Category Archives: Personal

Friendship, Civility, Weird Lessons

10/11/2015 X Teri Leave a comment

(In the last few years, I’ve read a few hundred similar shunning stories on Reddit and other sites. It must be exceedingly common for friends to inexplicably shun people. I’ve been fascinated with the complex stories people have shared – with quite a few being very close to my story. I’m certain I have read a few thousand of them in the last 7-8 years.)

This blog post is actually several years old and I’ve modified it slightly a couple of times, especially as I’ve seen so many people come forward with similar stories.

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It’s been a few years now since one of the best people I thought I had ever known revealed himself to be indifferent toward me. For the purposes of this essay, I’ll call him John, to ensure his identity is protected. Every couple of years, I revisit this very old blog post and update it. Time changes all stories, that is for certain.

Even though I had known John a long time, evidently he had awakened one morning and decided that I was scum – without saying a word to me about it. I had often described him as one of the best people I had ever known, used him for a reference, house-sat for him, defended him more than once even though I was being ridiculed for it, and shared many quiet and powerful moments in my life with him. To say that I had a high opinion of him would be an understatement. He shared the day I got the call my dad died unexpectedly, and he was there for me the morning my wife dropped dead.

Despite having many private and available opportunities, he never took a moment to express his resentment toward me, which is what we usually expect from people in our lives. He could have emailed after the first brush off, called and left a message, or any number of methods. But he didn’t. He allowed me to plod on, increasingly curious and surprised by my friend’s brush-off.

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That I had recently suffered the single biggest and harshest personal blow in my life evidently didn’t matter. That I had always defended him, helped him in any way I could and been a steadfast friend ultimately were ignored. It is important to understand that I had just went through one of the hardest personal tragedies anyone could imagine. He knew that, as he was there for me when it happened. Everything about the surprise of the way he changed toward me and then treated me should be imagined through that perspective. Nothing he alleged to be his reason for shunning me compared even slightly to my story. He did ultimately offer a story about throwing peanuts at a restaurant which caused him personal embarrassment; it’s his life and only he knows whether it mattered in the scheme of things. It would be arrogant for me to presume to know, except for the fact that this is how our minds work. My defense is that my wife had dropped dead unexpectedly. All things considered, I behaved very well on the spectrum of possible behaviors.

It was his right to do anything he wanted, even with no motive, or with a motive unexplained to me. That has been the hardest lesson in life – that people are transitory and often inexplicably motivated. Needing an answer for all the travails will not result in a satisfying life if you live it that way.

But it was a terrible way to treat a friend – and if he had mentally decided to no longer be my friend there were a million different ways for him to have told me so. I know that confrontation isn’t easy. He could have emailed or texted or sent a note. Knowing that the had made a mental break with me would’ve still been an angry blow, but one tempered by his decision.

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All of the good memories of him were soured when he lashed out at me. (Granted, my former friend continues on in his life, hopefully happily. My opinion doesn’t affect him in any way.) It was hard not knowing what prompted his revelation of disdain toward me. To say that there was no advance warning is truthful. His indignation toward me bloomed suddenly, without notice. As I was already deeply wounded by another horrific personal experience, it affected me more strongly than it should have. After I wrote him a personal letter, he finally lashed out with a couple of justifications, but each sounded hollow. Please remember that I’m living my life from inside my window and he is doing the same. Maybe he knew something about me I hadn’t realized?

The reason I mention all this is that sometimes lessons come from unexpected places. It’s a reminder to me that sometimes you can’t be sure of anyone, no matter how well you think you know that person. It reminds me that it’s no excuse to be cynical toward everyone else – that all judgments, if possible, should be reserved toward the specific person at hand, which is a tough challenge. We often are unaware of what another person is thinking until they file for divorce, tell us that they’ve secretly hated us for a year, or find us unworthy as people.

(People change their lives inside their own minds long before they change their behavior or make changes in their lives. I often say that a change of behavior is always a result of change in one’s thinking. Whether John slowly changed his mind about me and concealed it very, very well or arrived at some horrific conclusion about me, all at once, is for the ages to decide.)

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John’s hardened heart toward me has contributed to a better environment for a lot of people. His surprise rejection gave me the ability to step back many times and practice: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Or indifference. But in some cases I think it might have hardened some of my edges and led me to lend too much credence to my instincts and avoid someone in my life.

One thing it definitely helped me with was deciding that it would be stupid to avoid loving again, regardless of the time which had elapsed after my wife had died. John’s decision to drop me from his life compelled me to acknowledge the stupidity of living for other people or worrying about their opinions of my footsteps. It was painfully obvious that no matter how measured my actions that people were going to attribute motives to each thing I did. Even the people who were close to me. If someone as close as John could throw a bucket of cold water in my life, it seemed plausible to conclude that everyone in my life could do the same. It was John’s example that also allowed me to finally tell my mom to stay out of my life after 40+ years of abuse and disrespect.

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What I’ve learned without question is that I can more easily gauge people’s veneer of civility. Some people, like my former friend, have a better capacity to conceal their opinions. He was always diplomatic, even when I knew that he didn’t care for the person he was addressing or that he disagreed strongly with something. His background and training molded him into being a social diplomat. In turn, this helped me to learn that you can’t consistently take people’s words at face value. Without being treated so unfairly by my former friend, I don’t think I would have ever had the realization that he could turn that same skill toward me. It was arrogance on my part to not expect it, wasn’t it? When I sometimes find myself thinking I understand a person, good or bad, I see my former friend in my mind’s eye and remind myself that I could easily be under the spell of manipulation or be fooled by civil appearance. (…seeing only what that person wants me to see, hear, or think…) Or worse, that I’m being quietly judged or shunned, unaware of the change.

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The balance lies in not being horribly cynical or holding the concealment of my former friend against other people. It’s not easy. I had always adhered to being honest with him, as I felt a kinship toward him.

While I can’t “prove” it, I think he developed some crazy theory about me that wasn’t rooted in anything realistic. That’s his right, fair or not. Again, the little bit of explanation he did offer sounded illogical and disjointed, especially after what I had just survived. One part of his reasoning was that I had embarrassed him in public, unbeknownst to me. He had to make amends to another mutual friend because of my innocent misbehavior. I don’t remember the incident, but all I can say is that we were having a good time and someone extremely close to me had just died. That’s why I was out with him that day in the first place. I can only surmise he had washed out the memories of the craziness he had put me through a couple of times – I don’t know. My instincts kept telling me he wasn’t being honest about it. Years later, after witnessing so much human interaction, I’m certain that he arrived at some ridiculous conclusion about me, quite possibly as the result of gossip and rumor.But, I could be totally wrong.

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Would my life have been better had he not turned on me? Probably, because right up until he figuratively hit me in the face with a nail-studded verbal 2 X 4, I thought everything was all peaches. I think his life was better with me in it and that he diminished himself by treating me so poorly. Again, though, it is his right, even without explanation or warning. Coming to terms with it when it happens falls to each of us.

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It turned out that John was not the person I thought after all, and he had me fooled. I don’t think there was any way at that point in my life I would have seen it coming.

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I know that 1 huge challenge in life is letting go of things and letting go of people. It’s really hard when the people you are letting go of do it unexpectedly or unfairly. There’s no closure, no “aha!” moment to reconcile. I think that most of the time we know we are not doing the right thing and pride or anger prevents us from coming forward. In this case, there was no precursor or advance warning to let me know what the true motives were.

One day I had a great friend and the next, only the cold shoulder and bewilderment. I often wonder what our friendship might have been like and I certainly use his surprise shunning toward me to remind myself to carefully watch how people behave and react to those around them.

My life would have been different – and better – had John stayed in my life. That is what saddens me. I say it without any rancor or bitterness. It’s simply the truth from my perspective.

Personal, Social Rules

Small Town Police Forces

04/28/2015 X Teri Leave a comment

(This post originally was for my personal social media. Last year, I got entangled in a routine traffic stop in weird circumstances. It cemented and amplified all my concerns with a particular small town’s police department and how it was still being operated. I interacted with the Chief of Police, which only served to muddy my views even further. This isn’t a “I don’t like tickets” rant; rather, it is an argument in favor of accountability and priorities.)

Recently, I made a comment on local news about a small town removing its entire police force. That comment garnered a staggering amount of appreciation. There is a lot of dislike for some of the small town local police – and it all can’t be attributed to a simple dislike of getting ticketed. People who reside in small towns often resent the reputations of their local police being tarnished, but some departments seem to suffer from tunnel vision and lose the ability to gauge when they might be damaging their reputations. The cliché of a small town police officer still lingers. When small towns employ great people, dedicated to helping one another and being fair and reasonable, it is truly a remarkable thing. When they forget that they exist to provide services and keep the peace, things begin to get complicated.

(Note: I haven’t been pulled over since last year’s fun and entertaining episode – but I have been hearing lots of stories from people.)

Johnson is a nice place, with much to be praised. The population increased 50% in the 2000s. Its location makes it almost ideal for living. But ask a cross-section of the metro area’s population to describe Johnson and I’m certain you will sense a dread similar to the first chapter of a Stephen King novel. It gets much of its traffic simply because it is in the way of one’s destination, not because people are clamoring to go to Johnson for business or pleasure.

After last year’s confusing interaction with Johnson police, I can’t tell you how many people told me their stories. Yes, some were irritated simply because they had to pay tickets. But many of those complaining had stories that went a little further into the reasons why some small towns should not have police departments. Several people I know avoid driving inside the limits of Johnson. Either these people are delusional or there is a problem. Some of these people are lawyers, nurses, doctors, and teachers. Not all of them are nuts like me. It’s easy to discount what I say, but some of these people who can’t and won’t let themselves drive in Johnson have credibility and stories to back up their reasons.

“It’s not me, Johnson, it’s you,” someone told me. A disproportionate number of tickets occur inside the Johnson limits. Many decided to break up with Johnson, agreeing to never drive there again unless some unimagined catastrophe obligates them. It’s an amicable divorce, especially since Johnson has very little valuable commercial activity to draw visitors.

Here’s how I know I know there’s a problem: when I drive in Springdale, it never occurs to me that I will be pulled over for a crazy reason, even though I once was ticketed for something worth going to court over and talking about. With Johnson, however, even at 4 a.m. I have to talk myself into driving through it, even though it’s more convenient. I have to ride the brake, as some spots are only 25 mph. Sometimes, I feel like a cowboy in an old western, running the gauntlet of upraised tomahawks and clubs, as I suspiciously drive through Johnson: it’s not road conditions or traffic which worries me. No, I’m watching for the men in black, those who lurk behind the shrubbery in “cars” which cost more than my house. When I do drive in Johnson, I expect to see multiple officers in lavish, over-sized vehicles pouncing on people. I “feel” like I’m under constant watch there. It’s not rational and I dislike it, but it is always there when I’m driving in Johnson – but not anywhere else. When I see someone pulled over in a quiet cul-de-sac and two monstrous Johnson vehicles at the scene, lights flashing like a carnival ride, I don’t automatically wonder if they are finding contraband. I instead wonder how much hassle they are putting the driver through. I feel sorry for the driver, not protected by police. I don’t feel like they are making me safer on the roads. Most people feel the same disquiet as they drive by, knowing that it can and will be them, even when they aren’t doing anything unsafe.

My reaction is not fair to the officers, but it is an attitude that I’ve learned through interaction and observation. I met a few outstanding Johnson officers during a difficult time a few years ago – they were everything one could want in police officers. (The emails from the police chief didn’t dissipate any of my unease with the oversight and accountability of the police there, though.) I lived in Johnson for many years and was able to watch how many times a days people were pulled over, where it most often occurred and for what alleged reasons. It was fascinating, even as I watched the same tired story over and over.

For those who weakly and ignorantly argue “If you ain’t doing nothing wrong, you won’t get pulled over,” I wish that it were true. Using that logic, why not have every intersection armed with speed cameras, or your car equipped with speed-sending logging devices, or even cameras trained on the driver of every passenger vehicle in the county. Those efforts would also allow for ticketing – and if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you of course won’t mind total monitoring of every turn you make, each press of the gas pedal and so forth. Or put a traffic officer every two blocks – and use the fines generated from their presence to pay their salaries. I’m sure by now you see the stupidity of the “do no wrong” policy? Those who argue in favor of the “do no wrong” argument often use it to mask other, less savory, motivations for their view about enforcement.

If you hire 9 people to stand outside with hammers, it is fairly likely that most of them are going to start hammering something, even without any reason to do so. The same is true in small towns with too many officers doing traffic enforcement and an infinite supply of ticket books and time on their hands to fill them up. Yes, I am saying that the per capita ratio of officers doing traffic enforcement is too high in many small towns. I don’t see this as the case with any larger departments. I could be wrong, of course, but other departments don’t seem to have an unlimited supply of unmarked expensive black vehicles parked every block.

So, as Northwest Arkansas continues to grow, I ask for small departments such as Johnson to allow other jurisdictions to patrol their streets, saving money and hopefully dispelling the ongoing issues of reputation that plague you. Let economy of scale save us money by eliminating overhead and duplicated systems, courts, equipment, training, etc. I also ask that you not pour money into unmarked vehicles with the goal of traffic enforcement. Larger police departments have better oversight and resource allocation controls. Let Washington County or municipal police help your citizens.

(Or perhaps we could let other town’s officers patrol your streets and give you all the ticket revenue? That would be much better than the current system, with ‘oversight’ being in the hands of the very small towns. You keep the money – but let others decide what is worth bothering with. After all, your presence is allegedly all about safety and nothing to do with revenue. My proposal addresses both problems perfectly.)

Had my issue last year happened in Springdale or Fayetteville, it would have never escalated to a ticket, much less to an exercise in a lack of accountability or oversight, as was my case in Johnson. That’s the difference between a small town force thriving by ticketing and one focusing on protecting its citizens while using traffic enforcement as an additional safety measure instead of the primary one.

Springdale and Fayetteville are modern departments and perhaps it is their professionalism and dedication which, by comparison, steals the luster from Johnson. It isn’t my goal to malign the citizens of Johnson. But I continue to be surprised that people tolerate such an invasive presence under the guise of traffic safety.

P.S. Dear Johnson: I’m seeing an incredible amount of vehicles with extremely dark tint driving in your town. (I’m not talking about the police vehicles, which might as well be dipped in black paint, windows and all.) I’m talking about the army of citizens driving around with tint that is too dark. You could make a million dollars a week if you uniformly apply those incredibly important traffic laws. Oh, and it would be really awesome if all your vehicles were clearly marked in visible colors and insignias. You know, in case someone needs you for something important. Not to avoid a ticket, but because sometimes we want the police here to be like everywhere else in the world except in small towns. You’re welcome.

Organization, Personal, Social Rules

Skip The Picture Hoarding

03/14/2015 X Teri Leave a comment

I can understand your reluctance to share pictures of yourself. You might have put on weight, you might not have the Travolta hair from your youth, or you might look like Marty Feldman after a hard night of drinking tequila. Trust me, your friends and family who love you don’t care about any of that. Those pictures portray you as they remember you. Not sharing pictures because of your concern for your looks is a valid reason to hesitate, but one which shouldn’t overshadow the fundamental nature of life: moments are meant to be lived, words are meant to be heard, and pictures are nothing short of visual memories that stir us to honor and remember people and things that we’ve shared.

The picture above captures the fun and happiness of life. It’s easy sometimes to focus too much on our potential embarrassment years later. We should ignore those issues and celebrate the “fun” of the picture – and resist the negative feelings that sometimes bubble up from strange places.

Case in point: this is a mug I had made for a friend of mine. Years ago, he dressed up as Britney Spears. He laughs about it now. He gave me the picture (on purpose!) so that I could scan it and make him a fun gift with the picture. Most people would never let such a picture out into the wild. But it’s fun and will always be a great memory for us both.

My dad, Bobby Dean Terry. I have seen almost no pictures of him as a kid. This one encapsulates perfectly his outlook on the world. Look at the quantity of laundry on the line! (Clues to how he was living…) There are many pictures of him in closets, albums, and dusty boxes – ones that I will never see or experience.

I’ve written 15 different ways about the need to share pictures at every opportunity. Not a week passes when someone doesn’t lose a phone, a camera, or have their house flooded or burned to the foundation, taking all the contained precious photos. (Or a family passes away and someone decides to restrict access to everything, effectively locking away precious memories from being shared.)
As much as possible, I’m a minimalist. The only things I hold to be meaningful are the sentimental ones, pictures foremost among them. All my pictures are backed up online. I can share them with anyone, and they are accessible from any device which connects to the internet.

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I read a blog earlier in the year wherein someone had done years of family ancestry and picture gathering. Family members had asked the person to share as they went along the process. The person gathering the memories didn’t want to share them before it was “perfect” and also didn’t want some pictures to be shared, as they were of people or situations that didn’t cast the family in the best possible light. (Divorce, children out of wedlock- the usual secretive nonsense that EVERYONE already knows and gossips about anyway…) The house burned to cinders, taking a couple of thousand pictures, newspaper clippings and stories- mostly originals, to the grave. No digital archives were uploaded anywhere. The agony.

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There is no perfection nor perfect moment in time – share pictures now and as often as possible, when they can be most appreciated. Even if they don’t cast us in the best possible light, they at least capture a moment of our lives. In time, some of these photo memories will become as precious as our last breath.

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(One of the most fulfilling things in the word is watching people discover “new” photos of friends, family, and acquaintances. It is rare for me to look at captured memories and not feel a spark of curiosity and interest.)

John Austin Cook and Betty Ruth Cook, the grandparents of my grandfather Willie Cook. To look back and “see” the people I share with everyone else in my family is one of the best experiences in life for me.

This picture was recently and graciously shared with me by a family member. My grandfather Willie is on left, his mom on the right. Over 400 people shared this picture in the first 3 months it was on ancestry. Several commented on how few pictures of my great-grandmother (Nanny Malone) were in existence and how valuable it was to them and their families. I can’t imagine that it will ever disappear now, even as time erases our emotional connection to the people in it.

Several weeks ago, I was talking to an acquaintance and he commented that two or three years of the lives of his kids were on his phone. No backup, of course. I immediately told him to hook the phone to a computer at his earliest convenience and make a copy to another device, or to go to his phone store and ask how to set it up for automatic upload. He still hasn’t done so, a testament to our mistaken belief that we will always have time to do what we should be doing.

I’ve written over and over about how dead simple some of the backup services are. Once you set up an account, you don’t have to do anything- technology assumes control and quietly backs up all your pictures, videos, contacts, and anything else you might want to another location. Why do people not see their friends and family in agony over the loss of their pictures and use it to motivate themselves to immediately take action to prevent the same loss?

Pictures such as those above: they capture a moment of frivolous family fun, capturing both the essence of holidays and childhood memories. The gentleman on the left in the first picture is probably watching TV or playing an ancient video game. He didn’t know he was being captured in a moment of history, one which I would add to a blog 30 years later, after his brother, the goof holding the belt, had passed away, leaving his most important footprint of shared times together. We leave our friends and family, but pictures bridge us back in time to moments. A picture is as powerful as a song to play our heartstrings. When people we cherish pass and leave us, pictures are the most bittersweet song imaginable.

I don’t understand the reluctance to share pictures. Unless you have a hoard of pictures that are intended just for you and you alone, they should be available to everyone who might have an interest in seeing them. It is a rare person who doesn’t enjoy and relish the chance to see pictures of people they know or love.

When new people see pictures for the first time, it is very likely that it will spark memories that you never knew or had forgotten. They are portals to moments in time. If they are unshared, the memories might as well be written in a leather-bound journal and then incinerated without further reflection.

Me as a teenager, after I lost a lot of weight. The weight found me again later, but I was optimistic that year, even though circumstances in life were not joyous during that time.

Yet, there is probably an album in your hall closet or in a plastic bin in your attic. It probably contains memories that you alone have copies of. Or under the coffee table, rarely looked at. Or on a camera card or flash drive in the desk. Your intention might be to give them to a family member later in life or upon your death, but life has a way of bypassing your good intentions and taking things away from you, independent of your schedule. You might tell yourself every so often “I’ll finish that project at some point.” Those memories? Lost. If you aren’t even infrequently taking the pictures out and going back in time to remember, you are doing a disservice to both the photos and memories by not giving them to someone who can appreciate them.

This picture survived several calamities and certain destruction. But what a great picture it is! It’s a picture of Julie Easley Adair and Billy Jack Dickson. I spent hours and hours rescuing and cleaning hundreds of pictures just as valuable to the family members. Many of them turned out to be very valuable to a local genealogist who downloaded all of them from my archive so that she could not only inventory who was in the pictures, but to preserve them for local history clues. These pictures ended up touching many lives – once they were rescued from their molding family albums and boxes where they were slowly dying.

I often say that I love pictures, but hate photography. So much personal photography becomes a distraction for the moment rather than a shared reminder. The process sometimes overpowers the moment in life being captured. And I still prefer spontaneous pictures to posed, people instead of places. While most people dread the hours of scanning, labeling and storing, I like it. There is a satisfaction of discovering new memories and the process isn’t tedious to me. But because most people aren’t like-minded, there are pictures everywhere that I will never see, pictures that might as well be lost today instead of waiting for some future calamity to take them. Pictures of my grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, co-workers, classmates, even me.

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I have tried to share every new memory captured in photos. It is almost a compulsion to remind myself that a picture isn’t real unless other people see it and can have it. The digital age has reduced everyone’s argument about the complexity of making their pictures available. Even if you personally aren’t able, there is someone in your family who would gladly do this for you.

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(Sidenote: My wife and I dated when we were very young. I can remember 2 or 3 times when our picture was taken together. Where those pictures went is uncertain. They were probably lost with so many other things. What I wouldn’t give to see one of those pictures again! If only we treated pictures as invaluable memories.)

My cousin Jimmy and his son. I made a Spongebob pillowcase for his son, one which he treasured like nothing else in the world. Jimmy accidentally burned it in the microwave one night, as his cancer medication had fuzzied his brain. I tell that story because it’s a great story which highlights the craziness of life and the importance of pictures.

Fun, pure and simple. My wife in one of her rare moments of letting me capture her goofiness. She claims it is always me being the weird one, but sometimes she hits one out of the park.

If you’ve taken the time to take a picture or to obtain one for safekeeping, please, for the love of god, share it with someone else whose dedication to preservation will ensure that it is shared before being lost. Not with someone whose intention is to cherish and share the pictures, but with someone who has both the time and inclination to be the guardian of the pictures. Sharing them doesn’t take them away from the original owner – nothing is lost. I might have a couple of original pictures in the house. Literally only a couple. All the rest are reprints from digital. Nothing is left to foreseeable chance. If calamity does strike despite all my effort, then I know that my loss was not something I should shoot myself over.
I know many people who talk about how valuable their pictures are to them, yet they never look at them, back them up, or share them with people. If someone like me asks to borrow the pictures and guarantee their preservation, I sometimes get a shocked reaction, as if I am accusing them of witchcraft. Pictures are like love: the more you share, the more there is.

As I age, I find myself getting frustrated with people who aren’t sharing their pictures. Not sharing is the first step in the unwritten recipe for loss. If someone has a picture of you or that you find meaningful, ask them directly if you can borrow it to copy it or if they can make you a copy, scanned or reprinted, in a given amount of time. If they say “no,” I’d be surprised. There’s no good reason for someone to say “no” to such a polite request. (It’s their right to say no, of course!) Moments in time are meant to be shared. Share them or otherwise you’ve done nothing that will extend the joy of that moment past your own life.

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When someone dies, the first thing I think of is of the pictures surrounding this person’s life. When my Aunt Ardith died and then her son Jimmy died soon after, it bothered me to see how the most valuable asset among them – pictures – were mistreated and hoarded. Many were lost forever, including countless hours of videos. I would have stepped up and copied all of it for my cousin’s family and his surviving son, and archived them all online for preservation. Literally anyone and everyone would have been able to enjoy the vestiges of his life through pictures. Instead, many pictures were hoarded and lost forever. Luckily, there were a couple of great people who shared what was available, without reservation. My cousin had many friends who had pictures who didn’t share them. In a fair world, those would have been gladly handed to me. I would have scanned them and then reshared them with the world, making everyone a beneficiary of all the known pictures. Everyone wins. Instead, there are pockets of invaluable pictures in little corners of the world, slowly being forgotten, relegated to hall closets, attics, and boxes underneath beds. With time, people will forget who these pictures represent.

My cousin, Jimmy Terry. Everyone loves this picture. It was cropped and made using a picture I snapped of him when he wasn’t ready, outside a now-defunct restaurant. A local photographer did his magic and this picture was not only Jimmy’s obituary picture, but also made into a mantle photo. You never know when a picture is going to be valuable or provide great memories.

As an example, the picture below looks strange, but you never know who might find it valuable in the future. There’s a lot of information in it, if you have a hint or clue where to start. It captures perfectly a period in someone’s life. In a given context, it might not be valuable to me, but for the person in the picture or his friends and family, it might be. You never know and that’s why you should share all the pictures you can – while you can.

If it sounds as if I’m lecturing, yes, I guess I am. Pictures are probably the most valuable thing on the planet to me. You can put me in a cramped apartment and make me eat a bland diet, but a life without pictures and memories is a life not worth remembering. Amen.

Personal

02092015 Quick List… Do I Believe?

02/11/2015 X Teri

Demons? Demonic possession? No.
Ghosts? No.
Horoscopes/astrology? No.
Contact from beyond the grave? No.
Angels watching over us? No.
UFO abductions? No.
Cryptids: Loch Ness Monster? Bigfoot? No.
Hauntings? No.
Werewolves, vampires, elves, trolls? No.
Reincarnation? No.
Telepathy? ESP? Psychokinesis? No.
Bermuda Triangle? (The phenomenon, not the “place.”) No.
Ouija boards? No.
Witchcraft, spells, sorcery? Occult? No.
Clairvoyance? Remote viewing? No.
Auras? No.
Therapeutic touch? Modern miracles? Homeopathy? No.
Precognition? No.
Astral projection? No.
Weather control? No.
Mind Control? No.
Time travel? No.
Magnetic power? No.
Crop circles? No.

For a couple of the examples, I know people who I trust and they believe. But not me.

According to a couple of the very long tests I did online, I should never be afraid to open the closet in a dark, quiet room.

Personal, Writing

02042015 Not Listening!

02/04/2015 X Teri

Recently, another person told me that I was mistaken about my own basic beliefs. Whether it was politics, ethics, or something else doesn’t matter. What rises to the level of noticeable importance is that this person was insisting that I didn’t know my own inclinations and ideas. He or she would be one of those people to color or characterize my life, motives, and actions separate from reality.

Poppycock!

One of the reasons I started writing this blog was to note what I was thinking, my general ideas, and especially, to make sure that the revisionists didn’t go the same boring route they always do: change facts or ideas to suit their own agendas or ideas.

The person I was talking to might not have reacted well had I called a verbal timeout and pointed out the rude idiocy of him or her telling me that I was mistaken about what I believe or don’t believe. If we are all free-thinking adults, I should have politely insisted that he or she knock off that particular line of insistence. But we stay silent sometimes, letting the louder mouth think that the battle has been won.

But the person was wrong and off base.

I imagine that this happens several times a week, but goes unnoticed in the busy patchwork of my life.

As incomplete as this blog is, I am glad that it is here. Even though my ideas change over time, they at least provide a footpath for someone to walk on. Regardless of what someone is shouting from the grass along the walk.

Death, Personal

Arkansas Funeral Care and Comments

01/22/2015 X Teri

Warning: Serious Comments… Arkansas Funeral Care is in the news in Central Arkansas. They are a “reduced cost” funeral home and have helped many families. If you aren’t familiar with what happened, you can search for it easily in the news.

My mom’s funeral was arranged through them in September 2013. Even though I wanted mom to be cremated, my sister had cared for mom the last weeks of her life. Since she was making the decisions, it was her choice to bury her instead of cremation. I’m in no way criticizing my sister for her choices because she was doing what she thought was the best. My mom and I had a horrendous relationship the last year of her life up until she was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. My sister stepped in and made all the decisions for her care and her remains. She chose burial over cremation.

Even though I’m known for my commentary, I reluctantly admitted back at the time that mom looked absolutely terrible during the viewing. It wasn’t because she had battled cancer, as I’ve lost a few close family members to cancer – as have we all. Whoever had prepared her either lacked the skill, time, or interest in masking her condition. I felt sorry for the other family members, knowing that they were in a terrible position of having to mouth the words of condolences that are appropriate to funerals. We were all thinking the same thing – that mom should not have been prepared for a viewing in that condition. In some way, though, I will admit there was even honesty to the way she looked. Most people aren’t accustomed to seeing viewings like that, though. For anyone who has seen the movie “The Green Mile,” the scene in the basement walkway wherein Tom Hanks answers the warden’s question of “What the hell happened up there?” with the quip “An execution” reminds of the situation everyone was in. What would have been the other option at that point? Any change would have resulted in awkwardness and unanswerable questions, too.

At the time, I was glad that the pallbearers were literally pallbearers. Arkansas Funeral Care employed no lifters or mechanical devices. The pallbearers lowered mom with long slip ropes into the ground on the edge of the swamp and at great risk of plummeting into the grave themselves. Honestly, I thought it was a nice reminder of our connection to death. To me, it seemed a more honest way of burying someone. The funeral home did it to cut costs and toward that end, I can’t criticize. Most people haven’t seen someone being lowered into the ground by human hands. The gentleman who came out on behalf of Arkansas Funeral Care handled himself with professionalism and I think he held up well in comparison to many other funeral homes.

Over the years, I’ve become more and more vocal about my preference to cremation over burial. The expense is secondary to the logic and appeal of cremation. But craziness such as that alleged to have occurred in Jacksonville is exactly the ongoing reminder for people to at least consider cremation – not just for the cost, but for the lessening of the burden on families.

As I read the news, I also felt sorry for some of the other funeral homes who will be hurt needlessly by the goings on at their competition. Many can and do work with families and sometimes help people without profit. Those good places are going to be looked upon with more suspicion, when so many already distrust the funeral industry. We play to our own fears. It’s okay to ask tough questions but try to remember that no funeral home can do well if their reputation is tarnished.

Use a funeral home you know and trust and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Among the questions I hope you ask are those about cremation.

Personal

“Life Was Indeed Simpler.” But Not Better

12/12/2014 X Teri

Link to original image is on bottom-right corner of photo.

The temptation to drown in the “good ole’ days” is deceptively appealing. I miss my grandma something fierce when I remember her or think about some of my childhood. But then I remember that those chapters in life contained a lot of burned and ripped pages, too. Life is immensely better these days, surrounded by the few great people I need, with the world’s knowledge at my disposal. But grandma? She’d be shaking her head in bewilderment at the pace and complexity of our daily lives.

Ancestry, Personal

11232014 Ancestry Is Serendipitous

11/23/2014 X Teri

Ancestry has taught me some strange lessons – in math, history, genetics and personal stories. It has defined the word “serendipity” for me. I’ve learned so many things that have nothing to do with who my great-grandparents might have been.

An example: 80% of all marriages in history have been between 2nd cousins or closer. This is because of the lack of suitable mates outside the 5-mile zone of a typical person’s reach for most of history. Without war or some similar disaster, people stayed put in their little worlds.

This results in pedigree collapse, a reduction in the number of ancestors due to duplication along bloodlines. 1200 AD is the widest point for our family trees; before that, the number of ancestors above us was drastically smaller to geographical limitations. (Today, you would have 128 5th Great-grandparents, spanning back an average of only around 200 years ago.) Think about it. Without pedigree collapse, going back a few thousand years would result in a # of ancestors greater than the entire world population by many factors.In a given group or ethnicity, it’s a certainty that we all are 15th cousins or less – and probably much less, without knowing it. We are much more connected that you probably realize. You have over a million 8th cousins.

I’ve found a lot of fascinating things along the way, including people’s missing birth fathers, birth certificates, and even ties to royalty. (For what it is worth, you are connected to royalty. It’s a certainty. Wealth contributed greatly to lineage and it also afforded people’s connections to be recorded, unlike most commoners.)

Personal, Social Rules

10162014 Pre-Eating: Moral Necessity or Social Gaffe?

10/16/2014 X Teri

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=17592&picture=pre-race-focus   Link to original picture before modification by me, photo by Peter Griffin.

For years, I’ve been a strong advocate for “pre-eating.” In fact, years ago, I submitted several alternate entries for Urban Dictionary. Since then, I’ve noted with pride that the shame previous associated with the practice has mostly disappeared. Many people do it without realizing how many others are doing it, too.

For perfectionists out there, I concede that if you eat prior to a social engagement and then fail to eat during said engagement that you are no longer “pre-eating.” Instead, you are simply eating. Noted.

It is a very complex process, so here it is:
Before any social engagement where eating is an integral aspect of the function, eat until you are mostly satisfied BEFORE going to the social event. That’s it – I was just kidding about how complicated it is.

Does your sister-in-law routinely prepare food after shaving her 6 dogs on top of the stove? Do the dishes at your cousin’s house look like they were rejects from a Hoarders Episode? Are your friends crazy vegans? If you are a woman (or weird guy) concerned with her weight or concerned with other people’s perceptions of your eating habits, “pre-eating” is the recommended course. The focus is on regaining control of your own dining. Without shame or remorse.

Pre-eating takes away the thrill of possibly fainting from lack of food. It puts the control directly in your hands about when and what you eat. It eliminates the doubt about every variable. Granted, if you pre-eat, you can still eat lightly at the social engagement in question. But you don’t have to arrive and then begin to fantasize about eating the napkins, or grown increasingly concerned once you discover that the main course is a half-cooked mongoose served on bamboo shoots. You are covered in either scenario.

Likewise, if you misjudge how much you should have eaten, there are few things more rewarding than an unplanned run to Taco Bell or McDonalds.

Pre-eating works at Thanksgiving, for birthdays, or even parties. There is no shame in eating before arriving. The host has already spent the money and prepared the food – technically, you haven’t deprived them of any money or enjoyment. The point of a social engagement is conversation, sharing company and enjoying moments together. The food is secondary. It is NEVER a good idea to get so hungry that the social function becomes a distraction to the question “Is it time to eat yet?”

Pre-eating also works for business lunches, suppers and dinners. All of us have been invited (or ordered!) to attend a business lunch or supper. But we often don’t control the place, time or specifics. Who hasn’t been seated, only to find out 2 hours later that your main course was just accidentally snatched from the kitchen by wild dogs? Since it is a professional setting, you can’t do like you would normally do and start kicking and crying, begging the waiter to bring you a slice of white bread and dab of butter – before you either pass out or imagine strangling someone else and taking their food from their hands. Who hasn’t been to business luncheon with the promise of food, only to find 6 packages of crackers and a block of dried Parmesan cheese on the table, with 9 pairs of hungry eyes secretly jockeying for position to both act disinterested while simultaneously planning the best method to poke the next guy in the eyeball with an umbrella if you don’t get your share?

Pre-eating: take control.