braking semi bobs
with nervous excitement at
auto pirouette
Blogger’s Note: Like the semi, I was merely a spectator …
Snowy Days Made For Sitting Home
Blogger’s Note: I’ll have more fresh stuff soon. In the meantime, this snowy weekend brought to mind another old column from my newspaper days. This one ran in the Tuesday, October 28, 1997, edition of The Pioneer, Big Rapids, Michigan, just a few days after Jodi and I moved into our first house. Hope you like it.
I’ve always enjoyed snowy mornings. Some I remember in particular like the [morning of] my birthday eleven or twelve years ago.
My best friend Kevin and I stayed outside ’til well after dark [the night before], playing hide-and-seek from the dog in the piles of brown oak leaves around the yard. The next morning Kevin peeked out behind the blind and announced it had snowed.
“Yeah, right,” I said, and rolled over to sleep.
“No, really,” he persisted. I got up to look, and all thoughts of sleep vanished at the sight of the downy white blanket.
That’s how snow comes — soft and silent. Sunday’s light accumulation scarcely made a sound. Saturday my grandfather had brought his lawn tractor and push mower to cut grass a month and more high; Sunday he brought his sweeper and more than a month’s worth of clippings so they wouldn’t suffocate the lawn.
Thence came the snow. Jodi and I were surprised to find our new yard white to a depth of four inches.
Such mornings are made for sitting home and enjoying. My dog Boomer, a great furry Airedale, understands this — on clear, cold South Dakota evenings, while local news anchors warned of deadly wind chills, Boomer could be found curled up on the ground, snow swirling about his head. He’d lie outside until the trail back to his house filled in, enjoying the quiet.
My sister and mother and I spent a good portion of the weekend painting what is to become the master bedroom and baby’s room — achieving whiteness in rooms once blue and yellow. There are few things more maddening than a hint of color beneath new white paint.
Mother Nature, I think, agrees. An upstart maple in our front lawn scattered leaves, first across the newly-mowed and -swept lawn, then across the new-fallen snow. Both Mother Nature and I stopped and frowned.
The truth, with trees as well as people it seems, is that we cannot leave the snow alone for long. For the young, the snow brings with it opportunity. It lies like a blank canvas, and the red leaves of the young maple are as much a part of the day’s enjoyment as are the footprints and angels and snowmen of children.
And as it turned out, I had no right to frown at dry leaves — reveling in the morning’s cold, I cut a path to our cars and stomped rough ovals around both of them, brushing off snow. By the time I’d managed to back out of the driveway, I’d stained the snow brown with grass, gravel and leaves, effectively ravaging the virgin beauty of the morning.
The debates of superintendents and transportation supervisors, of meteorologists and school-children, would be moot could we all grasp this simple truth: snow is best and most beautiful left undisturbed. The first set of tracks across a snowy field and its beauty is diminished; the first perpendicular cut by a shovel or plow spoils it altogether.
The road to town was slush-covered and edged in browning snow. By mid-afternoon, the world outside was road grime and mud — all because we lacked the sense to stay at home and enjoy the day.
Yes, Suzette, There Is a Santa Claus
Blogger’s Note: This originally ran as a column, with my clean-cut and -shaven mug alongside, in the Pioneer daily newspaper, Big Rapids, Michigan, circa December 1997 (maybe the Dec. 16 edition?) under the headline “If you believe, Santa will visit you, too.” I didn’t write the headline. As requested, Suz — Merry Christmas!
I cracked a joke the other day, about deer hunting and reindeer, and found myself on the receiving end of a lengthy tongue-lashing from a colleague of mine.
“How can you say that?” she said. “How could you even think of shooting a reindeer?”
“I’ve heard they’re good eating,” I said. “How could you think of hunting whitetails?”
“That’s different,” she replied. “I could never eat Santa’s reindeer.”
“Nor could I — I wouldn’t dream of shooting Santa’s reindeer.”
“How would you tell them apart?”
“Santa’s reindeer fly.”
She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Reindeer do not fly,” she said.
Don’t they? With an attitude like that, I suspect not — at least not around her.
Long before St. Nicholas of Myra began his charitable work in anonymity — long before reindeer flew — gifts and homage were given by the rich and the poor, the wise and the simple, to a child in Bethlehem. That child, named Jesus Christ, is regarded by many to be the Savior — the Son of God come down for mankind’s salvation.
Believe what you will, but as a man Jesus told us if we but had true faith the size of a mustard seed, we could tell the mountain to move and it would.
That’s nearly as far-fetched as flying reindeer.
We are skeptics, one and all — I suspect not one of us would step up to the foot of the mountain and ask it to move, even if no one was watching. And our doubtfulness gets worse the older we get: some of us learn Christmas comes when we laugh and jot From Santa on a gift tag and think how quaint the notion is.
We disbelieve to the point of tradition — we tell our children that Santa does not leave presents for grown-ups.
Rubbish. I am the beneficiary of a midnight visit by that plump and fur-clad Christmas sprite each year. He no longer delivers toys and candy; his brand of cheer is more subtle now — a greater, more spiritual gift. He is a Robin Hood for the soul, the merriest of merry men, stealing smiles from folks with smiles to spare and giving them to those who lack.
St. Nicholas was a believer with enough faith to be canonized. Rest assured, he believed in miracles — in fact, he was required to [have performed] miracles to receive sainthood. If faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, certainly Santa has the faith required to make reindeer fly, to circle the globe in a night and to find his way into each and every home regardless of the size, type or presence of a chimney. He believes he can, and he does.
“What of those people less fortunate?” you may ask. “Where is Santa Claus for them, when Christmas Eve rolls around?”
We fortunate souls who have what we need this season and find ourselves wanting what we don’t — we who are blessed with plenty — are visited but once a year by old St. Nick, but don’t believe for a minute that he sits by the fire for the rest of the year. The Bishop of Myra continues his charity work every day, making certain the needs of those who depend on him are met.
We are graced my his presents annually, and are quick to forget what he brings. The needy he helps on a day-to-day basis — again, his greatest works are the most subtle.
Father Christmas is as real as the holiday is holy, and he believes in you, regardless. Does he know — can he know — if you are sleeping or awake? Bad or good?
You’d better believe it.
Old Dog, New Trick
Our ancient Airedale, Boomer, is now fifteen or so — old for a dog, very old for a large breed, and truly remarkable for an altogether outdoor dog, who has refused the house (and until last winter, the garage) even in the deepest cold of winter. He’s a tough old man, and he still moves about the yard in a loose trot like it’s all his.
He’s never been much of a watch-dog or a hunter. Gun-shy since puppyhood and easily distracted, he’s simply never had the same sense of duty as Puck, our mini Schnauzer, who patrols the yard and house for any sign of trouble from strangers, squirrels, or even neighbors he suspects. He has never backed down from a fight, to my knowledge and loved to chase cats — but fight, chase, or kill, it was always with a look of joyful gameness, like he was testing his skills, happy to win or lose, bloody or be bloodied. He killed a stray cat once, and left it lay on the driveway; he didn’t worry it with his teeth or parade around with it in his jaws. He used to nab gophers now and again, and would toss them into the air and catch them, or bat them around like hacky-sacks. He was strong and quick, but never mean.
Today you can walk up to him from the back, the side, or even the front, and if he’s not looking at you, he won’t know your there until you touch him, stomp, or clap. He’s slower now, and more frail, but still affable, and I love him.
So last weekend — the Saturday after Thanksgiving — I woke in the wee hours, maybe 2:30, to Boomer’s persistent barking. The last two winters he’s had episodes like mini-strokes or seizures, in which he loses his coordination and sense of equilibrium and begins to stagger around and into obstacles. Last December he woke me this same way, albeit with a more pained and panicked bark. Still, this time I again rose fearing the worst.
I went to the deck door and opened in, letting the winter cold roll in. As soon as the door opened, his barking stopped. I couldn’t see him in the blackness of the kennel — there was no snow on the ground. He whined softly, once toward me and the house; the next toward the narrow patch of woods behind the house and the street beyond. It was not a plaintive cry, but an urgent, pay-attention call.
On the street beyond the trees I heard muffled voices and the shuffle-stomp of drunken footsteps, moving toward the house on the lot whose southeast corner touches our northwest.
Scuff-stomp-shuffle. Whispering. Shuffle-stomp. Soft laughter. Shuffle-shuffle-shuffle.
I heard the workings of the latch, more shuffling, and soft thump of a door sealing out the night. I heard the click of the bolt. And I heard Boomer turn back into his dog house, circle, and lie down with a tired galumph. The night was silent. He never made another sound until morning.
He knew they were there, and he knew when I knew. I had assumed for some time that his hearing and sight were failing, but perhaps it’s his aging brain, so easily distracted as a young dog, is now drawn in tight focus by whatever grabs its attention. During the day I can sneak up on him because so many other things capture his eye or nose.
But at night, in the silence, it seems no one gets by.
Photo: Boomer in his younger days, probably 8 to 10 years ago.
Fear of Death
Blogger’s Note: Have you ever, in the urgency and heat of a conversation, been pushed to consolidate and analyze a pattern of thinking you’ve been victim to for some time and share your findings before you’re certain they are fully baked? Well, I had that experience today. A dear friend was alarmed, in the midst of great blessings, to be suddenly afraid of death. As an emotional, navel-gazing kind of guy, I’ve been down this path more than once, so I worked to put my own cycle into words. And now it seems a part of a larger conversation, involving this post of mine and this post from our friend Deacon Tyler. Forgive the rambling and lofty sentence structures; I’ve been listening to St. Augustine during my commute these past few days. Now, onto the limb — here’s what I replied …
Yes, I do know somewhat of what you speak, I think. And sometimes these feelings are worse in moments of clarity and great joy, when you can see so vividly all you’ve been given (however unworthily!) and all you have to lose. At least, that’s been my case …
For me, the fear oscillates between that of an early death (before I’ve managed to complete what I view in that moment as my earthly duties) and the sudden loss of all that I have (namely, my wife and children) while I yet live. Both fears are more vivid in times of abundant blessing — a dark temptation to take no joy in joy: in one case, out of a natural but short-sighted tendency to cling to what we have without reference to (or reverence for) greater goods to come, and in the other case, to a natural but ill-conceived effort to steel ourselves against possible tragedy (however improbable) which, if taken too far, may lead us to view our blessings as curses (i.e., “Why am I burdened with such wonderful things I can only hope to lose?”).
When fearing an early death, I often want to abandon my livelihood and take my family to a mountaintop (as you’ve heard me say before!) where I can spend all my time eking out an existence, loving my wife, and teaching my children exactly what they need to survive and live uprightly — never mind the fact that Jodi would not regard such a retreat as an act of love, and I scarcely know how to survive and live uprightly myself, let alone how to teach such things. By living we learn — not by retiring.
When fearing the untimely loss of my family, I begin to imagine how I would react. It’s invariably heroic in its first draft — I soldier on, sorrowful and stoic — but with even a second’s worth of consideration, the smallest pinch of realism, I see my emotionally charged self falling utterly apart, at least for a time. How long? Who can tell? — I quickly conclude (true or not) that I’ve never been tested by want or direct and personal tragedy, and may well curl up in a ball and die myself. How unmanly! And I see my wife: so strong in faith, rock-solid, unyielding, and quickly conclude (true or not) that, were the tables turned, she would, in fact, soldier on, sorrowful and stoic. Why, if I were to die suddenly …
… and thus we return to the fear of an early death.
Life and death, that great unknown, is a deep, deep rabbit hole, into which some descend and never emerge. Better, perhaps, to stand at the edge and drop pebbles down, as we did as children, listening to see if and when they struck bottom, than to dig too deeply and collapse the whole thing upon us. A favorite (and to my knowledge, an original) saying on these subjects: We seek to explain the hell out of everything and explain the heaven out of it in the process. Or something like that.
Faith and doubt can both be gifts in moments like these — faith that, independent of what we do (or don’t do), the world and those we love move toward their proper end and all is (or will be) right in the world; and doubt that the proper end can ever be reached without our hand at the till or the oar, which may make us rethink our priorities and love each other more and better.
But the fear never leaves me entirely — and I feel everyday that I can never accomplish what I want, or what I should, or (some days) even what I must. I can only accomplish what I can, and thus far, it’s been just enough.
