First Things First

Growing up on a farm, I am acquainted with the laws of the farm. The first law states that there is a proper season for every activity whether it be planting, cultivating, harvesting or bringing to market; the second states that whatever you plant is exactly what you're going to harvest. I also became acquainted with the law of priority. Securing the necessities of life -- food, clothing, shelter and the means of earning them is the top priority. Comforts are the second priority. Once the necessities are secure, we can devote resources to obtaining some comforts in the form of better food, nicer clothing, more comfortable housing and maybe some entertainment. Luxuries come dead last, only after needs are met, and basic comforts provided. First, the necessities. Then the comforts. Finally the luxuries. These priorities have served me very well in providing for my family. For me, they are as invariant as seed time and harvest. Or are they? Lately, I see growing numbers of people securing comforts and luxuries before they have the necessities. And a great many of them seem to be making it work. Need shelter? Some agency will subsidise it for you. Need clothing? You will not be allowed to go naked. Someone will provide it. Need food? Food stamps! Run out of stamps? Creative dumpster diving or an emergency delivery by the local food bank. Apparently, one can eat quite well and even thrive on the dole. Priorities are for other people. Forget about the necessities and go for the large screen high definition TV! After all, life is all about the toys and priorities only apply to those who either voluntarily or involuntarily provide the resources to subsidise the lives of those whose first priority is to play. I'm disgusted. We're sowing irresponsibility. What do we hope to reap?

Just Do It!

I'm a Newton's second law kind of guy. I tend to remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced external force. No amount of training in Getting Things Done or other time and task management techniques will get me out of my chair until I am acted on by some force or impulse. This afternoon was a case in point. I needed to mow the lawn. I intended to mow the lawn. Mowing the lawn was on my weekend projects list. My next actions -- Get out of chair; Put on shoes -- were duly identified and recorded. Yet I spent over four hours planted in front of my computer making excuses and manfully resisting all urges to get up and simply mow the lawn. It looked like it might rain and I probably wouldn't have time to finish. It was hot. I needed to wait until it was cooler. And so forth. And so forth. It's not like mowing my lawn is a really big and onerous job requiring lots of time and physical stamina. It's not. My house sits on a 1/5 acre lot along with six trees and three flower beds. Mowing the lawn is generally a 40 to 50 minute job. Neither is my lawn thick and lush enough to require great physical effort to push the mower through a dense carpet of grass. In fact, were it not for broad-leaf weeds, I'd have no lawn at all. Indeed, some portions only need mowing to chop off seed pods that the weeds insist on growing taller than the surrounding area. And some portions didn't need mowing at all. Rather, it was a matter of Newtons' second law. My resting body wanted nothing more than to remain at rest. However, there is a limit to the amount of indolence that a person can endure and late this afternoon I reached that limit. It was either get up and move or perpetually assume the shape of the chair. So, I got up and moved, and it felt good. I put my shoes on, and that felt better. I opened the front door and the air was soft and sweet, and that was the best of all. Then, since I hate exercise without a purpose, and having a neat lawn is at least a purpose of sorts, I opened up the shed, got out the lawn mower, gassed it up, and pulled the rope. I was answered by a pop that grew into a satisfying purr, and before I realized what was happening, I was happily pushing the mower up and down the front and then the side and back yards, humming as I went. In 35 minutes, the lawn was mowed. As I knew in the back of my mind while I was putting it off, I did a great job and thoroughly enjoyed doing it. Sometimes the only way to overcome Newton's second law is to just do it. You'll be glad you did.

Truth at the End of a Long Handled Hoe

It's summer and school has been out for nearly a month. Our friends who have children and teens are looking hard for solutions to the seemingly constant complaint of "I'm bored." When our children were that age, I came to dread those two words as much as any others. "I'm bored." 

 I had the good fortune to grow up on a farm -- I was never allowed to be bored. When I was young, summers were for playing outdoors and, when I got bored with that, there was always the garden. 

 In the garden, there were always weeds. And weeds always needed to be pulled. It wasn't until years later that I realized that the places I was assigned to pull weeds from when I was a child were places where there was no danger that my childish enthusiasm for uprooting stuff would damage any of the plants we were trying to nurture! 

When I got older, I was given the responsibility -- today I consider it an honour -- of working with my Dad and Grand Dad to produce the crops that would sustain us through the coming winter and until next year's crop went to market. 

 However, at the age of eleven, working in the fields and tobacco barns was exactly what I didn't want to do with my summer. I recall protesting long and bitterly before grudgingly proceeding do what needed to be done. As a result, I learned a lot of truth at the end of a long handled hoe. 

I learned that being dusty won't kill you. 

Being hot won't kill you. 

Being bored won't kill you. 

 The work had to be done whether I wanted to do it or not and the work I did had to be done right. I soon learned that if I didn't do it right the first time, doing it over a second time was no easier than the first, and having to do it a over a third time was damn sure no easier than doing it the second. 

I think three times is my record for having to redo the same row, and I remember the day I set it. That day, I hoed one particular row of worm seed three times before my work would meet my father's minimum acceptable standard. It was almost sunset when I had finished my third trip down the row and Dad told me "You could have been home an hour ago if you'd done it right the first time." 

 The lesson stuck. I learned that complaints fall on deaf ears when your Daddy and your Grand Daddy are in the same field as you doing exactly the same thing you are. 

 I learned that there was a right way and a wrong way even to hoe weeds. And the right way actually requires less effort and gives better results than any other. Weeds between the rows were removed by cultivating with the tractor. Then, we hoed to remove the weeds from between the plants. When hoeing, the objective was not to chop the weeds from between the plants. Chopping took a lot of energy. Instead, the method is to either pull dirt over the weeds if they were small, or to disconnect them from their roots by sliding the blade of the hoe beneath them if they were not. 

 Doing it the right way, if conditions were right, I would get into a rhythm -- kerchunk, kerchunk, kerchunk down one row and kerchunk, kerchunk, kerchunk up the next. Hour after hour, day after day until the harvest. And I learned that when I was in rhythm, moving easily up and down the rows dispatching weeds from between the plants, only the smallest part of my mind needed to be engaged with the task at hand and the rest was free to travel as my imagination directed. 

 During those summers, moving up and down the rows, I authored short stories and novels and directed award-winning screen shows in the free part of my mind. I was present at the great events of history. I had conversations with great men. I performed incredible deeds of heroism. I envisioned my future and established in my imagination the dreams I would one day live. 

 Since that time, I have had the good fortune to live a great many of those dreams. I've even been allowed do some of the deeds of daring that I first envisioned while attached to the end of that hoe during those long past summers. 

 I was hot, bored, dusty, and not always willing but, during those summers in those fields at the end of that hoe, God gave me the grace to recognize truth.

Proclaim Liberty Througout the Land!

This year, I have the pleasure of celebrating Independence day in Philadelphia where, two hundred thirty-three years ago this weekend, fifty-six of the leading citizens of the thirteen english colonies pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the idea of political independence from the mother country. Today, my wife and I walked to Independence Hall where those men met. We saw the Liberty Bell which symbolizes our ideals as a nation. The inscription on the bell enjoins us to "Proclaim Liberty throughout the land, and to all the people thereof." Proclaim Liberty! Proclaim the ideal that each person is free to choose and reap the rewards or suffer the consequences of his own actions. Proclaim Liberty! Proclaim the ideal that each person must stand or fall based upon his own industry or merit. Proclaim Liberty! Proclaim the ideal that government is the servant rather than the master of those governed. Prisoners are confined; slaves are subject to a master's wishes. Yet the same word is used to describe both the prisoner and the slave when they are both no longer confined, or in bondage; they are at liberty! As a nation, we pride ourselves on being neither prisoners nor slaves but at liberty. On this Independence day, join with me and my family and proclaim liberty throughout the land, and to all the people thereof. Proclaim Liberty!

Proclamation

Followers and Friends:

Whereas, the we have officially entered the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, and

whereas, the weather is delightfully warm and balmy, and

whereas, everybody is feeling a bit more laid back than normal,

I hereby proclaim TODAY, June 26 in the year of Our Lord 2009 and every Friday through Labor Day of this year to be Hawaiian Shirt Day.

In celebration thereof, every follower and friend of this blog is to wear a Hawaiian Shirt on this and every subsequent Hawaiian Shirt Day in the year 2009.

Aloha and Mahalo!

The Secret to Surviving

In his classic song, "The Gambler", American troubadour Kenny Rogers asserts that "... the secret to survivin' is knowin' what to throw away and knowin' what to keep." In contrast, I am not a gambler; very little of my stuff is essential to survival. I need a strategy for making the throw away/keep decision. And I have one. If I don't use an item regularly or do not anticipate using it again, I will dispose of it. I plan to start with stuff I haven't used for the last ten or twenty years and with stuff I know I'll never use again. After having disposed of that stuff or restored it to a place of regular use, I plan to work my forward little by little to the present. My intent is to reach the point where I will have tossed, donated, sold, or otherwise disposed of everything I haven't used for the past year. Face it, if I haven't needed or used something for a year, then I probably don't need to keep it around. If I need it again, I should be able to buy, borrow, or rent one and hopefully give it back when I'm finished using it. The only problem will be stuff with historic or sentimental value -- wall maps from the Browningsville School, tobacco spears from Dad's farm, Grand Dad's plumb bob &c. With any luck, I'll be able to donate some of it to the Montgomery County, MD. historic society. Failing that, I'll probably inflict it on my kids. I've already started. I gave my machinist's tool chest and tools to my nephew who is a machinist. He will use them. It felt good.

It's Only Stuff

My parents were part of the generation that survived both the Great Depression and World War II. As one of the last tobacco farmers in a rapidly urbanizing Montgomery County, Md. my Dad never really lost the depression mind set. In our family, hard work and frugality were necessary if we were to eat. Our habit of making much out of little was summed up in a little verse that my mother taught me as a child, saying: "Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do, Or do without!" My wife also came of age in circumstances that required work and the ability to make do with what one had. The net result is that we tend to hang onto stuff long after it has ceased to be useful just in case we might some day need it. I have lugged my machinist's tools to eighteen addresses in the last thirty-nine years just in case I ever need to go back to work in a machine shop to feed my family. They are good and useful stuff. I fondly hold onto books and magazines I have read and might want to read again and to books and magazines I have never read but that sound as if I may one day want to read them. Good and enlightening or entertaining stuff. Old radio equipment has followed me home from places as far distant as North Carolina because it's "good stuff" and might be fun to play with. When my grandparents died, the farming tools and my grandfather's mill-wright tools made the trek to my parent's place. When my parents died, a lot of these same tools took residence with me, not because I needed them or that they had sentimental value, but because I knew how to use them. I feel like I have half of the farm in my basement, but it's still good and potentially useful stuff. I have acquired stuff on impulse because I thought it might be neat to have. A lot of it has stayed with me. I have also held onto stuff because it was not good enough to donate or sell, but way too good to throw away. I am up to my knees in stuff! Sure, I use and enjoy some of it it, but I look at a lot of it and wonder why it's still there. And I look at too much of it and wonder what I was thinking when I dragged it home. I have finally come to the conclusion that will never make me happy and that stuff that is neither used nor enjoyed is clutter. It's time to start the process of de-cluttering, of getting rid of stuff I neither need, nor use, nor take pleasure in -- item by item and piece by piece. After all, it's not anything of real value. It's only stuff.