The Day the World Changed

The day began as did most of my days with sound of the alarm clock at 4:45.  Forty minutes later, showered, shaved, and with coffee in hand, I was out the door and on my way to the park and ride.

It was a beautiful morning. I took the 6:10 bus to my cubical in a windowless office on the ground floor of the Pentagon and began my day shortly after seven.

At eight o'clock, we assembled in the Colonel's office for staff call. Half-way through the status reports the building was jolted as if by an explosion.  We didn't realize it at the time, but our world had been suddenly and irrevocably changed.

There was conversation.  

"What was that?" 

"It felt like blast over pressure."

"It did. I haven't felt anything like that since the night they blew up the Pleiku ammo dump."

"I heard that someone ran an airplane into the World Trade Center."

"It was two planes. The second one hit right before we came in."

"You don't suppose someone did something here?"

"Maybe we should see what happened."

I moved to my desk and began shutting down my computer.  Someone opened the door.  The hall was full of smoke. We realized "Yeah. Maybe we should be getting out of here." 

Remembering what countless elementary school teachers had said about fire drills -- don't stop; don't go back for anything -- I left the computer behind and walked out the door, away from the smoke and out of the building.

Only later did we learn that the Pentagon had been hit by an airplane. Only then did we recognize that the world had been changed.

When I went to work that day, my nation and the world were at peace. Before I got home we were at war.

I went to work believing in goodness. I returned having experienced evil.

I went to work not doubting I would return home when work was done. Nearly 4000 of my fellow citizens probably thought likewise, only to have their lives ended in an act of coldly premeditated malice.  

I went to work not considering the means by which one people can inflict terror on another. I returned outraged at the atrocity I had witnessed. And, since anger is the appropriate response to outrage, I returned from work angry and eager to see justice done..

Eleven years have passed since the day the world changed. Time has done little to assuage my outrage.  An atrocity, even after eleven years, remains an atrocity. Time has allowed me give up my expectation and hope of retribution and get on with life. In some quarters, that probably counts as forgiveness. 

How about you?

Where were you the day the world changed?

How has it affected you personally?

A Good Thing

Forty-six years ago, I stood in front of a church as the most beautiful girl in the world walked down the aisle to join her hand and life to mine.

Nothing has been the same since.

We were both young. It is no esaggeration when I call her my teenaged bride.

No one expected us to make it. We were told that statistics were against us. We didn't care. Rather, with optimism fueled by youthful infatuation, we determined to be the exception.   

Neither of us knew exactly what we were getting into, but were determined to get into it and go through it together.  

Neither of us in our wildest imagination could have forseen college, flight school, ten years of active military service, one war followed by nine months of recovery, cancer, Pink Panthers, four children, eight grand children, numerous grand dogs, and nineteen addresses including thirty years at a single address in the same community. 

When we married, neither of us thought that we could love each other more, or that life could get any better.  We were both wrong.

Today, I can only look back in wonder at the last forty-six years. They went by so fast, and are not nearly enough.

To those who knew us and were there forty-six years ago, thank you. You are very dear to us.

To those of you whom we've met since then, thank you for being part of it all. You have enriched our lives immeasureably.

And to my teenaged bride of forty-six years I say, "I'm still not sure exactly what I'm getting into, but I want to get into it with you.  And I know it will be wonderful."

It is written that "He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the LORD."

I am, among men, most richly blessed.

Green Leaves of Summer

Green leaves of Summer;

Memories of times long past

and fields of my youth.

 

The green leaves of summer in the fields of my youth were the leaves of six acres of mature tobacco plants awaiting harvest beginning in mid August.. 

Known as housing tobacco, harvest meant long days in the fields and barns getting the crop in the house. I remember the pop and snort of the tractor taking us to the field, the rhythm of bending the plant over and cutting it off low to the ground with a single whack of the cutter and then moving on to the next plant.  I remember how to stack the cut plants so they were easy to pick up and how to load them on the wagon without breaking the leaves. 

I remember the feel of the sun on my neck and often shirtless back. Sweat got in my eyes. Tobacco gum, the incomparably bitter sap of the plant, got all over everything, sometimes so much that I could stand my jeans in the corner for the night. And the taste got in my mouth. Only a ripe tomato filched from a vine on the edge of the field could get rid of it. 

Only in retrospect do I realize how good it all was, how important those times were and will ever remain.

 

As the song says

"It was good to be young then,

To be close to the earth,

And the green leaves of Summer

Are calling me home."  

 

An Attitude to Finish With

It has long been written you should never buy a car built on either a Monday or a Friday. The logic is on Monday, too many  workers are recovering from the weekend to do their best work and on Friday, too many are slacking off in anticipation of the weekend.  Quality surveys at the time tended to bear this out.  Popular knowledge said that cars produced on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday had the least problems and lasted longest..

In our culture that Wednesday is widely referred to as "hump day".  On hump day the work-week is precariously balanced -- half done, and half to be completed.

On Wednesday afternoon, we are free to release some of the pressure to perform that drives our early efforts and begin what many refer to as "that long pleasant slide into the weekend". By quitting time Friday, when we finally shut down, our minds have already been out the front door for half a day.

Such an attitude assumes that we work five days a week so that we can truly live the other two.  As a result, we coast through the week and through life doing less than our best, wondering why we fail to excel. We also end up enduring rather than living a large fraction of our existence.

Rather than looking at Wednesday as the beginning of a long slide into the weekend, why not look on it as the beginning of a final sprint to the finish line? Runners in competition know the value of the final sprint or "kick" at the end of the race.  Depending on the competition, the strength and duration of one's kick may mean the difference between a medal and finishing in the middle of the pack.

Starting well is important, but one can make up for a less than optimal start.

Continuing strong is important. It keeps one in contention for the finish.

But a good kick, a strong final sprint at the finish is required to become a champion.

And, a strong kick is a matter of attitude.

So, how are you spending your life?

Are you well into that long slide to whatever comes next or are you sprinting to attain the prize?

The choice is yours.

High Riding Heroes

My heroes have always been cowboys,

And they still are, it seems.

Sadly in search of and one step in back of 

Themselves, and their slow movin' dreams.

--  as sung  by Waylon Jennings and  Willie Nelson

I grew up in the 1950s during the decline of radio and the rise of television as the family home entertainment medium of choice.  Consequently, I developed an appreciation for the offerings of both media.  

As she worked during the afternoons, my mom would listen to soap operas such as our "Our Gal Sunday" (Can a girl from a simple mining town in the west find happiness with one of England's most titled Lords?), The Romance of Helen Trent (proving that romance can begin at thirty-five.), and others. 

Shortly after four PM, the programming changed and soap operas gave way to programs designed to entertain the kids when they got home from school before the family sat down to supper.  Sponsorship changed from soap, detergent, and home products to breakfast cereals.  The theme of the shows shifted from modern romance to tales of high adventure and great good deeds. Lead characters were no longer women seeking happiness and romance but strong men striving to carve out and civilize a place in the American West. 

When I got home from school, after the chores were done, I would sit and soak up the adventures of Wild Bill Hickock and his sidekick Jingles P. Jones, of Sky King, the Arizona rancher who flew an airplane while maintaining law and order on his large Arizona ranch.  I would eagerly follow the adventures of Straight Arrow, the crime-fighting alter ego of rancher Steve Adams, and, moving north, of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, sworn to bring in the lawless and maintain the right.

After supper and the news with Lowell Thomas, the entire family would listen to the adventures of The Cisco Kid and his sidekick Pancho, followed by The Lone Ranger. 

Much of my character and many of my values were imparted to me by these mostly fictional heroes. They lived in a world that never existed and did great deeds that never took place in history.  Yet, from them I learned values that remain eternally real.  

I learned to be truthful. The bad guy was usually a liar.

I learned to be honest.  The bad guy usually cheated at cards and sometimes got shot because of it.

I learned to be honorable.  The good guy always carried through on his commitments, even when he was alone, and no matter what it cost him.

I learned to be loyal.  The good guy always stood with and never deserted his friends.

I learned to be courteous, to answer when spoken to, to listen without butting in and to treat others as I would want to be treated.

And I learned to be kind.  The good guy never mistreated his animals or those who couldn't defend themselves.

And I learned that life itself is an adventure that will find you if you let it.

Fictionalized heroes in fictional situations living real values: who would have thought it?

To whom or what do you attribute your values, your character?

How's that working for you?

Simpler Times?

Shortly after ten PM on Friday evening, 29 June 2012, 80 mile per hour winds of the June 2012 Derecho knocked out electrical power in our community and those around us. We awoke on Saturday morning to a world decidedly different than the one we had awakened to a scant 24 hours before.

There would be no fresh brewed coffee; the coffee maker requires electricity.  Neither would there be any fresh perked coffee since the stove is also electric.  Unless I chose to drag out the camp stove, there would there be no bacon, eggs, or even oatmeal due to lack of a heat source. Thank goodness city water and sewer allowed the water to continue to run and the toilets to continue to flush.

Land line phones were out and cellular service spotty due to storm damage.  Wireless phones require electricity even even when attached to the land line.  Internet service via the iPad was so slow and unreliable that I shut it down to save battery.

In short, our thoroughly modern community five miles from Washington Dulles Airport and thirty miles outside our nation's capital was forced to cope with the limitations of what our nineteenth and early twentieth-century ancestors would have called every day life.  Without power, our options were limited.

The community in which I grew up had been electrified less than fifteen years when I was born.  During my boyhood, we had neighbors who lived without electricity, mostly for fear of fire and electrocution.  Somehow, they never quite made the connection between coal oil lamps and fire hazards.  Oil lamps were a familiar hazard. Electricity was a great unknown and prone to fail during summer and winter storms.

My grandmother cooked on a wood stove four seasons of the year.  So did my mother until 1953 when Dad bought her a stove that used liquid propane as its fuel.  He chose gas because electric power was unreliable and cooking and eating were important even when the power was out.

At my Grand Dad's house, water was pumped by hand and carried to the kitchen in a bucket.  A good friend's family dipped their water from a nearby spring.  Our electric pump provided cold water to the kitchen as long as the power was on; during power outages, we hauled water pumped from my grand parents' well in ten gallon milk cans.


Water for washing was heated on the kitchen stove summer and winter.  There was no shower; the bathtub was made by Wheeling Steel, hung on a nail on the back porch and was dragged in at bath time.  We learned early how to take a sponge bath. 


There was no bathroom. The "necessary facility" was an outhouse which required a walk, or else a chamber pot that had to be emptied daily.  People back then dealt with a lot of mess and smells with which people today are entirely unfamiliar. 


There was no central heat and no air conditioning, but houses were designed with windows to take advantage of whatever cooling breezes there were.  When it was hot, we slowed down, drank lots of water, and stayed in the shade as much as possible. When it was cold, we put on extra layers, piled extra quilts on the bed, and built the fire a bit hotter in the stove.

Some would say that times were simpler back then.  And, when viewed through one lens, they were.  But that simplicity required more knowledge, more skills, and more labor than we are used to expending today.  In those times, these now antiquated skills were a normal part of life, necessary for comfort and survival, learned and practiced almost from the time one could walk.  


Today, we learn, practice, and rely on different skills for our comfort and survival.  Today, our twenty-first century houses and facilities are ill designed or equipped to support a nineteenth century lifestyle for more than a short time.  Yet, when the power goes out, we are returned to the capabilities of the nineteenth century and must make do with that which is. 


When the power goes out, I wonder how well my life skills match up to those of my grand parents and great grand parents.

How well do yours?

How would you make do and survive an extended period without power?

What would you have to do differently in order to thrive in such an environment?

Independence Day

"Let freedom ring.

Let the white bird sing.

Let the whole world know that today 

Is a day of remembering...

Roll the stone away

Let the guilty pay;

It's Independence Day!"

 (from "Independence Day, as sung by Martina McBride)

June of 1776 was hot in Philadelphia where representatives of thirteen English-speaking colonies on the North American Continent were "in Congress Assembled".  The curtains were drawn lest the content of their deliberations would be reported to the King's authorities and they be charged with treason.  The windows were also closed, adding to the general stuffiness and discomfort of the delegates.  In the absence of modern sanitation, the city swarmed with so many flies that a motion to open a window was staunchly opposed because it would admit too many.

The delegates were among the leading citizens of their colonies, among them John Adams and John Hancock of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Caesar Rodney of Delaware, Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Maryland, Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, and Lyman Hall of Georgia. 

They were planters, they were trades persons, they were businessmen and merchants. And they were met to petition his Majesty, the King of England, for redress of certain grievances, the chief of which were taxes arbitrarily imposed on them by a far-away crown before whom they had no official representation.

Some wished to to restore harmony with the mother country.  Others favored dissolving all bonds with England.  

After much debate an more than a few false starts, a committee was formed to draft a declaration of "independency."  The result, mostly written by Thomas Jefferson begins with the words "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have connected them with another" and continues to speak of self-evident truths:  "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

These were radical ideas.

The rights of citizens are inalienable rather than granted as favors by a capricious ruler?  Radical!

Citizens have a right to live freely and pursue their own interests rather than those of their liegelord? Radical!

Governments are formed to secure the rights of the citizenry rather than the privileges of the chosen few? Radical!

Governments are to derive their power from the consent of those governed rather than the divine right of kings?  Radical!

Citizens have the right and even have the duty to abolish an oppressive government and then to form a new government based on principals that seem good to the citizens themselves rather than what seems good to some distant monarch?  Unspeakably radical, treasonous, and revolutionary.

By assenting to these ideas, by declaring all things connecting the thirteen colonies to the mother country dissolved, and by claiming for themselves the rights of independent states, those who signed the declaration were committing treason against the English Crown.  Yet they approved, and signed.  Each one signing pledged for the support of the Declaration, with a firm reliance on divine providence, their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. 

Independence day isn't only about fireworks and picnics and dogs and burgers and beer.  It's about radical ideas.  It's about self evident truths and inalienable rights and duties. It's about pledging your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor.

How radical are you?

How do you claim your inalienable rights?

Are you willing to join the signers and pledge, for the support of this Declaration, your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor?