by jphilo | Feb 14, 2008 | Reflections on the Past
There are some days when all you can be is grateful. Today’s one of them for me. Not because I’m anticipating a Valentine’s gift from my husband. We’re pretty low key about those things. I’m grateful because I’m not doing what I did every Valentine’s Day for twenty-five years which was to supervise a classroom crammed with love-crazed elementary students eating their ways to a sugar high. The kids in the picture above are high school seniors this year. When I see them at their graduation celebrations, they’ll barely recollect how goofy they were on Valentine’s Day.
For me those high energy days are unforgettable. So I’ve been thinking of my friends who are still in the trenches in the district where I once worked. For them, this is a triple whammy day. It’s Valentine’s Day, it’s the beginning of a three day weekend for kids because of teacher inservice tomorrow, and the temperature is dropping like a rock as the wind shifts from south to north. Weather changes make kids crazy.
And here I am in my very quiet living room, working at my keyboard, living my dream. Every now and then, little bubbles of guilt rise to the surface of my consciousness. I try to pop the bubbles by offering prayers of gratitude. My method is marginally successful.
I’m looking for new ways to ease my guilt. I’ve toyed with the idea of nominating all elementary school teachers for sainthood and write the Vatican. If the pope spent one day, preferably a party day, in a classroom he’d see teachers working miracles by the minute. Approving the nominations would be a no brainer. But since I’m not Catholic, he might not listen to me.
Maybe you can help. Today, do something nice for the elementary teachers you know. Tell them thank you. Speak softly as they are suffering from PTVS (Post Traumatic Valentine’s Syndrome). Give them chocolate, lots of chocolate. If you’re married to an elementary teacher, give your spouse flowers and lots of chocolate.
But don’t tell them I put you up to it. Just show them how much you appreciate them. They deserve to know.
by jphilo | Feb 8, 2008 | Reflections on the Past
An old neighbor of ours died last week. When we moved here in 1991, Marnie and her husband Walt were elderly. Walt was losing his sight and Marnie’s slight body was starting to twist and shrink. But for several years, when our children were young, they lived up the hill and across the road in a beautifully tended farmstead.
They loved children. Allen and Anne loved to visit their white, foursquare house which was almost a museum. It was a match made in heaven. During one visit Walt showed Allen a Civil War era walking stick with a lethal miniature sword hidden beneath the cane’s brass tip. Anne spent her time fingering a multi-drawered oak stand that Marnie said had been part of a Coats and Clarks store display.
Marnie watch Anne one day when I had to attend a funeral or a class. They had a ball as Anne was into pretending she was an “Easter Kitty” at the time. Marnie, a founder of our local Humane Society, was more than willing to indulge our little girl’s whims. As part of a World War Two research report, Allen interviewed Walt. Walt headed the WWII Citizen’s Defense program, and Allen came home full of stories. When the report was finished, Allen gave Walt a copy. Several years later, after Walt had died and Marnie was getting ready to move, she brought the report to us. Walt had cherished it, she said, and kept it in his desk drawer.
Though they haven’t lived along our gravel road for years, I miss our old neighbors today. Their passing intensifies my longing for spring to come to our white, icy road. Because when spring comes, the red bud trees that Walt and Marnie planted over a half-century ago will bloom. For a few days the woods by the creek will be purple haze that no camera can wholly capture. I will walk in the presence of beauty so delicate and fleeting that my heart will ache as my eyes drink in vibrant color.
As I walk I will pray that my children will realize how precious were the times when their lives intersected with Walt and Marnie’s. I will pray that a fleeting memory of two beautiful, old people will come to Allen’s mind and Anne’s, and that for a brief and happy moment, their young hearts will ache with the joy they knew when childhood and old age spanned the years and touched their lives.
by jphilo | Feb 6, 2008 | Reflections on the Past
Between the snowstorm forecasts and the Super Tuesday primary election results last night, central Iowa’s airwaves were fairly dancing with activity. As the snow and NPR’s election predictions flew, I drove along our little gravel road to Bible study. The snow was drifting across the road, and I wondered if I should be out in such weather.
Without so much as a warning bell, I thought of the 1982 movie Man from Snowy River and I was back in Camp Crook, South Dakota where we lived when the movie was released. VCRs were new technology then and the local grocery store made a tidy profit renting both VCR machines and movies, at least until people started buying their own. Our little town was in the heart of cowboy country, and Man from Snowy River was a favorite rental.
Big snowstorms were common on the high, short grass prairie, so they had to get downright nasty before people stayed home or school was called off. Usually if it got snowing at a pretty good clip, our friend Donnie Stryker would call and ask, “You want to go to Gerald and Becky’s for supper? We’ll pick you up in the four-wheel drive.” We’d get bundled up and climb into their their truck, wedging ourselves and baby Allen into the supercab which was already crowded with Donnie and his wife Connie and their four children. After a quick stop at the grocery store to rent Snowy River, we were on our way.
Gerald and Becky Burghduff lived on a ranch ten miles north of town with their children. The first time we drove to their place in a storm I was a bit disconcerted by Donnie’s announcement as he turned onto the Burghduff’s lane. He yelled to be heard above the kids and the screaming wind. “Gerald said that down here a little ways the driveway is blowed shut. Said to take to the ditch and we’d make it just fine.”
I was glad it was dark so no one saw me turn green. I held our baby close, clutched Hiram’s hand and hoped that the three of us would die quickly. Donnie drove down the ditch and before I was done praying, we were at the Burghduffs.
We ate big bowls of chili and cheese, then settled in front of the TV to watch the movie. Donnie and Gerald analyzed the horses and their riders. Becky and Connie cried over the love scene. I studied Kirk Douglas’s make up. The kids begged Hiram to be their horse, and he obliged. When the movie was over, considerable time was spent discussing how the actor had stayed in the saddle as the horse plunged down the steep hillside. Was the rider a stunt man? How could they film something like that? The cowboys were never satisfied with the answers they came up with. Finally, we piled into the truck and drove through the snow towards town.
I studied the tiny drift on the road in front of me. Of course I should be out in this weather, I told myself, scoffing at my Iowa wimpyness. With firm hands I gripped the steering wheel and plowed through the tiny snowdrifts.
I didn’t need to drive in the ditch. All the same, it was a comfort to know it was there.
by jphilo | Feb 4, 2008 | Reflections on the Past
This morning, I had to unplug the computers because of a lightning storm. Weather like that is pretty unexpected, though not unheard of in Iowa. The storm passed through quickly and my computer’s running again, but the little event got me thinking.
I thought about being a little kid in the late 1950s and early 60s, growing up in a small town with my sister and brother. (By the way, I’m the one with the hood tied so tight, my double-chin doesn’t show. No wonder I like this picture.) I don’t know about my sibs, but all I expected back then was that the Well’s Blue Bunny milkman would put our dairy order in the milk box twice a week and that Captain Kangaroo would be on at 8:00 every morning for the rest of my life. Therefore, it’s not surprising that I’ve encountered a lot of unexpected events. Here are a few that came to mind. I didn’t expect to:
- marry an Alaskan.
- leave teaching before the rule of 88.
- enjoy photography.
- fly to Georgia with my mother and sister.
- have a son who became a monk.
- write a mystery novel.
- miss South Dakota once we moved back to Iowa years ago.
- sit in a room with my brother while we watched our father die.
- have such a good relationship with my college daughter.
- know anything about computers.
- live in a place of such beauty.
- have a husband who, in my place, donated a kidney to a friend.
- have a son who calls to swap recipes.
- enjoy spending time with extended family so much.
- fit into my wedding dress after thirty-one years of marriage.
- have so many friends.
I’ll stop there. As I made the list, more and more good and unexpected things came to mind. And my mood is a lot better than when I started. Give it a try yourself. You could be pleasantly surprised, like I was. You might even start looking forward to the unexpected, something I’m still learning how to do.
There’s just one event I can’t accept. I can’t believe they took Captain Kangaroo off the air.
by jphilo | Oct 31, 2007 | Reflections on the Past
On Monday, I went to a funeral for a man from our church. His children paid tribute to their dad during the service. He’d been a wonderful father, who took them hunting and fishing. He coached Little League, encouraging and teaching every child on the team. They mentioned that throughout their adult lives, when they reunited with childhood friends, their friends said hello and in the next breath, “How’s your dad?”
Maybe I shouldn’t confess this, but their memories saddened me. They reminded me of all my father couldn’t do with us. Don’t get me wrong. Dad was a vibrant man who loved children. He would have been a great Little League coach. And though he wasn’t a hunter or fisherman, he would have led our 4-H club. He would have taught us to raise, show and judge cattle because that was what he loved.
But he couldn’t do any of that because multiple sclerosis put him in a wheelchair when he was thirty, my sister was six, I was three and my brother was a baby. So I was sad at Monday’s funeral, not only for the family of the man who had died but also for what our family lost to Dad’s illness.
For the last few days, God has comforted me with truth. Over and over I’ve pictured Dad in his wheelchair while he lived at home or in his bed at the nursing home. And in every picture, his wide face is serious, even sad. Until one of his children or grandkids comes into his presence. Then his face breaks into a big grin that shows his square, white teeth and his green eyes light with delight.
And that is what Dad taught me: a father’s delight in the presence of his children. His delight didn’t come from what we could do for him. He was delighted because we were his children. We had taken time to be with him.
So now I’m thinking about God the Father. When I enter His presence, does His face light up? After all, I’m His child too.
by jphilo | Sep 21, 2007 | Reflections on the Past
This past May I visited the town where I taught country school from 1980 – 1985. I’d been back there several times since we moved away, but this time was different. Always before the tiny South Dakota town, Camp Crook, looked pretty much the same. And the modular trailers that formed the four room, K – 8 elementary school were unchanged.
But not this time. The tan modular unit that housed my old classroom was gone, replaced by a spiffy gray building. Sure one tan modular unit remained, but my old classroom was gone, and I was slightly disconcerted. The feeling reared its ugly head again this week when I got the countywide newspaper. I subscribe to the paper as part of my research for a future mystery novel set in that remote corner of the world. When I read the “Meet the New Teachers” section, I had quite a shock. One of the students from my first class, a first grader way back when, had been hired to teach the upper grades in the Camp Crook school. And her two little girls would be attending there, too.
I didn’t feel disconcerted any more. I felt old. I guess it was bound to happen someday, and today is a good a day to face the wrinkled truth. I’m getting older. I’ve dealt with that truth concerning my husband, but since he’s five months older than me I’ve had plenty of time. Still, maybe it’s time to open the AARP literature stuffed in our mailbox on a regular basis. Throwing those offending envelopes into the trash won’t make me any younger even if it does keep my kitchen counters clutter-free.
I’ve come up with a better plan. Whenever I start feeling older, I’ll work on the mystery novel set in the area. Whenever I go back there in my memory I feel young again, like the newly married greenhorn I was when we moved there in 1978. And after a few hours writing about driving down the long gravel roads, fighting the grasshoppers and using the outhouse whenever the electricity went off I won’t mind coming back to civilization, even if I’m no spring chicken in this day and age.
Good plan, I think. So if you’ll excuse me, the fountain of youth is calling. I’ve got a scene to write…
