Nameless in Tennessee

Her young face wore a perpetual look of disappointment and longing.

Six of her fingers wore rings.

Her hair wore the most current bleach and was slapped back in a no-care, disdainful look.

Her skin was as smooth as money could buy.

Her eyelashes were the kind you needed a tweezers and glue to maintain.

Her glasses were this new style, oversized, and down low on her nose; I sometimes wonder if they are supposed the make the wearer look sort of like the proverbial damsel in distress.

If I wasn’t mistaken, at her 18 young years, she had already been under the knife to enhance her beauty.

She wore an affected weariness that was supposed to presage the extreme responsibility of being chic.

She and her mom communicated in short mumbles between screen blips on their phones.  Her mom asked her what she was going to order.

“I think I’ll go with the Philly Steak sandwich.  I feel like I need to expand my horizons more than just hamburgers.”

Then she rested her head on the table in sheer exhaustion, or disinterest in her mundane surroundings, until her next message beeped on her phone.

When her sandwich arrived, she picked at it, pulled most of the onions off and put them on her mom’s tray, and then asked her mom to get the wait staff to bring her a fork. 

She didn’t use the fork; rather took the bun off and fingered the meat into little blobs and boredly ate it. (I pondered long on how she would get the smell and grease from that meat out from under the fingernail extensions she wore.)

Her mom finished her own sandwich, and, using the unused fork, ate the rest of the meat that her daughter’s five bites had left untouched.  

They got up and moved away, she in her black sweats and tank top, her mom in her pajama sweats and tee shirt.

It was getting on to 4 in the afternoon and we needed to get to the airport; I saw them drift off to my right and then, as they mingled with the mighty crowd of humanity there that day, they sank out of sight.

My heart pained for them.  

*****

He was an average looking Dad.

His tee shirt draped over large shoulders and a barrel chest; Muscular legs bulged from his short pants. 

His hair was neatly combed; his beard neatly trimmed.

Each of his boys had matching close up haircuts with a neat part in the side.

His wife, her sister, and her mom all wore matching fall colors. 

They made an attractive family.

I heard his dad-in-law tell him of the original pair of Levi jeans recently discovered that had sold for nearly $87,000 to a couple of young blokes.  I saw him listen attentively and make a kind remark in reply.

I watched as he held his youngest child at the breakfast table.  The little boy flipped the straw out of his cup and water splashed all over his face.  I tensed.  Was he going to be angry with his son?  But no.  He smiled down at his little one, water still dripping from his face.

He took time for all his boys, because, well, that’s what good dads do, I guess.

I happened by their table about the time they were getting ready to leave.

I eased up beside him and told him, “You make a good Dad.”

“Oh, well, I really don’t know.  Some days you wonder,” he said.

His wife looked at him with liquid eyes and then looked at me and nodded in agreement to my remark.

“Yeah,” I said, as I gave his shoulder a thump, “You make a good Dad.  I could see it from a long way away.”

For some reason, later that day, I felt like I should pray for him.

So, I did.

To Kill a Cat

No, it’s not meant to be an imitation of Harper Lee’s classic, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Not even close.

So, now that we have that out of the way, let’s carry on.

The other morning, Mama Jan opened the patio door like she or I often do in the morning to let the cat in. 

This is the same cat otherwise written about in a blog titled Toad, aka Cricket.

I noticed when he came over to the chair I was sitting on in our closet that his meow sounded sort of weird, and it seemed like he was breathing loudly.

I got on with my morning routine, and it was sometime later that Mama J called me to where she was sitting with this cat on her lap.

“This cat has been in a terrible fight,” she said.  “See?”

And I did see then.  Blood soaked and ran down from its mouth, onto his chest and all the way down his front legs.  His mouth was skewed off at a grotesque angle, and hung loosely open.  His eyes looked up at us pathetically.

“All of his front teeth are gone, he’ll never be able to eat,” said my good wife.

“He’ll need to be put down,” I said, “But I don’t feel like shooting a cat this morning.  I’ll call the vet to see if they can put him down.”

The secretary at the vet said to drop him by, since the vet was still in surgery and when she was out she’d take a look at him and put him down if it looked like that was the best option, or, if there was any hope then they’d call and we’d discuss our options.

Mama J dropped him off, turned around and began her 25 minute journey home. 

She wasn’t two minutes away when the vet called and said she could come pick up her cat.

It seems that as this rather obese cat was grooming himself sometime during the night, licking the thick fur under his chin, that his bottom fang snagged an excess fold of loose skin and when he lifted his head, his fang imbedded into that skin. 

He was effectively trapped by his own body.

Evidently when a cat’s mouth is thus detained, he drools rapaciously. 

And evidently when he drools like that for several hours, and paces about in desperation, dirt gathers onto the drool, and it looks like blood.

And, evidently when a flap of skin is caught on the teeth of the bottom jaw of a cat you can’t see any teeth and it appears like it has been in a terrible fight.

Evidently. 

Loaded for Bear

I heard that statement five or six years ago, and didn’t have a clue what it meant or what context it was supposed to be used in. 

Until the guy using it finished telling his story. 

He was talking about an issue the schoolteacher had regarding his son and certain escapades in school.  He went on to say that when his son came out the door after arriving home from school, he walked up to his son with every intention of setting the matter straight.

“I was loaded for bear and was all set to read the riot act the minute I saw my son,” he said.

That’s when I sort of got an understanding about what ‘loaded for bear’ meant. 

Turns out, I’ve ran into that phrase a fair bit since then, mostly in my own language and thought process.

Take the other morning. 

Our flight boarded at 5:30 a.m. and since it is such a small airport, it’s a good idea to be there 45 minutes before boarding time.

Which means getting there at 4:45. 

Which means leaving the house no later than 4 a.m.

I had looked at the tires on the car the day before, because with our dry weather and all, nails come to the surface of the road quite readily.  Everything looked good.

As I backed out of the garage at 4:03, the low tire pressure light flicked on. 

By the time I had hastily aired up the tire and driven to the airport, it was 4:45, maybe even 4:46.  I didn’t know if we were going to get that flight or not. 

I dropped Mama Jan off at the door, screeched into a parking spot nearby, and ran in to see if all had turned out okay.

The whole process had the beginnings of loading me for bear.

Got to security and landed up behind a nice lady who evidently hadn’t flown recently.  And I’m guessing she was the type who didn’t feel the need to expand her world for others.  She took one thing out and tried to send her bag through. 

Didn’t work. 

Took another thing out and tried to send her bag through.

Didn’t work. 

After five more didn’t works, she was able to get through; but she never looked back once at us or offered we could go.  Just her and herself alone there in that security line.

I was strapping on the essentials for bear by that time.

I watched a man across the way try to lift the handle on his suitcase and then it got stuck.  Saw him frantically try to work it down, fling his hands out in despair, finally got it, and less than five minutes later went through the whole process again.  I wanted to shout, “Dude, it’s okay!  Just leave it one way or the other!”

I knew it wouldn’t have bothered me if I hadn’t been loaded for bear already.

My kidneys seem to function in a fairly predictable manner.  No, I wouldn’t set a clock by them, but neither do they send out unnecessary alarms. 

That is, until our group was called to board the next flight in Dallas.  Suddenly, like a very onery and impudent child, they alarmed.  I thought maybe it was a false alarm and the line to board was moving right along, so I disregarded them and got on the flight. 

Within short order, they came by with drinks, and I knew I’d need liquid since the only thing I’d had was coffee. 

I chose Coca Cola. 

She gave me a whole can. 

I drank all of it.

And then the restroom got really busy with other people who must have also had lots of coffee and Coca Cola also.

If I hadn’t been so loaded for bear already, I might have been able to disregard all signals.  But being loaded up as I was now only made the new load I was asked to bear almost impossible.

About this time, my good wife awakened from the nap she was taking and noticed her glasses were no longer on her lap.  Being in that in between world of sleep and wakefulness, she nigh well panicked.  Into my hands and lap were thrust her jacket, a Coke she had just asked for, her cup of ice, two books, a napkin and her purse. 

My tray table was down, and on it was my napkin, Coke and ice.  She asked me to move over to the empty seat beside me with all those things she had just handed me and mine, so she could lean over to better look for her glasses. 

She reached blindly, and she muttered that she couldn’t see anything without her glasses.

I swallowed, and gave up meekly to what was playing out in such high drama.

*****

We traveled serenely in our rented vehicle for the next 3 hours and arrived at our cabin in the Smoky Mountains.

It was quite cold, so I turned up the heat, got the fake fireplace flickering and adjusted the thermostats on the other levels accordingly. 

I was climbing the stairs from the basement when I heard my good wife shriek my name from somewhere up on the third floor. 

After 26 years of marriage with that good lady, I know of mainly two things that make her shriek; mice, and when the airplane we are in plummets unexpectedly.  (There are other things that make her shriek, some involving cold water, and some involving swerving near a sheer drop off on the edge of the road, but I have learned, the hard way it seems, not to invoke those kinds of shrieks.)

But since I had just adjusted the heat, I must have automatically cast out the mice and airplane idea and immediately assumed that we had a fire somewhere.

Turns out I was LOADED with bear.

Literally.

I came around the corner to see a Mama in the front seats, and one of her cubs in the back seat and the second cub just climbing into the rented Toyota Camry we were driving.

I forgot for a moment that I was dealing with bears and not dogs and began to shush them away like I would a dog. 

As I approached the littlest one, it got frightened and swiveled around to face me; I continued my affront and that’s when Mama got concerned and started shushing me. 

I got me out of there.

Luckily, they got the message and all unloaded.  After a rather tense standoff in which Mama told me in no uncertain language what lineage she was sure I came from, who she was and what she would do if I ever messed with her cubs again, they all took to the hills nearby.

I looked and could see where Mama had nudged her nose under the left rear door and got it unlatched. 

After that it was a simple matter for her to find the leftover Freddie’s chicken that was her choice of fast food for the day. 

One of them had painstakingly opened the barbeque sauce packet thinking it was probably just the thing that chicken needed.

The bag with the pills, or the ‘onsite pharmacy,’ as the sweet daughter calls it, had been razed, but fortunately, whether for the bears or us I don’t know, nothing was taken.  Although it might be amusing to see just how a water pill affects a bear. . .

It was only after the bears had unloaded that I realized the whole process had a wonderful moderating effect and the thought occurred to me that I wasn’t loaded for bear anymore myself. 

Don’t Slide It

I suppose you could say Mama Jan and I are empty nesters.

But not officially.

For the first time in a long while, I hear sounds that life had me forget somehow.

I hear the clock ticking. 

I hear the refrigerator’s gentle hum.

I hear the sound of the house cooling down after a warm summer day.

Sounds that have been there all along but were crowded out with the joyful sounds of living and doing. 

First it was the sound of a newly minted Dad trying to get the onesie on and all the snaps snapped in the proper sequence.  You don’t hear much when you are focused in like that and the little one before you has every intent of escape and mutiny in mind.

Soon it was the sound of drinking glasses tipping over and the cascade of tea to the carpet below.  (Hint, always laugh at it.)

Then came the scraping sound of pencil and paper as homework was finished up, or a newly colored picture by the sweet daughter.

It wasn’t long, and skates, basketballs, and even a baseball got used within the confine of these four walls. 

Sobering visits filled in the space; good visits, though sometimes with a few tears.

The hilarious shouts of young people filled the room.  Charades were acted out at random times and this old man nearly passed out with laughter.

Songs and more songs, singing until one in the morning sometimes.

But, for now, all those sounds are gone, and it’s quiet in the house.

One could say that the good years have been lived.

Not so.

Because the good years, and what makes them, are, I think, woven together with a certain simple detail that doesn’t concern itself with time, place, or number of folks present. 

*****

“We need to do better at passing the food at the table,” said my good wife one day when all the children were still at home.  “Lately, all we have been doing is sliding it to each other.”

I sat back in amazement.

This soft-spoken gentlewoman speaking in such tones left me speechless.

“Well for one thing,” I thought to myself, “what difference does it make?” 

“And for that matter,” I told myself, “I know I always pass it.”

But it wasn’t long before I seemed to notice that it was quite often that I got food shoved at me, and I in turn shoved it on its way to the sweet one who always sits at my left.

“Really, we’re all busy, and at least the food is getting passed,” I continued in my muttered defense, “I mean, some families don’t do this well as us in this area.  I’ve seen big hairy arms reaching clear across the table or directly across the plate of the one they are sitting by to fetch what their rumination tells them too.  At least that isn’t happening here.  We aren’t barbarians, for goodness’ sake!”

Like it is with so many of the things that sweet lady I live with says, this one proved to be worth listening to. 

More than ever now that it’s just the two of us.

Because it’s when I lift the food, and hand it to the one I love, that life really happens.

We have every chance to arrange the food in such a way that we don’t need to pass it to each other. 

Slide it if you will.

But I’m really glad we don’t. 

Life, during the years when all the children were home, was extremely good.  It was so busy though, with the onesies and all, that reaching out purposefully to each other got lost in the blur of everything.  I know it happened.  I remember times when it did.  But it couldn’t be savored. 

And for those who find themselves in similar circumstances with little ones by your side, you needn’t worry.

Love gets through even when it can’t be purposely thought out.

I’m liking this empty nester thing. 

It gives me time to think, and the chance to lift the food and pass it, even though we could just as easily slide it.



Service rendered in love, whatever it may be, elevates a regular minute from mundane to divine.   

Work

A few stray wisps of Tanzania Peaberry waft across where I sit.  My cup is empty, but no matter.  Sometimes I think the aroma left behind is just as good, if not better than the draft itself. 

I get the urge to write sometimes, when I know that really it might be better to let what has briefly crossed my mind sit a while. 

This morning is one of those mornings.

***** 

Is it ever okay to be lazy?

When does lazy cross over to being a sluggard, or are they one in the same?

There is bindweed that could be sprayed, a fence taken up, grass to be mowed, and a plethora of other things vying for attention.  (I considered writing on the word plethora earlier; now that I used it here maybe you’ll be spared of it.)

When it came to selecting something to write on this morning, a status that my friend Dean had set ruled over the rest of options. 

His status, quoted from a Shane Parrish said “Ninety percent of success can be boiled down to consistently doing the obvious thing for an uncommonly long period of time without convincing yourself that you’re smarter than you are.”

For some reason, my mind trekked back immediately to a certain evening about ten years ago.  We sported the new title of Youth Leaders, had carried said title for two whole days already, and were invited to join the youth and their current Youth Leaders to help get Christmas candy made for the upcoming Christmas activities.

I was enthusiastic about joining them but came home from that evening totally depressed. 

It was unmitigated chaos.

Guys were using the tubes from wrapping paper to play baseball right there in the church fellowship hall.

Girls were shrieking at the antics of the guys and generally flirting instead of working. 

(Okay, I used some hyperbole in those previous two sentences.)

(And no, you don’t say it hyper bowl, like I have for years, but you’ll have to google it to find out how it’s pronounced.)

Eventually the gifts that needed to be wrapped, and the food that needed to be made, got finished by the youth leaders and all the youth went home extremely happy and fulfilled.

I told Mama Jan on the way home that there was no way I was surviving this for the next two years. 

I don’t remember what she said, but it must have had wisdom in it, because not only did I survive the next two years, but I supremely enjoyed them, and to this day, I will take a stand for what the young people do in our lives.

I think one key takeaway is that I determined, from that evening on, to name at least one thing as a bright spot in each time we were together. 

I hated English in school.  Except I loved to diagram the sentences.  You know what I liked about diagraming? 

I got to use a ruler, and act like I was actually doing math, precisely measuring each line of the rocket and all the appending lines, making it as perfect as possible in a way only numbers can. 

I hated teaching English when I was a schoolteacher.  Except I loved the last half of English class because I had made them a deal.  If they could get their English lesson done in half the time it normally took, and their grades didn’t blip, then we would spend the last half of English class singing.

I don’t know if this thought process holds together or not. 

Did I follow my friend Dean’s advice in each of those scenarios?  It really didn’t seem like work, and it really didn’t seem like such a long time.  Was I a success at any of them?  I hardly feel like it. 

I still don’t feel like I succeed when I try to write something, so I guess you could say I failed at English in a way.  And yet my good wife will tell you, with frustration curling at the edge of her voice, of how often I’ll stop a book I’m listening to and say, “Hear how they wrote that?  It’s perfect!”  And I’ll replay it enough times until her frustration begins to smolder into wisps of flame. 

I think what I recognize in those perfectly framed sentences I replay must be the result of something called work, done in an earlier day. 

I had hoped this would turn out to be something useful for the younger generation as they grappled with the thing they called work. 

I think it turned into a Saturday morning lazy kind of thing that sort of blathers.

Vacancies

It’s going on nine years ago now that I sat me down under that old elm tree in the cool spring air and thought about things. 

I haven’t been back to that particular spot since then; the other day I made a trip out there.  I wasn’t sure if I remembered just where it was located as I got out of my truck, opened the gate, and started in the general direction of where I thought it was. 

For a bit, I figured I had it wrong.  But then I saw the tree I had sat under had grown more, and there were more gravestones than before.

My mind started going back over the past nine years, lingering the longest on what life had been and who I used to be when I had last visited this place. 

I looked back at myself then, a fellow used to a job with a steady paycheck who was trying to make a freelance business work with his two teenage boys. 

I remembered the hot disagreement I had witnessed between another man and his son as they worked on the same job we were on.  They switched from English to German when they caught on that I was listening, but I knew what they were saying anyway.  Anger is understandable in any language.

I thought of who my boys and my sweet daughter have become, and I think I can rightly say I’m proud of who they are, because I know they found themselves in spite of me.

Yes, I thought, things have changed.  The tree’s arms have reached down and wrapped their shelter more closely around the headstone beneath them; life has assumed a fuller, deeper meaning. 

But then my mind returned to that day, and even though it was fall now instead of spring, a cool breeze played through the leaves overhead just like back then. 

I didn’t expect a light brown Duramax to roll by towards the south, but neither would it have surprised me if one had.  Nor would it have surprised me if a like colored vehicle rolling by would have coasted to a stop and reversed back to where I stood, just like it had all those years ago. 

As my friend Jan uncoiled his lengthy frame from his truck back then, I thought of all the musings that had coursed through my mind during the day as I worked there.

We chatted, first of all, about his bird business and where he was going to deliver his pheasants the next week.  Seemed like it was Wyoming or Montana, if I remember right. 

Jan was interested in what I was doing, and I showed him what my task of the moment consisted of. 

But my mind wasn’t on what I was talking about.

After a bit, I changed the course of conversation.

“Jan,” I said, “I’ve been thinking about her a lot today.” 

“Yes,” he said, “Not a day goes by that I don’t.”

He filled me in on the details of his story, none of which I was acquainted with very well.  He told me he knew of Anne’s Severe Combined Immuno-deficiency Syndrome (SCIDS) and the implications of what a marriage to her consisted of.

He told me he had asked God for 5 years with her.  He told me God had given her to him for twice that, and how unworthy he felt to have been married to her. 

We talked about their son Zach.  I told him how that once, while driving by the school where he was teaching during his time of grief that I had wanted to stop in, but had lost my nerve, blaming my lack of confidence on the excuse that I didn’t want to interrupt his student’s study time.  He told me it wouldn’t have mattered, and I knew that really it wouldn’t have. 

We fell silent for a spell, and I asked him how he was doing with it all.  He said God had been good to him, and life was good.  I asked, “So you have found things to fill the vacancy in your heart?”

His answer from back then plays over in my mind every so often. 

“You know Les,” he said, “I found out early on that it was imprudent to try to fill the void left by Anne’s passing with other things.  In fact, I would much rather the vacancy stay just like it is for the rest of my life.  Why would I want to cover up all the good memories and times with something or someone else?  I want to keep that time of my life accessible to myself and anyone else who knew her.  If I covered that time in my life, then Zach would be forced to cover it also, and that wouldn’t be fair to him.” 

He paused a bit, and these two grown men wiped a few tears away. 

“No,” he said, “That place in my heart fits only Anne.  Nothing else will fit there, and I want to keep it that way as a memorial to her.  Doing so does not hinder or make my heart smaller in any way as I accept and give love and devotion to my wife Laura.  It rather enlarges it; my heart has had to grow in order to bring in new love and life.  It’s the hearts that try to fit something else into the rend made by loss that end up with a misfit, and a misshapen scarred up heart limited to time and place is the result.”

We should have had a prayer out there. 

We didn’t know it, but we were in church right then, gathered in one of God’s most beautiful sanctuaries, just the two of us.

And while it was Jan’s loss we were talking about, the One who made Jan and Anne, and me, had a message to get through to both of us that day. 

Somehow, even though I still felt that familiar tight lump in my throat the other day as I visited Anne’s grave, I found that it healed me. 

I like to think it was because I was allowed to be part of the journey.

Do you get it?

It healed me, not so much because I was mourning Anne’s death, but it healed me, nonetheless, of things I was carrying that day.

It healed me, because just like water and energy remain of the same quantity as the first day of creation, so the unselfishness of the one who I visited with back there reached up to today, being of the same quantity now, as it was then. 

Had his heart been rimmed up with scars, and closed off with self-pity and offense, he never would have seen me working there in the first place. 

Or, had his heart been crammed with other things as a filler, he may have seen me, stopped and we could have visited, but not freely; it would have been constrained to things that were valueless, things we both would have admitted were filler, even though we would have tried to fool ourselves into thinking they had value.

This isn’t so much the story of the two mentioned.  They wouldn’t want it that way.

It is the story, rather, of love and devotion given, and shared.

And when the fragments that remain are gathered, there is always more than enough left to help someone else along.

Dear K1, K2, and K3—(You know who you are)

We got your letter in the mail today.  I admit, it made me about as happy as when I see the most beautiful sunset, or when I see random wildflowers growing where I never expected to see them grow. 

I really don’t know why I’m writing you back.  The stuff I’m about to write probably won’t interest you in the least.  And . . . I’m fixing to post this on my blog, which, if you ask normal people, is probably weird.  But, this definitely isn’t the first time I’ve ran into that handle of weird being associated with me.

I like reading blogs.  I like to see what normal everyday life is like for others, and that is probably why I have a blog myself.  I currently read blogs written by a previous school teacher, a new school teacher, a new wife, another new wife, a guy who has a welding shop, another guy who has a carpentry business, a guy who writes a blog for a job, and once in a while, another guy who writes a blog for a job.  I suppose that is why I’m writing this on my blog, because I’m guessing there might be a few people who read this and maybe like it, and there might be a lot who don’t.

Do you like your teacher?  I bet if I asked you that in the same room as you are now, with her right there, you would say you did like her.  But, I’m guessing you’ve been mad at her already.  And you know what?  That’s okay.  Because that is a sign you have a good teacher, if you get mad at them once in a while.  It’s also a sign you have good parents, if you get mad at them, or a good boss.  As long as you don’t stay mad.  Because if you get mad at them, that means they are doing the best they can to help you get through the things you don’t know.  So . . . really you aren’t ever mad at them, just indirectly mad because of what you are trying to learn.

I keep losing my sunglasses.  It wouldn’t be such a big deal if I could find them after I lost them.  But I never can.  I must be on my tenth pair in the last five years now.  I suppose I should get one of those string things that tie to the back of them so whenever I took them off, they’d hang around my neck.  But I dunno, then it seems like I’d break them when I leaned up against something.  I’m still kinda happy at the memory of losing my last pair though.  I lost them while playing disc golf with Bryce.  I put them in my disc golf bag where I always do, and they have always stayed there, but I guess this time they didn’t.  And you know why I’m happy?  Cause I beat Bryce that time.  And I hardly ever beat him.  And he always says he doesn’t like the course we play when I beat him, but I think he just says that cause he doesn’t like his old Dad winning.

Yesterday, it was so stupid.  Right after posting that blog about Bozar, I got lonesome for him.  So I went right out to where he was and told him I had written a blog about him.  He was UNIMPRESSED!!  But, after generally chewing me out while chewing on some grass, we had a nice time together.  I slapped his huge neck to get some of the flies off and it wasn’t long afterwards that he told me he had better be moving on, he things to do and places to see, he said.  I laughed.  Because about all he can see is his pasture.  He hasn’t been to New York and I don’t think he ever will, but I’d sure recommend it to him if I knew he could get there. 

I need to mow the grass today, and do some book work.  It also looks like it could be a nice evening for disc golf, but I don’t have a very good feeling about my game at this point.  Like, if I was playing with Bryce, I’m sure he’d beat.  But at least I wouldn’t bash the course and say I didn’t like it if I lost.

Boola is snoring away, not ten feet from me on the floor by the couch.  Taz is out helping Mama Jan feed the cats.  Oh.  Last night?  I was sitting out in the dark on the back porch when I saw the three new kittens running up behind their mama towards me.  I sat still as a mouse (a kinda big one) and watched, cause I knew they had never seen me before.  They got to within 5 feet of me before they realized there was something big and scary looking on the camp chair.  At first the only thing they saw on him move was his eyes, and that definitely unnerved them, but they stayed where they were, ready to run in an instant.  Then, they saw his head move, ever so slowly, and two of them scatted away completely.  But the third one climbed a tree nearby and watched the big thing in the camp chair from there.  I think it ran off when big thing got up to go inside though.

Yesterday, your teacher said I had typo’s in my blog.  She thought it was funny.  But I thought her sentence structure telling me about it was even funnier.  You’ll have to ask to see her messages to me. 

It looks like my dinner hour is about up, and I think you will soon be leaving school.  Tell Austin and his pretty wife Lindsey hello for me, even though I just saw them both this morning.

Love, from you know who

Bozar

He was the strappingest 6 weight bull I had seen in while.  Probably the best since I bought those 8 bulls a couple years previously.

But I was torn.

Buying calves, for me, is a bit arduous.  I don’t have a bottomless pocket like it appears some of my fellow cronies at the sale do.  Neither do I have trailer space for such. 

It often boils down to this question.  Do I stop buying now, with 2/3 of a load, or do I risk staying on and inadvertently buying more than enough and need to make two, and, in extreme cases, three trips to fetch them. 

My trailer will hold 12,000 pounds of cowflesh in a cramp; 10,000 is better.  For sure if there is a two-hour road trip ahead of them like these had. 

I was at 9,000 pounds and told myself I would stay on another half hour to see if I could pick up a couple more thousand pounds.  After that, it was pick up and leave, no holds barred.  I have to make these decisions ahead of time, I’ve found, or I’ll regret the snap decision I make later.

That’s when this shiny, black, straight-backed bull walked in.  My problem?  The program I was running called for 450 weight heifers, not 6 weight bulls.

I really don’t know what guided my thought process that day.  Only 2 out of those 8 bulls I had bought two years before had survived. 

And six hundred pounds of bull sort of ruined any chance of picking up a pair of heifers like I had originally imagined.  But that guy was by himself in the ring and going for a song, so I gave a bid and just like that, he was mine, due to the fact that no one else was bidding on him. 

I got myself out of there and to the load out before I could make any more irrational decisions.  I waited for a few minutes after the load out guy took my load sheet and then started scanning the pens.  It didn’t usually take this long. 

Another ten minutes, and he came back to tell me it was going to take a while; someone else’s load had gotten mixed with mine.  I told him mine were 450 weight black heifers with one bull.  “That’s the problem,” he said, “The rest that got mixed with yours are the same weight and black.” 

“Well, then it’s not a big deal to me, the main thing is I’d like that bull,” I said.  Not that I really wanted him so badly; I knew I had paid $120 more for him and didn’t want to give that to the other guy.

My calves finally came down the alley, and I asked the load out guy how he knew which ones were mine.  “Well, I wasn’t so sure on the heifer’s, but that bull is from our ranch.  I brought him in this morning.”  Except for a couple heifers that looked a little too leggy, I figured he had done a good job of sorting my stuff out.

When I got home, Bryce was happened to be on the yard and came over to see what I kicking out.  When said bull scampered out, Bryce asked, “Why’d you by him?”

“Well,” I stammered, “I needed a little more weight to make the trip home pay a bit better, so I just thought I’d cut him, let him heal and then we’d sell a number one steer in a couple of months and make a nice little profit.”

“Don’t cut him,” Bryce said.

“Why not?”

“Cause, I’ve been wanting to tell you I’d like to start a little cow herd of my own.  Let’s let him grow up and we can use him on a couple of heifers that we keep back.”

“We don’t know anything about calving and raising calves,” I reminded him.

“We can learn.  I’ll take care of them,” he said.

It just so happened that the wee bull didn’t like his new surroundings, and much preferred the wheat pasture to the north of our place where 70 or 80 heifers were wont to graze.

And, it just so happened each time I saw him pawing the ground and hollering away at those females, that Bryce was gone on service work I myself had sent him on.

So, it just so happened that I was the one who chased a very determined bull back and forth and away from those heifers after he had repeatedly broke through very sturdy fences. 

I once saw him calmly walk through a 4-rail fence.  He got his head and one leg through, and then, with a Samson move, heaved up on the rail overhead.  There was a loud crack and with nary a glance in my  direction, he made his way over to those whom he wished to impress, myself not being in that number evidently, as I sped towards him even as he hoofed it farther away.

He knew his time was up when I reached him, and by now he knew the drill and just as obediently turned around and followed the same row he had come down all the way back home. 

We fortified his enclosure, and after enough time in there without an escape, he must have realized it was futile, and settled in for the winter. 

It was just him and the horse in that pen, and he thought he owned the place when it came time for me to feed them.  That horse had a way of getting its way with the other calves we ran with him at times, all out kicking or biting them into obedience. 

Not him. 

His pudgy bulk soon became the first in line and the last at the bunk every day. 

He was greedy enough, that I began to take both ears and held them for as long as I could through the fence.  He huffed and would back away, giving the horse a chance at a few nibbles before he elbowed back in.

Soon, though, he tolerated my ear twisting just so he could stay at the bunk and eat.  At which point I changed tactics, and started holding my hand out before he ever made it to the bunk, making it necessary for him to push up against my hand while seeing it and knowing it would stay there.  A couple of times got a little dicey when he tried to reef my hand and arm up and away with his head, cramming it up against the fence, but I soon learned what to anticipate from him. 

From then on, it was a matter of time before he let me pet him the whole time he ate, even letting me scratch right around his eyes and occasionally cover his eyes with my hands to see how he tolerated it. 

I started walking around with him in the pen, but he let me know that our friendship was a bunk friendship only, throwing huge hoof fulls of dirt up on his back, lowering his head, shaking it and slobbering all over the place before letting out a low pitched, enormous bellow and rushing towards me. 

Some guys say that half the time when they charge you, they are bluffing and won’t actually do anything.  I didn’t know then, and still don’t on most cowflesh, the difference between a bluff and the real thing.  When there are 1,200 pounds of black hided angry headed my way, I generally turn into 200 pounds of consternation and ease myself off to the side rather than try to figure out if its bluff or not.

Another thing I had to watch for was the way he incorporated a neat little side kick into that whole routine of his as he went breezing on by.  I once heard the air hiss as his hoof cut through it, not so very far away from me lovely body, as the Australians would say.

We kept at it, he and I.  I told him all about my day and what I had done while walking around, and he told me in gruff tones about the work he still needed to get done.  Eventually, he let me in closer.  All I can figure out is I misunderstood his language at some point, and what I understood as ‘We can be sort of friends’ was actually, ‘I’ll let you touch me if you let me out to the ladies,’ which, much to his distemper I didn’t do.

For a while, he rushed me every time, and every time I’d wait until he was close and bop him a friendly one between the eyes with my fist.  I soon saw, that for him anyway, that bop told me if it was bluff or not.  Bluff, and he stopped and let me scratch his ears and slap his neck while standing by him.  Not bluff, and after the bop he kept on coming, whereupon I told him that I had a few things that needed my attention just to the right of him and the general direction of his travels.

The day came when we turned him out with the ladies he had been showing off in front of and across the fence.  They all went to the pasture, and I left them be for a couple of days before ranging out closer to see how they were doing.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from the old boy, so I took my time.  I quickly learned that you don’t get off your four-wheeler on the side he is on.  He lowered his head and like to have pinned me up against it, had I not skittered my way sideways out of there. 

I understood, though.  I act the same way when I’m around pretty ladies like my wife and sweet daughter.  Sort of protective in a macho kind of way, you might say.  Soon though, it became common to ride out to him and have a little chat and scratch his neck without all the display from him.

*****

Last week, my good wife and I jumped on a plane and landed later in Jackson Ms., to see how the recovery was coming along of one we think highly of.  We were gone a week, during which time the boys and their wives carried on with the necessary things.  I don’t know if either of the boys have a relationship with Bozar or not.  At any rate, I know neither of them had time to ride out and talk to him. 

We got home late Friday evening, and first thing Saturday morning, my good wife and I rode out to see how the group in the pasture was doing.  I stopped a little distance away from the ole boy and started walking towards him. 

He looked at me, calmly, and then laid down right in front of me.  I walked the rest of the way up to him and started scratching his ears, talking to him and telling him about our trip, asking him how it had been while we were gone. 

He lowered his head, rubbed it against the calf of my leg, and sniffed it a bit.  Next, he laid his head on my shoe, and curled his big, 50 pound head up against my leg.  I moved my foot a bit, and he moved his head to keep it where he wanted it on my shoe and against my leg. 

I guess we are pals, me and him, although I really don’t know what he sees in me for a friend.

India Medical Camp

I’m skipping ahead in our India experience.  To go in chronological order was getting a little monotonous in my thought process while writing about it.  I found myself saying, “Then we did this, and after that, then we did that.”

Which made it hard for me to be enthused.  So, from now on, it may be a random hodge-podge.  Ha.  I bet that could be said about anything I write.

*****

We started getting things around the evening before, checking inventory, talking over what to take and what not to take.  Of course, it was Bryce, Derek, and Jenny checking it out, because I had no clue what to check for, much less what we planned to do the next day.

Early the next morning, sometime around 5, alarm bells started clanging around in the lower and second story of that cement built, three story house Bryce and his mission family stayed in.  By then, for me, jet lag had sort of eased off a little, and I was able to roll out of bed comparatively easy, and in a decent mood.

Themeri, pronounced as Tim-a-ry, was outside the compound, waiting for us in his diesel minivan.  He and the boys looked over the supplies to make sure they had what they needed and then some of us piled in with him, and some in the Scorpio, a diesel 4runner type of vehicle. 

We got started on our journey, eastward, at least if my directions were halfway correct, to a little town called Jaigaon, which as situated right up against the border of Bhutan.  Bryce said it was about 70 miles away, but took them four hours or so to get there the last time they had gone that way.

We moved from the warm, dusty streets of Siliguri onto a nicely paved road that wound past beautifully trimmed tea gardens, all trimmed to perfectly level waist height, and then on past into a towering jungle with huge trees arching over the road at least a hundred feet over our heads. 

The jungle soon gave way to occasional rice fields with domed rice shucks scattered throughout the field.  All along the way, scattered at haphazard intervals, were large convoys of semi-trucks and trailers.  Huge rigs, coupled to two trailers at times, with the windows all shuttered.  Bryce told me that India has a law that only allows these rigs to travel at night, a fact which I was to find out firsthand later in the day.  For now, though, we passed them and saw the random, sleepy looking driver standing by his truck, or, occasionally saw a rig with its engine being stripped down right on the side of the road in a quick repair.

We arrived in the general area of where we thought this medical camp would be held, and the boys started looking for folks standing along the main road we were on to guide us in.  Sure enough, they soon spotted a couple of guys standing and waving their arms and we hopped out to see if they were who we wanted to see.  They were, and we turned from going east into a southerly direction for a few kilometers.  In that time, we left any remnants of civilization and were soon bouncing along in a deeply overgrown road. 

Our guides pulled over to the side of the road where a couple of houses stood.  So far, I hadn’t seen any people and wondered how this was going to turn out. 

The boys got started scrounging around for things they knew they needed.  I didn’t know what we needed, and when they picked up an old bed frame and said they thought it would work, I nodded dumbly in agreement.  They set it on its legs, found a piece of wood and put it on top, saying that it would work just fine as a table, albeit a quite low one. 

By now, a number of locals had arrived.  I gathered as much that they were somewhat involved in helping get the show going.  They brought a blue tarp and set it up over the area we planned to work as sort of a shade.  Bryce and Derek were busily unpacking all the meds we had brought along in all the big plastic packing containers and arranging them on the low slung table/bedframe.  I could hear them discussing about what should go where and what they used the most of last time.  Again, I was totally out of the loop; didn’t have a clue what this whole thing was going to look like.

A nicer vehicle rolled up and Themeri said the Doctor was here.  A lady got out with him, and I correctly guessed her to be a nurse.  A quick conference was held, and a game plan was decided upon.  A table was set up at the 4 o’clock position from the bedframe.  Another couple of tables were set up at the 8 and 9 o’clock positions on the other side of the bedframe.  At the first of these some folks from a local church group sat and then at the last one, Themeri sat. 

Part of the supply we brought along included small, neat plastic sacks with nice handles on them.  We quickly laid out some gospel literature pamphlets and formed a line picking up and making a bundle of the different titles before putting it into the sack.  I would guess we had close to a couple hundred, maybe more, of those sacks filled with literature and stacked up behind the bedframe, together with all the meds still left in the containers. 

Themeri told the local pastor that we were ready.  That pastor asked if we could start with a prayer, which we did, and also asked if we would be so kind as to take our noon meal with his family.  To which we agreed.  The pastor then gave the word to a few locals, and the folks started trickling in.  First bashfully, but as the day wore on, determinedly.

It finally became apparent to me what the plan was when I saw it in action.  A local person would step up to the nurse, tell her and the Doctor their ailments while the nurse was taking their blood pressure and writing notes.  They would move over to the Doctor who would tell them to stick their tongue out so he could look at their throat.  Next, he listened to their heart, and palpated their stomach.  Finally, he reviewed their case, scribbled something quickly onto his tablet, tore off the sheet and handed it to them, at which point he directed them to the low-slung bedframe table. 

The ’patient’ gave their script to the boys, who quickly deciphered what the Doctor had written, reached behind them for one of those plastic bags, and reached down and over the many different medications to fill the prescription.

The boys asked me if I wanted to help, but it soon became obvious to me that the crazy blue light under the tarp, coupled with the script that intermittently morphed from English to Hindi and then back again had me lost in at sea in a storm of unintelligible mutterings and disorientation.  I assured the boys that they were doing a fine job and said I was sure my good wife would need to go for a walk soon. 

From the script table, the ‘patient’ moved on to the pastor’s table where he offered them some literature from their church.  Then, from there, they went to Themeri, who read again the note from the Doctor, transcribed it into local speak and wrote it out for them to reference later while verbally telling them how much to take and how often. 

Let’s just say that the restrooms had the women perplexed.  There was no throne whatsoever.  Just a hole, about a foot in diameter, in the middle of a concrete floor.  Due to the humidity, and possibly other factors, the cement was quite slippery around the edges of the hole, which seemed to limit the ability to release what a person had entered the room to release. 

I soon picked up on a couple of very decent boys who were helping here and there.  One, I think, was the pastor’s son.  The other was a local in the village.  When it was time for our noon meal, these two fine young men showed us back into the jungle to the residence where we were to take our meal.  They offered us two dishes, one was chicken curry, the other goat.  They offered us a couple of spoons to share amongst ourselves, but Bryce told them we had learned to eat with our fingers.  They seemed relieved to know that.

I chose the chicken, being (and still am) a little leery about goat.  The scars on my good wife’s arm are mute reminder of a day when a goat and a dog at our place became inseparable until death did one of them part, and my good wife tried to intervene.  Images of that fight, and the general diabolical look and nature those animals have compromised my appetite for the dish that day. 

Bryce took the goat meat and was instantly blessed while I was instantly transformed into a human inferno as soon as I took my first bite of chicken curry.  He said his goat meat tasted just fine and wasn’t very spicey at all.  Let’s just say that the effects of my meal lingered well into the next day or two as it eventually exited my system.

People kept coming to the clinic.  By midafternoon, I had no idea how many we had seen.  I definitely saw some repeats come through a few times.  Most of their ailments were rashes, or stomach problems.  Bryce told me many of them have stomach issues for life due to the poor quality of water they drink. 

One older fellow, not looking well at all, said he thought he had something wrong with his heart.  And indeed, I could see the Doctor looking over him very concernedly.  But the meds we brought along were of the general salves and low strength pain relief.  Also some for stomach problems.  Themeri came over and whispered, “Just give him some of everything.  It won’t help at all, but maybe it will help him feel like we did what we could for him.”

Warm, humid darkness settled in on us, but it didn’t abate the flow of humanity to the table, now lit by a single incandescent bulb hung with the wires feeding it it’s electricity.  It soon winked out for good, so we strapped on some headlamps and carried on.  Finally, Themeri said we had to stop, or we’d be there all night. 

*****

Three faces stay with me from that day.  Those of the two boys I mentioned earlier, and that of an older Mama.

She was so respectful. 

She had watched, just on the fringes of the crowd, for most of the day. 

Her back had a deep indention through layers and layers of muscle to her backbone, and yet she was so thin. 

I surmised her life to have been one of extreme hard labor, and possibly hardship from other avenues, based on her timidity. 

Finally, when we were packing the meds up, and Themeri had shooed the rest of the people away, she approached the doctor.  They talked quietly for a bit, and then the doctor came over, himself, to the med table and looked for what he wanted.  Not finding it, he rummaged in the packing crates until he found it.  Gently he handed it to her and in quiet Hindi told her what to take and how much. 

And then she vanished into the darkness.

As I type this, on Sunday evening, September 18, I realize that tomorrow will be the Queen of England’s funeral. 

I think of all the pomp and circumstance that will surround that event and possibly, from a human’s way of thinking, it is right and good.

But I think of that dear Mama, over there, almost 10,000 miles away.  Does she deserve any less?  Is she any less of a human being? 

And I am comforted in this thought, that it’s not so much what the sendoff from this side is like, but it’s the arrival, on the other side, that makes all the difference.

I like to think that, like it says in a Book I read that ‘When sheawakes, she shall be satisfied with the likeness she looks upon.’ Ps 17:15

A Normal Life

Some ten years ago, we got a phone call from down south. 

There were a few questions about the health of the Patriarch in my good wife’s family.  They were currently living in Truman Arkansas. 

What concerned them, they said, was that Dad was a little off.  His normal energy was lacking a bit; his regular sharp mind wasn’t always on point.

We decided to give it a couple of days and then see.  A couple of days turned out to be too much time to give it. 

On the morning of the third day, Dad was in the OR, and we were heading our pea green Dodge Caravan east towards Springfield, then southeast through the torturous curves heading into Mammoth falls, before dropping down into West Plains, and finally coasting to a stop in the Jonesboro parking lot of St Bernard’s hospital a little after midnight. 

Brother-in-law Galen and I went down the hall to see what we could see.  At an intersection with another hall we heard, “Clear the way, coming through,” and stepped back just in time to see our Dad being rolled away from the many hours he had just spent in the OR. 

The night nurses said they needed a little time to get Dad ready for us as a family to visit him.  We later found out that they didn’t expect him to make the night and didn’t want all the stress on us until the last minute.  I’m no medical professional, but I do know that he looked more dead than alive when we caught that glimpse of him as he rolled through. 

And he did die.  A couple of times.  The stress of the long surgery and the high infection rate in his blood from a staff infection he had picked up through a scratch wound while grinding tree stumps was too much for even his sturdy constitution.  But the One Who Knows had mercy on us and, working through the skilled efforts of the doctors and nurses brought him back to us.

The next few days were very much touch and go.  His journey to recovery had him in the hospital for 4 weeks and another 3 at an inhouse therapy location. 

Somewhere during that time, the Doctor told us that we could expect Dad to make a good recovery and go on to live a normal life.

Being somewhat naïve when it came to Doctor language, I took the Doc at his word. 

I became frustrated with the Doctor’s words as time moved along.

It was only some years later, almost ten in fact, that I think I began to understand the meaning of those words spoken back there in that hospital room.

I think what that Doctor meant was, in whatever way a person recovers, then at that stage of the game he/she begins a new phase of normal life.

Say you blew your knee out and had two surgeries to get back to walking.  Whenever someone professional would look at your case, they would review how far you had come, what your mobility currently was, and even though that mobility didn’t allow you to run much, if at all, said professional would say, “Yes, you are functioning normally for having had two surgeries.”

Normal, in such a case, seems arbitrary.

In our human way of thinking, we’d like normal to go on and build upon itself.

We’d like life to return to the original status quo once all the drama had been enacted and lived through.

But I believe that Doctor held out some wisdom to us that day. 

We humans don’t go through the molting process like some animals do.  Neither do we metamorphosize like some other animals. 

No.  We start out in what, for hopefully many of us, is a steady projection of growth and good things.

We are so sure of what we call the predictability of normalcy that we even go to the extra length of charting our progress on graphs.

May I hazard a question? 

If our projection of normalcy were lived out perfectly, would we be the better because of it?

I look at the animal kingdom.  I see those that molt or metamorphosize.  In each one, I see a new, and in some cases, a completely different creature.

So far, I have never seen one of those creatures go back to the original they once were. 

I don’t see snakes trying to crawl back into their old, worn-out skin. 

Neither do I see those beautiful butterflies folding up their wonderful wings and squirming back into the worm body they used to call normal.

Rather, they move on to the next phase, and more than that, they embrace it, if you will.

Methinks it was some of that philosophy that the good Doc was holding out to us back there in Jonesboro.

I look at the scar on my right collarbone and feel the plate of metal just beneath it.  I probably don’t like so well the way the scar looks, but by now it’s a part of me.  It reminds me of who I have become since then; it’s a mere point in the journey, not the end result.

I think back to that stage when our children were just the right size to sit on my lap, their head tucked in perfectly under my chin.  I look back and say that normal could have lasted a long time to my way of thinking.  But if it had lasted, then we still would be waiting to take the quick, last-minute trip to Wichita that we took Saturday with both our boys and their beautiful wives for an Indian meal. 

And why do you think we all crave Indian food? 

Likely a normal somewhere was shattered.

I look back to this last summer and all the fun times my comrade daughter and I had.  That normal still tugs a fair bit.  I see how happy she is over there in New York, and I realize I never would have learned to know the fine girls/young ladies she is teaching.  Nor would I have learned to know their folks and the couple she stays with if that summer normal would have lasted.  

I guess, in the end, it’s better that we humans take on new normals.  It isn’t always easy, and the end may not always be clear.  Travel on a few years, though, and it becomes the new normal.

In a way, moving on to a new normal begins the natural shedding process of things not meant to be carried any longer.

Probably a fellow with the last name of Browning put it about right—

‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’