by jphilo | May 4, 2010 | Reflections on the Past
Last night, I went to Camelot, and so did many of my teacher friends. Now, we didn’t think we were going to Camelot. We thought we were going to a retirement party for a fellow teacher who devoted over thirty years of his life to the children in our community. But as we honored him and told stories about the practical jokes he played on staff members, of his sense of humor with students and the high expectations he had for them, one thing became clear. Those of us who taught together at Bryant School for ten or fifteen magical years, starting in the mid 1980s, worked in Camelot.
Now, don’t get the wrong idea. Things weren’t perfect back then – not the administration, the faculty, the staff, the kids or the parents. We didn’t always agree with one another. We didn’t always like our job assignments. And we certainly didn’t realize what a great and wonderful gift we’d been given.
What we had was this: a faculty and staff who had high standards for students, put the needs of kids first, showed respect to the people in the building, and knew how to have fun. At least once a week someone brought goodies to the teacher’s lounge, and we exchanged recipes with abandon. At lunchtime that lounge, all five by ten feet of it, was the place to be. Sometimes, we vented and ranted about work, and sometimes we cried about life’s heartbreaks. But usually we talked and laughed so hard our sides ached.
Through it all, because of it all, we bonded in a sweet and unique way I’ve never experienced in any other work environment. Best of all, the camaraderie among us helped our students. Each afternoon, we went back to our classrooms smiling, able to give our students the positive encouragement they needed to succeed.
Like all good things, our Camelot came to an end as people retired and grade levels were moved to different locations because of building projects and new schools. Our beloved Bryant School will close at the end of this year. The classrooms and the tiny teacher’s lounge will be empty.
But the bonds forged there remain strong. Once in awhile, we have a Bryant reunion. Or a teacher retires and we gather to celebrate. We hug, we cry, we laugh, we smile. We realize, as we did last night, that “once once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.”
As we go our separate ways, I whisper a prayer that somehow in some other workplace, that spirit is growing again. I hope that a new generation will one day also be able to say what we say each time we gather.
Once, we worked in Camelot.
by jphilo | Apr 21, 2010 | Reflections on the Past
I’m a sucker for old stuff. And a whole bunch of old stuff found its way to our place after Mom sold her house last March. My original plan was to immediately do some creative decorating with the treasures. But two kids announcing two engagements, leading to two weddings in three months, the family expanding to four kids, one niece graduating from high school and another from college between the two weddings, the original plan got sidetracked.
But in this brief respite, with the first wedding history and the second a few months off, I hope to find time to play with my favorite goodies – three brightly colored, cardboard Disney puzzles. They’re relics from the late 1950s which somehow survived our childhoods in almost perfect condition. How a miracle like that happened, I don’t know, unless Mom stored them on a high shelf and allowed us to play with them under her watchful eye only after washing our hands thoroughly. If that’s how she did it, we kids must have thought she was the meanest mom in the whole world. However she managed to preserve the puzzles, fifty years later, I am thankful.
Every time I see the puzzles, it’s Sunday night in Le Mars again. Mom and Dad are playing cards with my aunt and uncle in the dining room. My sister, brother, and our three girl cousins are in the living room, watching Walt Disney, eating popcorn, and shooing the dogs away when they get too close to the popcorn bowls.
Walt Disney, the most creative man in the universe, is talking directly to me. He’s dropping hints about a new movie called Mary Poppins, inviting my family to visit a theme park named Disneyland in California. While his attention turns to Mickey and Donald, who are up to their usual hijinks, I daydream about visiting Disneyland and meeting Walt at the gage. Then, I remember that my dad’s in a wheelchair, so even if we could afford to drive across the country, he couldn’t ride the rides.
For a little while, I’m sad and jealous of my sister who got to go on a camping trip to California with my aunt and uncle a few years ago. But I break out of my funk during the commercial. My brother and I go to the kitchen to get more popcorn from a huge Tupperware bowl.
Our uncle stops us. “Hey, Jo-Bo. Hey, Johnny. How would you like to go with us to the Black Hills and Colorado this summer? You girls can break in the new TeePee pop-up camper.” He turned to my brother. “And you and me, we’ll sleep in the trunk of the car every night. Whaddya think?”
My brother and I look at each other. We grin and nod furiously, then run to the living room to spread the good news. Before long, the popcorn is gone. The dogs are scavenging for crumbs. We’re wrestling on the floor with our cousins. Walt Disney’s voice mingles with my parents’ voices and my aunt and uncle’s as they say good-bye and push our protesting cousins out the door.
Every time I see those Walt Disney puzzles, I smell the popcorn and hear Walt Disney saying good night and asking us to come back next week. I remember our trip to the Black Hills and Colorado and see the morning light glowing outside the canvas sides of the Tee-Pee camper. I am jealous of my brother who is sleeping in the trunk with my uncle. I am wading in a mountain stream, building a dam across it with my cousins.
It’s time to frame the puzzles and put them on the wall. They should be where I can see them.
by jphilo | Feb 3, 2010 | Reflections on the Past
Ever since I read Pernell Roberts obituary in the paper Sunday, I’ve been worrying about my sister. She’s been in love with him since the manly man, playing the part of Adam (the manliest of the three manly Cartwright sons), first struck a manly pose astride his horse during the opening of the most manly show known to man – Bonanza.
Adam was the first and only Cartwright man to leave the Ponderosa, and when he did, it nearly broke my big sister’s heart. So I’m thinking the obituary probably set her back, too. After all, Pernell, at age 81, was the last of the manly Cartwright actors to die. How is she handling the end of such manly valor?
Pernell/Adam was also the only one of the four manly Cartwrights who could sing worth a hoot. I know this because my extended family owns a copy of the coveted Ponderosa Christmas CD. Pa, Hoss and Little Joe fake sing, ala Rex Harrison, by speaking the lyrics as the strains of an orchestra and the humming of the homey and loving townspeople swell in the background. But Adam actually sings his songs, which goes to show my sister knows how to pick a winner.
By the way, the coveted CD’s liner notes, so copious they are written in type so small it’s only readable with a magnifying glass, divulge the juicy details of manly life on the Ponderosa. No wonder the CD surfaces each year during our white elephant gift exchange, and our greedy clan fights about who has to, I mean gets to, take it home.
But I digress. As previously stated, I’m worried about my Minnesota sister. Between Pernell’s death and the Vikings losing another Super Bowl bid, her mental stability is suspect. Either one of those blows would be tough to bear, but two major whammies in seven days? I don’t know.
So Sis, here’s the deal. Since you’re coming to visit Mom this weekend, would it help if I came down and we listen to the CD together? Or would you rather order some DVDS and have a Bonaza marathon slumber party this weekend? Or we could watch old footage of the Vikings losing the Super Bowl, if you like. I’ll do whatever it takes to ease your grief for your first love – Pernell Roberts, the most manly of all manly men.
by jphilo | Jan 19, 2010 | Reflections on the Past
I should be grateful for the warmer weather we’ve enjoyed for the last week and a half. It’s an improvement over the deep freeze we endured from Christmas and well into 2010. But Midwesterners have their weather equations down cold, including this one:
A winter thaw + thick snow cover = fog
Ever since the temperature inched above freezing, it’s been foggy. For days now the fog has been a real wet blanket – chilly, depressing, gloomy, obscuring the sun, hiding the blue sky.
But it’s more than that for a friend of mine. Whenever we get a stretch of foggy winter days, she comes to mind. Her husband and father-in-law died in small plane crash on a foggy February day about ten years ago. She was left to raise her two sweet daughters, one of whom was my daughter’s classmate and friend, by herself.
I thought of her Saturday while I walked in the fog. Quiet surrounded me while I took pictures of the hoarfrost on tree branches and fence wires. But inside I was restless, worried about my friend. If the fog depresses me, what does it do to her? Does it bring back painful memories? Did she dream about the accident last night? Is she reliving the events of that awful, awful day this morning?
Without warning, in the midst of my worries, the sun broke through the gray shroud. The fog lifted and sunlight gleamed on branches thick with frost, white and lovely against a brilliant blue sky. I blinked back tears and soaked it in, the assurance of beauty that exists beyond what my eyes can see.
My restlessness evaporated and my spirit grew calm. As I walked home, one last question formed upon my lips: Would you let my friend sees your beauty beyond the fog today, Lord? Would you show her you are there?
by jphilo | Dec 25, 2009 | Reflections on the Past
If you read yesterday’s post, you know I received an unexpected and lovely email a couple days ago. Turns out, the sender is the niece of woman who led the music during that long ago summer. She called the article “a loving tribute to my Aunt Dorothy the ‘old maid chapel director.’” She went on to say, “Aunt Dorothy Dunlop taught all the camps that one summer all the verses to How Great Thou Art. I remember we sang the new verse of the day and the verse from the previous day while the tables were being cleared by the designated table runner. Thank you for such a wonderful piece.”
For years, I’ve retained a mental image of the woman who taught us her favorite hymn, thereby passing on a heritage of faith to a new generation. The print summer dress she wore day after day is indelibly etched in my mind. But her name, I forgot long ago. Now, due to an unexpected and lovely chain of events, she has a name again.
Dorothy Dunlop.
For forty years, I’ve thought of her – the woman in the summer dress, her arms energetically directing our singing, her high-pitched voice warbling above our childish ones – whenever How Great Thou Art was sung. For forty years, I’ve wondered who she was, where she was. I’ve wanted her to know how she became a cherished memory and part of the heritage I’m passing down to future generations. Now, because of her thoughtful niece who sent the email, I can express the gratitude that’s swelled within me for decades.
Thank you, Dorothy Dunlop, for enriching my life and the lives of a summer’s worth of wiggly campers. For all of us, thank you, thank you for the great thing you have done.
Then sings my soul,
“My Savior God, to Thee.
How great Thou art.
How great Thou art.”
by jphilo | Dec 24, 2009 | Reflections on the Past
A sweet and unexpected email landed in my inbox the other day. I didn’t recognize the name of the sender, but the subject – Riverview Conference Center; Cedar Falls, Iowa – was familiar.
The sender wrote about a devotion of mine which was published by indeed magazine a few years back. To fully appreciate the contents of the email, you need to read the devotion first, so here it is:
“‘He who believes in Me’, as the Scripture said,
‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.’”
John 7: 38
I squirmed like a ten-year-old as I drove under the sign, “Riverview Bible Conference Center.” The name was different, but I felt at home in the place I hadn’t seen in 35 years – my childhood church camp.
I arrived the night before my writers’ conference, so as soon as my bags were stowed, I walked the grounds. I located the tabernacle, a barn of a place where an old maid chapel director taught 200 wriggling kids every verse of How Great Thou Art. Every day, when she freed us from our prison of song, we ran to the pool where we recited the day’s new verse as the price of our admission.
The pool was as I remembered it, and I remembered how up-town that cement pool seemed in the 1960s. Moving on, I found the cabins I’d stayed in different years. I recognized the old craft center, Missionary Hall, which would serve as our conference headquarters tomorrow. My biggest disappointment was not locating the campfire pit and the cross that stood by it.
One thing puzzled me as I tramped around. Why had the camp been named Riverview? In all my church camp years, I’d never seen a river and couldn’t find one now. Darkness fell and the bugs had sucked me dry, so I went back to my cabin still wondering.
The next morning, I searched for the campfire before the conference began. A road I’d missed the night before dead ended in a grassy bank, but I climbed up a few steps. There it was – the campfire, hemmed by benches on three sides and the cross on the fourth. Once, a minister explained the greatness of God’s love to us as we sat on those benches. “He loved you so much He died for you,” the pastor said, pointing to the cross. “He died so you might live.” Sitting there I had accepted Christ, blinded by His love, unable to imagine life beyond what He’d already given.
Now I approached that cross, neon pink in the rising sun. Light peeked between tree trunks and through a chain-link fence that ran along a little ridge a few yards behind it. Curious, I walked beyond the cross, looked over the fence, and gasped. A river flowed far below me, surrounded by trees and cabins, docks and boats, teeming with life.
“You’ve grown up, Jolene.” A still, small voice whispered in my heart. “You’ve matured enough to see what was always there.”
Thirty years ago, I was too young to comprehend God’s simple truth. But this day I know His promise is true because I have experienced it for three decades: that beyond the cross flows a river of life!
Tomorrow, the contents of the surprising and lovely email will be disclosed. So once the presents are opened and the mess is cleared away, check in to hear the rest of the story.
Until then, Merry Christmas!
