Domestic Archaeology

Whenever family is here--which isn't often--they leave me little remembrances of their presence.  I usually don't discover these things until days or weeks after they've left.  The last archaeological "dig" revealed socks that my grandson had kicked off his feet a year ago.  A year!  They were buried in the couch cushions and were only discovered when my new cleaning gal found them as she vacuumed under there.  (Shows you how often I do that!)

To be honest, no house guests are free of the sin of leaving things behind, but my grandson wins the prize.  Virtually every time he is here--about once a year--he leaves a trail of socks.  He was just here last week.  I was determined to keep vigil to make sure that both he and his socks made it home intact.  I made him check under the couch and under his bed.  Victory!  Or so I thought.  I delivered him to his father at a meeting spot in northern Indiana at the end of our visit on Saturday.  On Sunday, I discovered a balled-up Ryan sock on the fireplace hearth.  Whaaaat????  How did we not see that??  It's as if Ryan is a modern-day Hansel, but instead of leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to find his way back to Grandma's, he leaves a trail of socks!

So far, the domestic archaeology has only revealed his comb and one sock, but I haven't really looked yet.  Who knows what other treasures I may find?

The Little Thrills of LIfe

I don't get many chances to be thrilled by things, but there are events every year that always make my day, no matter how often they happen.  In no particular order:

1.  The first appearance of robins in the neighborhood in the spring.  Gives me hope that weather will begin to improve!

2.  The appearance of early-spring plants.  My sedam shows up long before spring does, but I still feel good when it does.

3.  Watching hummingbird(s) take food from my feeders.  Makes my efforts to feed them worthwhile!  Every.  Single.  Time.

4.  Hearing a symphony play a familiar, rousing song.  Especially around the Fourth of July.  And, of course, fireworks that say, "Happy Birthday, America"!

5.  Being with family, however I can get it.  I miss them all so much.

6.  Seeing Mount Rainier when I visit my family in Washington.  In our travels, we might not be able to see it due to weather conditions, or we may only get glimpses through the trees here and there.  Or, and this is even grander, when the "mountain is out", as the locals say, we can see the 'full monty', in all it's glory.  I don't care how many times I see it, the experience never gets old.  I never get the ho-hum feeling about Rainier.  The mountain is the tallest in the Cascade range.  It dwarfs all of Seattle, and when conditions are right to view it, the experience is awesome and humbling.

The little things are the stuff that joy is made of.

Ignorance Defined

In the movie Coal Miner's Daughter, Moody Lynn describes his wife, famed country singer Loretta Lynn, as "ignorant".  In his case, he used the term in both the pejorative way and the literal way.  Loretta had lived a life of poverty and ignorance of the ways of the world.  She wasn't stupid.  She just didn't know things that others outside of the hills and hollers of Kentucky knew.

These days, if someone calls you ignorant, you can bet they mean that you are stupid...dumb...unable to comprehend even the most obvious things.  The literal meaning of the word, however, has to do with lack of knowledge and experience...simply not knowing.  I like that definition better.  If you were to plunk me down in the middle of a roomful of computer programmers, I would be lost...ignorant.  I don't know the jargon.  I wouldn't have a clue what to say or even how to act, even though I'm not stupid.  Put me in a roomful of educators, however, and I would get it.  I would know most of the lingo (although I've been retired for nine years now, and things do change).  Still, I have experience and understanding for the latter that I do not have for the former.  Make sense?

Having said that, I was in shock this past week when I saw online videos of two women in two separate incidents in two separate places in the country being attacked/intimidated by white males--one because she was wearing a shirt that had Puerto Rico on it, and the other for no reason at all except that she was a woman of color.  She was sitting all by herself at a table outside of an establishment, quietly reading.  Alcohol was quite obviously involved in the first case...and maybe the second.  Still...

In the first case, the woman with the Puerto Rico shirt had arrived at a park shelter in Chicago--a shelter she had reserved by paying a fee--and was waiting for her family to arrive to celebrate her birthday in the park.  A man nearby took umbrage at the fact that she was wearing a shirt that represented the Puerto Rican flag.  He gave her a hard time about wearing it in America...as if she had no right to do so, as if she weren't an American citizen.  (Sooo many people, including our president, Donald Trump, seem not to understand that the people of Puerto Rico are American citizens!)  He got alarmingly close to her in a way that seemed threatening.  All the while, within sight and earshot, was a police officer outside of his vehicle that had ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) written on the side.  (I'm somewhat curious about why that officer was there, to begin with.  Did he think he was going to grab some illegals at a Puerto Rico birthday party?  I'd still like to know.)  In spite of at least three or four requests from the woman to the officer that the offending man be removed from her presence, the officer did absolutely nothing.  It's all on video.

In the second instance, an African-American woman was sitting, all alone, at a table outside an establishment, reading something.  A man came at her, swinging what looked like a piece of metal pipe.  No provocation whatsoever.  He came very close to hitting her.  The only thing that saved her was the action of another person on the premises who moved in and backed the dude down.  I'm not sure the police were called on this one.  I just know that the poor woman just packed up her stuff and left.  (Need to research this one a bit more.)

As ridiculous as this sounds, these incidents cut me to the core--not because of the obvious display of ignorant racism.  Neither of these men knew the women they were attacking.  Also not because they were (probably) both drunk, because people do stupid/ignorant things when their inhibitions are removed by booze.  What bothered me the most was the fact that both of the men in question weren't gang bangers...weren't thug kids...weren't arrogant young know-it-alls.  They were old folks, like me.
They were Baby Boomers...men who were raised in the same generation as I, having been through the same experiences in society as Baby Boomers.  We survived (translate: lived through) the assassination of President Kennedy, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, Malcomb X, and Martin Luther King.  We got through the Kent State University massacre; the Vietnam War with all of the protests nationwide; the resignation of President Richard Nixon.  We endured the integration of schools in the south amid anger and hatred.  We went through the freedom marches, with MLK, Rosa Parks, and the church bombings and senseless racial murders.  I THOUGHT we Baby Boomers had been through enough together that we at least agreed that life is too precious to risk it by acting ignorantly.  I was wrong.

I don't like to be wrong.
I have no clue what particular burr was under their bonnets to make those guys behave like idiots.
The guy at the park has now been charged with two felony counts of hate crimes, and the policeman on location has resigned.
I'm not sure what happened with the other incident.
I'm willing to bet that nothing will come of it beyond what has already happened.  No one was hurt, in either case.  The first guy had a history with police, which means they probably think he's harmless, even when drunk.  That, of course, doesn't help the young woman who felt threatened.

I feel threatened, too.
Do NOT remove my sense of security in being an American in America.
Do NOT pretend that your "rights" in this great country of ours usurp the rights of others.
Do NOT show yourself to be ignorant of what is good and right by pretending that you are a Christian (if you do) and still behave like a heathen.

People who do this kind of thing are as ignorant as the people who crucified Jesus.  They followed the crowd and listened to the wrong voices in their ears.  At his death, Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."  He had more forgiveness than I do.  Jurisprudence says "Ignorance is no excuse of the law".  I just want it all to stop!!

       

Salvation?

Eleven years ago this month--July of 2007--I survived a ruptured brain aneurysm.  I still don't know why.  I was visiting at my sister's near Springfield, IL.  Was violently sick to my stomach, with a horrible headache.  My neck also hurt.  I didn't even feel well enough to let my sister take me to medical care until the middle of the next afternoon.   I just thought I had picked up a mega-bug.

The next day, a trip to prompt care sent me to a hospital for a CT scan on my head...and the rest is history.  I was life-lined to Peoria's St. Francis Hospital to their neuroscience department and found myself in the ICU.  A full day after that, I experienced a craniotomy so the aneurysm could be clipped.

My ICU roommate was a woman who didn't survive her ruptured brain aneurysm.  She was being kept alive for organ transplant purposes.  I didn't know this.  I had commented to my male nurse that I didn't want to disturb her with the TV.  His comment was, "I WISH you could disturb her.  She had the same thing you have, but she didn't make it."  My surgeon's nurse came to me before surgery to let me know that I was, so far, one of only 20% of sufferers to survive a brain bleed like mine without disabilities.  She said that 60% of ruptured aneurysm victims don't even make it to the hospital.  At no time did I ever think I was going to die.  I was a fool.  I could have died...should have died...and would have died had something or someONE not stopped the bleeding in my head long enough for surgery to take place.

Did I get lucky?  Why should I get lucky then?  I'd never been lucky before!
And no one was praying for me because no one, including my poor daughter, even knew I was in trouble.  I was praying, of course, but more for relief than salvation.  I just wanted the nausea to stop because I had no clue how seriously ill I was.  My dear sister was just doing what she had to do to get me to a doctor.  I'm not sure she had time to pray.  It all happened so fast... 

 No, I was saved by God's grace.  The Creator of the universe had somehow decided that He wasn't finished with me yet.  I have no clue why.  I've never done anything exemplary.  I haven't lived a sinless life.  I'm not a stellar example of how to live.  What God gave me that day, besides life, was reason to believe that I still had work to do before it was my turn to go.  I'm not always sure what that work is, but I'm trying to understand, even all these years later.

I'll get there, Lord.  Please be patient with me!

When a Policeman Dies

Our men and women in blue have a special fraternity.  Policeman, fireman, EMT, whatever...they consider themselves "brothers" in the purest sense of the word, even though many of them are women.  (I don't take offense to that, as a woman.  I totally understand it.)  When one of them dies, whether from natural causes or in the line of duty, they have a sort of rite of passage.  Online, at least, they each check in with their respects, and then say something to the effect of, "Rest in peace, brother.  We'll take it from here."

I don't know why this moves me so.  It's an acceptance of continuity, that the work will carry on in their name.  A recognition that their dedication and their work will be unbroken, in spite of their passing.  It's as if the mourners are taking on the burden of the work yet unfinished.  And it occurs to me that I've been there.

The night my grandfather died--long story--he had been in an unresponsive coma for a week.  He'd had some sort of bowel blockage that was causing him extreme pain.  He was 89 years old.  The doctors really didn't want to operate on him because of his age, but the alternative was to have him live/die in excruciating pain.  He never came out of the anesthetic.  When his body finally decided to give out once and for all, I was the only family member the hospital could reach because his daughters had gone out together after their week-long vigil.  I knew where they were, so I called them, then headed to the hospital.  The daughters were 25 miles away.  I was in the hospital town, so I got there first.

When I arrived at my grandfather's room, the nurse said, "When I called you, I was going to tell you that Mr. Armstrong had expired, but it seems that he has rallied some."  He was still unconscious and unresponsive, but his vital signs were still going, monitored by all kinds of sensors on his body.  And then, after just a few minutes, his vital signs faded into nothingness...and he was gone.  It was as if he was waiting for someone from the family to be there to be with him in his passing, and I was the chosen one by default.  It was up to me to be the adult for my mother and my aunt who were on their way.  Circumstances had passed the torch to me, as if my grandfather had.  "I am passing.  Now you need to take care of my children as I once took care of them."   I asked the nurse to remove the tubes, etc., from my dear grandfather so his daughters would see him in a more natural state.  I shed some tears of my own, then went to wait by the elevator for the arrival of my mother and her sister.  "It's okay, Popo.  I'll take it from here."

No one will ever, ever convince me that it was all coincidence.  When my family stepped out of the elevator, I was there to meet them and said, simply, "He's gone."  My mother slumped in my arms, but I think she understood that a huge burden had been delivered from her shoulders.  When she and her sister went into the room to see their father in death, she said, "Oh...that's not so bad."

As stupid as this may sound, my own daughter sent her son on an airplane this afternoon to be with his father for 6-8 weeks.  Just getting him on the plane was an exercise in patience and stupidity--the airline's, not the kids'.  When his plane finally took off, I felt like telling them to relax and let ME "take it from here".  I knew that wouldn't happen, but I was willing to try.  I love them all that much.  I'm old.  The burden isn't that hard for me.  Sometimes, all we need is to know that someone has our back, supports us, and helps to carry our burdens.  We can't really rest peacefully if we think our mission in life will go undone without us.  We need reassurance that someone will carry on in our name. 

I think the police traditions have something there...

Those Strange Little Moments in Life

There are the little moments in life that leave us scratching our heads in wonder.  The bubble over our heads are saying, "Huh?  What just happened there?"  I've been collecting some of these in my brain just in the interest of trying to connect the dots to a clearer picture.  Interestingly, the process of writing them out usually just proves that they make no sense at all!  These are not in any particular order:

1.  Until recently, it was illegal to purchase package liquors in Indiana on Sunday.  I don't think the ban on Sunday alcohol sales was about morality.  It was more about the fact that liquor lobbyists wanted the businesses they supported to have a day off but didn't want grocery stores to get a leg up on alcohol sales.  One could still have beer and liquor on Sunday if one ate at an establishment that did so-many-dollars-worth of food sales.  And the biggest draw of the year for Indiana/Indianapolis-- the Indy 500 race (which always occurs on Memorial Day Sunday)--sells liquor and beer inside the track...OR...spectators can bring their own as long as it isn't in glass containers.  We are talking 300,000-500,000 people in one two-mile oval who come two days before the event to pump their money into the local economy, and arrive early in the morning of the race already drunk from the alcohol they had purchased the day(s) before. (I worked the race for my radio club for three or four years.  Saw it first-hand.)  While the ban on Sunday alcohol sales made Indiana look like a totally pious, Bible-thumping state, the reality is that all it did was create generations of good ol' boy drinkers who were trained, like monkeys, to stock up on Saturday.

2.  On the topic of alcohol, I relate this story.  Awhile ago, I went to Walmart for the express purpose of purchasing a gallon-sized jug of wine.  (I buy it because it's cheap and goes far.  Walmart is the only place I frequent that carries it these days.)  On my way in, I was welcomed by the disabled greeter whose relief-worker had just shown up.  We all three exchanged short pleasantries, and I went on to shop.  I came out through the self-service lanes, which requires a cashier to by-pass the restrictions on alcohol sales.  The big bottle, complete with a handle on the neck, was the only thing in my cart.  I didn't bother to bag it because of the handle, plus I hate those blasted bags.  I came out of the self-serve area right next to the greeter's area, where--just to make nice-nice--I asked the gal who had replaced the last greeter if she was tired yet.  Her response was to ask me if I had a receipt for my bottle of wine.  Uh...yeah...I did.  I wasn't offended.  She was just doing her job, right?  It did occur to me, however, that if I were someone trying to steal a big jug of wine, I wouldn't have stopped to say anything to her.  I would have headed for the door trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.  Oh well.

3.  Once upon a time, the admin at my school decided, in their infinite wisdom, that soft drinks would no longer be allowed in class.  Okay with me as a teacher.  So how to enforce this?  Some teachers let it happen under the radar but took administrative heat if it came out.  Some followed the rules.  The admin decided that they needed to unplug the vending machines to make them unavailable during school hours....but, somehow, that never seemed to happen.  Why?  Funny you should ask!  It seemed that the pop/vending machines generated $35,000/year for the athletic department.  Anything for sports, right?  Meanwhile, the band works tirelessly to come up with funds for their activities.  No vending machines for them!  And so it is....

4.  We are all encouraged, as citizens, to conserve resources.  Water, electricity, gas.  But if we conserve too much, we are charged less, and the utilities are under a crunch.  Way back in the 70's, there was an ice storm that put Indiana in a world of hurt.  (I lived in Illinois at the time.  We didn't have the same problem, but my in-laws in Greencastle, IN, did.)  People were asked to do their part to conserve.  My parents-in-law took it to heart--so much so that they were actually reading by candlelight whenever possible for awhile.  For what it's worth, the Helens and Arties of the Indiana world did such a good job conserving energy that their utility rates were raised.  Huh??   What's the point??

5.  Indiana prides itself as supposedly being on the cutting edge of political decisions.  Question: according to whom??  While the rest of the concerned world is talking about banning plastic grocery bags that seem to breed and produce more in my pantry, Indiana --under now-Vice President Mike Pence, who came to you from being the Governor of Indiana--signed a law saying that no community in Indiana could ban the use of those horribly polluting plastic bags.  If there is anyone in the nation that thinks Mike Pence would be better than Donald Trump should Trump somehow be gone, think again.  Talk to an Indiana resident!!

6.  I know how lives of crime develop!  Once upon a time, maybe about ten years ago or slightly more, I bought a car and used my own credit union for the loan.  Because my credit score was bad--a result of some idiocy on my part, now fixed--I was charged 13% interest on the loan.  Wait...what?  So...uh...if you don't have any money, you get charged MORE money to have what you need?  That was the last loan I ever floated.  I paid cash for my last (used) vehicle, which is already 11 years old but will likely be the last buggy I ever own.

7.  It occurs to me that late in life, when people are aged and need more assistance just to function, there should be more reasonable services for us old folks.  I never had the luxury of a spouse who actually cared how I came out in life.  He had himself to care for, regardless of what he did to me.  I realized that long ago and took over my own life.  Still, I once looked at skanky-looking people walking hand-in-hand in public and wondered why I wasn't worthy of that.  I WAS worthy of that, but my standard had been raised.  I was no longer willing to accept attention, or even affection, just because.  It actually is somewhat of a blessing that I have no spare money.  No one can ask me for anything--or rather, they can ask, but there is nothing in the bank to help.  Thankfully, my only child is doing quite well, thanks to her husband and her own frugality.  My sister, however, is still somewhat controlled by her family's needs.  (Sorry, Shari...but it's true.)

If I think of more "moments", I will write them.  In the meantime, I'm managing to hang on by my fingernails!