Category Archives: Personal

Personal, Writing

02042015 Not Listening!

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


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.

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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, Social Rules

12152014 Bureaucracy and Teaching…

This is something I made in response to a recent post of a teacher and friend of mine. I thought hard about the best way to make a picture with text that succinctly and accurately conveys what she was trying to say – and in a way that can be posted  in school and no one would deny the truth of the frustration that most teachers suffer with as they work.

Here is one of the article/links she was referencing….
Click Here For Article…

Personal

“Life Was Indeed Simpler.” But Not Better

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

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?

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. 

Personal, Social Rules

Pollyannaism

Pollyannas. No one wants undue cynicism in their lives. But equally vexing are those insisting to the point of madness that all things be painted in the most positive light.

Or that if you are experiencing any manner of ill luck, bad experience, or irksome environment, that you should self-censor or desist from expressing it. As if the expression of same is itself infectious.

This post isn’t intended to point a finger at anyone, nor single out any particular line of positive thinking. Rather, it is to contrast the need for positivity against the increasingly sophisticated madness to lessen the output of people who have valid complaints, interesting criticism or words not powered by the blissful lightness of being. There are broken shards of darkness in the world, just as there are beacons of light and hope. Both have their uses in the world and both need room for expression. We don’t need to feed our demons or nightmares- but repression is no less a horrible response.

One person’s complaint is another person’s call to action.

Oliver Burkeman noted in “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking,” “Ceaseless optimism about the future only makes for a greater shock when things go wrong; by fighting to maintain only positive beliefs about the future, the positive thinker ends up being less prepared, and more acutely distressed, when things eventually happen that he can’t persuade himself to believe are good.”

(“Your excessive optimism and insistence that everyone and everything be happy and ecstatic is annoying me.”)

Personal, Social Rules

Johnson Police Department: Thank You?


Need a laugh? Read this needlessly long anecdote. The only ticket I received in Johnson in my life was a warning for speeding down the hill (on a ten-speed bicycle) that connects Main and goes over the railroad tracks to hit Johnson Road. (When I used to run and walk, I did get a “stop-and-greet-who-are-you” kind of thing several dozen times, though.) I lived there many, many years and have always been extremely careful, given that there are 3,457 cops in Johnson at any given time. (Some statisticians have stated that Johnson has more police than citizens, although I think they might have been drunk when they postulated this…) I’m not a good driver, not really, so when it matters, I have to pretend I’m not an idiot. I drive to work at 4 a.m. so I don’t do anything to draw attention to myself. I drive past Johnson police to and from work and in my daily life a few dozen times a week, waving to most of them as I pass.

I bought a used car from Ford on College last year, so the police have seen me drive past them in my lovely 2007 Ford Focus no less than 500 times in this last year. Before that, I drove a beige Honda and they knew that car very well, too. Important to this story is that this car is UGLY. I bought it solely based on price and that I needed a car with working wheels and a motor. There are so many defects on this car it might as well have been in the demolition derby. I haven’t done anything to it. I don’t even wash it. I don’t care about the appearance of my car, whether it gets reception on the radio (the antennae is broken), or even if there are spiders in it. It’s ugly and only intended to get me to work and back. Dawn will get a laugh out of this story because she loathes this car. She would rather have to ride a donkey than be in it. What is really going to confuse her is that I came home and ate lunch without mentioning this incident today. She’s going to be really happy that my ugly Ford Focus resulted in a ticket. (As happy as she was that fine Sunday morning when we for some reason drove past the Johnson police department on the way to church, doing 23 mph and got blue-lighted, even though there was no other traffic anywhere on the planet. Have you tried driving 23 mph? It’s like explaining physics to your cat.)

Today, as I turn off of Main Street heading up the hill, a Johnson police car is about to exit the church parking lot on the left-side. He pulls part of the way out of the lot into the street, stopping suddenly, having to yield to me as I come up the hill. “Great,” I tell myself, “now I have to ride the brake all the way down the long side of the hill with a cop behind me.” Which I do, because I’m not stupid. I ride that brake so hard that I can feel the car getting angry at me. So, with no traffic in either direction, I ride the brake, the cop literally on my bumper. Almost at the bottom, the blue lights come on. Incredulous, I immediately pull over in the grass in front of the railroad tracks, excited to hear what heinous crime I must have committed. In my mind, I’m more curious than concerned, because I knew I hadn’t broken any laws. Was my license plate stolen? Did I have a flat? Maybe the policeman was going to tell me something helpful? Since it was Johnson, my optimism at such an outcome was less than high, to say the least. I would’ve taken Vegas odds against this being a positive encounter.

I of course have my window already down, the car off, and all my papers ready. Due to my ridiculous name, I don’t take any chances. Trust me, if your name were X, you would be quite careful in your interactions with police. I don’t mind being shot; I just don’t want to see it coming. The officer walks up to my car and after asking where I work, tells me that he noticed that my windows looked awfully dark. I told him, I bought this car used from Ford on College last August and had asked them directly if the tint was perhaps too dark. Ford told me “no.” I didn’t care whether the car had tinted windows and that I don’t care if any of my vehicles do. Since the day I bought the car, I’ve never once thought about the windows on this car. That’s not what a car is for me. It’s a box to get in and drive. The policeman returns with a photometer and shows me that the windows are in violation. He could have used a Star Trek device for all I know, as I’m ignorant about tint – or anything on a car that isn’t necessary. He said, “Yes, the legal limit is (insert whatever imaginary number applies in this blank) and your windows aren’t legal.” (Nerd joke, all I could think of what that I was using pirated software on my Windows computer.)

When the officer presented me a ticket, he was very pleasant. I’m in no way faulting his presentation, dress, demeanor or ethic. Who wouldn’t be nice? He was the one writing the ticket and making me have a terrific afternoon by giving out involuntary autographs to people with guns. I was very polite in my entire interaction with the officer. I’m certain he would agree that I was nothing but pleasant and respectful to him. Nothing I said or did lead to him writing the ticket. He had decided immediately to ticket me, no matter what the circumstances. That is what really, really bugs me. I asked him (paraphrasing): “So, even though I acted in good faith and asked about the tint of the windows, and don’t care about the windows being tinted, I’m getting a ticket? Even though no one was harmed and even a verbal request from you right now to go pay and have the tint stripped at my own cost would result in me doing so immediately?” “Yes,” he answered, “your tint is too dark.” He then showed me on the ticket where to call if I had questions. I was puzzled. I would have had the tint removed, immediately. He didn’t have to warn me or even talk to me in a helpful manner. But he could have – and it would have fixed the problem. No, he was nice and can’t be faulted for his demeanor. But the decision to give me a ticket requiring a court date or prepayment is counterproductive.

Instead of teaching me a lesson, it is only going to make me make incredibly funny remarks at Johnson’s expense. I will no longer pretend to defend the countless remarks I hear all the time about the “speed trap” mentality that most people think that motivates Johnson. While I didn’t get a speeding ticket, the one I did get was just plain dumb.

Granted, he must be absolutely right to have given me a ticket. It was his right to do so. Please note that I agree whole-heartedly that he had the right, assuming he wasn’t playing a prank on me with his Star Trek photometer. He’s also right- it doesn’t matter that I asked Ford to make sure that the tint wasn’t too dark or that I could care less about having tinted windows, or that it is my responsibility even after all that. But I’m also right that no real progress was made here today, other than to the Johnson City’s coffers once I pay the fine. The officer could have told me, “Sir, get this fixed immediately and please remind those people you know to be aware of the tint laws.” I would have agreed totally and driven off and done exactly as he told me, probably directly to the nice dealer who apparently misled me about the tint not being too dark. The fine from the ticked is not important to me. I don’t care. It doesn’t serve to deter me from further crime, because I didn’t commit one in the first place. It’s not going to impact my ability to eat at Subway’s or cause me to be homeless.

No, it encourages me to look at this interaction with a very humorous and snarky eye. I guess Johnson does need the revenue. I didn’t commit any other alleged offense other than buying a car with windows that are too dark. I then proceeded to drive this in front of Johnson police, day in and day out, a few hundred times, in both total dark and high noon sunlight. But today, for some unknown reason, I drew the attention of this police officer who wanted to write me a ticket. Hundreds of times Johnson police officers sat and watched me wave at them, and wave back at me, without a hint of an issue with my windows being too dark. Yes, it’s my fault for believing Ford when I asked and they told me my windows were fine. Yes, it is my responsibility. I’m not arguing any of that. I guess paying fines that serve no purpose is good civic practice. But an even BETTER civic practice is getting on Facebook and being snarky about it. I pray that Johnson has no law on the books that prohibits talking about this. But if there is and I don’t know about it, then I am automatically at fault for that, too.

(Maybe I have a fan on Facebook who saw me warning everyone to get out and push their cars instead of driving them to avoid a speeding ticket on the new road by Johnson Mills? If so, hey dude, what’s up? Send me a friend’s request.)

Based on the confidence of this officer to write me a ticket for something that should have not went past the warning phase, I would go so far as to say publicly that in reality, all those Johnson police officers, day in and day out, who waved at me as I passed them in my illegal 2007 Ford Focus should be called out and given a harsh lecture about public safety. How dare they allow Mr. X to drive past them for an entire year without being issued a ticket? Don’t they know that Johnson needs dollars to pay for those cruisers? Don’t they know that in matters of good faith, it is always better to punish the driver?

Before I forget, the joke is that this ticket was issued to me on the very same hill I was ticketed on back in the early 90s, riding my ten-speed bike. Granted, the previous ticket was the on the opposite side of the hill. For years, I had that warning framed. I should have kept it. For those of who aren’t familiar with the reputation that the Johnson police once had, you can suffice it say that they weren’t on the “Let Jesus forgive them” side of the equation.

Now, of course, I want nothing other than to get in my highly dangerous 2007 Ford Focus and drive up and down the Johnson roadways going exactly the speed limit. You read that right. The best revenge is driving the speed limit and making all the other motorists put their heads out their windows and shoot me in the face as they drive by in anger at moving so slowly. I guess my illegally tinted windows will help me evade the shots as they ring out? The Johnson police will be so busy investigating me getting shot at that they won’t have time to get creative with the ticket writing.

I’m not going to go to court and explain to Johnson’s judge that I didn’t know. I spend enough hours of my day at work, explaining the obvious to my own bosses only to watch their eyes roll back into their heads. I see no need to be prattled at for something as stupid as this. But it was worth a long facebook rant. Remember, you will never get these moments back, the ones you spent reading my goofy story.

An old joke: If you ever feel un-noticed or like no one knows you are alive, then drive through Johnson.

Later, I wrote the Chief of Police an email. While I’m glad he eventually wrote me back, it made me shake my head in bewilderment at what he wrote. His response was that he couldn’t teach his officers to do the right thing and to always be sure to not do something simply because they can. It wasn’t written even that plainly – it was disjointed and not focused. But that’s the argument: he couldn’t teach his officers to do the right thing. I had a couple of other smart people I trust read the letter to ensure I wasn’t imagining. “4th grade” was the response. Oops.

I did pay someone to remove all thee tint from my windows, every bit of it. It damaged the windows and defroster, among other things.

Since then, many people have told me their Johnson Police Department stories, engaged with me on social media, and universally told me that they routinely avoid driving in Johnson thanks to the police force there.

Ancestry, Biographical, Personal

08222014 Lucid Dreams and Grandma

This is me at one day of age. Grandpa’s chair…

I don’t often have lucid dreams. But it seems that when I do, the fatigue of being dragged back out of the dreamworld lingers in my head, making me foggy. It is an alluring pull to feel as if the world imagined while sleeping might be more authentic than the mundane one I’ve awakened to. The dreams of my youth are coming with less frequency now. I wonder sometimes whether it is because age requires the penalty of forgetfulness from us, or perhaps whether it is the nature of life to lose the taste and feel of the simpler pleasures in life, when an entire universe could be housed in a much smaller space than is required of us as adults. When I was younger, I considered the taste of some candy to be as exquisite as fine cuisine. The wardrobe closet my grandparents had in my grandpa’s bedroom might as well been a secret warehouse, given the exaggerations of my imagination. Even though my grandparents world was relatively small, I never felt small or unappreciated there. Any activity could be made to be interesting. Even looking at pictures of family members I didn’t really know held interest and allure. One picture of a cousin of mine made age seem like an impossible barrier, for her graduation picture was always on the walls, even before I had started school. Grandma would tell me tales of when she was young and in my mind she might as well have been describing “Little House on the Prairie” to me. I had no true accounting of time nor of its insistent race to meet me.

I don’t mean to imply that modern life is not better or that times past hold an authenticity no longer possible. Quite the contrary. Life is much better, and among good people, the chances for a great life are better than ever. I don’t share many people’s pessimism toward our modern society. We have more opportunities for education, food, and healthcare. Nothing can trump the presence or absence of someone who loves you abundantly and dearly. In the past, modern contrivances weren’t so readily available to intervene between you and those you cherished. Stuff is no more of a negative now than it was then.It’s up to us whether we value people and experiences more than we do the things we fill our houses with.

Likewise, I know that my grandma and grandpa had many faults, especially when they were younger. But I wasn’t exposed to most of that. Even the mention of a lesser life was just a story bearing no resemblance to them, as they rarely looked at me with anything less than appreciation, even when I wasn’t being a joy for them. I like to think that my grandparents deserve all the credit for any good that blossomed in my personality and that most of the clouds that still darken my days as an adult were from the “other” of my youth. In fact, I know it to be true, even as this acknowledgement might wound those confined to the grouping of “others” in my childhood. My grandparents weren’t educated, but I learned my first letters and reading with them. I learned how to use a hammer without being screamed at for doing it wrong. (To grandpa, it was impossible to do it wrong. You did it until you figured out how to do it right.) I learned to sew and in the doing distinguished that most responsible people would find it to be a great asset in life. I learned that even though it might be 100 degrees on an August night, I wouldn’t melt. Grumbling was encouraged, especially if it were done in a creative way. But once it was time to stop grouching, it was simply time to deal with the situation and go on about your business.

On a recent night, my wife stirred and got up for an eternal minute. Prior to her stirring, my dreams had been evocative of rain, cotton and tree climbing. My dreams turned vivid after she came back to bed and I slowly slid back into a vivid dream. I woke up around 5 a.m. again, still hearing the false echo of rain beating on the tin roof at my grandparents house. Instead of being in my own bed, I expected to open my eyes and find myself looking out the window facing the porch at my grandma’s house, the window screen inches from my face, looking out at the acres of cotton growing around the house and across the road. Until this lucid dream, I had forgotten that the old “house on the hill” had a second door on the front of the house, one leading from near the porch swing to the back bedroom. How had I forgotten that? Grandma never used that door and it certainly didn’t make her feel comfortable. Thinking back on it, it seems strange that she could sleep next to an open window where anyone could reach inside – but a closed, lock door might cause her more concern.

In the dream, grandma had made me a coke special. To assemble it, she would take ice cubes, fold them into a towel, and then hammer the towel to crush the ice, which she would then put into an old snuff glass and pour coca-cola from a 2-quart bottle. She had also popped popcorn, leaving the kernels in the bowl for me. It always concerned her that I enjoyed trying to break my teeth on the unpopped kernels, a habit I still love to this day. (If was a cold day and the living room wood stove was lit, she let me put the unpopped kernels on it to burn them. There’s nothing like the taste of burned kernels!)

I was sitting on the living room floor to the right of the unlit stove, the window air conditioner to my right, enjoying it blowing cold air across the top of my head. It was a cool day for summertime and the air conditioner was off more than on, a rare thing in those mosquito-dominated fields. Grandma was behind me, sitting in her chair, talking to me about General Hospital. The bowl of popcorn containing enough popped corn to feed 5 children, a cluck of chickens and two monkeys and a glass of coke were in front of me, almost forming a food altar. Grandma gave me an appreciation for the use of food as an expression of love. It was a perfect summer afternoon. My only goal was to consume an inhuman amount of popcorn and swill it down with another equally devastating dose of coke.

A weather warning interrupted the intense drama of General Hospital. A storm was moving across the southern part of Arkansas. Grandma didn’t distinguish between a distant storm 100 miles away and one overhead – they were all equally menacing. A fatal storm had ravaged my hometown in the early 1900s when she was a very young girl and countless storms since then had hammered the apprehension of storms to a fine point. Grandpa was outside sitting on the porch, facing the side of the house and the cotton field just a few feet away, ignoring grandma’s hollering for him to get inside. “Wooly! It’s fixing to start. Get on in here.”

(Grandma tended to pronounce his name “Willie” as if it were “wooly.” I didn’t know any better for many, many years.)

Instead of grandpa coming inside, I went outside on the porch (as grandma was fervently listening and watching the weather bulletin on the television). I walked barefoot – always barefoot! – along the length of the front porch to sit next to him, jumping up to sit. He pulled out his plug of Cannonball tobacco, jokingly offering to cut me off a sliver with his ever-present pocket knife. This time, I accepted. He sliced off a shaving so thin that it could have been an eyelash. I took it off the point of his knife and put it in my mouth. The harsh yet pleasant taste of tobacco flooded my mouth. I knew better than to swallow it, though. After a minute I jumped off the swing and leaned over the edge of the porch and attempted to spit it as far toward the edge of the cotton field as I could. I missed by at least ten feet, of course. Grandpa laughed. The wind had picked up and another weather bulletin could be heard, interrupting Grandma’s episode of General Hospital. After a long interval, grandma hollered once again for us to get back inside. Grandpa just slightly shook his head, having no intention of going inside. Even with the approach of an actual funnel cloud, his usual course of action was to stay outside as long as humanly possible or until he feared that grandma was going to have a stroke shouting at him to get his fool neck in the storm shelter. A couple of yellow jackets lazily buzzed around grandpa’s head and then across his hand, which was wrapped around the chain supported the wooden swing. He didn’t even bother to wave them away. His approach to wasps was the same as everything else at that point in his life: if it were going to bother him, he’d wait and let it decide for itself. When we watched “Kung Fu” together on the black-and-white tv, I could tell he got a kick out of the simple lessons being taught to Grasshopper in the show. I think his approach to wasps would have fit nicely into “Kung Fu.” 

By then, the wind had begun to make the galvanized tin sheets comprising the roof to pop with more force. Losing the roof was a real concern. While it might cause damage, replacing one of those tin roofs was a much simpler and inexpensive task than a modern roof, plus they provided a sound that cannot be matched in our modern society: the sound of rain pattering upon a tin roof. Nothing compares to that sound, not even the call for supper when you are hungry or the feel of the first sip of a coke special, handmade by your grandmother. While I’ve never considered it before, I can’t remember a mention of my maternal grandparents ever owning a house, either. Whether he owned the house or not, grandpa would build a storm shelter into the ground using nothing except hand tools. I remember when they moved to the “house on the hill,” watching him use an ax, shovel and saw to carve a place into the ground and build grandma another storm shelter. It was grueling work.

I know that there are a lot of pictures out in the world from the time when Grandma and Grandpa lived in that shotgun house in Rich. It would be a gift indeed if they were all loose in the world. Each contains a moment and a reminder. Perhaps one day everyone with legacy pictures will allow them to be shared. Perhaps. 

P.S. I know that we have metal roofs in abundance now, but they aren’t comparable to the bygone tin roofs of days past. (But much safer!) A shotgun house with a tin roof had a different set of rules governing its comforting acoustic sound of rain upon it. Unlike modern houses, insulation was rare in such houses. The space between you and sky could instantly be made apparent if the roof were peeled back, as nothing but 2 X 4s, tin and plywood usually kept your head indoors.  Were it raining, there was no need to stick one’s head out of the confines of the house – the metal roof telegraphed perfectly the intensity of every weather change. As a bonus, an average man could learn how to fix a tin roof without too much danger or intelligence, something that is no longer true with our houses.

William “Willie” Arthur Cook and Nellie Leona Phillips sitting at the house.

(Looking at this picture reminds me that time either feels fleeting or eternal. This one was probably taken in the very early 1970s, 40 years ago. Each of us, right now, is living a similar moment, unaware that time is looking at us with a wicked grin as it speeds past us, feeding on our ignorance of how precious our time is.)

Biographical, Personal

08212014 A Remembrance…

The picture above is of my mother’s tombstone. My sister designed it by herself, paid for it and had it placed at my mother’s grave. The grave is in the Upper Cemetery, in Rich, a small community near Brinkley in Monroe County, Arkansas.

As always, much of this blog is personal and perhaps I should spend more time perfecting my words. Once they are out there, they will be quoted out of context and stretched to include meanings I didn’t intend. I don’t write things to lash out and I don’t write them to demand a response. My opinion is no more meaningful than anyone else’s opinion, not in the real way that the world works.  (Previous Post About Writing ANYTHING  – click here…)  This post is not perfect but I fear the hesitation I have about “finishing” it enough to post it will never subside, so here it is, warts and all.

Before writing and forgetting to mention it, I don’t fully understand why some people need to raise a fuss about the tombstone. The person who stepped up to the plate chose a headstone that was meaningful to her. Her intention was to pay homage to her mother. Granted, it isn’t a traditional headstone. That’s a good thing. It would be very stupid of me to rant and rave about the tradition of expectations regarding tombstones when I favor creativity and originality everywhere else.

(I hate the idea of being buried, but love cemeteries. That’s just my contradictory life. I would not have chosen burial for my mother, nor a headstone, left to my own devices and beliefs. Again, though, that is my definitive opinion.)

When I first realized that this was the design chosen by my sister, I was surprised. I don’t know why I was surprised because craziness runs in my family! It certainly made for a great story to share. And I did share it. But I had to ask myself over and over: what exactly made it a great story? The answer lies in the fact that it was going to totally be in people’s faces about mom and how her daughter was going to remember her. It was the ultimate way of saying “There are no secrets.” Absent a major disaster, the stone is going to survive for generations and be spread on grave websites for decades. People are going to look it and probably be caught in surprise at its brashness. The cemetery where the headstone is located is comprised of mostly nondescript headstones. Creativity and style are not attributes that the family members buried there would seek out. Mom’s life is already lived, the pages of her moments already remembered, categorized and sorted in the minds of everyone who knew her. The stone isn’t going to change anyone’s perceptions of my mother.

A family member told me that she was “sickened” by the tombstone that was erected on my mother’s grave. What a horrible reaction! I can see her point about it not being traditional or what might be expected. But I don’t see it as offensive. In this scenario, the person voicing the opinion is choosing to be offended. For those who fail to make their wishes explicitly clear to those you leave behind, you should expect to not have your wishes followed. Do you really want someone like me stepping in after you’re gone? I would honor your wishes but you can be certain that if things are left up to me there is going to be some weirdness involved. In the case of the family member who was sickened, her opinion in the matter is going to be an unwritten footnote, confined to her circle in life. The longevity of the tombstone is going to drown out and render as forgotten all the negative commentary made about my sister’s choices. I see that my sister chose appropriately and in the way she saw fit. But if I did disagree, my words of reproach would be nothing more than crows screeching outside the window, while my sister’s effort will outlast any criticism. She gets the last word on mom’s tombstone.

(Although I’ve said this many times before, my dad did not want to be buried. Ever. But, he was buried and one of the many revisionist family members claims  to this day that he wanted it that way. He hated the idea of being put in the ground. In many ways, this could be construed to be much more of a problem than the content of someone’s tombstone.)

This headstone is  a true representation of my mom, and it was done with the sincerest intentions. It is an odd thing for me to be writing in defense of anything my sister does. Lord knows that the opposite is usually the case. She is crazier than I am – and that is quite a feat.

The person who steps up and takes responsibility for taking care of the things that other people won’t gets a lot of leeway. In this case, it was my sister. She chose to put a childhood nickname for my mom on the headstone, as well as having a Bud Light can etched in it. I’m convinced she did it for her own sincere reasons. It was an expression of her feelings. But even if she had chosen the stone and its content for no reason whatsoever, I still don’t see the problem.

Maybe that makes me the problem? I can certainly laugh about it. I do “get” that those who are compelled to follow a certain social set of norms might not appreciate it. It’s not what “most” people would choose. But the tombstone isn’t a summation of my mom’s life. That life has already been lived. It is a reminder to each of us that our legacy is being written every moment of every day. We can’t control how it is spun and told once we are gone, if we are remembered much at all. It would have been a valid reaction if at some point all of mom’s children turned their backs on her. One of her children decided to take charge and remember her.

Some of my family might say “That’s not how she should be remembered.” Again, this isn’t really a reasonable thing to say to my sister. Other family members are going to tell her how to remember her own mother? How does that sound in your head when you try to argue it silently? “Listen, I know she was your mom and you were very close to her, but you have no right to remember her in the way you choose.” Hmmm…. My sister had a very tumultuous relationship with with my mom. It was not a stable, consistent relationship, but it belonged to them, both anger and affection intertwined. 

Is a family going to object to mom’s nickname on the tombstone? Why? It was her nickname and not one used in anger or ridicule. Was it her picture? I don’t see why. It was a good picture of mom and it cost my sister a lot of extra money to have it made and applied to the tombstone. Eliminating those two elements leaves only the possibility of the etched Bud Light can on the bottom of the stone. I say it without malice and without the intention to further lessen the memory of my mother in my sister’s eyes, but one thing every living being on this planet must understand and know is that mom was a heavy, heavy drinker. It was a defining characteristic in her life and lead her down many of her darker roads in life. It’s no secret to anyone who knew her. All who knew her would nod their heads in agreement that drinking was one of those things that defined my mother. Denying that this is true doesn’t make it less true. It doesn’t hurt my mother and it doesn’t do any harm to anyone who knew her. Everyone who knew my mom knew her for who and what she was, for good or for ill. Each person related to her in their own way. This is true for me and it is certainly true for my sister. I don’t preach at people about some of the craziness I was put through as a child with the intention of changing the truth of my experience nor to harm anyone. It is my experience and I own it. The same is true for my sister. She was putting an iconic remembrance of her mother on the tombstone, one which to her vividly recognizes its impact in her life. I’m not quite sure how people can take that and make it something dishonorable or claim it be misleading about mom’s life. Please stop and think before lecturing or clucking to yourself about someone like my sister misrepresenting the path that she shared with my mother. We looked on them and their on-again, off-again relationship as outsiders. We didn’t understand them when they were alive and we won’t ever understand now that mom is gone. I don’t think my sister cares about most people’s opinions because we can never penetrate past our unfamiliarity about their relationship to one another. We are outsiders.

Since I’m on the soapbox ranting and preaching, I would argue that it is the tendency to suppress the truth or the things that might put people in a bad light that is the source of much of what made a great deal of our family life simply a tragedy. Kill someone drinking and driving? Don’t talk about it. Beat your wife and kids? Don’t talk about it. Go to prison? Don’t talk about it. Affairs? Shhhh….Not talking about it only led to more of the same stupid nonsense from some of the family. More light on the issues that were really true and harming people might have made people’s lives better. But that’s not how many people were raised. People collectively agreed that silence was the best method to deal with the things that make people’s lives both difficult and interesting. For mom, I’ve written before how completely transformed she was after I graduated high school, dad left her and she went to rehab in Fort Smith. She emerged from treatment as a vital, interesting person. I cannot adequately explain to you the Jekyll-Hyde transformation that took place unless you’ve experienced it firsthand yourself. Mom was a different person and the variable was the removal of the alcohol from her life, coupled with a new realization that there was something for her left in life. Maybe if people had been more open and forthcoming when she younger, maybe her road would have veered into a more vibrant way to live. The beer can etched into my mother’s tombstone isn’t an embarrassment or an accusation, it is an authentic acknowledgement of one of the most powerful things in her life. Her relationship to almost every person she knew was bloodied by her drinking. Having it on her tombstone isn’t a finger of blame pointed at her, but rather one of the truest things that could ever be said about her. It would be shocking to find anyone who knew her that didn’t have a lot of tales to share about the stuff she got into from drinking. Most people who would share those stories now wouldn’t sit and share out of spite. The truth isn’t diminished by sharing – it is only damaged when those who are left behind are pressed to change their memories to suit a better version of someone. With enough time passing, we all lose some luster off of our halos and even the horrible things we’ve said and done can be appreciated to be parts of our lives. Excising them from our stories about people can be a dishonest thing to do their memories.

For those of you with great mothers and fathers, you were given an unimaginable start in life. While I don’t intentionally paint my parents with accusatory brushstrokes of criticism, it is a truth to be echoed in my life that my parents were diminished in many ways. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t want to love them or to experience many of things that I witnessed other people in life get to cherish. But it did mean that I was ill-equipped to respond better to life as I met it. That violence in childhood tainted me and it lessened my chance to have an authentic way of interacting with my parents. It is my story to remember that I finally found my own voice to reject much of what my parents found normal and to not feel guilty about leaving them out of my life. My mom got the last laugh though, in her last year, by trumping my new confidence with her own approaching death. Our relationships with friends and family are reciprocal and defining to us.So, too, is the one I had with mom, even though it was ultimately characterized by our distance to one another at a fundamental level.

Please remember that my sister chose a way to honor her relationship with mom in her own way. She meant it in the most authentic way possible for her. Her choices do make for great story but she will indeed get the last laugh, as all the detractors pass away from the earth, taking their criticisms with them. Her remembrance of mom will stand alone, whispering its message to the nearby swamp around it – to surpass the ages and maybe even everyone who once lived to remember mom.

 (“It is no accident that those who scream the loudest for you to speak only when you have something positive to say are usually the ones with the most interest in keeping you quiet.” -x)

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