is the Great Conqueror over that imminent bully, death…as the minister today called it. God’s resources are beyond measure, and He has the determined will to bring limitless life to all who are willing. He can end aging. He can end disease. He will end all wars. That tree of life will never run out of fruit, no matter how many are picking from its branches.

He injects fairness into what is otherwise completely unfair. He causes hope to spring eternal. He makes the sun to rise after the night of our distress, and the sun to set on the age of pain.

Life may be unfair, but we are not judged by life. We have one who transcends. We have the Alpha…the Omega. He was before life began, and He will be there after physical life has ended to hold forth on the age of limitlessness.

Let us hold on to His hand as we all walk through that valley, the one with the shadows of death, because the one walking with us makes fairness irrelevant.

A Muncie Boyhood-A Few "Back in My Day" Reflections

This post isn't quite as story oriented as some of my other posts, but really is just a random collection of memories from my childhood.  I thought I'd quickly share them.  It might add some background color to some of my other stories.  On with the show...

“Times have changed.”

“Back in my day…”
“When I was a kid…”

I heard that from time to time as a boy. When I did, it usually provoked a roll of the eyes and an under the breath “here we go again.” Every generation gets to hear it, and every generation gets to do it.

Now it’s my turn.

Here are some “back in my day” reflections from my Muncie Boyhood…

Television

A. No satellite. No Cable. We had an antenna. It sat on top of a metal pole that was tucked into an outside corner of our house. Attached to it was a wire that connected to a 4” x 6” black box with a dial. To adjust the signal, we would move that dial back and forth, which theoretically moved the antenna around. It never seemed to make much difference to me.

B. We had 3 ½ channels. That was it. Channel 6-ABC, Channel 8-CBS, Channel 13-NBC, and sometimes we could get a good enough signal to pick up Channel 4. We always hoped for a good signal from Channel 4 on Saturday night so we could watch Sammy Terry and the old scary movies! There was also a local Muncie channel, but it was PBS and we rarely cared if we even got that one.

C. Cable came along in the mid-70’s. My parents resisted for a while. “Why would I pay for TV?” Eventually, they gave in and we suddenly had twenty channels. Wow! Then, HBO showed up. My nephew and I discovered that before the adults did. “This movie is rated R. HBO will show this feature only at night.” Need I explain further?

Telephone

A. We had one phone. A black table-top model with a rotary dial.

B. For most of my childhood, we also had a party line. If you’ve never heard of that, a party line was one that you SHARED with some other random and unknown family. If they were on the phone, you couldn’t use yours. You could literally pick up the phone and listen to some strangers discussing whatever strangers discuss. If you had an emergency, you had to break into their conversation and ask them to hang up so you could make your call. Eventually, as party lines gave way to private lines, we no longer needed to deal with that, but we kept the party line anyway. It was cheaper. No one else was on there, but we still paid less than we would have with a private line.

Air Conditioning

A. Our air conditioning was an open window with a screen. August in Muncie can be hot and very humid. It was normal to have the curtains pulled back and a big box fan stuffed in the window to pull in the night air. It sounds terrible, but you just learned to adapt.

B. Dad never did invest in central air, but after I was grown and gone, mom did eventually nag him to the point that he allowed her to put a window unit in the dining room—one window unit to cool the whole house.

School Transportation

A. I can remember riding a school bus a few times in only one early year of my days in the Muncie Community Schools. It was short-lived, and I really didn’t like it.

B. For most of my days, I walked to school. Kids never walk to school these days. I think parents would be brought up on charges if they expected them to. I started walking to school probably in first grade, and I either walked to or from…or both…all the way into Southside High School. I walked in the sun. I walked in the dark. I walked in the rain. I walked in the snow. I walked in the heat and I walked in the cold. I never walked “five miles, barefoot, up hill both ways” but I did walk.

C. I remember one day in high school when there was a huge snow storm just beginning, the officials released the students early. I had walked to school as normal, but it was snowing like crazy, so I went to the office to call my dad. ME: “Dad, they’re letting us out early because of the snow. Will you come get me?” DAD: “Nope.” ME: “Dad, please. It’s terrible out there.” DAD: “Nope. It won’t hurt you to walk.”

So, I walked.

Trash

We had three ways to deal with trash.

a. A half-gallon paper milk carton was torn open and placed beside the sink. Mom would put all food scraps in that container. Weekly it would be put in the main garbage.

b. We had a paper sack that sat on the kitchen floor in front of the refrigerator and next to the trash can. We placed un-burnables in that bag; things like cans or other metal or plastic items. Once a week, the paper milk carton was closed up and added to one of the sacks. The sack would be put in the steel garbage cans out by the alley for the garbage truck to collect.

c. We had a plastic trash can that also was kept in the kitchen. We would put mostly paper in that receptacle, and from time to time, we would take it out to a barrel that my dad kept by the alley to burn. We burned trash as long as I lived there. Most of the neighbors did the same. I don’t think you could get by with that today.

Things we didn’t have…

A. No microwave ovens

B. No cellular phones—geesh, we didn’t even have cordless phones

C. No TV remote controls

D. No DVD players,…we didn’t even have VHS until I was in high school

E. No home computers—a handheld calculator was even rare when I was real little

F. No I-pods, no CD players…we had 8-track players, and before that it was plain old vinyl records.

G. No power nuthin’ in my dad’s car. No power steering. No power brakes. No power windows. I’m lucky he even got an AM radio put in his 1968 Chevy Nova.

You know, as I think about it, it’s a wonder my whole generation even survived. I mean, we even played OUTSIDE in the summer time.

More to come.

Is Your Worship Synchronized?

Sometimes I feel a little conflicted in worship; torn between what I perceive to be the expectations of those around me, and what I feel on the inside. Have you ever been there? More and more, I find myself examining the words my mouth sings, and comparing them to what I am actually doing in worship. Frankly, they don’t always seem to be synchronized.

This thought process began a couple of years ago when I was sitting with a group of parents and teens on a Sunday night. The youth minister was having a devotional to kick off the summer activities. At one point, we sang “This is How We Overcome” by Reuben Morgan. A key line is:

He has turned my mourning into dancing!

He has turned my sorrow into joy!

The more I looked around the room, the more disturbed I became. NO ONE was smiling. No one seemed happy at all. Here we were singing about how God had made us so happy, and our faces were giving off the opposite message. Were we lying to God? Or, were we just not paying attention to what we were singing?

I wasn’t sure then, and I’m still not sure.

That experience got me thinking about our worship. How many times do we sing about things that we just simply don’t mean? Or, maybe we mean them, but we’ve really turned them into metaphors.

What is a metaphor? It is a figure of speech that is applied to something that it does not literally represent in order to reflect a resemblance. It becomes a word picture that describes something else. For example: “Her face shone like the sun.”

I think we have taken acts of worship and have literally made them metaphors of what we think is going on in our hearts. We have suppressed outward obvious worship, and have begun to rely on what we “think” about those things.

“I feel that way, so I don’t need to actually do it.”

Maybe I’ll try that with the IRS. “I felt like I paid my taxes, so I don’t think I really need to do it.”

So, are you interested in some examples? Here you go….

In the last three weeks we have sung three different songs that I think illustrate my point.

First, we sang a song that included a line about “lifting holy hands to God.” That phrase was used several times. In an audience of over 200 people, maybe three or four were actually doing it. I hesitated at first. I’ve been brought up in this suppressed worship atmosphere and I have a hard time breaking out. But, I had to deal with it. How can I sing about it if I’m not willing to do it? So, reluctantly, I raised my hands. It felt so awkward….but, it also felt more honest.

Secondly, we sang a song that encouraged the church to “Shout Hallelujah!” Over and over, it said to “Shout Hallelujah!”

Shout Hallelujah!

Shout Hallelujah!

Shout Hallelujah to the Lord!

Hallelujah literally means to praise Jehovah.

We sing other songs that repeat “Praise Him. Praise Him.”

But, do we ever really do that? To praise someone is to tell them about all the wonderful things they do, all the wonderful things they are, all the features they have that mean so much to us. It would be weird if I walked up to my daughter and only said: “I praise you.” However, if I told her how beautiful she was, or how proud I am of her talents and abilities, then I have actually praised her.

So, we sing about praising God, but how often do we actually do that? What are His features, His qualities, His wonders that mean so much to you? Tell Him about it.  Tell others about Him.

On top of that, the song was encouraging the church to actually SHOUT HALLELUJAH! I wonder what would happen; what people’s reactions would be, if some folks actually started doing that. “Hallelujah!”

Lastly, we sang the song “Here I Am to Worship” by Chris Tomlin. One of the key phrases is:

Here I am to worship

Here I am to bow down

Here I am to say that you’re my God

Here I am to bow down?

Really? Bow down? Actually get down on our knees and physically humble ourselves before God? Bow before the Great I Am? Really?

We sing it. What if we actually did it? If Tim Tebow can do it in the end zone, surely we can do it in church. When Tim does it, the media makes it all about him…Tebowing. However, I’m sure he would agree that it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with God. It is funny how physically humbling our bodies can actually enhance the humility of our hearts.

One of these days, it will be my turn to again lead the congregation I serve in prayer. I’ll get my turn in wording a “Shepherd’s Prayer.” When it comes around again, there’s a better than average chance that I’m going to give the church an opportunity to join me in a little physical humility.

Get ready. It’s coming.

So, how about you? Is your worship only a metaphor? Are the words you sing only a representative of what you hide inside, or are you actually living out the words?

Maybe you could join me in my awkward attempt to be honest, making the words I sing synchronize with the actions I perform. If so, then I say:  HALLELUJAH!

Destiny's Reign

Destiny’s Reign

2/24/2011

By Michael DeCamp

One day I went to worship

And God gave me a gift

The praise was over

The sermon had ended

And my destiny said hello

There she stood before me

My future with brown curly hair

Smiling with exotic eyes

That captured my gaze

My heart took notice

My life made a shift that day

A change of direction

It was subtle at first

A simple yearning

A friendship blooming

As friendship matured

And our hearts began to merge

Our lives intertwined

Destiny took the wheel

And our journey began

My gaze is still held captive

By those exotic eyes

Time has not mellowed the yearning

As God’s gift still abides

And my destiny still reigns

In my heart

The Emerald Shadows

Photo courtesy of Pamela Enos

The Emerald Shadows

March 4, 2012

A Short Story by Michael R. DeCamp

The woman stood at the end of her pier staring out over the now calm waters of Whistler’s Lake; the slight chill in the air raising goose bumps on her arms and legs. The sun was shining brightly and through the mist of her exhaled breath, she could see ducks paddling in and out of the reeds along the shore. Despite the heavy storms of the previous evening, everything looked normal enough this morning; everything that is except for the wooden door floating in the placid ripples about thirty feet off the end of the dock.

The door, frame and all, looked as if it belonged there. It seemed as if it was simply part of the normal order of things, and that there was a hidden chamber underneath, sort of a natural portal to another watery realm.

Curiosity. That’s what the image evoked in the mind of the middle-aged woman as she stood there staring and her light blue nightgown flapped lightly in the wind. It seemed odd to her that the door would be in that place. How could it have come to be there? There did not seem to be any other debris nearby, and yet there it was. Stationary in the water just a few feet away; locked in place as if God Himself had hung it there.

She had always been prone to curiosity. If she had been a cat, she would have used up her nine lives before she exited her teens. At times it tended to dominate her and threaten to drive her over the edge. Times like when a friend would start to share some meaty gossip, but then would say: “Oh, I can’t tell you. It wouldn’t be right.” Those times drove her nearly mad.

Now, that curiosity seemed to swell with each ripple that flowed up to the doorframe. However, unlike the tiny waves that dissipated when they reached the hinged portal, her curiosity only continued to blossom. A bud of wonder formed, then began to open, until when in full bloom, she finally determined that she simply had to take a closer look.

On her right, rocking gently against the aluminum framework of the pier was her old rowboat. She walked over and looked inside at the collection of oars, lifejackets, and dirty water gathered in the bottom of the small vessel. She really ought to go back inside and put on some better clothes, but she just could not bring herself to turn around. She was drawn to the door like mouse to a piece of cheese, or a moth to a porch light in the summer.

She stepped down onto one of the seats, careful not to lose one of her matching, light blue house-slippers; holding onto a mildly rotted wooden support post for balance. Once aboard, she stepped on down into the boat, soaking her slippers in the dirty mixture of rain and lake water in the bottom, and sat down onto the seat. After untying the line from the mooring and fixing the oars into their mating hardware along the port and starboard sides of the boat, she pushed off and began to row quietly toward the strange door that seemed to be beckoning for her attention.

In a few minutes, she found herself along side the door. As was the norm with a row boat, she had paddled facing the stern with the bow of the boat at her back and she had come up along side the door with its knob on her right along the port side of the boat.

Now that she was upon it, she could see that it was a plain sort of door commonly used for bedrooms or closets with no ornamentation at all. There was nothing to visually stimulate the kind of essence of intrigue that she was feeling as she looked upon its oak laminate finish save one spot that had been crushed inward. The knob was simple as well; a plain, round brass knob. No lock.

It is an odd thing about closed doors. They seem to beg to be opened. It harkens back to the days of your youth when your parents would take you on a visit to some seemingly ancient relative in an even more ancient old house with lots of old, six-panel doors, layered thick with paint, that just called out to be opened. A weird mixture of fear and curiosity would tug at your mind until you could sneak a peak only to find a pantry full of canning jars and cereal boxes.

This door in the lake evoked that same sort of feeling. The woman knew that logically the only thing under the door was more water, but the mere fact that it was floating there still latched in its frame seemed to demand that the knob be turned and the door pulled open on its hinges. She had no choice. She had to do it. She had to open that door and look inside. It was calling to her. There was a pressure from inside pushing her to sneak a peak.

Slowly, with a trepidation that she could not understand, she leaned over the edge of the boat and turned the knob. It clicked and popped free of the latch. It took a bit more strength than she expected to pull the door open because she was leaning at an odd angle over the rim of the boat; pulling up with her right hand while trying to maintain her balance in the rocking boat with her left. With much effort, she managed to pull the door free and fling it open.

The door stopped, frozen in place when perpendicular to the water revealing within the framework an emerald staircase that descended deep into the heart of the lake. The sun was just high enough that she could see down quite a distance, but she could not see the bottom. The light faded away after maybe ten steps and the shadows of the deep took over.

If a closed door whispers feelings of curiosity and fear, a shadowed staircase to somewhere unknown screams the same and more. She simply could not ignore its call. She had to know. She had to know what was down there, and how could it have come to be. She trembled with fear, but her curiosity drove her forward.

Tilting the boat to the side, she slid overboard and onto the top step and let the vessel float away. Down she stepped. One step. Two. Three more steps. Soon her head was even with the surface of the lake. She was amazed at the weirdness of the situation. She could look down into the darkness of the portal that should not exist, and at the same time she could look out over the waters of the lake; at all the beauty that was her home. The ducks. The water lilies. The roses, lilacs, and peonies that she so delicately cared for each spring.

Should she keep going, she wondered. Or, should she ignore the longing to further descend into the darkness below?

She loved the world above, but it had lost much of its luster when her husband had passed. Her children were grown and had moved away. All that was left for her were the flowers, the ducks,…and…the lake. So little to satisfy an intense curiosity.

Now, the lake was calling to her. It was as if she could hear her name echoing up the emerald steps. “Maaaaggie. Maaaaggie. Come down, Maggie. Come down.”

She looked around at the sunshine reflecting off the rippled water one more time, and then stepped down. One more step. Two more. She glanced up at the sky as she took a third, smiled as a bird soared overhead, and then turned back toward the darkness as the door smoothly swung shut sealing her inside the emerald shadows.

Each day now, they wheel her out to the end of the pier to sit in the sun and stare blankly over the water; hopeful that the lake will free her mind and let her come back. But, she cannot see the ducks or the flowers or the bright rays of the sun reflecting off of the calm waters. All she can see is the swirling, twirling, whirling emerald shadows, and she is captivated by the intensity of the images as each is more intriguing than the last.

End



Roommate-itis

I’ve never had appendicitis, but I did have tonsillitis a number of times, at least up until my folks finally had them removed. Itis, itis, itis. An inflammation. A sore swelling.

This is the story of a sore swelling of a set of roommates…in a fun sort of way.

In the fall of 1984, I wasn’t exactly inexperienced in the realm of roommates. I’d had two during my days in Bible College in Williamstown, West Virginia. (That’s another story, or series of stories.) However, I’d just become engaged to the girl who is now the wife who puts up with me, and Sheridan, the campus minister at my church felt I should have a bit more understanding of what it meant to live responsibly with someone other than my mom or dad. As a result, for about three months I moved in with a couple of guys in the campus/young pro ministry.

Three very interesting months.

There were three of us in the little, two-bedroom bungalow on west Abbott Street. Walter had the front bedroom to himself, and I had to share the back bedroom with Tom. I moved my folding, hide-away bed into the northwest corner, and Tom had his twin in the northeast corner. There was one bathroom and an extra shower in the basement. It was a cool little place to live; close to campus and a pleasant neighborhood…despite the occasional drunken party down the street.

The stories began on my first night in my new pad. At bedtime, I crawled into my bed just a few minutes after Tom jumped into his and he was asleep by the time my head hit my pillow. About twenty minutes after falling asleep, I learned that Tom can be very animated in his slumber.

I was shocked awake by:

“WHAT IS THIS MESS?” shouted Tom!

“Huh? What?” I said.

“What is that?” he asked.

“What is what?”

“It’s right over my bed!” he explained.

“What is?”

“That’s okay. It’s over your bed now.”

And then, Tom was back to snoozing. Sometime later, the adrenaline finally drained from my system and I went back to sleep too. The next day, when I asked him about it, he said he was seeing some sort of light that was just dangling there in mid-air over his bed. Then he said it floated over to my bed and then was gone.

Just a bit creepy.

You never really knew what any given night was going to hold. One night Tom took me on a tour of his office. Of course, only he could see it.

One other interesting night, he woke me with an urgent whispering request:

“Mike. Mike. Hey Mike.” He said in a hushed tone.

Groggily, I replied: “Uhhhh, yeah. What’s the matter?”

“Quick! Turn on the light!”

“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked.

“There’s a snake in the room!”

I was no dummy, so I answered with: “Ummm, you turn on the light.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” I replied.

“It’s riiiight by my side.” He stammered.

So, I carefully crawled out of bed and made my way across the bedroom to the light switch and flipped on the bright ceiling light. Looking over to Tom, I watched as he reached across his body with his left hand and jerked the blanket off.

Nothing there.

“Whew! I guess I was dreaming.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Back to bed I went, again waiting for the adrenaline to drain from my system.

Now, I don’t want you to think that Tom was the only creative entertainment in the house. Walter made his own special mark on my psyche. He was a cool guy, and I say that with deep affection. I also say that with some sadness because he passed away this last fall. He was a friend. He was sharp. He was smart. He was professional. He had a spiritual mind.

He also had one key bad habit.

I preferred the stand up shower in the basement. That was Tom’s choice too. However, Walter preferred the bathtub in the main bath on the main floor. His bad habit revolved around that bathtub. He would wake up and turn on the hot water to fill the tub, and then lay back down to snooze while it filled. A fine plan most of the time. One day, though, he fell completely back to sleep.

The tub filled. The tub overflowed. Gratefully, he caught it quickly, before it got too bad. Also gratefully, his brother owns a carpet care company in Muncie, and he recruited him to come by and suck up the water.

Ultimately though, there was the special day in December. A day of disaster. A day when Walter struck fear in the hearts of Tom and Mike.

It was a nice day. Sunny. Cool, but not cold. A Saturday. A day off. A day to play.

About noon, Walter did two things simultaneously that interacted to create one near disaster and one real, albeit minor disaster.

First, he liked to deep fry french fries, so he put a pot of cooking oil on a flame on the stove, and he covered the oil with a lid. Secondly, he was planning to take a bath, so he turned on the water to fill the tub. While he was in the bathroom turning on the water, the oil on the stove boiled over and began to flame on the stove. Tom, Walter, and I converged on the kitchen to deal with the tiny fire that was threatening to become a big fire. None of us were clear on what to do. I knew we shouldn’t use water and that we needed to smother it, but I wasn’t sure what to use. I suggested flour, so we threw flour on it. Nope still burning. More flour. Apparently the wrong choice. Still burning. Getting desperate, I took a deep breath and blew it on the flame as hard as I could.

I blew it out!

What a relief! We were standing around the kitchen laughing at our own ineptness. What idiots we were. Hahahahahaha! Tom heard something down the back stairs. He trotted down a few steps to look in the basement.

“Walter!!!!!! The baaatthhhroooom!”

“Oh, no!” cried Walter as he sprung down the hall.

The tub had overflowed while we were putting out the fire. This time the water had completely soaked the floor, then had drained down the air ducts into the furnace. Water was all over the bathroom floor, the hallway floor, and the basement floor.

Time for Walter’s brother Carl to come to the rescue again. It was so convenient that day to have Kizer’s Carpet Care a simple call away.  http://kizercarpetcare.com/home.nxg
  
Now, if those two things weren’t enough, my friend Walter was not done that day. The messes were cleared up, and later that night Walter was entertaining a couple visiting from out of town. They came over to our place while Tom and I were away. It was a cool evening, and Walter thought it would be great to build a fire in the little fireplace in our living room.

Of course, a fire in the fireplace works better AFTER you open the flue.

He lit the fire. The smoke started to billow. He said they fled the house, and he kept crawling back in and using the poker to try to open the vent several times before he finally succeeded. Thankfully, he was finally successful, and a serious house fire was averted for the second time that day.

The smoke cleared out…and, so did I a few days later. It was safer back home with my folks. Great stories. I don’t know if I really learned anything that ultimately helped in my marriage, but I do enjoy the memories. I guess I did learn three or four things: Showers are safer than tubs, don’t put a lid on hot oil, use baking soda on stove fires, and make sure you open the flue BEFORE you light the fire.

This story is written in a spirit of fondness for both of my friends, Tom and Walter. Especially, I want to dedicate this post to the memory of my friend Walter Kizer. He will be missed by both his family and his friends.

You can run the tub all you want now, my friend.

A Muncie Boyhood-Erector Sets & Mousetraps

Toys. Every boy needs his toys. That fact hasn’t changed in….well,…ever. It also doesn’t change as a boy becomes a man, but that’s a different discussion.


In a previous post, I discussed my boyhood Christmas experiences and some of the toys I was excited to receive on Christmas morning. I got the popgun. I got the drum set. I got the Hot Wheels racetrack. I even got a cool Tinker Toy set with its little, round wooden sticks and wooden wheels and stuff. Stick this stick in that hole in that wheel and connect that doo-dad to that thing-a-ma-gig and you can make your very own….

Weird doo-dad thingy.

I had fun with it. It was creatively interesting. However, I wanted a couple of things my cousins had. It always seemed that my cousins had the cool stuff and I had the….creatively interesting stuff. You know how that goes. Childhood envy.

They had a set of Lincoln Logs. I mean WOW. You could build your very own log cabin or log castle or any other kind of log stuff. How cool is that?

I never got one. I never got one and I’m still resenting my parents for that deficiency to this day. So if you are a parent and you’re debating as to whether or not you should get your little boy a Lincoln Log set….DO IT! Buy it. I promise the little guy will love you forever. And, if you don’t, you may one day end up explaining your poor parenting choices on some TV talk show.

My cousins also got an Erector Set. Oh, man!!! That thing even put the Lincoln Logs to shame! Not only could you build all kinds of interesting gadgets, but you could make them crank and turn and buzz and, and, and be all mechanical and stuff. Coolness upon coolness!

I did finally get one of those. It was Christmas, sometime early in my high school years before my nerdiness began to wear off some. (My nerdiness never completely wore off….just look at me now.) I was still into science fiction and monsters, and not yet fully engrossed into girls. I couldn’t believe it! Finally! I could build a,... a,... a….well, I didn’t have a clue what to build with it. It was just a box of little metal plates, strips, screws, nuts, rods, wheels, and other assorted mechanical things.

I had no idea what to make with this stuff. After all, I was a TV and book nerd into werewolves and Klingons, not a mechanically inclined nerd. I fidgeted with the pieces and mocked up various ridiculous contraptions without making anything memorable for a few weeks, and eventually the set began to lose its appeal. It was in danger of becoming just another one my interesting collection of items that I used to think was cool because someone else had it first.

Then, an interesting opportunity arose…or, should I say scurried up?

I was sitting in my family’s basement one night, probably avoiding the cigarette smoke clogging the air upstairs, and looking at the hodgepodge of odd items that my dad stored on the shelves between his workbench and the cabinet where he kept his good tools. I can’t really remember anything that was there anymore. It was just an assortment of various things that weren’t all that useful anymore, but they were kept around just in case they might come in handy again someday. (Come to think of it, I have a similar assortment of stuff sitting out on some shelves in my garage right now. Hmmm.) Anyway, I was sitting there looking at the stuff when a little mouse scurried out from behind one of the various items, darted back and forth, and looked at me like I was somehow invading his personal space.

Now, I thought this was sort of exciting. Here was a wild animal living in my folks’ house, right under our noses, and I got to watch him in his natural habitat. It was as if Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom had come to my basement. So, I just sat there and watched him do his thing, which of course included pooping all over the shelving. I watched him and he watched me.

I told my mom about it.

Telling a woman about mice in her basement, which is also connected to her kitchen and her bedroom, is almost always going to spur a reaction. Soon, we were talking D-Con and mousetraps. That’s when it occurred to me.

I could build a mousetrap with my Erector Set!

I finally had a purpose for my mechanical junk set!

So, I did. I built a better mousetrap. (Look at the picture for the basic design. I don’t mind sharing.) I created a little rectangular box with a trapdoor on one end. I tied fishing line to the top of the door and strung it over a wheel on the back and through one of the holes in the back panel. Then I tied a piece of dog food to the fishing line inside the box for bait.  Tension on the line kept the door open.  Finally, I set it up on the shelf to see what would happen.

Sometime in the night, along came Mr. Mouse. He crawled into the box to the dog food and nibbled away until the fishing line was released. The door dropped. He was trapped.

I found him the next morning. I was so excited! My trap had worked. Awesome!

The thing was that I didn’t have time to do anything with him. I had to leave for school, so I figured I’d deal with it when I got home in the afternoon. I left him there for the day.

I’d never really considered what I was going to do with him if I caught him. I mean, if you use one of those spring traps, the mouse is normally dead when you find him and you throw it in the garbage. However, with my little invention, he’s sitting inside the box just staring at you through all those little Erector Set holes. As I thought about it during the day, I sort of decided I’d be humane and take him out in the alley behind our house and release him. Maybe he’d end up in a neighbor’s house, but at least he’d have a chance at life.

Morning became afternoon, and finally I was released from that scholastic trap called Southside High School, so I came home to deal with my mouse issue. I came in the backdoor, trundled down the stairs, and found my dad piddling with stuff down there.

He looked at me and began to cuss.

Apparently, he had come downstairs and looked in my trap also. He saw the mouse. He decided he’d take care of the little furry vermin himself, so he reached out and grabbed the little metal box, lifted it up, and discovered that I hadn’t considered far enough ahead in my design to put a bottom panel on the trap…as he watched the mouse dart off behind the cabinets.

&$%*@#!

I fixed that problem that night. The bottom panel was installed.

I’ve got to say, that little trap worked better than any other mousetrap I’ve ever seen. We caught mouse after mouse after mouse. We had a pretty good infestation before we’d discovered them, but my little Erector Set trap did the trick.

My dad nixed my plan for the humane catch and release. He would have none of me simply releasing them into the wilds of South Hackley Street, so they all met their demise. Mostly, I caught them and he killed them, but I did kill a few of my own.

There were too key lessons I learned from my Erector Set mousetrap experience:

1. Always put a bottom in your mousetrap. (Is there a moral there?)
2. Mice are dirty, nasty animals.

I had to throw away the Erector Set pieces out of which I had made the trap. They were nasty and disgusting, corroded from contact with the mice. Eventually, the rest of the set followed because I never created anything else useful from that kit.

Finally, if you have any mice issues, feel free to utilize my design. It is very effective…if you don’t mind doing the killing yourself.

Until next time......

The 2012 Fitness/Food Plan

Some of you may have been following my fitness updates from last year as I pursued a goal of hitting 2011 miles in the year 2011.  I posted weekly updates for about six months with updates on my number of miles and how my weight was going, etc.  Well...  I hurt my leg in July and basically just abandoned the whole thing.  I gave up.

Have you ever been there?

Quitting for a little while may be okay, but quitting for extended periods is out of the question.  So, I'm going to take the opportunity presented by the new year to make a new start on my fitness.  However, I'm making some significant changes in how I pursue fitness and health.

One thing I've learned is that I can't be as successful with those big, strenuous pushes toward huge goals anymore.  I'm just too susceptible to injury.  Whether it's my foot, my achilles, my knees, my hips, or my back, something is going to betray me if I push hard.  As a result, this year I'm going to make small, incremental efforts and look toward consistency instead of quick results.  I'm going to do this with both my physical training activities and my eating habits.

Here's the plan:

Physical Training:
I'm going to track 5 things.  Walking.  Push ups.  Sit ups.  Pull ups.  Squats.  I'm not going for big numbers, but just a little activity every day.  For example, in January, my goal is to walk one mile every day, and do five of each of the other activities everyday.  Just five.  Not five sets.  Five.  In February, I stay at one mile per day, but go to 10 sit ups, pull ups, and push ups, plus 8 squats.  Small monthly changes.  Never any big push.  Consistency is the key.

Food:
Each month I will have three things to think about.  A focus.  A change.  A fast.  I will have one issue to focus my attention and consider with each of my meals; particularly my meals out.  I will have one significant change that will happen within that month.  Finally, I will fast from some particular food item for the entire month.  I will have Saturdays off from the plan except for the fast item.  I will also be flexible around holidays, special events, and vacations.  My January focus is to look for something new and healthy to try in my meals.  The January change is to give up french fries.  Lastly, the January fast is from all cookies and candy.  In February, the focus changes to eating chicken, the change is to increase water intake, and the fast item is pizza.  Each month, those three areas change to something new, but after spending a full month on some issue, there will be a carryover effect that should create a sort of a snowball effect.

In the end, it will be a combination of the consistency and the effects of the cumulative changes that should bring me some results.  One more thing, I will only be weighing in about once per month.  I don't want to start chasing the scales.

I won't be posting regular updates, but if I tend to be successful, I will probably share about things from time to time.

Wish me luck.  I hope you have a healthy and successful 2012.

50 Years, Did They Matter?

Fifty years ago today, it snowed in Muncie, Indiana. It was a beautiful, fluffy snow that coated all the tree limbs and power lines, and gave the landscape a bright, soft feel. That is how my dad described the day I was born to me years later.

50 years.

Where did they go? It’s like I took a nap and I’m now half a century old.

When I was born, John F. Kennedy was president. We had not yet gone to the moon. Our black and white TV only got 3 ½ stations. Nobody had ever heard of a microwave oven, a cell phone, the internet, or even something as mundane as self-serve gas stations. Computers existed, but they took up entire rooms, and NO ONE had one at their house. I probably have more memory space in my Blackberry now than some of those old prehistoric computers did back in those days. No one had ever heard of video games either. The closest thing was a pinball machine, and you had to go somewhere outside the house to find one. Now, you can play video games on your tablet computer against people you’ve never met halfway around the world.

I wonder what things will be like in another fifty years?

It is my personal goal to reach the date of December 30, 2061 while still retaining a fairly good quality of life. I just want to see what things will be like then. I bet if we could leap forward, it would blow our minds.

I asked myself a question today. I took a long drive back up to my hometown, had a Pizza King Royal Feast, then I drove over to Ridgeville, Indiana to see if I could find the place where my grandma lived when I was a little kid. I found it because I recognized the little creek and bridge I used to play around. It looks exactly the same. On the way back, I stopped at a Speedway Station in Pendleton, Indiana for a drink, and that’s when the question occurred to me.

The water tower in Ridgeville, Indiana.  I like water towers for some reason.

Have I done anything with my 50 years that really makes any difference?

I think I’m a pretty good salesman. I’ve been doing it a long time, and most of my customers seem to like and trust me. However, when I have finally moved on, I’m guessing that within a few months or a year, I’ll just be another guy that came and went. Even if I were to be promoted into some corporate leadership position, nothing that I could ever do there would matter much beyond my tenure. Stuff people do just doesn’t matter much after enough water has gone under the bridge.

I like to write. I write blog posts. I write an occasional poem for my wife. I’m working on a larger project that I hope one day will be a book. Even if I succeed in getting published and become even a little famous, it won’t last. I hope I can get good enough at it to someday make a little money with it, but fame and a little money won’t last much beyond my lifetime. How many authors do you know from 50 years ago? A handful maybe. How about 100 years ago? I’d bet the list got shorter. Go back further, and you’ll see that the further back you go, the list of authors with lasting power continues to dwindle.

So, what could I do with my life that would really matter?

I’m reminded of the quote from Clarence the angel to George Bailey in the classic movie, It’s a Wonderful Life: “Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?

My hope really is that I’ll simply make a difference to people I interact with on a daily basis, so that one day I can be remembered as someone who mattered to them.

I think that is the reason that I write some of the blog posts I put up. It’s stuff that helps me, and I’m hopeful that it can be helpful to someone else.

I want to be like one of my family’s old neighbors from my childhood. Emma Ogletree was a young housewife and someone who was committed to Christ and Christian service. She was simply nice to me, and she reached out in service to my family. As a direct result of her simple sharing, I am a Christian today, my daughters are both Christians, my mother eventually became a Christian, my Uncle, my nephew…and others that I have influenced along the way. Someone made a difference to her, she then made a difference to me, and as a result I was able to make a difference to some others, and the chain goes on.

Emma Ogletree and her kids

The thing is, the only REAL difference I can make in this world is not truly of this world. I could build skyscrapers, but eventually they would come down. I could establish an empire, and eventually it would fall. I could set records, but someone else would break them. The only thing that will matter into eternity is to make a spiritual difference to someone else…to help them in their search for God.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20

“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:20

Fifty years have come and gone. I hope I’ve helped a few people. But, now I’ve got a new half century ahead of me, and I’m hopeful that I’ve gleaned some wisdom from the first fifty that can make me even more helpful going forward.

Time to pay it forward some more…keeping the chain alive…

RU Too Old to Change?

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks!”


“He’s set in his ways!”


“She’s too old to change now!”

If you are wondering why I put an "RU" at the beginning of the title of this post, you need to read on...

Sometimes, I think we can let adages have too much control over who we are. The ones that I’ve quoted above indicate that once you reach a certain stage in life, there is no turning around, no changing directions, no chance to try, do, or be something new. Somehow, in our minds, there seems to be an unspecified age that once reached prevents a person from exploring new avenues in their lives.

I just don’t believe that.

I’m only two days away (as I write this) from reaching the age where I can officially get my AARP card. I started getting mail from them a couple of years ago. I find it sort of unbelievable that I could possibly be reaching that half century mark, but it seems to be so. Last year, I stopped into a McDonalds in Versailles, Indiana on my way to make some sales calls in Kentucky because I needed to use the facilities. (No, that’s not an age thing. I just needed to go.) On the way out, I decided to buy myself a drink.

Me: “I’ll take a small Diet Coke.”

Counter Girl using a conspiratorial whisper: “I don’t really think you’re old enough for this, but I gave you the senior discount.”

Me: “Ummm. Thanks.”

She didn’t think I was old enough to get it, but I must have been close enough for her to even consider it.

Geesh.

So then, I suppose I need to wonder just how close I’m getting to that magic age when I can no longer adjust, adapt, change, or become anything beyond what I already am. How soon will my path be set in stone? When will learning new tricks become impossible for me? At what point will some younger leader in the church look at me sitting in my usual spot and say, “Oh, we can’t do that ‘cause Mike would freak! He’s way too old and set in his ways!”

Maybe I’ll be blindsided, but I just don’t see it coming. It may get tougher for me to keep up with the faster and faster changes happening around me, but I don’t expect to completely become a pillar of salt while life goes on with those younger than me.

I just don’t believe that you ever get too old to change.

Consider my mother, for example. She spent 80 years living one way, and in the last year of her life she made a couple of huge shifts in direction.

First, after somewhere between 50 and 60 years as a smoker, she quit. Cold turkey. It did take a throat cancer to motivate the change, but change she did. She didn’t take Chantix. She didn’t chew Nicorette. She just put the things down and quit.  Boom!  Done!

Mom & David before her baptism.  We were in a room of friends who were sharing words of encouragement.

Secondly, after avoiding God for 81 years…after living her own way, doing her own thing, and ignoring the pleas from me and others…she finally found some faith in Someone greater than herself.  God worked on her heart through various means and various people, but the point is that even at 81 years old, my mother was not too old to change.  She was not too old to learn about God.  She was not too old to become a follower of Christ.



David and I just about to baptize my mother in my friend Brian's giant bathtub.  She was a bit frail, so we needed to hold her carefully.




Mom's baptism



It was sort of like she broke through a barrier that had been holding her back for years and years.  I loved seeing the wonder in her eyes as the realization that God really did love her began to sink in.



Can you see the wonder in Mom's eyes as Jean Keim (who was instrumental in my mother's conversion) greets her after her baptism?

So, whether you’re stuck in a spiritual rut and you think the chance to really do something with your faith has passed you by, or you have a family member that you think is too old to listen to a spiritual message….think again.

You are never too old to enjoy the adventures that God puts in your path!

Now…where’s my reading glasses? I need to fill out that AARP application!

PS:  If you are still wondering, "RU" is computer-speak for "Are you."

A Muncie Boyhood-Christmas

Me & Santa in downtown Muncie at one of the department stores; Ball Stores maybe or perhaps Sears & Roebuck.

As I look back on it now, Christmas was as much my mother’s holiday as it was mine.  Perhaps, even more so.  It was her time of the year.  She could spend all the money she wanted, decorate the house with a myriad of ornaments, and cook and bake to her heart’s delight.  We had electric candles in the windows, a Styrofoam candy cane held together with straight pins and taped over the archway in between the living room and dining room, and lots of synthetic icicles hanging off of the artificial tree that was overloaded with light bulbs, glass balls, and garland.  Goodies filled tin jars and metal trays.  Gifts were stuffed in every possible space around the sparkling plastic pine.




Notice the tree loaded with ornaments & the Christmas cards taped to the wall.  Mom always taped all the cards around the archway.

 I remember the food.

Ham. We always had ham sandwiches. Homemade macaroni & cheese.  Baked beans.  A fruit salad that was a blend of red (probably strawberry) Jell-O and Cool Whip. Lots of fudge….and I mean a lot of fudge. Mixed nuts still in the shells.

Mixed nuts still in the shells bring up a question: Does anyone else wonder why they would put Brazil Nuts still in the shell in a bag of mixed nuts? They have got to be the single hardest nut to shell by hand!

I remember the gifts.

A Hot Wheels race track. Tinker Toys. An Erector Set.

My folks did get me an array of gifts that they probably regretted. The noise-makers. One year, I wanted a guitar. Got it. Never learned to play it. Another year, I was going to be a drummer, so Mom bought me a full-fledged drum set. Snare. Bass. The whole bit. I pounded and pounded, but never learned how to play them correctly or with any semblance of rhythm.

When I was a teenager in middle school, they finally got me something I could play quite well. A stereo system. I’m sure after just a few hours of Billy Joel, The Bay City Rollers, Kansas, and several others rattling the windows and vibrating Mom’s knickknacks off shelves, they probably were wishing for a “do-over.”

Another Christmas, in the earliest years of video games, I wanted a wanted Pong. It seems quite crazy by today’s standards, but back then, Pong was the bomb with its little electronic ball screaming across the screen. There were three games in one: Handball Pong, Tennis Pong, and Hockey Pong. Hockey was the best! Anyway, I had a little black and white TV set in my room, and I desperately wanted a video game.

“Mom! Can I have a video game for Christmas?”

“No.”

“Please Mom. Please. I really want it. Please?”

“No. I’m not getting you a @#%$& video game.”

However, after all the gifts were wrapped and placed under the tree, I began to snoop. I found each one with my name on it, picked it up, shook it, and squeezed it. One likely suspect fit the profile of an electronic device. It was about the right size. It had the feel of protective packing. Hmmmm.

Could it be? Could Mom really have bought me a Pong game?

That’s when I got clever. I walked into her bedroom where she was lounging; surrounded by her police scanner, clock radio, and TV…all going at once.

“Hey Mom!” I said with manufactured excitement. “Thanks for getting me the video game for Christmas!”

Of course, I didn’t really know that that was in fact what it was. I was going for the telling reaction, but she was good, and didn’t give it away.

“I didn’t get you a (bleep, bleep) video game.”

“Okay. If you say so,” I said.

Nothing more was said. I went off to my room to watch my little TV, and she went back to her police calls/Conway Twitty/JR Ewing medley.

The next day, I strolled into my sister’s house down a few blocks on Monroe Street. I spent a good amount of time there as a kid, mostly because I was close to my nephew, David. David and I were more like brothers, and in fact I was closer in age to him than I was to my sister, his mother. Anyway, I walked in the front door, and the conversation went like this:

My sister: “Mike, did David tell you what you got for Christmas?”

Me: “Nope. You just did.”

I remember the parties.

In my family, Christmas was comprised of two major events. First, there was the Christmas Eve party where our extended family always came over to eat and exchange gifts. Second, there was Christmas morning where it was just me, my folks, and the stuff Santa brought. Later, when Santa stopped bringing me stuff, Christmas morning was just a time to sleep in and recover from the previous night’s festivities….and the bigger gifts that my folks didn’t want to give me in front of everyone else.

There were things you could count on for Christmas Eve at my house. Good food. A big party. A number of arguments. A gift exchange. And, finally, an all night Monopoly game between me, David, and my niece Krista.

There were also a few things that you could never really count on…

1. You never quite knew what time my sister would show up. Her preparations were always last minute and invariably, we always were waiting for her to arrive well beyond when she was supposed to have been there.

2. You never knew when the fussing would start and who would be involved.

3. You never knew who would be willing to endure the torture of handing out the gifts. No matter how it was done, it never met everyone’s satisfaction with regard to how fairly they were distributed or at what pace.

One other thing that you could actually count on was air pollution. When I was a child, everyone who wasn’t a child smoked. They smoked a lot. On Christmas Eve, besides my Mom and Dad, usually, my sister, my sister-in-law, their respective fellas, and a smattering of other adults would be over to the closed-up-for-the-winter house…all smoking away to their heart’s distress. As a result, my nieces and nephew and I would retreat to either my bedroom or the basement to get away from it. We would only come out for the food and the presents.

The schedule of events for the adults went like this….

Smoke…eat…smoke…presents…smoke….smoke…smoke.

Of course, we were all excited for the presents, so we wanted to start opening them right after the meal. After the last food dish was put in the sink…

“Can we open presents now?” rang out our childhood voices.

“After we have one more cigarette,” replied the adults with the soiled lungs.

“Ahhh, man!” we’d reply as we headed back to the basement.

Now, we’ve all grown up and we’re in charge now. These days, the smokers have to go outside and out to their cars to get their nicotine fixes. Turn-about is definitely fair play.

As I close out this chapter in my Muncie Boyhood series, I want to share two other Christmas stories:

First, my sister had a husband named Lewis. Sometimes he could be nice enough, but a lot of the time he was a…a…a….not so nice guy. This particular Christmas, he told my sister that he’d like to get some Blue Stratos cologne. In her own special way of getting even for some way that he’d mistreated her, she told EVERYONE in the family that he wanted some Blue Stratos, and that we should get that for him. “He would love it!” she said.

She told everyone independently….and everyone complied.

Every few minutes, he would open a gift….and every few minutes he got another bottle of Blue Stratos. I’m not sure how many he actually got, and it didn’t make him any nicer of a person, but at least he smelled good.

Secondly, on Christmas Eve in 1978, I brought my girlfriend Toni over to the house for our family party. This was my first year having a guest, and her first experience with my family as a whole. I was a bit nervous, but all went well enough. No major knock down, drag outs, and it was a fairly painless party as our parties went.

Around 9pm, we decided it was time to take her home. After all, she had an 11pm curfew, and there was no time to waste. She lived about fifteen miles away and I only had two hours to get her there.

Perhaps you are wondering why I needed so much time to go such a short distance.

Well, you see, we liked to “visit” with one another during the drive home. She lived out in the country, and as I recall there were five stop signs between Highway 32 and her road. We would stop and “visit” at each one. Sometimes, if we had the time, we might take a detour further out into the country so that we could “visit” even more. On this Christmas Eve, we took one of those detours and found ourselves stopped in the middle of no where, “visiting.”

After a time, I looked down at my watch and realized that it was 10:55 pm.

“Oh man! We’ve got to get you home!” I said with a touch of panic.

Her dad was not one to fool with when it came to curfew.

We sped off in the direction of her house. There was just one problem. We were coming from the wrong direction.

“You can’t turn in from this direction!” she said. “If dad sees you, he’ll want to know why we were coming from that way!”

“Okay,” I said as we hurried past the house. “I’ll go down to the corner and turn around.”

There was no time to waste! We had to hurry to not be late!

Did I mention that on Christmas Eve in 1978 it was quite cold, and very icy?

Very icy!

About a hundred yards or so from the corner, I applied the brakes to stop and turn around. I hit the brakes, but we didn’t slow down. Instead, the rear of the car began to fishtail. Then, the fishtail became a full out spin. I’m not sure how fast we were going when the spin began, but my dad’s ’68 Chevy Nova did loop after loop all the way through the intersection until we came to a stop on the other side. No need to turn around now because we were facing back toward her house.

Whew! We didn’t hit anything and nothing hit us.

There was no time to contemplate just how lucky we were because we only had about a minute to get back to her place, but I can tell you that the feeling of relief was palpable.

Mission accomplished, and unless she has told him about it over the years, or unless he reads this blog, her dad never knew about our near disaster on Christmas Eve.

There are other stories, but I’ll stop for now. Merry Christmas to all. Take a few minutes to consider the good times and the blessings, and perhaps pass along some blessings to someone else. May Santa stop at your house too.