The Christmas Party and the Amelith Road Overpass

I drove down to Dayton, Ohio, for the annual Warner Family Christmas Party Dec 20th.

Arrived there noon the 20th, partied with family that evening, and drove back home by early afternoon the 21st. Ten hours on the road, seven waking hours among Nancy's loving family members. Seems like that could be too much road time for so short a visit. But the party was well worth the long and arduous drive.

The Warner Family are very special people.

Four of Nancy's elderly aunts're in their eighties. Mildred and Polly, the middle two're on walkers. But they're still warm and frisky, and so much fun. So kind and engaging. The youngest, Jayne, is close to my age. Gladys, the oldest lives in Texas, and we miss her.

I can see throughout Jayne's and Polly's homes, where Nancy developed her early flair for what later became her own modified and trim Early American design preference in the two homes we shared.

I'm the mongrel-generation: five-fifteen years younger than the fabled aunts. Ten-twelve years older than Nancy's brother Bill and his wife, Meg. Meg and I are the outlaw-in-laws. They're Brethren, I'm an outcast Methodist choir boy -- Taoist, but still Christian by habit and tradition.

The whole family're just good decent people. They assure me that after forty years, the jury's still out on me. So I watch my step. But not very carefully.

So anyway, what with illnesses and pre-Christmas trips hither-and-yon, we had our annual Warner Party in Polly's roomy condo -- just a dozen of us, instead of the large crowd we usually enjoy in the condo-group's large Party Room. Best thing: Polly's condo had us all tucked in tight, which maximized the warmth and ambiance we always enjoy together.

Mildred, Polly, Jayne, and I are the widowed ones. We're the oldest, too. So we have age and heartbreak in common. But we never speak of these common links. Everybody in that family's a special sorta star. A uniquely quiet kindness and an artistic bent are the Warner family stock-in-trade. I spend my time enjoying those qualities whenever we're together.

Long ago, they took me in. They decided Nancy had made a good-enough bargain. Could be some quiet dissenters decided to wait-and-see. Seems like over the years I either won-over or outlived whatever undecideds may have been. I'm treated like blood.

The Warner Christmas Party was fun as always. During rapid flurries of conversation over dinner, we mostly caught up on recent family happenings. Laughter and smiles, touching exchanges, nods of assurance. We care about each other, despite the distances between us.

After dinner, we did this wild circle-thing where the gag-gifts we'd brought got all mixed-up and handed out at random.

I got Polly's gift: this cute little sock-animal with puffy ears, crossed button eyes, nifty little collar-vest, and patch-pocket. Stands up all proud and goofy about 18 inches high on four-stumpy legs. If any man dare speak the word "adorable," that's what it is. Clever-Witch-Stitchery runs right through Nancy's family in a wild torrent. I came away by accident-of-seating with the best gift in the bunch.

Pshaw! I half-hate the holidays. Whoever thought them up's gonna someday get a piece of my mind.

Still, Christmas touches me in good ways, too. I love these two dwindling generations of Nancy's folks. Nancy was the string that tied us together. In fact, Nancy was the string that tied me together.

But that's another story I may get to another time.

Later in the evening, back home at Aunt Jayne's, we had our own catchin'-up conversation. Then off to sleep. Quick breakfast with Jayne, Meg and Bill. Then I was back on the road home.


All the way home, four-hours-plus up I-75, I thought about family. In my family, my generation's about died out. I'm the oldest remaining son -- as I was semi-humorously reminded at my mother's funeral. (I call it the Triple-H syndrome: young people are heartless, if warmly human and devilishly humorous.) I have a much-younger sister also. At least she claims she's much younger.

On Nancy's side these four lovely aging aunts of the earliest generation remain. The oldest lives in Texas, and we see her perhaps once a year -- usually during the summer at the annual Warner Reunion. The second and third generation of Warners are scattered across the country. I feel them slipping away from me.

I call these final phases of my life the dwindling time. Unless I take pains to fight this trend, it seems everything I value is dwindling away:

Nancy lives within me.
Her aunts are fading away.
Their children are disappearing
into their own busy lives.
My professorship is over.
My students are scattered.
I fight bravely to maintain my physical health.
I study assiduously to keep abreast
of my professional skills and knowledge,
though I'm uncertain I'll ever need that knowledge.
Still, knowledge is a possession to be valued.
My friends retire and move away.
Some die.
My children have slipped away into their own busy lives.
My grandchildren are quickly following them.
It delights me to witness the successful lives
of the second and third generations of my family.

Yet I value especially the unexpected gifts of my largely solitary life. To my surprise I am a good loner. I'm often alone, but never lonely. I love to

read and study,
compose my thoughts and share them,
present occasional in-service sessions
for schools where my services are still
valued and requested,
plan and organize my own time as I wish,
remember my happy past-life,
enjoy my present activities and associations,
look fondly forward anticipating the
accomplishments of my children
and children's children.

Life is good.

During the four-hour drive up I-75 I thought of the major aspects of my new life as a widower. After the first two years of difficult grieving and determined adjustment, I am astonished that I feel so much better than I ever expected to again. Double whammy, this losing the work I loved so much and the wife I worshiped.

But at last I've left most emotional turmoil behind and have organized a new and satisfying life. Can't figure out now why I ever doubted that

doing just as I want to do,
just as I want to do it,
precisely when I want to do it,
would be so much fun.

But it is. I've discovered that with a little careful planning I can please myself without unduly upsetting others. Could be they are glad to have me out from under foot.

After a lifetime of mostly accommodating others I love so much, I now find personal freedom and self-sufficiency very rewarding. It's a big world out there, that appears to be chock full of interesting things to do. I'm a man of simple wants and needs, so I have enough resources to do just as I please.

Of course, the one thing I really want I cannot have. Nevertheless. . . .

Somewhere south of Exit 160 near my home in the center of Michigan's tri-cities, I passed under the Amelith Road overpass. For over 25 years, when I drove to our Macomb County graduate center where I taught leadership courses, I passed under that bridge. Once a week I made that trip down and back -- one hundred miles each way.

What makes the Amelith Road overpass so memorable for me is that, on my way home, as I made a short curve and shot beneath the bridge, the opening framed a tall communication tower with its blinking warning lights. I glanced down at my wrist-watch.

I knew that in approximately nine minutes I would be home.

A brief pause for traffic at the top
of Exit 160 at a stop sign.
A quick left turn onto the bridge.
Up over the bridge and
down to a second stop light.
A right turn and a
sharp curve past the golf course,
then down a mile to a four-way stop.
A mile more to a second four-way stop.
A left turn, then eight-tenths of
a mile to the entrance to Maple Lane.
Four hundred yards,
then up my 150 foot drive.
One press of the button, and
my garage door rolled up.

There stood Nancy in the open utility-room door. Both hands waving wildly above her head. A huge smile lighting her face. I rolled gently to a stop and opened the car door. Then she was in my arms. Shalimar, Right Guard, Crest toothpaste, and the warmth of her arms.

But the nicest thing that evening after the Warner Christmas Party was that for nearly ten whole minutes I had absolutely forgotten she wouldn't be waiting there in the utility-room door.

You would think that I would have been disappointed at her absence when the garage door went up. But I wasn't.

I realized instead
that no matter how
far I may travel and return,
Nancy is always with me.

I carry her in my heart.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I love to build stuff!

I mean I love to build all-kindsa-stuff.

For years I've enjoyed designing and building smallish storage barns and other sorts of out-buildings. And when my wife and I were married in the early seventies, we bought a ramshackle old place on a riverside and spent several years renovating and expanding it. Over a fun-filled twenty-seven year adventure out on the river we cobbled together a unique and interesting place. We were a team.

Out of building things together, Nancy and I built a wonderful marriage.

We contracted large pieces of the renovation of that first home, and I worked with the building crews. What skilled men they were! They were unselfish enough to teach me all they could.

Nancy and I loved building things together. She was a bright and creative farm kid whose father was the sort of person who built anything he needed out of things he had at hand.

For example: during WWII when he and his equally inventive brother needed a tractor -- and factories were building war material instead of tractors -- the two of them went to the junk yard near their farm and dug up an old truck chassis, a broken-down-but-salvageable truck motor, and a batch of spare parts. Out this personalized junk pile, they fashioned the tractor they needed. Apparently there was nothing they couldn't black-smith, weld, rivet, and lock securely together into something practical and useful.

I don't know: is this American ingenuity? I suppose so.

Given time, out of a mongrel and disparate collection of energetic beings emerges the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Real Americans love to build things. America is less a place than a burgeoning movement based upon the notion that anything good is possible -- that anything good is bound to happen. Anything dreamed can be built.

Nancy was like her father and mother. She had the same talents and bent. She could make something special out of almost nothing.

She encouraged the same wild streak in me. Part of the fun we had antiquing was how she'd inevitably find several old junky things she knew she could tear apart and transform into something eye-catching, useful, and delightful. Our river home and spacious perennial gardens were full of her intriguing artistic inventions.

This creative process was some of the most fun we ever had together.

Nancy was a quilter. Quilting ran in her family. One of the first things she did after we married was teach me to quilt. The quilting process at it's most basic level is a creative process by which something useful is made out trashy bits of over-worn, outgrown, and junk-pile clothing -- at least the old-fashioning of quilt tops is like that.

Putting together the quilt-top, bottom, and filling, then stretching the whole of it for stitching quilt designs is another creative challenge, of course. Marking the top with beautiful designs, and patiently stitching these designs, is an artistic process that transforms the pieced top into a striking and useful work of art. Again, fashioning a quilt is making or building something out of bits of almost nothing.

Of course, man is largely reflected by what he makes or builds with his hands. Upright-bipedal is only part of the magic. Opposable-thumbs and prehensile forearms -- the ability to grasp and manipulate things -- plus a large and probing, problem-solving brain: these taken together are the fundamental aspects of Man, the Tool-Maker and User.

Throw in

stereoscopic-sight,
surround-sound,
minimal brightness -- or more,
chronic dissatisfaction with self
and the immediate world,
tad-bit of emotional turmoil,
sufficient restlessness, and
creative energy,

and you've got an interesting animal on your hands.

Never mind man's apparent propensity to destroy.

This brief piece is about Man as a Builder-Maker-Doer -- man, the artisan, the practical artist. On a personal level, I like hand tools, new, old, and antique. I like to grasp the handle of an antique hammer and feel the old worker's hand in mine. I also like power tools.

Last summer I got sick of having my garage cluttered with overflow tools. So I found a likely space in my woods, leveled it, dug and poured a foundation, and raised a storage barn. I liked every phase of the building:

clearing the small trees away,
leveling the area,
digging and pouring the foundation,
laying the frame and flooring joists,
sheathing the floor,
framing and capping the walls,
raising high the roof beams,
sheathing the whole,
shingling the roof,
building and mounting the sliding door,
mounting the lighting fixtures,
wiring the whole,
building the workbench,
shelving and cabinets.

The job took me about ten days. Every night after a long day's work, I sat on my deck with a cup of coffee and watched the sunset filter through the trees, down across the advancing work and pondered:

This work fulfills me, marks me a man.
Not just this moment.
Back through pre-history.
For all time.
This about man never changes.
I am a man!

And in the dusky tail-end of sunset I would trot lightly across the deck, down the stairs, cross the path into the woods, and place both my hands on the solid and square rising structure. It was a gesture of reverence. I could feel in that gesture my manhood.

I felt as solid and four-square as my work.

All my life I've built things -- large and small. I've worked with contractor crews -- men who've become my friends. Together we built additions to homes Nancy and I bought. I helped build the home of a friend. I'm drawn to the people I've met who've worked on my homes. They've become my friends.

During every project I've ever undertaken, late at night after my shower, I've stood in front of the unfolding work and heard the quiet voice within me speaking: "Next life I will cast aside school-teaching and books and be a home-builder."

I have no doubt I will.

But maybe not. Large bridges like the Golden Gate are beautiful. Men who build towering bridges stand at the apex of designing and building. I can't prove this. I don't know this. I just feel it.

This summer I cleared and leveled the top of an island twenty feet out into my pond and built a 16x20 deck on it. I boxed-in an easement and back-filled it. I built steps down to the easement, then up to the deck. Next summer I'll build a queen-post bridge -- above this easement -- over to the island. The following summer I'll enclose the bridge. It will be the only covered bridge in the area.

I love to build stuff. In my life after next I will build bridges.

Men are dreamers. They dream what they will next build. I dream of building bridges.

I confess I'm not much different from my colleagues and friends at school. Before I retired, we worked together and separately to design and build

curriculum programs,
classroom learning activities,
highly skilled student work teams,
competent and confident school teachers,
enlightened leadership teams.

As professors in a blossoming leadership program.
We dream of building bridges to better schools.

I love to build stuff.
Come build with me.

Remembering Nancy V: Shoveling Snow

Four small snowfalls over the long weekend. Pretty across the landscape. Out back, snow clings to the to the east side of the long, high tree-trunks and softens the corners of everything beneath the forest canopy. No more than four to six inches, with drifts accumulating here and there among the more open spaces. Out front, a series of wavy drifts are deeper in places where the southwest wind blows freely across the icy pond.

Sunny out. Pale blue sky, not much wind. A degree or two below freezing. Bright sunlight softens and dampens the snow just enough to make it pack. Time to break out the snow-blower for the first time this winter. I've been shoveling so far this season. Been calling that my work-outs three or four days during the weeks before Christmas. Easy workouts. Small gifts to myself.

I clear a small space in front of the garage doors, then on out back along the brick walkway to the barn. Just one narrow pass going back. Back deck first, just for the warmth of it. I slide the barn door aside and switch on the lights. I dig the blower out and set it up in the middle of the floor.

It's a fairly big unit, five gears including reverse, large yawning mouth. Impressive looking Briggs&Stratton motor. Recalling how I performed an end-of-season tune-up before stowing it safely away last spring fills me with a split-second shot of warm pride. I quickly check the choke connection and plug, the throttle cable, driving mechanisms and blade. Everything's sound.

Nineteen years young, this trusty machine. Well-maintained. Reliable. Should serve well again this winter.

I plug-in the electric starter wire, set the choke and throttle, and press the starter button. I kneel beside the engine congratulating myself on the satisfying sound of the motor turning over . I love it when things work. I wait patiently for the inevitable sound of the motor firing, catching hold, sputtering to life: ooh-rah-rah-rah-OOH-rah-rah-rah. A handful of cheery and promising blips, then ooh-rah-rahRAH-ooh-rah-rah-rah-RAH-ooh-ooh-ooh. . . .

I drop to my other knee and shift my weight, kneeling closer to the carburetor, checking adjustments. Here begins the earnest conversation with myself: Yeah! Settings're okay. Plenty-a-gas. I sniff: not flooded yet. The gas tank's full. Hmmmnnnn!???

Several more adjustments. Several more tries. And I'm satisfied: Looks like Big-Dog's dead for now. Hmmmmnn!? I pull the starter plug, move the levers into neutral positions and stand up resolved to shovel.

I shrug, shake my head, and just barely resist addressing the reluctant machine. Then I kneel once more and double-check all connections. Nope! Should start. But won't.

A second thought: I find a 3/8's open-end wrench, remove the copper-tube. Yep! Gas's reaching the carburetor. New plug. Wire's in place. Caught fire in the fall. I shrug my shoulders. I know I've exhausted my slim genius for machines.

I slide the barn door closed and lock it. Start another conversation with myself: You gotta shovel. Time for a workout anyway. Most of four days I've been tryna shake the flu -- or whatever it was that at first had me a little more than just uncomfortable, then got me REALLY uncomfortable by Sunday.

I turn from the barn door, stand straight and shake out my body. Wiggle my head and neck. Rotate slow-full at the waist. Gently drop my hands to my toes. Feelin' mostly okay.

More inside conversation: Whatever it was had me down, tried ta kill me. Didn't die, though. Enough to say that light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be the bathroom light. Upset stomach. Booming bowels. Four pounds lost, I didn't have to lose. This: three weeks after my ordinary flu shot, and the vaunted -- but scarce one -- for the exotic N1H1 malady.

Food Poisoning? Come-on! My cooking's bad, but my refrigeration's good. Hadda be the flu.

I widen the path back toward the garage. Feeling strong. Inside my hooded sweatshirt I'm snug. Muscles're gettin' all warm&loose. This's good. . . .

Once out front in the garage, I make a note: Slow&Easy does it Robby! Keep yer-heart-rate-down-reasonable. Alternate arms. Use yer legs. Rotate hips and lower-back evenly. Stretch-as-you-go. Flu didn't getcha. Mind the snow. Small bites like always.

First, the walkway up to the front door and the porch slab. Next, I stand for a moment contemplating the wide-deep, turn-around-slab in front of the garage. Biggest piece-a-concrete. Sad about that blower. . . . I check my watch and make my first center cut. Thirteen busy minutes. It's done.

I decide to do the drive in two bites instead of three. I'm thinking, Right here at the 45-degree turn. Here's where she always comes outa the house to help:

"Hey Robby! You leavin' any snow fer me?!"

"Yeah! I always leave it alongside the drive for-ya. Outa yer-way. . . . 'Cause I love ya."

Right here at this turn. Here's where she meets me and we say the same thing every time. And she leans in close and kisses me on the lips with a big pop. Then she shoves her head down into the place where my muffler parts the zipper of my jacket. Shoves her gloved hands down deep into my parka-pockets and wiggles in tight while I draw her close. I lift her off her feet with a big hug.

But she's not here yet. So I shovel the center groove back toward the house, then turn and shovel the third time. Wide groove. Shorter shovel-shoves and throws to the side of the drive.

I bend at the waist and start the throws.

Swish-a-Chunk. Swish-a-Chunk. Swish-a-Chunk. I count. About 35 throws, the east side's clear. I lean over and rotate my back. Feelin' loose and strong. I turn toward Hickory Lane

. . .and suddenly she's with me: "Hiya Robby". . .and the kiss. And the scent of her blond hair in my nostrils as she snuggles down into my muffler. . .and her hands in my pockets. . .and the hug I feel. . .coming so real. . . .

She unzips my jacket and slides her bare hands up beneath my sweatshirt. I know she's checking my heart-rate. Her lips on my carotid. . .makes twice.

So I reach around behind her, press her to me close, until the palm of my right hand rests on top of hers to the left of my breastbone. I raise my left hand and watch the sweep second-hand on my watch click around the dial once. Heart's a little faster than I expect -- or like. I nod and think: Well!? You were all vomit&loose-bowels this whole past weekend. . . .

I nod toward the bench in the small grove separating my neighbor's place from ours. "Wanna sit awhile?"

She smiles and nods. I step over a drift, drawing her with me. I lean slightly forward, and she lays her head between my shoulder-blades, wraps her arms around my shoulders, rides quietly along. I scuff my feet and plow us a path toward the bench. I close my knees as I sit, and she sits on my thighs, scrunches back close. We sit there maybe 15 minutes all quiet. Until I feel my heart-rate's all slowed down. I slowly rise, see her slip through my thighs 'til she's sitting comfortably alone.

I lean to kiss her gently. I half-straighten, and she smiles fondly up into my face: "I came to remind you, Robby. Mind your heart-rate. I love you." Her hand brushes my cheek.

Then she's gone. But I can still feel the warmth of her hand on my cheek. And her scent fills my nostrils. And I'm still touched by her presence. And grateful.

It takes me another 45 minutes to complete the drive and shovel the mail truck path clear.

Coulda done it faster. And prob'ly would've. But I kept on thinking: If I don't do as Nancy asks me, she just might quit comin' around. I don't want that.

A guy needs someone around
who really cares.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Keep Your Dreams Alive

Gramma Westphal and My Aging Dilemma

What is it with aging? Howcum I never noticed it much until I suddenly realized it was happening to me?

Only very lately have I begun picking up the ominous cues:

I eat more carefully and wisely
lest my body-mass dwindle.
I exercise more vigorously
for the same reason.
I practice yoga assiduously,
lest my strength, flexibility,
and balance escape me.
Do I forget more easily?
Hmmmmnn!?
Can't remember. . . .

For instance, I'm now at that difficult stage of my life where family and friends are dying off at what seems an alarming rate. I hold their hands lovingly, listen quietly as they assure me sweetly: "I've had a good life, dear friend -- adieu. . . ."

Believe me: you live into your seventies, you live such scenes, hear such quiet words of gratitude and acceptance, more often than you wish. Such dignity. Such gratitude. Such reassurance from those you have loved is at once instructive and humbling.

We're university people, have been teachers all our adult lives. We study and learn and teach. Perhaps we're over-educated and under-smart. To many of us, the after-life is much like the before-life we try to imagine to no avail: nothingness, oblivion. No reassuring light at the end of the tunnel for us.

This perspective tends to encourage a here-and-now view that makes us feel increasingly responsible for living the most generous lives we can right now. Not a bad gamble.


Increasingly, as I grow older, I find myself writing and delivering eulogies. A solemn, yet uplifting task, this speaking-fair and fairly the virtues of many friends and family who have for so long deserved my admiration and true love. Why this sad duty falls to me, I cannot be certain. But it frequently has, and does more frequently as time passes.

Could be I am chosen, because I have this long-standing habit of seeing the beauty in people I especially like. They laugh and tell me I have Christmas Eyes: I am fond of them and therefore see beautiful gifts they feel they don't possess. Perhaps it's the other way around: I am fond of them because they possess these beautiful gifts. I'm sure the latter is true. They're not so sure.

It's become something of a joke. Not a very funny one at times. I'm nearly the last of my family in my generation.

All I know is that my friends are crowding into line ahead of me -- or so they hope. Elbows fly. Lotsa pushing and shoving. Some good-natured grumbling.

They assign me the responsibility to think up something good to say about them. There's a strange irony in the way we joke about our real and imagined virtues:

A credit card plunks down into the middle of our restaurant table:

"Let it be remembered I picked up the check today!"
A thumb stretches a tight waist-band:
"Recall to all how I am the Wizard of Weight-Control!"
An upraised head, index-finger lightly brushing across eyebrows:
"Remind them of my elegance and good looks!"
A crinkled Washington's drops lightly into the middle of the table:
"Let it be known I was always a big tipper!"
Broad arm gestures draw attention the torn-out knees of levis:
"Speak of my elegant attire!"

Brave smiles and dark humor. We laugh in the face of the Grim Reaper.

Speaking well of old-and-well-worn friends is a task I take seriously. Both now and later. Trust me: there's much good to say, or I wouldn't've chosen them as friends in the first place. Nor would they have chosen me.

My aging friends and I tend to be philosophical about our end-of-life programming. If you're puzzled or doubtful about this, then you're prob'ly too young to imagine your own inevitable end.

All you veritable youngsters view your own end-of-life as if you're walking toward the horizon: it never gets any closer. You imagine you'll never get there.

But I assure you: we ALL get there:

For every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under heaven

Or so spake the author of Ecclesiastes 3:1

a time to be born and a time to die;
a time to kill and a time to heal;
a time to pull down and a time to build up;
a time for mourning and a time for dancing;
a time to weep and a time to laugh. . . .

On he goes. As I recall, he lists 28 such times and purposes. Each assertion invites patient consideration. A well-lived life provides many instances which invite a busy mind to contemplate such blessings and tribulations. Countcher blessings, and all that. . . .

As I examine the passage more closely I'm intrigued to notice once again how each one of the fourteen pairs -- the extremes -- are offered variously. In some lines, the blessing comes first and the tribulation second. In other lines the sequence is reversed. As in:

a time to be born and a time to die;
a time for mourning and a time for dancing. . . .

I've often wondered what this variation might be telling us -- if anything. Careless editing? Incorrect transcription of text? Poetic license? Or is some significant meaning buried there?

This moment it strikes me suddenly that perhaps the writer is suggesting that the apparent joys and sorrows of life all carry the same weight and meaning. That in the infinite passage of time, the joys and sorrows weigh virtually the same. As in this too shall pass away.

Years ago my gracefully aging grandmother said to me on her 73rd birthday something I was still too young to understand: "Robby, I've learned to live moment-to-moment, instead of day-to-day, week-to-week, or year-to-year. My days are much the same. Only my body changes with my birthdays. In my heart I am still your age."

It just this moment occurs to me:
My aging dilemma?
I don't think Gramma would understand.

How is it my Gramma Minny -- so long dead -- gets so much smarter every year? She never groused or complained. Her face brightened when she spoke with me. She worked hard. She expected to enjoy her days. And so she did.

She read the Bible. Far as I know, she had never read the Tao.

Yet she reached out for me
as she reached out for all of life,
and celebrated with a smile.

So let these three lines be her long-awaited eulogy.

Competent People: BobS DDS

During this festive season of sharing and feasts, prayer and thanksgiving, consider the blessings of good teeth.

By now, we all have learned that the Dear Father of our Country, George Washington, was not so blessed. At least, those of us who have trouped through the Smithsonian have actually seen and wondered at Papa George's wood, wire, and ivory dentures. How else to explain his square-jawed and scowling visage on the dollar bill? Poor old guy's teeth were aching. Swollen gums?

And, of course, we've all been harangued by our impatient mothers and grandmothers after meals: "Go brush yerTEETH! George Washington didn't. See what that oversight got him!"

Even as a first-grader -- or before -- I always wondered what other such oversights might get my picture onto the dollar bill. Maybe even the hundred-dollar bill. Thusfar, my myriad oversights have profited me little. But MAN: you should see my teeth!

Far and away my best feature. I am that aging hulk of walking decay, who when he smiles at you, leaves you thinking: "Those teeth just gotta be FALSE!"

NO SUCH THING! And I owe it all to good dental care.

Now I come to the purpose of this posting.

GOOD DENTAL CARE:
A Brief and Uplifting Treatise

BobS DDS is another one of those geniuses who oughta be slapped. My perception of dentists usedta be that they were like doctors in many ways. But they're also like sculptors in important ways, too. It's this blending of the scientific and the artistic that's always impressed me about the dentists I've known.

Dentistry is a special artistry that shapes and reshapes the teeth and the mouth, thereby accomplishing much that keeps the entire body in good shape.

BobS has taken care of my teeth for the past quarter century. His manner makes me think that he may feel he OWNS my choppers. My teeth were always pretty good. But the redoubtable BobS has improved them immensely. And he's quietly proud of his work.

My bite was not always perfect -- a fact that seemed to fit the rest of me quite nicely. There was always this slight overlap between the two large central upper teeth (incisors?). And one of my lower central teeth was crowded back slightly (down-and-in-cisor?).

Of course, like the rest of me, this slight imperfection was not really noticeable from a distance. (I look really good from about a quarter mile.). But close-up. . . .

So, anyway: the year I turned fifty, BobS said to me in the midst of one of my six-month check-ups: "How 'bout we straighten your teeth?"

Hmmmnnnn! Braces at fifty?! Even at fifty, there were perhaps more important things I would wish straightened. But still. . . .

Before I knew it, after a brief conference with my beloved wife -- who quite unaccountably loved me just as I was -- agreed this could be a good thing. Nancy was, for 30 years, a Health Educator, and she could reel off dozens of reasons why a good bite, regular flossing and brushing, and regular trips to the dentist have their uplifting affect and worthy effect upon good health in general.

"Show me a healthy mouth, I'll show you a healthy person. . ." and all stuff like that.

So BobS yanked my four Wisdom Teeth -- my one claim to any sort of wisdom, by the way. Then he wired me up with the then-new, nearly transparent braces, screwed everything down tight, thereby teaching me, incidentally, what real tooth-pain felt like. For just a little while in the beginning, I mean.

I learned quickly the importance of gentle brushing and chewing. And patience. Anyone who goes through such a straightening process knows full well that marching teeth around in your mouth only hurts on-schedule: the moment it doesn't hurt anymore, you get tightened down again.

That first spring I had the novel experience of delivering Commencement Addresses to ranks of graduating seniors with whom I had something special in common -- braces on our teeth. As they approached to receive their diplomas, I met them each with smiling handshakes. Their eyes would round-out in amazement, as we shOOk hands.

Written all over their faces was the astonished statement: "I thought so! This old duffer has braces on his teeth!" Their ears would prick up, too. Long as I kept it short, they would listen clear through. And respond with approval.

All of which made me wonder howcum wearing braces made me sound so much smarter. Strange phenomenon: A sore mouth somehow soothes the ears and raises the IQ?

Even the WhatchaCallit I wore for a year or two after the braces were removed made me feel smarter, as long as I didn't listen too carefully to what I was saying. In this way I was much like my graduate students. They never did listen too carefully, as I recall.

But again, I digress.

Through BobS I met PatT -- my lovely and persistent Dental Hygienist. It's Pat who nagged me hopefully for a number of years: "Flossingness is next to godliness!" Some of the most pleasant moments of my life have been spent lying back comfortably gazing happily into Pat's gorgeous face, as she whacked away happily with stainless steel instruments bravely stripping my teeth of accumulated plaque.

Until recently, that is, when along came all this raging disease peril that put all clinical faces safely behind hygiene masks. Thus does beauty bow to necessity. Sad loss.

But it was PatT who taught me to floss. Early-on, at six-month intervals she would patiently jack-hammer my teeth clear of plaque. Wore her out. "Gonna lose these gorgeous teeth, 'less you spend 20-30 seconds flossing after meals." For a few years I held to the barbarian belief that NOBODY really flosses.

But then, for some reason, it caught on with me. Three times a day, after snacks, before and after bed, while reading. Flossing became my major compulsion. Nor do these new-neat little jiffy-gizmos that come with picks & all, discourage my OCD. I can even read with one hand on the book, the other meticulously flossing away.

BobS and PatT lately provide some of the proudest moments of my life. Every once in awhile, Bob will haul out my old castings, hold up a mirror and say: "Remember the bad-good old days?!"

Or, a moment before donning her mask, PatT will grace me with her brilliant-white, perfectly-aligned smile, then express with delight: "OhMaGosh! Hardly a speck of plaque!"

During such moments, Pat T makes me feel like an Eagle Scout. Such a large transformation is no small gift. Makes me feel grateful.

I realize, however, that the ambiance I experience every six months at Robert F. Sonntaq DDS over at 4400 Fashion Square Boulevard (Saginaw, MI) is not accidental.

It's a direct result of Bob's able leadership. I try to imagine the occasional leadership meetings where he discusses how he wishes the entire office staff to greet and engage the clientele.

But such meetings aside, his own behavior sets an example of skilled human relations. The office is impeccably clean. Clients are met with warm greetings and welcoming smiles. The setting is brightly decorated and inviting. Fresh, warm coffee is offered. The schedule moves promptly. Waits are brief.

BobS, PatT or another associate fetch and lead each client to his assigned place. After a brief and courteous exchange, procedures begin immediately. There is little distinction between care and courtesy.

Both Bob and Pat are so practiced and skillful with procedures. Courtesy is always present and remarkable. You would think terms such as Please and Thank You might be considered unnecessary in a clinical setting. Not so in this setting.

Requests are quiet and reassuring:

"Please turn your head a little bit to the right toward me."
this courteous direction lightly guided with one hand.
"Oh, thank you, that's much better. . . ."
"Would it help if we rested a moment?
I'm sorry! I know your jaw must be tired"
-- this after several minutes of digging, grinding, polishing, whatever.
"Please tell me if this becomes uncomfortable"
"Time for a rinse?"

Reflect for a moment upon the countless small directions and requests that transpire in the carrying-out of a dental procedure. When each is accompanied by various terms of polite affirmation, the total affect is overwhelmingly pleasant. Painless dentistry, indeed.

There is a large billboard on the north side of I-69-West near Lansing, MI, that advertises "Painless Dentistry." A large picture of the dentist. His name and location clearly stated. I never pass that sign without picturing BobS and PatT and saying to myself: Painless Dentistry? I'll see ya, and raise ya Twenty. I'll bet any amount that guy is not nearly as good as my Saginaw team.

Strange to realize and tell: it might be that my visits to BobS and PatT may have been among the most important instructive aspects of my continuing education and training as a classroom teacher. Before I retired, I too dealt with clients on a daily basis. Requests and directions for specific movements, questions and responses, challenges and reassurances, quick reorganization of students into small groups: such were characteristic of my classroom practice.

I learned from my visits with BobS and PatT the positive impact of quiet courtesy -- among other things, such politeness reassures and lifts self-esteem. It makes students feel their attentive presence is appreciated.

Courtesy is the very hallmark of true hostmanship. Indeed, it is how we wish to make guests welcome and comfortable in our homes. Therefore, courtesy's right and appropriate in any welcoming classroom, dental clinic, or anywhere else clients present themselves.

*

One
would not
think something
as simple as Politeness
would make such a difference
for the better. But it DOES. It does,
because it says more than anything else we
might do: YOU ARE IMPORTANT TO ME!
Quiet courtesy is a gift that knows no special season.
Skilled dentistry and good dental hygiene are also always
in season.
WishingU
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
AND HAPPY TEETH!

Competent People: TerryD, He's good to me

For nearly thirty years my "general practitioner" has been an Internal Medicine Specialist. TerryD's a brilliant man. He's not only an MD. He also holds a PhD. But his training goes far beyond that. He has to study continuously because he must keep abreast of medical advances.

Yes! He will perform any medical procedure commonly done in a doctor's office. And he will do it with faultless expertise. Stitch my laceration, check my blood-pressure, examine my throat and ears, prescribe for me a suitable pharmaceutical. Set up and administer my stress test, check my prostate gland. Whatever needs done, TerryD will usually do it for me. When he feels some procedure can be better done by another specialist, he sends me to that person.

It seems to me at times I am wasting his valuable time.

But TerryD apparently doesn't feel that way. Or if he does, he doesn't show it. He is the sort of physician who puts the CARE into the term medical care. I'm not certain, but since the death of my wife three years ago, Terry may be the person who cares about me the most. He certainly takes care of me the most.

We often have challenging discussions about things that fall into my area of expertise: current difficulties with school finance, multiple challenges of school leadership, niceties of emerging school law, areas of specific educational expertise. . .that sort of thing. This is a truly bright man. He knows his stuff. He knows much of my stuff. His interests and knowledge go beyond medicine. His is a mind worth engaging.

Sometimes -- after discussing some historical, philosophical, educational, or religious idea in an email -- I might close with an offhand comment lightly complaining about some minor discomfort I've been experiencing. I mean it's like: "It's your fault X-discomfort is occurring in my life right now, because you have kept me alive and healthy all these years. . . ."

So he calls me in. He's arbitrary and insistent. Something about what I've described piques his interest. His is an exacting and mindful brain. A no-stone-unturned mentality. So in I go -- doing dutifully what my respect for him insists I do. He's busy, but he works me in.

I sit patiently (no pun intended) waiting to be called into one of the examination rooms. I look up from the book I've brought along and scan the ranks of other waiting patients. I recognize them vaguely. And well I should. I've seen them here before. These are others whose lives TerryD has prolonged. I can't divine their ailments.

They appear like all the healthy aging folks I see all around me in the grocery store, for instance:

old
lucky,
good genes,
well-cared-for,
thinning gray hair,
maybe-a-little-jowly,

thicker in the middle.
bright-eyed and hopeful types,
grown accustomed to the gentle aging
that results from regular physical examinations
and appropriate early-intervention health care.

This late-middle-age hardiness is traceable directly back to

TerryD's astute and studied professionalism.

Finally I'm called in. On the way to placement in my examination room, I'm weighed and measured, heart-rated and blood-pressured, by one or another of the nurse-assistants I've seen and known for years.

I wink: "Don't I know you from somewhere, Cutie-Pie?"

An eye-rolling head-shake: "I'll give you 'Cutie-Pie" you old fart." A three-beat pause: "Better flirt with me some-more! I'm not getting any blood-pressure reading. . . ."

"Your beauty stuns me! Please touch me there again. . . ."

A stern side-long glance: "Pretty needy. . .you're gettin' turned on by a blood-pressure cuff."

By the time she shoves me into my examination room, she's chuckled out and glad to be rid of me.

After all these years of serious incidents and small ailments (I haven't been able to hide from Terry) my file is the size of a Funk&Wagnells dictionary. In there is the history of my knee replacement, my severed left thumb, my coronary episode, and a host of other medical misfortunes TerryD has faithfully seen me through.

I try to hide from him as many of my dumb-stuff-accidents as I can. Otherwise there'd be two Funky-W files.

Here's the kinda thing Terry accomplishes for me. Shortly after my wife's death three years ago, my daughter threatened to tell on me and get Terry to call me in for a look-see at the recurrence of a troublesome symptom -- like the time I rolled over in bed and a sneaking-up-on-me mass in my right breast sent a shot of pain through my chest that woke me up. Next thing I know, this upstart-loving daughter has my butt in one of TerryD's waiting room chairs.

Then, the very next thing after that is a buncha imaging, leading to surgical removal of a lump that proves benign. Now I'm not exactly a worry-wart. . .but until that breast wad was proven benign I kept thinking: Wait a minute now. We BOTH can't die of breast cancer! Has to be some Fairness Rule about something like that. Or am I wrong?

But TerryD is thorough in all our dealings. And I'm here to prove it.

Ever since a lifetime of running long distance exhausted me into a heart attack, he's changed his tactics -- and some of mine. I'm now a walker. Like two hours out, two hours back. Brisk! Sometimes less. But I like a challenge. That coronary crisis was when I was an upstart of sixty. Now I'm fifteen years older. I'm healthier and stronger now than I was then. TerryD is doing something right.

But! Ever since the coronary, I have a stress test every six months. And he has me on a daily blood-pressure-cholesterol-reduction regimen, an 80mg aspirin, and a marble-sack fulla daily vitamins the size of a lumberjack's lunch -- this on top of a multi-vitamin. I have long forgotten what each vitamin is for exactly, though he explained all that clearly a long time ago. What I remember is that my various excretions are the richest in the county. And my heart runs like a precision Swiss watch.

Here's what I want you to understand about preventative health care as administered by a superbly trained, long-studied, and continuously updated physician like TerryD: he cares about his patients. Each is a very real person to him. He knows us all because each of us is an individual long-term human study.

But TerryD is much more than a caring human being -- as important as that may be in any human transaction.

TerryD is also a skilled scientist. As you can plainly observe, the term science is at the core of the word scientist. The term science comes from the Latin verb Scio, to know. In our advanced culture that means to know through the senses -- through extensions of the senses. Extensions such as microscopes and X-rays and a raft of other incredibly wonderful new devices.


TerryD is a genius in the strictest sense of that word:

He has a genius for human beings. He cares.
He also has a genius for science. He knows.

Such people should be honored.
Such people stand at the very peak of our civilization.

One more thing that reflects upon TerryD's character:

After all these years he rarely charges me for his services --
beyond necessary testing expenses.

TerryD barely touches my bank account,

But!

He always touches my heart.

Competent People: AlysiaP, One and Three

You wouldn't think a youngish female hair stylist (with a pair of scissors, a separate business, and a family) might be thought of as a genius. But I do. And she is.

I mean genius is at least three senses of that word. First, she's uncommonly bright. Second, she's exceptionally skilled in the artistic work she has chosen. Third, she's gifted in dealing with a broad range of people.

Just as important, she's a disciplined worker.

AlysiaP is my barber. I shy away from saying she is my hair-stylist. Women have their hair styled. Real men and aspiring young boys go wait in line at a barber shop, where they have their hair cut.

In fact, in the olden-days of my youth, young males often waited in line for hours in the barber shop for their turn in the barber chair, meanwhile discussing girls and last-night's football game, girls and the latest auto designs, girls and that last damnable calculus problem, girls and various shenanigans at last Friday's dance, girls. . . .

We sat around cracking wise and telling jokes of questionable taste. Of course, I was not among the jokesters, clean-cut Boy Scout that I truly was. But then, I do vaguely remember having once heard the one about the traveling salesman and. . . .

But I digress.

Again: AlysiaP is my barber -- by appointment only. No waiting and no jokes, please. So skillful is she, in fact, that she maintains not only a large clientele of women, but a surprising number of males, also.

How can I say this without sounding sexist? I guess I can't! Alysia is a really good-looking, not-quite-fortyish woman. Short, well-built, dark haired, big-eyed. Perky and endlessly energetic. (None of which would matter, were she not a good barber, by the way. But still. . . .)

I always arrive on time for my appointment, lest some lucky interloper walk in and take my place -- not that Alysia's not worth waiting for. She has a special knack for shaping hair. Not only that: she somehow arranges any mangy coif in such a way that it not only looks good, it makes any old face look better, too. ('Snot always easy!)

But you would have to see what's left of my face and hair to appreciate her level of expertise. Alysia's work is so effective that it approximates plastic surgery. Enough to say, that during last year's Asian Flu scare, I was one of those who looked much better wearing a surgical mask. My hair remains my best feature -- thinning and gray, but presentable. I constantly fight the impulse to wear my hat so that it covers my face, rather than my hair -- as even my own mother long ago suggested I do.

But I digress (again).

Alysia is also a gifted conversationalist. She knows all about a wide range of interesting things. I dare you to keep up with a retired university professor who studies all the time, yet has too few people to keep bored. Alysia holds her own. We talk about everything from global warming to raising her three sons about the ages of my grandsons. Her able Sonsmanship is noteworthy. Her boys range in age from ten to 14. They are

helpful in a home where both parents work,
clean-cut and nice looking,
well-mannered,
good students,
tough and athletic,
respectful of their elders,
boyish enough to be unpredictable,
and generally a credit to their parents.

They're boys, thank goodness. I mean: who wants to raise a trio of priggish little sissies? Not Alysia and her husband. Still, boys may be boys. But in Alysia's household they are well-behaved boys. There may be some Black-Magic-Witchery involved. But, more about that later.

Busy, though Alysia truly is, she has become a baseball aficionado.

She can speak knowledgeably of her boys' burgeoning skills as well as rattle off their improving on-field statistics. She is an avid student of the game right down to hit-and-run and squeeze-play, Texas-leaguer and hook-slide. She follows the game like an old timer. In many ways she's a skillful umpire.

Which is to say she knows the rules -- on and off the field. I'm not talking only baseball here.

Alysia knows boys in general. And she knows her own boys specifically. She runs a light-handed, tight household. She's a doting mother and good-wife. The males in her family look to her for approval. I mean, her husband's wonderful. But Alysia, too, is a natural leader.


As if juggling family responsibilities and professional hair-styling were not enough, Alysia and her sister bought a florist shop nearly two years ago. Sister Audry is identified among close family as the artistic head.

Alysia does much of the artistic stuff, too. But she is also the business head. She does most of the management and all the accounting tasks. Just getting the increasing number of events onto the calendar, preparing the designs, transporting arrangements to the various sites, decorating, and keeping up with contracts and payroll must be exhausting. But job sites must also be cleared of decorations after an event.

The floral business is demanding and endless. And word-of-mouth praise is the best advertising. As I have said, the business is growing rapidly. And why not. No matter the general business climate, people continue to fall in love, marry, or pass away.

The sisters are close and loving. So is the entire family. And because the business has virtually exploded, it has become necessary for nearly the entire family to become involved. Any weekend may mean numerous weddings and funerals. Any weekday is equally hectic. Retired aunts and uncles, cousins and in-laws, old friends and new, all pile in to fulfill

Audry's designs,
transport flower arrangements,
decorate wedding chapels and reception halls,
funeral parlors and grave sites.

The walk-in trade is a whole other demanding thing. The business has recently grown out of its original store-front location. So rapidly has the growth occurred, that two generations on both sides of the family have become involved. Two large Catholic families. Count them on your fingers and toes. Many pitch in to help Audry and Alysia.

Alysia seems equal to the task of organizing the entire enterprise.

My greatest fear is that she will soon become too busy with the floral business and have to quit barbering. I tell her: "Never mind! In the new building, we'll put in a barber's chair just inside the back door."

I once read in one of Plato's learned tracts that losing a barber is something akin to divorce or death of one's spouse. I don't know how Plato could have known Alysia.

But he must have.
I guess she's older than she looks!

Remembering Nancy IV: Cock-a-Doodle-Doooo

"What's with all these roosters?!" This is what I get for showing one of Milly's friends around my house!

I mean: I'm minding my own business at a party over at Doc Milly's house next door, when Milly says to a friend in a real casual tone: "Hey Deb, betcha Robby'll show ya 'round his gorgeous home?!"

Deb brightens all up suddenly: "How-bout-it, Robby? I'd liketa see your home. Everybody says it's GooooorJus!" She strung the word out like that all-big-eyed.

Hmmmmnnnn!? I could only think of several reasons why not to show my place right that very minute -- like:

'Sbeen some time since I last shoveled the place out.
(I'm a widower. A messy one.)
The sweeper has not yet been put away.
(Nor used yet. Just in case you're moved to ask.)
Christmas wrapping stuff is spread evenly throughout the Great Room.
(I strew bitsa Xmas paper about the room and sort presents to size.)
Used lunch cooking utensils and dishes are strewn all over the kitchen.
(Lunch was only ten hours ago.)
To stockinged feet, the hardwood feels like a gravel road.
(Haven't swiffered for. . .awhile.)
Dustballs the size of tumble weeds abound.
(okayOkayOKAY! I'll swiffer. . .soooooon.)
Gatsby-Kitty is having sneezing fits.
(I know. I KNOW! the swiffer. . . .)

But lately I've been learning that one way to avoid new-woman problems is to take Milly up on just such chancy invitations as this one she's just made me offer.

God(dess) hateth a happy bachelor.

My house-keeping is not for the faint of heart. Besides which, any woman who manages to see through the litter is certain to appreciate the buried beauty of my home and think: "My GOD! He's destroying this once-gorgeous home! I'll NEVER speak to this Barbarian again!"

Indeed! Some have said those words aloud! (I love my new independence!)

So off we go next-door to my house. But to my surprise and dismay, Deb remains quietly speculative as we plow through all the debris. Then, when we come again to the front door and are prying our shoes back on, she draws her face up into a quizzical grimace and issues the aforesaid question: "What's with all the Roosters?"

I assume my pseudo-sophisticated docent manner: "My wife was raised on an Ohio chicken&egg farm. They also raised broilers. . . ." My voice trails off. Hopefully no further questions will be asked. By now I'm wiggling my foot desperately, smashing-down the counter of my left shoe in a vain attempt to get us quickly out the door.

But inevitably, questions are asked. I rattle-off my programmed response: "In fact, Nancy's father was renowned across the country for having pioneered the earliest mechanized egg production facility."

Short version: "Umpteen-thousand chickens stand crammed together cross-legged in wire cages, laying eggs that roll down ramps onto concave moving belts. Other stuff is also carried away on moving belts." (I'm rarely asked for particulars.)

Deb cocks her head to the side, quietly speculative. Then, another twisted face: "Yeah! But what's with all those Kaleidoscopes?"

"Same thing."

"Wait-a-minute! Kaleidoscopes stood cross-legged. . . ."

"NoNoNoooo! Roosters're because Nancy liked collecting things that reminded her of her past."

"Kaleidoscopes reminded her of her past?"

Patient, calm and casual: "No! She also liked giving me gifts she discovered interested me."

Astonished glance: "You like carved wooden ducks and decoys? You like carved all-rolled-up-in-a-ball kitties?"

"Yes, I do." Still quietly matter-of-fact. But now I'm feeling a little defensive.

A touch of unabashed criticism: "You like those metal toys that sit-up on fulcrums and pretend to saw wood and stuff when they're teetered?"

"Yeah!" Now I'm gathering up wrapping-paper-clutter in a vain effort to get out of the line of fire. A rolling paper-grabber-upper gathers fewer unsolicited criticisms.

Head poked into the library and then back at me: "You reallyReallyREALLY like books, doncha!?"

I pause about three beats. Begin loading in a few stones of my own.

But now she's smiling all warm. Her face lights up with excitement, and she's all perky-animated: "I do too! I looove books! I'm mostly a reading teacher. . . ."

I release a quiet, long sigh of relief at this accidental score.

But now she's bustling around, traipsing back into the kitchen: "Come-on! Help me with these dishes. . . ."

Now I'm a little panicky. My clutter-defense is not achieving its desired result. "OhhhNOOOO! I couldn't ask you. . . ."

But she's a headlong bustler: "'Sno trouble, Robby. Cleaning-up's my thing!" She darts about like a dervish, gathers up wrapping-paper litter, shoves it all crushed-up in her left arm-pit, clears the table, balancing grubby flatware and lunch dishes on her left forearm. A quick snatch with a flashing right hand, and three pots magically disappear into the sink. Plates and flatware disappear into the dishwasher, all quick-clunkity-clunk. She's a virtual blur.

Oh Lord! Now hot water's running into the sink. How'd she find the Dawn. I've been poking around hopelessly beneath the sink for almost a week. Scrape-itty-scrape-clank, and she shoves a dish-towel into my hand. Where'd she find that?

I dry-em and plunk-em safely away into the cabinet just below her to the left. As I bend down I can't help noticing her nicely-rounded backside. Plus she smells really good.

But still, I'm groping desperately around in all my pockets for my car keys. She lays a hand on my swiffer-handle, I'm outa here.


About 20 minutes later we're relaxing on the couch watchin' Charlie Rose. Clutter's all up. Swiffer'n sweeper are used and put away. Place looks really nice. Still a little dusty. . .but nice.

Gatsy-Kitty's lying in Deb's lap. Sure enough, she's found that spot between his front shoulders. Little traitor's purrin' like a garbage disposal.

Suddenly Deb's up. Gatsby-kitty under her left arm all squished-up-happy as a wad of wrapping paper. I can't help but notice Deb's pert, trim figure. How she's short, cute, athletic. Now I'm wondering about her age.

Now she's found my clip-board. Deb's got that squished-up face again. Kinda cute, actually. But she's smiling: "Let's count the roosters!" Goodby Charlie and his distinguished guest who apparently knows all about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and who knows what-all-else.

So, like in fifteen flashing minutes we find and tote up the roosters:

several large French ceramic-over-tin models,
paintings and assorted china replicas,
assorted carved wooden beauties,
numerous metal sculptures,
artful candle holders,
etched goblets,
napkin rings,
embossed tableware,
stitched pillows and runners,
tosseled key and door-knob hangers,
paintings of Amish youngsters, roosters in arms,
rooster rugs in kitchen and baths,
And more. Still more.

Deb sits down humped over the clipboard. I watch her total the individual rooms. Now she's carrying her totals forward. Finally: "FORTY-FOUR!"

I'm quiet, wondering where all this might lead. I glance over wistfully at Charlie Rose.

Deb plunks down beside me real close, reaches over, grabs my hand, and drapes my arm around her shoulders. Then she nestles in real close&tight, and pretends interest in Charlie and his guest. I'm likin' this some, in spite of myself.

I know the question's coming. Finally she scoots to the side and grabs up a pillow into her lap. She cocks her head to the side: "Howcum so few hens?"

"Well!? There are SIX hens! I always took her clothes-shopping. Her favorite thing."

Now she smiles all warm and cute: "I think Nancy liked you, Robby!"

"Yeah! She did. . . ." Now she's got me blushing -- the cock-a-doodle-dooo-thing and all.

I can see "WHY'D she like you so much?" all over her face.

So I say: "Because I paid such close attention to her all the time. Because she knew I cherished her so much. . . ."

She bounces up and tucks one leg beneath her all cute, smiles real big, points her finger in my face, and cuts me off with a big hooting "COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOO! That's why!"

But I shake my head side-to-side: "Most women, it's 'just-any-old-dude'll-dooo.' Any self-styled, horny cocksman. But not with Nancy. With Nancy, not-just-any-old-dude'd-do. With Nancy, it hadda be someone who loved her all the time. Who paid attention to her in every good way he could think of, all the time! Who knew how very special she truly was, all the time. Who knewd-her, and dewd-her-right -- all the time!"

"Nancy was a woman who knew her worth. Who loved in return. We were best-friends and teammates. To me, she was the most important person. Our friendship was the most important thing in my life. She knew that. Absolutely knew it."

Now Deb's all quietly speculative: "And that's how you won her and held her. And that was you -- all the time?"

I nod emphatically: "That was me."

But now I'm liking this woman a little. More than I thought I might.

So I add: "But this's me now. Payin' attention to you!"

So she smiles all big and slides back under my arm all snug.

And we watch the rest of Charlie Rose.

Gifts of the Magi: Updated Personal Version

Christmas comes but once a year. Too bad. I offer a better plan.

I've always been a spring-summer-fall guy. Christmas is the reason. All this frantic-running-around. All this who'd-I-forget-fa-la-la-la-falderal that falls somewhere safely between Humbug-Bah! and Deck-the-Halls.

I'm not Scrooge. Don't think that.

But since my wife died three years ago, it's been harder. Missing her is one thing I won't joke about. Missing letting her do all the work. . .now that's really funny.

Letting her do all the work came naturally. She was just so much better at doing everything:

The cooking!
(We usually went out to eat.)
Cleaning up the house in case friends might venture in!
(We teamed on that, though it usually left the rugs bulging.)
Preparing for guests!
(I ran out and brought back the case of booze.)
Decorating the house!
(I pulled stuff outa storage. She was an artistic Wizard.)
Rolling the dice on gift-giving.
(Who got ahead of us this year? How can we catch up!)
Planning the road trip to family!
(I did the drinking. She did the driving.)
Squeezing in the Bahamas vacation!
(She played intermediary to the travel agent.)
Lying around eating too much!
(That was all me.)

We minimized sending Christmas Cards. Nancy was raised Brethren: No drinking. No dancing. No card playing. My largely fallen-away Methodism and common sense minimized drinking. We danced like crazy. (In fact our whole life was one merry dance!).

But a card is a CARD. This may have been the one place where we consciously minimized sin. A dozen cards a year was as much perdition as we dared risk.

It wasn't like we didn't make merry. We did. . .as many days of the year as possible. Nor were we selfish. I mean: generosity feels so good. Mostly a blessing to the giver. Often a nuisance to the receiver. (Who gets the-REgifted tie this year? The solid-rock fruit-cake?)


But when Nancy died the first week of November, 2006. . .I scrapped Thanksgiving, my birthday, and Christmas for the year. I guess I did send my younger daughter her December-birthday check. And Christmas checks to children and grandchildren. But that was more the habit of loving, than celebration. (Which may turn out to be the whole point of this posting.)

By Christmastime-2008, I thought it might do me some good to get back into the Christmas Thing.

You may know how that goes. You've gotten deep into the habit of Acting Okay, so well-meaning family and friends can decide it's not a question that has to begin every conversation.

And then, by some totally unexpected miracle, you realize suddenly that in fact you really are okay. Or at least more okay than you thought you could ever be again. I don't know how that happens. Could be you wear your okay mask so long to fool other folks that your face somehow grows to fit it. Somehow theater becomes reality.

Truth is, I've discovered that much of the good life is theater. I don't mean it's inauthentic. Quite the contrary: life in any context is quite real.

We get much of what we choose, precisely because we have chosen it.

We select the most healthy and productive script we can find, to begin with. But somehow a ready-made script doesn't quite fit. So pretty early in the drama, we have to re-write the script to more accurately suit ourselves. A person pretty much writes-in the role he wishes-for in his own life.

Over a lifetime, he even casts the other players -- his wife, the children and the way they choose to raise them, the friends they earn, the setting they develop together.

A person even chooses the tone of the play and most of the happenings -- the struggles, the goals and outcomes most desired. All these are largely chosen.

Most of us hope we're writing a comedy. To our surprise and delight, most of us even find that many of the scenes in our personal dramas produce far more laughter than tears.

Too-soon, though, tragic events sneak into even the most finely wrought comic plays. Still, we choose, best we can, our responses to all that may happen as our drama unfolds. And when troublesome things occur and cause us tears, with enough determination and courage, we find the will to smile and laugh again. Might take some time, though.

It really helps us to look around carefully at our audience. Even casual observation teaches us none escape loss. We may even come to realize we are -- in many ways -- luckier than most.

Such moments of fond realization are the real Christmas Moments of our lives. They are gifts we give ourselves, as well as gifts we give each other.

These gifts come to us with

contemplative silence in the night,
supportive arms of love,
sharing of love's golden rings,
family safely around us,
gladness that springs in the heart, upon hearing the

pealing of celebratory silver bells or sleigh bells, and
passin' 'round the coffee and the punkin' pie.

In this way, each day becomes Christmas. And, in the Spirit of the Magi, may we live each day with a joyous heart. Joy is often a choice we make.

I wish you each and all
a Very-Merry Christmas !

CHOOSE JOY!

Charity begins at home

Jonathon Gould had been one of my favorite graduate students. Also one of my smartest. But things've changed somewhat since I've retired. Now he's Dr. Gould. The table's been turned. Now, I'm the one who's getting the help and inspiration from Jon.

10:00am in the morning. Jon glanced at me over the top of a huge stack of student notebooks: "Hey Bob! Canya help Ruth & Maggie & me deliver the Christmas gifts and food to our needy family this afternoon?"

I was speculative for a moment -- thinking about my long list of afternoon chores. I decided to help. But before I could answer,

Jon spoke: "No pressure, Bob. If you're busy, I can dig up somebody else. Maybe several somebody-elses while I've got my shovel workin'."

That was an inside-joke. Jon had been one of those slightly older students. Before he became an extraordinarily successful middle-school math teacher, he had spent several years as a licensed undertaker.

We both chuckled.

"Nah! Ya-got me up and all the dirt shaken off. I might's well help ya."

"I'm serious, Bob. You got some plans for this afternoon. . . ."

"Nope! No other plans, Jon. I'd liketa help ya. Haven't done anything like that since I was mid-teens -- the Methodist Church choir and MYF. Thanksgiving and Christmas. Food baskets and gifts." I instantly remembered how much fun that had been all those years ago. How good it had felt.

Nostalgic stuff. I grinned as I recounted how after we packed the food-baskets and wrapped the gifts, and made our deliveries, we'd shovel off a nearby pond, build a fire, and ice-skate. GCF @ MYF. And it had been Good Clean Fun, too -- something like what might happen in an old Andy Hardy movie starring Micky Rooney and Judy Garland. I mean, in-between rollicking and polished rehearsals for their spontaneous theater production in his father's barn. Simpler days.

But I was puzzled. Howcum just four of us. Howcum just ONE needy family. Usedta be dozens of us and three, maybe four needy families.

Before I could ask, John saw the puzzled look on my face and volunteered: "Most Faculty've turned their backs on the project. Keep telling us: 'Charity begins at home.' Many still donate money. But they've gotten too busy to help otherwise."

Stumped me. Truth is: I'd been gone over three years. The faculty I'd known well had long-since retired. Only a few old friends left on campus.

New, young people have their own ideas, their own ways of keeping busy. Because I'd been gone so long, I didn't know the new-comers and had pretty much lost touch with remaining old-timers. Didn't even know the new routines and rituals practiced since I'd left. Didn't make sense to be critical though.

So I slid into my coat: "Got some errands ta-run. What time's the fun begin?"

Jon gave me a soft atta-boy punch on my right shoulder as I passed him on the way out the door: "We load my van at 2:30pm. Seeya then!"

I finished my errands just in time. Took us about twenty minutes to load the big cart, get stuff into the elevator, then out to the waiting van and loaded. Snow was falling in big, lazy, zig-zaggy flakes. There we were: Two bone-cold youngish women in flimsy jackets, a hale, forty-ish ex-pall-bearer, and a vigorous aging man. But loading the van was fun. I was amazed we got everything stacked safely away so quickly.

Snow came down thick, slowing traffic on the slick pavement. Clear across town during the beginnings of rush-hour, too. But Ruth knew the way: every landmark and turn. She'd been raised in the area. Had grown up there at about the same time the neighborhood was changing.

Thirty minutes brought us to a tiny cottage on a street full of other ones pretty much just like it. The house was small considering the size of the family. Gramma watched and raised six stair-step kids while their mother worked long hours downtown. Three generations in one house-hold. Not all bad.

We parked out front in deepening snow. Maggie and Ruth worked the front door. Jon and I did the running. No sense us all tracking in.

The older kids were still at school. The youngest -- her eyes big with wonder -- sat on Gramma's lap watching wrapped packages and plastic bags of food come surging through the front door.

In under fifteen minutes the van was empty. Still, we double-checked before we slammed the doors with a satisfying good-job-well-done flourish and slapped a high-five.

Jon and I stomped our shoes clean of snow on the stoop and stepped into the cottage. In dim light we could just make out the room and the small kitchen beyond an open door centered in the back wall.

The large stack of wrapped packages dwarfed a small tree in the corner. An immense fruit basket and a 20-pound frozen turkey crowded the small kitchen counter. Maybe a dozen or more grocery bags filled the kitchen table and overflowed onto the linoleum floor.

Jon nodded with satisfaction. Things'd gone smoothly as planned. He reached down gently and tweeked the child's nose, then smiled at Gramma: "All set?"

The child smiled up into his face and nodded. Gramma rubbed her eyes on her forearm, looked around at us with a smile: "We surely thanksya, folks. We feelin' mighty blessed & lucky right this very moment. . . ."

Jon bent slightly at the waist, placed his left hand gently on young-one's head, his right hand on Gramma's shoulder: "We're the ones feelin' mighty lucky this very moment. We thank you."

Some smiles and quick waves. A chorus of Merry Christmases. A few teary eyes. And we were out the door and into the van.

It was mostly quiet on the way back to school. But we were chock fulla good feelings.


As we head back to campus, I gaze out the van window. Large white flakes whirl down and gently cover our world. . .making everything beautiful.

Jon had it completely right. I couldn't help but think the rest of the faculty had it almost right. The old utterance "Charity begins at home" is mistaken. Makes more sense to say, as Jon might:

Charity ENDS UP at home.

If you're lucky enough to have a little extra to share with others. . .you go on out and share it.

Then an abiding spirit of generosity fills your heart.
And that's what you bring home with you.

That spirit soon fills your home.
And your life changes for the better.

_____________________________
Webster:
Charity--Middle English: n charite, Latin: n caritas = Christian Love. cf Sanskrit: Kama = love

Def: Good will toward needy and suffering.
Synonymous with mercy

Share--Old English: vt scearu= cutting. Old English: scieran vt = to cut

Def: one's full share or portion. To apportion fairly

Competent People: An Introduction

I love competent people.

I find them magnetic. I collect them. That is, once I identify them, I tend to begin thinking of them as close friends. Part of me knows they are not exactly friends. (Or maybe they are.) With the exception of one of them in my current collection, I may not see them months on end. Nevertheless, an important part of me keeps them close to me. I store them in one of the topmost drawers of my mind.

I'm not certain exactly how the drawer is labeled:

Helpful People?

Brilliant People?
Talented People?
Inspirational People?
Altruistic People?
Highly-Trained People?
Highly-Skilled People?
Dependable People?
Hard-Working People?
Happy and Productive People?
Ethical People?
Kind People?
Go-To People?

Hmmmmnnn!? I'm not certain. It seems to me that each of these "drawer labels" fits each of the people I soon will introduce to you.

To my knowledge not one of them has ever met the others in my collection. I am the person who connects them. I keep thinking I should throw a series of deck parties and introduce them to each other. They have so much in common. I'd be surprised if they didn't like each other.

I think about each of them nearly every day in some context. As you see, in my mind, I actively catalog their skills and virtues.

And, because -- when we are together -- we often talk briefly about their lives beyond their places of business, my good feelings and fondness extend to their spouses and children.

Some of us frequently exchange emails, keeping up with each other's lives. Yet we do not work -- or play -- together. In fact, these are men and women I meet because I buy and pay for their expertise. Still, I care about these people. I am grateful they share at least part of my life. I value their competence.

I feel great fondness and respect for each of them, despite the largely utilitarian character of our relationships. Having near-at-hand a skilled physician and barber, for instance, is a great personal comfort. Kinda like collecting a valuable resource and banking it.

This series of short writings will identify pairs of highly competent people who at first glance might appear to be very different in particular ways. Yet, in a general way they all share six very important qualities: each is

highly intelligent,
filled with creative energy,
warm and engaging,
an expert in his chosen field of endeavor,
mindful of advances in his field, and
deeply committed to the clients s/he serves.

In separate segments, this series will introduce highly competent persons as diverse as:

an internal medicine specialist and a talented hair stylist,
a dental surgeon and a university vice-president,
a building contractor and an instructional technology specialist,
a university professor and an administrative assistant,
an automobile leasing agent and a successful advertising executive
a counselor and her administrative assistant

I began this introductory post with the statement: "I love competent people." I then said that though I think of them in friendly terms, they are not exactly friends, as we tend to describe friendship in common terms.

Yet, as I think about these twelve successful people, it dawns on me that I admire them and feel warmth for them -- and from them. I am grateful for their presence in my life. Is this friendship? I wonder.

In short, I celebrate them. Several Greek philosophers would probably say this strange love I feel for them is agape' -- celebration of friendship, of work, of life in general. From my point of view, I present them as perfect pairings.

So maybe I am correct to introduce these postings with the declarative sentence as I have:

I love competent people!

Special Preparatory Assignment: In preparation for the next Competent People posting, the (retired) professor asks that YOU think about your own primary physician and hair stylist. In no more than a short novel or lengthy narrative poem, list all the good reasons you continue to call upon these experts in their vocational setting? Exactly how do you feel about these professional people you frequently rely upon for competent service? And: In one or two sentences, please present your own definition of the term friendship.