Look for the Helpers

They gave Linda Green a birthday party and what a party it was! But it had to be a surprise party so husband Willie took her to Macon for some shopping while the community of Wrightsville prepared the house and grounds for what was probably the social event of the year. Friends came from as far away as Atlanta and Columbus to celebrate with the family and pay their respects to a woman who has become a leader in this small southern town. Known by all as “Miss Linda” she works in a nursing home, helping the elderly with their problems while doing things in the community for anyone who needs a hand. “Miss Linda” is constantly involved in cooking for sit-ins, taking close to those in need and keeping an eye on neighbors who may need help getting to the store or with healthcare.

As I sat down to write about this wonderful woman, two bombs went off in Boston and my train of thought took a different turn, going from celebration to horror at the sight of people running, not in the Boston Marathon but from the noise or to help someone in need. And then I thought, we can all be Linda Greens in a way. Our wonderful country is loaded with people who will run to the aide of others when they feel the need. And so, as it does so many times when we have been faced with adversity, our media runs with the story and begin to focus as much on what the good people do as what the bad people have done.

The loss of an eight year old child is met with the heroics of a first responder saving another’s life. This is probably one of the things that make us different from those who hate. We find solace in the good our fellow citizens do and that makes us all feel better about whom we are and who we can become. Then we hear about Phillies’ outfielder, Ben Revere, who, having heard about the Boston tragedy, taped a message on his ball glove saying, “Pray for Boston”.

What a wonderful gesture from outfielder Revere that says so much about our country. We came together after 9/11 and we will come together again in the next few days as word of who was responsible and the positive deeds of those who heard the cries of help are told. As I write this I am comforted by the knowledge that we will find those responsible, but just as comforted in the knowledge that we will still be Americans, going to work, raising our families, attending churches and creating an environment where we all can prosper and grow as humans.

In a way, life is sort of like that Boston Marathon. We strive to run the good race, facing our personal demons, and confronting the evil brought to bear on ourselves and others while helping each other cross the finish line of life in a way in which we can all take pride. Some of us finish sooner than others and evil may have a temporary victory over good, but thanks to people like Linda Green and Ben Revere, evil never wins in the long run. May God bless the people of Boston and those who lost family members in this tragedy.

Fire in the Belly

I passed a turtle on the road the other day and couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking trying to cross a four lane road at zero miles per hour. It seems with the armadillos there’s enough road kill out there to feed half of Detroit.

When you’re my age everything tastes like chicken anyway.

But that turtle trying to cross the road makes you wonder, unless you understand that he really wants to get to the other side. If you watch carefully you’ll see him duck his head about the time you reach him. Obviously some higher order thinking skills here or why duck when a two ton car about to turn him into buzzard buffet passes by. Yes, you have to wonder what gets that turtle fired up enough to try to cross the road. I would guess it’s one of those basic needs we hear about.

Sort of like a politician’s need to be re-elected again and again. Some of us are turtles and take a little more time crossing the road (some become the armadillo) and others get there fairly quickly, like a squirrel for instance. It’s the fire we’re sometimes missing, the fire that burns in the turtle’s belly and moves him across the road.

When I read about some of our schools I want to ask, where’s the fire and who’s got the matches? I don’t give a rat’s rump about scores on a test. Also, I’ll let you in on a little secret, not all our kids are going to find the fire in college. Another apparently little known fact is that some aren’t even going to college. Where did we get this idea that all fires are lit in college anyway?!

If I were a high school administrator I think I would find a way to ask my faculty a couple of questions at the end of each year. “How many fires did you light this year and how many times did you become a fire extinguisher?” Those are the important questions. If you want to pay on merit (a good idea if they can get the fire extinguishers out of the buildings) find out who’s lighting fires. As a parent I would be asking the administrator, “Who do you have lighting a fire under my son/daughter?” Not, “uh excuse me Dr. Doolittle, can you tell me why Tabitha can’t score high enough on the SAT to get into UGA?”

The answer to that is as plain as the deer in the headlights look on Doolittle’s face. Tabitha is sitting on marble and her rear end is as cold as that armadillo that wasn’t fired up enough to cross the road. Tabitha will glow like a roman candle whenever someone lights her fire, be it teacher, parent or maybe somebody at church. There are fire starters everywhere so why have we put ourselves in this box of can’t strike anywhere matches when it comes to our kids? It’s time we began to develop children where we find them, stopped trying to push college for every child who enters the first grade, renew a since of gratitude for those people who can fix stuff that breaks around our houses and put some money in teaching vocational skills again.

Every time my toilet breaks I’m wondering what course I slept through at Georgia Southern that taught us the intricate workings of the commode. The answer is always the same…none. We’re reading articles that tell us the sky is darn sure falling if the governor cuts the budget for higher education. Well, there’s somebody out there all fired up about fixing toilets and sinks who isn’t all that concerned about the governor’s budget. I’ll bet ol’ Sonny himself needs a toilet fixed now and then.

Don’t get me wrong, studying art literature and history is time well spent but when you think about it you can read about these things. Teach your child to read and he or she will always be able to “study” art, literature or history. Take pride in that child of yours who wants to learn a trade instead of attending college. Ever ask yourself why scores are considered so important to school folks? It’s simple…they can be measured and compared. Fire, on the other hand, is something beautiful to watch but difficult to measure.

A Burden on Society

I never thought I’d be looked at as a burden on society at the age of sixty six but it seems the day has dawned. After putting hundreds of dollars a month into my social security (that’s right, mine) fund since 1965, the year I worked a summer camp and discovered I was not actually making what I thought I was making because somebody said I needed to “put something aside”, I now find that my “benefactor”, Uncle Sam and my future caregivers, the ones that can manage to get through nursing school, are slowly coming around to the idea that I just might be a burden.

Scary thought because I don’t see myself as that, having contributed to my fund for so many years and now reaping the benefits thereof. But I hear bits and pieces coming from youthful sources that seem to be saying, “If it weren’t for these old folks, we’d have all we need!” Well, yes and no. See, we old folks are currently providing untold millions of dollars to the economy through health care in the form of Depends, cholesterol meds, chronic joint juices, hearing aids, plastic surgery, (did I mention insurance premiums?) and dental implants (thank you Dr. Argo you are fantastic!).

And that is just the tip of the surgical knife. There’s also the multitude of drug peddlers pushing products that don’t work. They’re raking in the cash off those of us too ignorant to know the difference between incontinence and large continents, not to mention the Cialis/Levitra/Viagra crowd intent on using memory enhancing pills designed to improve performance when most have forgotten what it was they were to perform. And speaking of working or not, young folks need to do that to keep me in my social security. There is nothing better than a good hard day spent in toil to make one’s self-esteem rise and since we are all about self-esteem with the youngsters, let em work! Plus it’s good for the soul and seldom has a negative effect.

The sad thing to me is, as I consider my peers, I see many of them suffering from what are known as hypokinetic diseases. I call them the “couch potato diseases” because we seem to have a tendency to acquire them when we sit around too much. Heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, low back pain and other ailments drive a health care industry from which the young folks are deriving benefits. If we stopped sitting on the coach after work, they just might lose money in the form of fewer jobs. Sitting on the couch after work decreases the body’s demand for energy and it responds by providing less of the thing we need. I’m tired after work so I don’t give away energy and I don’t give away energy because I’m tired after work. Sadly, this is a “catch twenty two”.

Whew! Makes me tired just writing this stuff. Movement requires energy and energy is like love, the more we give it away, the more it returns. So, for instance, when you are bedridden in a hospital your energy level drops considerably but after a few days of recuperation at home it returns. This would be considered a low level of energy for sure but never the less the same is true of higher levels. Our bodies crave movement, we digest food better when we move, we create endorphins when we move and all manner of other good stuff that makes us feel good.

 I have to be honest here and confess I’ve not contributed much to the over-all wealth and self-esteem of our young people. Through continuous exercise, walking, and the blessed recumbent cycle, I have managed to stay healthy and away from pharmaceuticals for lo these many years. Walking, by the way, is the one word you will not hear on an infomercial espousing exercise machines. It’s free, requires only a pair of shoes, unless at the beach, and the will to do it. It’s probably the best way we have as old folks of keeping money out of the hands of the young.

Serious Business

Bullying is serious business today but why so much more now than in year’s past? Why does it take the form of extreme violence instead of children being children? I can honestly say that I have been on the receiving and the giving end of bullying more than once. Allow me to tell you of a few of these “atrocities”.

My first instance came when a chubby little third grader named Brad something or other caught me walking home to a lunch of hot chocolate and cheese toast in Rapid City, South Dakota, snow about two feet deep, and pushed me into a drift. I had on my blue parka, galoshes and gloves so no serious physical damage was done but it darn sure ruined my lunch because all I could think about was if and when ol’ Brad was going to catch up with me on the return route, like he said he was. He never showed and I made sure our paths never crossed again. I hope he flunked the third grade and married a mean, ugly woman. Well, that’s a little harsh. I’ll settle for mean.

Things went fine until the fifth grade when Keith Chastain sat on me on the playground of Cherry Street School. He hit me one time in the face and I cried so hard it scared him into running home. Keith didn’t mess with me after that because I got glasses. He was fairly smart and probably ended up being a successful businessman. Maybe he went bankrupt. Well, that would be a high price to pay for just hitting me in the face once. Perhaps he got laid off; I’d settle for that.

It was in the sixth grade when I got my turn to be the bully. Ronnie Faircloth was his name and he had a bag full of the most beautiful marbles you’ve ever seen. Ronnie was a year younger than me and the Ramirez brothers and a little spoiled by his grandmother, who bought him the marbles. He had cat eyes, pearls, crystals, (solids were looked on as being cheap) and steely boulders, which he would get from his dad who worked in a paper mill. We set our sights on getting Ronnie’s marbles by playing a game called circles. But, you couldn’t get more than a few playing circles since you only got what you shot out of the ring and Ronnie would stay lucky long enough to keep most of his marbles, which was a lot.

We had spent our summers playing baseball, while Ronnie played with his grandmother’s parakeet. We knew how to throw, he didn’t, so we made up a game called “pots”, where you put a lot of marbles in a hole, get way back down the alley and throw for the hole. Needless to say, Ronnie lost his marbles and went home crying. His grandmother called my mother and I had to return my share. Don’t know what the Ramirez brothers did with theirs, probably fought over what was left. Ronnie became a Deacon, Richard and Dennis, successful businessmen. We still see each other from time to time and seem to have left childhood with few scars and fewer marbles.

Makes you wonder what’s happening out there today on school buses and playgrounds. Well, for one thing we watched as Andy told Opie to be honest. We watched as Mr. Wizard taught science with ethical insights, and as the Rifleman showed his son what being a real man was all about. And we had role models right there at home who exhibited work ethic and high moral standards. Compare that to what we see today on television and at home and is it not a wonder our children feel “led” to act out in a way that’s both scary and perplexing? This problem is fairly simple really. Children come into this world as a blank slate (Rousseau) and we, the “adults” make them what they are by giving them various experiences in childhood. They’re not like an “Etch a Sketch” however and shaking them won’t fix this problem. If that’s beyond our abilities to comprehend, we have indeed lost our “marbles”.