Today I blog about my first grandchild, Caroline. I think back to when I first met her. She was minutes old, coming from the delivery room in her father's arms. She was a little ball of pink, glowing newness. She had just come from her Mother's tummy. That tummy that I used to tickle in a father's generational fashion when she was a wee little tot. I loved Caroline instantly as I had her mother when I first saw her in 1976.
Caroline is one of 7 grandchildren belonging to my wife, Nancy, and I. We love them all proportionately. However, the first grandchild holds an important place in a grandparent's value system. Sort of in the same fashion as Iasaac must have held Joseph within the relevence of time and space. She was such a godsend to us in a time in our lives when we needed some sort of interdiction from on high.
I had just been out-placed from my job and career of thirty years. It was only a job and a means to an end. But it also carried within it security and expression of the well springs of my life enabling me to provide for myself and my family. It was a jolt to my central nervous system and due to the fact that it jolted me it had a similar effect on Nancy and our daughters and son. I had decided to launch a new career in real estate in that year 2002. This was a major paradigm shift for all of us. There was a lot of angst surrounding a learning curve that required class time and testing and ultimately licensure.
On this particular day in August I announced to my new colleagues that I had to leave a meeting that I was in and go to the hospital to become a grandfather. That raised some eyebrows as if I were scheduling cardioversion or some sort of surgical procedure. I explained that my daughter was due to have a caeserian section at 2:00 PM and I would thus become a grandfather. The raised eyebrows transitioned instantly to smiles and laughs and congratulations.
Due to to the fact that our daughter was working and our son in law was in medical school we had the grand opportunity of having Caroline with us over the course of many days and sometimes even nights. She shifted our focus to the new beginnings of a little life surrounding nurturing and innocence. I cannot help but remember the words and lilt of a song that Bobby Goldsboro sang in the 60's. It was Watching Scotty Grow. All that had brought worry and anxiety to our lives dissipated into the day to day practice of watching our little Caroline grow. We doted on her and still do to this day 13+ years later. I cannot help but remember how she used to cry and pitch an unmeasured fit when her parents would come to get her and take her home with them. I smile today at their having to bring her back and let her hug and kiss us one more time. It was not as if they were carrying her off to water board her. It is just the unseen bond that develops between a child and grandparent that borders on euphoria, an unseen state of well being.
Time would pass and Caroline would add two more little sisters to her family. We loved each of them in their own special way. Our love with them is a trivalent bond that cannot be broken. It is soddered by the same mixture of doting attention wrought in a way that only a grandparent can perform. Once when she was little her mother waked her one morning and announced to her that she was going to have a wonderful day and to guess where she was going to go. It was somewhere wonderful. Caroline immediately responded with 'Nana and Pop's house?' She was even somewhat disappointed to learn that she was going to Disney World.
Her father accepted a medical residency in Pensacola. Caroline and her little sister, Kate, would be moving 400 miles in a round trip from us. Caroline and Kate stayed numerous days with us while Mom and Dad arranged the move into a demanding life as a medical resident. We somehow made it through that separation. We did put several thousand miles on a fairly new Mercury Mountaineer over the course of those 4 years.
They also made numerous treks back to our home for holidays and wonderful visits adding a little Georgia Clare to the family as well as a 90 pound American Bulldog, named Sam.
When Caroline was little I used to feed her animal crackers. I would hold one in front of her and ask her the question " Who loves you baby?" She would respond with "Pop" and she would get the cracker. It always disappeared quickly with a smile on both of our faces. Once, years later, during a family dinner she looked at me as she handed me some bread and asked, " Who loves you, baby?" I melted then and I melt now thinking of that and a thousand other little, silly interchanges with our Caroline over her 13 years of life.
The day after Thanksgiving when she was 5'ish. She had come from Pensacola and was sitting on my lap as I played some songs from You Tube. This was a common scene when she came into my office. On this particular day I chose to play her Neal Diamond's, Sweet Caroline . She relished it. Of course I had to embellish the experience a bit and tell her that song was about her. She was captivated by it as we played it over and over. Then she wanted to write a letter to Mr. Diamond and thank him for writing that song about her. I helped her write the letter. We sealed it in an envelope and put it in the mailbox and she went off happily preoccupied with the strains of Sweet Caroline playing in her little memory. It struck me as irony that just at a time on the calendar when other little children were writing to Santa Claus, Caroline was writing to Neal Diamond.
On the occassion of Nancy's 60th birthday. I connived and threw her a surprise birthday party. People came from as far away as Mesa, Arizona and Columbia, South Carolina. Of course, Caroline and her Mom and sisters came from Pensacola to join the surprise. We had hired a DJ to play music. He happened to be one of Caroline's Uncles. One of the songs in his armamentarium was Sweet Caroline. She was 5 at the time and wore a red dress. She managed to coax her Uncle Stace into playing that song over and over. She would happily dance swirling around the dance floor in that pretty little red dress and stole the night.
Someday, I will lay down in a place hopefully not very far from here and graduate from this life. I will replay a lot of scenarios in my mind in the same fashion that Mufasa from the Lion King did partly with his son, Simba, as he made the jump to hyperspace. I will see a little girl in a red dress dancing around a dance floor to the tune of Sweet Caroline. I will inventory my life and count my many blessings. This precious little grandaughter that my daughter and son in law and the God who gave me life sent to me will be present in my inventory of memories. What joy and happiness she has brought to me and so many others. To say I love you Caroline is an inadequate expression of what you have meant to me. May your life be filled with many happy memories of life similar to what you have brought to me.
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Friday, January 8, 2016
Repost on Capital Punishment ( From February, 2011 )
We are embroiled in a capital trial here in Tallahassee. The accused is a man named Hilton who allegedly killed and decapitated a nurse from Crawfordville named Cheryl Dunlap around Christmas three years ago. Hilton has already been found guilty in Georgia for the decapitation murder of a young lady hiker and sentenced to life in prison there. He was extradited here to stand trial for Dunlap's murder to apply the rule of law, provide closure for the victim's family and, in that Florida still has the death penalty, pay for his crime with his own life.
So the debate continues on concerning should government via it's judiciary be in the business of applying the Mosaic law of " an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" ?
As an aside, I wonder just how far the Mosaic law is from Shiria law in that realm. Under Shiria law, it is my understanding that a woman may be stoned to death for committing adultery. That is a big time " Whatttttttttt?" on my radar screen. They ain't enough rocks in America to keep up with that death sentence as adultery is as common as drinking water.
However, back to the capital punishment debate. In my past I have held the personal belief that capital punishment should be a part of our system. It is an effective deterrent in my mind. If for no other reason it deters mass murderers from recommiting the same crime. What about the rights of the deceased to have justice applied? Where there is overwhelming evidence that the accused perpetrated the dastardly deed does not the punishment match the criminal act?
I then read a book by John Grisham, called The Chamber , and another entitled The Innocent Man. They both had at their core the capital punishment debate. One was a saga of a grandson of a member of the KKK on death row for a bombing of a southern church where little girls were killed. The other was a man who served 20 years in prison lots, of it on death row, until proven innocent. They softened me up a little on capital punishment. However, I, who has extreme claustophobia and panic disorder, would prefer to be gone than to have to spend the rest of my life in a cage.
I just read an op ed by Sandy D'Alemberte whose name I never could spell correctly. He used to be the president of FSU and is a very bright and wise JD. It was just published this past Sunday in our local muckraker newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat. He calls into question the wisdom in retrying Hilton for a crime for which he has been sentenced to life in prison up in Georgia. In these hard economic times why should Florida citizens have to bear that expense? Another juris doctorate answered his query in this morning's edition of the fish gut wrapper, Democrat. He basically said that a criminal should not be allowed to manipulate the system to his benefit. To wit, Hilton confessed to the crime in Georgia so as to avoid prosecution in Florida and risk having his own head sawed off with a serrated hunting knife by a state paid assassin. Of course his victims did not have a choice in that regard in that he acted as judge, jury and executioner in each heinous act of lunacy.
I cannot help but reflect back over the years. I remember picking up the newspaper in my front yard back in January of 1978 and reading the blood chilling account of the Chi Omega murders. We were all touched by this maniac over the years in just staring at him as you would a two headed mountain goat at the county fair. You were disgusted at his depravity but we were drawn to the account of this looney tune as it played out in the written and electronic media. They even made a movie about Ted Bundy and someone wrote a book. Heck, some freako even married him and had a child by him through the benefit of conjugal visits while he was in prison.
I used to be in the pharmaceuticals business. For a period of time I called on Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee. I used to go back into the forensic unit and speak with the psychiatrists back there in that hell hole. That is where they keep the people who killed their grandmother for turning off the TV in the middle of a Tom and Jerry cartoon and then grinding her into sausage. They were adjudged to be too crazy to stand trial and placed in the forensic unit at Florida State Hospital (FSH). I would walk by the doors where they kept the Freddie Kreugers of our world and the screams and epithets you heard would make your hair stand on end. If there is a such a place on earth where demonic spirits rule, I would nominate that place as spook central.
Anyway on one particular day I was in to visit my friend and client Dr. Carmencita Mola, psychiatrist. There was quite a buzz ensuing amongst the staff. I asked her what was up and she told me that Ted Bundy was coming to their facility for a few days. I asked for what purpose. The answer is almost laughable. You see, he was sitting on death row after having been sentenced to death in Lake City for the rape and murder of Kimberly Diane Leach. All the pleas had played out and it was pretty certain that Teddy was going to fry. Now ( you are not ready for this ) the state of Florida was postured to kill him in a few short months. He was in FSH to receieve counseling to help him deal with the fact that the people who were paying for this counseling were going to kill him. I wonder how much "counseling" he gave the 36 to 136 people whom he killed prior to bludgeoning them?
Incidentally, I had a close friend, Alex, who was an assistant state attorney in Lake City. I would see him pretty frequently and we would go to lunch. It was his task to bring evidence to the table to help prosecute Bundy. He interviewed him face to face. He told me two things that remain with me to this day. One was that being in the presence of Bundy was like looking into the eyes of Satan. Secondly, Alex had a little 12 year old daughter. He told me that reviewing the evidence of the murder kept him awake at night. He was a pretty tough old state attorney and the evidence was so horrible it kept him awake.
I knew two people who were in law school with Bundy at University of Utah. My son dated a girl in college whose father had been the policeman who had arrested him in west Florida. All said what a sociopathic human being he seemed to be.
To end my recollections about Bundy who assumed room temperature 22 years ago I have to put you on an airplane heading to Tampa. Halfway there the captain came on the PA and announced that Ted Bundy had just been executed. There was spontaneous applause that occurred throughout the cabin. I am not going to tell you whether or not I joined in. I do remember staring out at the ground below reflecting long and hard for the rest of the trip on the role of the death penalty in our judicial system.
I think if I were a relative or friend of Cheryl Dunlap I might want to reserve a front row center seat to witness Mr. Hilton take his last breath somewhere down the road. If it had been my wife or daughter he had taken and killed I would pray for 2-3minutes alone with him in a room. I suppose that capital punishment must have a stronghold in our primieval identity.
So the debate continues on concerning should government via it's judiciary be in the business of applying the Mosaic law of " an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" ?
As an aside, I wonder just how far the Mosaic law is from Shiria law in that realm. Under Shiria law, it is my understanding that a woman may be stoned to death for committing adultery. That is a big time " Whatttttttttt?" on my radar screen. They ain't enough rocks in America to keep up with that death sentence as adultery is as common as drinking water.
However, back to the capital punishment debate. In my past I have held the personal belief that capital punishment should be a part of our system. It is an effective deterrent in my mind. If for no other reason it deters mass murderers from recommiting the same crime. What about the rights of the deceased to have justice applied? Where there is overwhelming evidence that the accused perpetrated the dastardly deed does not the punishment match the criminal act?
I then read a book by John Grisham, called The Chamber , and another entitled The Innocent Man. They both had at their core the capital punishment debate. One was a saga of a grandson of a member of the KKK on death row for a bombing of a southern church where little girls were killed. The other was a man who served 20 years in prison lots, of it on death row, until proven innocent. They softened me up a little on capital punishment. However, I, who has extreme claustophobia and panic disorder, would prefer to be gone than to have to spend the rest of my life in a cage.
I just read an op ed by Sandy D'Alemberte whose name I never could spell correctly. He used to be the president of FSU and is a very bright and wise JD. It was just published this past Sunday in our local muckraker newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat. He calls into question the wisdom in retrying Hilton for a crime for which he has been sentenced to life in prison up in Georgia. In these hard economic times why should Florida citizens have to bear that expense? Another juris doctorate answered his query in this morning's edition of the fish gut wrapper, Democrat. He basically said that a criminal should not be allowed to manipulate the system to his benefit. To wit, Hilton confessed to the crime in Georgia so as to avoid prosecution in Florida and risk having his own head sawed off with a serrated hunting knife by a state paid assassin. Of course his victims did not have a choice in that regard in that he acted as judge, jury and executioner in each heinous act of lunacy.
I cannot help but reflect back over the years. I remember picking up the newspaper in my front yard back in January of 1978 and reading the blood chilling account of the Chi Omega murders. We were all touched by this maniac over the years in just staring at him as you would a two headed mountain goat at the county fair. You were disgusted at his depravity but we were drawn to the account of this looney tune as it played out in the written and electronic media. They even made a movie about Ted Bundy and someone wrote a book. Heck, some freako even married him and had a child by him through the benefit of conjugal visits while he was in prison.
I used to be in the pharmaceuticals business. For a period of time I called on Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee. I used to go back into the forensic unit and speak with the psychiatrists back there in that hell hole. That is where they keep the people who killed their grandmother for turning off the TV in the middle of a Tom and Jerry cartoon and then grinding her into sausage. They were adjudged to be too crazy to stand trial and placed in the forensic unit at Florida State Hospital (FSH). I would walk by the doors where they kept the Freddie Kreugers of our world and the screams and epithets you heard would make your hair stand on end. If there is a such a place on earth where demonic spirits rule, I would nominate that place as spook central.
Anyway on one particular day I was in to visit my friend and client Dr. Carmencita Mola, psychiatrist. There was quite a buzz ensuing amongst the staff. I asked her what was up and she told me that Ted Bundy was coming to their facility for a few days. I asked for what purpose. The answer is almost laughable. You see, he was sitting on death row after having been sentenced to death in Lake City for the rape and murder of Kimberly Diane Leach. All the pleas had played out and it was pretty certain that Teddy was going to fry. Now ( you are not ready for this ) the state of Florida was postured to kill him in a few short months. He was in FSH to receieve counseling to help him deal with the fact that the people who were paying for this counseling were going to kill him. I wonder how much "counseling" he gave the 36 to 136 people whom he killed prior to bludgeoning them?
Incidentally, I had a close friend, Alex, who was an assistant state attorney in Lake City. I would see him pretty frequently and we would go to lunch. It was his task to bring evidence to the table to help prosecute Bundy. He interviewed him face to face. He told me two things that remain with me to this day. One was that being in the presence of Bundy was like looking into the eyes of Satan. Secondly, Alex had a little 12 year old daughter. He told me that reviewing the evidence of the murder kept him awake at night. He was a pretty tough old state attorney and the evidence was so horrible it kept him awake.
I knew two people who were in law school with Bundy at University of Utah. My son dated a girl in college whose father had been the policeman who had arrested him in west Florida. All said what a sociopathic human being he seemed to be.
To end my recollections about Bundy who assumed room temperature 22 years ago I have to put you on an airplane heading to Tampa. Halfway there the captain came on the PA and announced that Ted Bundy had just been executed. There was spontaneous applause that occurred throughout the cabin. I am not going to tell you whether or not I joined in. I do remember staring out at the ground below reflecting long and hard for the rest of the trip on the role of the death penalty in our judicial system.
I think if I were a relative or friend of Cheryl Dunlap I might want to reserve a front row center seat to witness Mr. Hilton take his last breath somewhere down the road. If it had been my wife or daughter he had taken and killed I would pray for 2-3minutes alone with him in a room. I suppose that capital punishment must have a stronghold in our primieval identity.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons of Blue
This is one of my favorite holiday songs. I am generally familiar with the Willie Nelson version. I think that Roy Orbison's version may have preceded his.
Some of the lyrics are as follows, as best I can remember:
"Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue;
Wrap your presents to your darling from you.
Pretty pencils to write 'I love you'.
Pretty papers, pretty ribbons of blue."
The ballad surrounds a story line of a downtown press of shoppers who hustle and bustle their ways past a fellow sitting in the middle of the sidewalk singing this song and peddling his wares.. He is obviously handicapped in some fashion or another. There is a description of the encounter by the shoppers who ask themselves if they should stop. The unilateral conclusion is that they cannot because they are much too busy. The song describes the colors, movement and and the lack of connection amongst the crowd, one to another during the holiday season. The lyrics include the onamonapia of the sound of children singing in the background. All in all a very moving holiday tune.
I think back to a time I was staying in Baltimore right next to the baseball park, Camden yards. It was cold and nearing the holiday season. I recall leaving our hotel with a group of people on our way to dinner walking across the Inner Harbor. This has to be nearly 20 years ago. There were 10 panhandlers for every passerby. All of them looking for a handout. Theirs was a very competetive endeavor as some of them were pushing one another posturing for a better position amongst the crowd. I remember emptying my pockets of change and smaller units of cash. It was but a little smear of ointment to a gash that oozed blood. You almost have to be compassionless to survive such an ordeal. Yet that is very difficult for most of us. Most of us would rather not be compelled to come face to face with the problem this land of freedom and opportunity has in meeting the needs of our underprivileged population.
I think of a friend of my wife and mine. Her name was Betty Williams. She had been confined to a wheelchair and a hospital bed for the greater part of her life. We became acquaintances and then friends through an outreach program with our church. The mission was just to befriend her and visit her a minimum of one time per month. Nancy, my wife, visited her by herself for several years. Nancy became part of her inner circle and cashed small checks for her and took her an illicit chili dog and other treats that diabetics are not supposed to be allowed. I fussed at Nancy for doing that and ultimately I became part of the delivery system. Indeed our entire family came to know Betty, including our bassett hound Cleo. We always took time on holidays especially to get by and see her.
She had been confined to a nursing home bed for more than twenty years. When you entered her room her smile and greeting filled the hallway and bored straight through to the center of your heart. She had a little bit of family but their circumstances were meagar. It turned out that Betty had a steady stream of visitors not just from our church but several other churches as well. The more the merrier. She captivated us all with her upbeat attitude in spite of her limited circumstances. I came to find myself stopping by to see her several times a month. I always was lifted by her. I suppose I was ministering to her in a fashion but I recall that often she ministered to me.
She was like a child at Christmas. She always had a pretty good list of things she wanted. They were not expensive requests and it seemed that every year her posse of friends would deliver what was on her list of requests and then more. She beamed with glee over every wrapped gift that found its way to her room. I can still see her big smile and hear her hearty greeting. I remember the time her TV gave up the ghost. I took it upon myself to ask people for a donation to help buy her a new one. It was the easiest fundraiser ever. I had more than enough money to make the purchase in no time. There was enough money left over to buy her a VCR and some videos. She insisted on writing each donor a thank you. Of course she had lost the use of her arms and hands years earlier, so I got the opportunity to write each note for her. She ended each note of thank you " in the name of Jesus Christ, your friend, Betty."
One day, about 10 years ago, I went to see her and another person had taken over her room. Betty had developed one of many infections and this one was more that her frail 66 year old body could bear. In the isolation of an ICU she went home to that God who gave her life. I learned along the way of my association with her that she herself had sold pencils on one of the streets in Tallahassee before she became a permanent resident of her nursing home. So I think of Betty each time I hear this song.
" Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue.
Wrap your present to your darling from you.
Pretty pencils to write I love you.
Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue."
Thank you Betty for all you did for me and my family over, many, many years. I hope to see you again one day. I hope I am worthy to kiss you on the cheek and hug you.
Some of the lyrics are as follows, as best I can remember:
"Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue;
Wrap your presents to your darling from you.
Pretty pencils to write 'I love you'.
Pretty papers, pretty ribbons of blue."
The ballad surrounds a story line of a downtown press of shoppers who hustle and bustle their ways past a fellow sitting in the middle of the sidewalk singing this song and peddling his wares.. He is obviously handicapped in some fashion or another. There is a description of the encounter by the shoppers who ask themselves if they should stop. The unilateral conclusion is that they cannot because they are much too busy. The song describes the colors, movement and and the lack of connection amongst the crowd, one to another during the holiday season. The lyrics include the onamonapia of the sound of children singing in the background. All in all a very moving holiday tune.
I think back to a time I was staying in Baltimore right next to the baseball park, Camden yards. It was cold and nearing the holiday season. I recall leaving our hotel with a group of people on our way to dinner walking across the Inner Harbor. This has to be nearly 20 years ago. There were 10 panhandlers for every passerby. All of them looking for a handout. Theirs was a very competetive endeavor as some of them were pushing one another posturing for a better position amongst the crowd. I remember emptying my pockets of change and smaller units of cash. It was but a little smear of ointment to a gash that oozed blood. You almost have to be compassionless to survive such an ordeal. Yet that is very difficult for most of us. Most of us would rather not be compelled to come face to face with the problem this land of freedom and opportunity has in meeting the needs of our underprivileged population.
I think of a friend of my wife and mine. Her name was Betty Williams. She had been confined to a wheelchair and a hospital bed for the greater part of her life. We became acquaintances and then friends through an outreach program with our church. The mission was just to befriend her and visit her a minimum of one time per month. Nancy, my wife, visited her by herself for several years. Nancy became part of her inner circle and cashed small checks for her and took her an illicit chili dog and other treats that diabetics are not supposed to be allowed. I fussed at Nancy for doing that and ultimately I became part of the delivery system. Indeed our entire family came to know Betty, including our bassett hound Cleo. We always took time on holidays especially to get by and see her.
She had been confined to a nursing home bed for more than twenty years. When you entered her room her smile and greeting filled the hallway and bored straight through to the center of your heart. She had a little bit of family but their circumstances were meagar. It turned out that Betty had a steady stream of visitors not just from our church but several other churches as well. The more the merrier. She captivated us all with her upbeat attitude in spite of her limited circumstances. I came to find myself stopping by to see her several times a month. I always was lifted by her. I suppose I was ministering to her in a fashion but I recall that often she ministered to me.
She was like a child at Christmas. She always had a pretty good list of things she wanted. They were not expensive requests and it seemed that every year her posse of friends would deliver what was on her list of requests and then more. She beamed with glee over every wrapped gift that found its way to her room. I can still see her big smile and hear her hearty greeting. I remember the time her TV gave up the ghost. I took it upon myself to ask people for a donation to help buy her a new one. It was the easiest fundraiser ever. I had more than enough money to make the purchase in no time. There was enough money left over to buy her a VCR and some videos. She insisted on writing each donor a thank you. Of course she had lost the use of her arms and hands years earlier, so I got the opportunity to write each note for her. She ended each note of thank you " in the name of Jesus Christ, your friend, Betty."
One day, about 10 years ago, I went to see her and another person had taken over her room. Betty had developed one of many infections and this one was more that her frail 66 year old body could bear. In the isolation of an ICU she went home to that God who gave her life. I learned along the way of my association with her that she herself had sold pencils on one of the streets in Tallahassee before she became a permanent resident of her nursing home. So I think of Betty each time I hear this song.
" Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue.
Wrap your present to your darling from you.
Pretty pencils to write I love you.
Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue."
Thank you Betty for all you did for me and my family over, many, many years. I hope to see you again one day. I hope I am worthy to kiss you on the cheek and hug you.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
The Zen of Thanksgiving
It was Thanksgiving 1995. My Father-In-Law lay in a nursing home in Tampa suffering with a myolopathy akin to ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. I had just received word that if I wanted to see my father alive that I needed to get to Chattanooga, Tennessee. We had just loaded up in Tallahassee heading to Tampa when that word came. What was I going to do? We only had one car that was road worthy. All local rental car companies were out of inventory. There was nothing left to do but to head to Tampa, leave the car for my family and rent a car in Tampa. Thus I spent this Thanksgiving day entirely on the interstate. I-75 to Tampa and then I-75 and 85 north.
I traveled for a living so driving the interstate was no stranger to me. However, this interstate experience was vastly different. Why? Because you could have shot a cannon down either side of the interstate and have been hard pressed to hit another living soul. My Thanksgiving dinner consisted of a Big Mac at a McDonalds in Valdosta, GA. Along with some fries and hot apple pie and large diet Coke it was hardly the visionary turkey that had dominated my mind along with my Mother-In-Laws corn bread dressing. Add in the other elements of the feast that I was accustomed to and my state of depression deepened. As I drove I noted the bucolic landscapes off to my right and my left where you could see the automobiles gathered. I envisioned all the occupants of those homes gathered around a well dressed table, giving thanks and stuffing themselves with mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce and numerous casseroles of broccolli, green beans, squash.
I made it as far as I could towards Chattanooga and finally had to find a room for the night. Exhausted I retired to a room all alone. My little family was safe and warm with my Mother-In-Law back in Tampa eating pecan pie and pumpkin, cherry, apple pies with whipped cream loaded on top. My Kentucky fried chicken with an institutional piece of some variety of pie hardly seemed adequate this Thanksgiving day. I thought of my son who was 6,000 miles away from me in Buenos Aires on a church mission. How I missed him and felt a kinship with him in being absent from home.
Sleep came with great difficulty. I watched football on TV as long as I could stand it. My mind kept coming back to counting my blessings and trying hard not to sink into despair. I thought of my father and our strained relationship. He who had fought in WW 2 and had floated in the South Pacific 50 plus years prior. 48 hours in that circumstance after his ship had been torpedoed by the Japanese. My Father-In-Law who had been a mess sergeant in that same war and had seen Mussolini hanging upside down along with his girlfiend outside the gates of Paris. I thought of how difficult their circumstances had been all those many years ago and how they most likely wanted nothing more than to sit down with their families and share a meal of any sort. Whether or not it included turkey and dressing did not matter.
I sit here, 20 years after the fact. We just completed a wonderful Thanksgiving with traditional eats of all varieties. My Father did not make it to Christmas that year. We were back in north Alabama to bury him just 3 weeks later. Me, my wife, my two daughters and my son who would make it home from Argentina traveled there and back in a state of Thanksgiving just to be together.
Our minds are reservoirs of an awareness and a yearning for home and all things associated. When that circumstance is altered it is painful to endure. I suppose that all the roads and pathways in our minds lead to but one place. That one place is home where we find warmth, sustenance, association with those we hold dear. There is no effective substitute for it. It is a concept, an image and a zen-like emotional and psychological experience that keeps our GPS honed in that direction. Much more often than we are aware.
I traveled for a living so driving the interstate was no stranger to me. However, this interstate experience was vastly different. Why? Because you could have shot a cannon down either side of the interstate and have been hard pressed to hit another living soul. My Thanksgiving dinner consisted of a Big Mac at a McDonalds in Valdosta, GA. Along with some fries and hot apple pie and large diet Coke it was hardly the visionary turkey that had dominated my mind along with my Mother-In-Laws corn bread dressing. Add in the other elements of the feast that I was accustomed to and my state of depression deepened. As I drove I noted the bucolic landscapes off to my right and my left where you could see the automobiles gathered. I envisioned all the occupants of those homes gathered around a well dressed table, giving thanks and stuffing themselves with mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce and numerous casseroles of broccolli, green beans, squash.
I made it as far as I could towards Chattanooga and finally had to find a room for the night. Exhausted I retired to a room all alone. My little family was safe and warm with my Mother-In-Law back in Tampa eating pecan pie and pumpkin, cherry, apple pies with whipped cream loaded on top. My Kentucky fried chicken with an institutional piece of some variety of pie hardly seemed adequate this Thanksgiving day. I thought of my son who was 6,000 miles away from me in Buenos Aires on a church mission. How I missed him and felt a kinship with him in being absent from home.
Sleep came with great difficulty. I watched football on TV as long as I could stand it. My mind kept coming back to counting my blessings and trying hard not to sink into despair. I thought of my father and our strained relationship. He who had fought in WW 2 and had floated in the South Pacific 50 plus years prior. 48 hours in that circumstance after his ship had been torpedoed by the Japanese. My Father-In-Law who had been a mess sergeant in that same war and had seen Mussolini hanging upside down along with his girlfiend outside the gates of Paris. I thought of how difficult their circumstances had been all those many years ago and how they most likely wanted nothing more than to sit down with their families and share a meal of any sort. Whether or not it included turkey and dressing did not matter.
I sit here, 20 years after the fact. We just completed a wonderful Thanksgiving with traditional eats of all varieties. My Father did not make it to Christmas that year. We were back in north Alabama to bury him just 3 weeks later. Me, my wife, my two daughters and my son who would make it home from Argentina traveled there and back in a state of Thanksgiving just to be together.
Our minds are reservoirs of an awareness and a yearning for home and all things associated. When that circumstance is altered it is painful to endure. I suppose that all the roads and pathways in our minds lead to but one place. That one place is home where we find warmth, sustenance, association with those we hold dear. There is no effective substitute for it. It is a concept, an image and a zen-like emotional and psychological experience that keeps our GPS honed in that direction. Much more often than we are aware.
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Another visit to Facebook
This is a re-visit to this subject. I posted on this back in June 2010, a little over five years ago. I continue to be fascinated with the world of Facebook. What makes it relevent? Why do we find it compelling? Why can't some of us leave it alone? What makes some people want to post argumentative, contentious comments? Why do some people want to post intimate details about their lives? Even when nobody gives a rip about those details. Some people literally live on it. They are the ones who immediately respond to others comments. It is connected to their central nervous system some way.
I notice that people like to comment about current social trends. Example: I am a Mormon so many of my Facebook "friends" are Mormons as well. Our church leadership recently took a position on the extension of some church ordinances to children of LGBT Latter Day Saints. This has truly become a tempest in a tea pot. Particularly so in Salt Lake City, the world headquarters of the Mormon church. There is some sort of adaptive technology that allows people to shade their FB pictures with colors. I have noticed that many SLC Mormons have adopted the rainbow as their shade color. Many of them have expressed outrage over their church' position on children of LGBT Mormons. Nevermind that the church published a Family Proclamation on the Family. It was published 20 years ago. The church position on same sex marriage was established then. If there is such a thing in our church as a same sex couple the likelihood that they have children is slim to none. Yet there has been extreme commentary on Facebook. People have left the church over this administrative stance due to their personal outrage. They don't leave quietly. They leave in a great pretense of anger and melodrama. My opinion? They were looking for something to leave over anyway.
Facebook in the hands of some members is a portal to writing a script to a soap opera. You get used to seeing them and you cannot resist reading their posts. I think it is akin to reality television. I could give you a list of a dozen or so people who post long detail laden comments about their loneliness, their recent divorce, unemployment, health issues, hobbies, the list is long and pervasive. Why? No one really cares. If you are getting divorced, go into the night quietly. If you are coming out of the closet, do so with a semblance of quietude. No one cares or is interested. Why inflict the reservoirs of your confusion in discovering your inner self on the rest of us. We have our own issues to deal with. Why are you posting? Why am I reading?
Why do others like to start an argument? My football is team is way better than your football team. My political party is much more insightful and significant than yours. All you perverts out there are going to hell.
Some particular regions and cities are inferior to where I live. Why would anyone want to post those controversial issues on Facebook?
I believe that Facebook has found a market in loneliness and unhappiness. Those amongst our society who are too lazy, under funded, disconnected and so forth to actually go out and do something gravitate to Facebook. Rather than go to work for a political candidate we like, go to games, or take up a cause we access that Facebook app and post what is on our mind. We type and post and then we turn on our reality show on TV and raid the fridge. We have made a contribution?
Of course there are those who use Facebook to post pictures to share with friends and families. I think of the Ice Bucket challenge. Millions raised for ALS largely due to Facebook posts. The addiction pays off in those realms.
One thing for sure, Facebook is not going away. There are those who will never be on it. I think of my son, my wife, my daughter. My son shared with me concerning a job he applied for. There were 35 positions open and 1500 applications. The position required a background check. He told me that the background checkers had that applicant list down to less than 500 almost immediately. How so? Simply by taking a look at what they posted on Facebook. Anything you put on the world wide web is there to stay. Even when you think you have deleted it. Smart people can resurrect it and read it.
I suppose this is the same reason some people Blog. Speaking of which, I need to post this for all 6 of my followers and go watch Duck Dynasty.
I notice that people like to comment about current social trends. Example: I am a Mormon so many of my Facebook "friends" are Mormons as well. Our church leadership recently took a position on the extension of some church ordinances to children of LGBT Latter Day Saints. This has truly become a tempest in a tea pot. Particularly so in Salt Lake City, the world headquarters of the Mormon church. There is some sort of adaptive technology that allows people to shade their FB pictures with colors. I have noticed that many SLC Mormons have adopted the rainbow as their shade color. Many of them have expressed outrage over their church' position on children of LGBT Mormons. Nevermind that the church published a Family Proclamation on the Family. It was published 20 years ago. The church position on same sex marriage was established then. If there is such a thing in our church as a same sex couple the likelihood that they have children is slim to none. Yet there has been extreme commentary on Facebook. People have left the church over this administrative stance due to their personal outrage. They don't leave quietly. They leave in a great pretense of anger and melodrama. My opinion? They were looking for something to leave over anyway.
Facebook in the hands of some members is a portal to writing a script to a soap opera. You get used to seeing them and you cannot resist reading their posts. I think it is akin to reality television. I could give you a list of a dozen or so people who post long detail laden comments about their loneliness, their recent divorce, unemployment, health issues, hobbies, the list is long and pervasive. Why? No one really cares. If you are getting divorced, go into the night quietly. If you are coming out of the closet, do so with a semblance of quietude. No one cares or is interested. Why inflict the reservoirs of your confusion in discovering your inner self on the rest of us. We have our own issues to deal with. Why are you posting? Why am I reading?
Why do others like to start an argument? My football is team is way better than your football team. My political party is much more insightful and significant than yours. All you perverts out there are going to hell.
Some particular regions and cities are inferior to where I live. Why would anyone want to post those controversial issues on Facebook?
I believe that Facebook has found a market in loneliness and unhappiness. Those amongst our society who are too lazy, under funded, disconnected and so forth to actually go out and do something gravitate to Facebook. Rather than go to work for a political candidate we like, go to games, or take up a cause we access that Facebook app and post what is on our mind. We type and post and then we turn on our reality show on TV and raid the fridge. We have made a contribution?
Of course there are those who use Facebook to post pictures to share with friends and families. I think of the Ice Bucket challenge. Millions raised for ALS largely due to Facebook posts. The addiction pays off in those realms.
One thing for sure, Facebook is not going away. There are those who will never be on it. I think of my son, my wife, my daughter. My son shared with me concerning a job he applied for. There were 35 positions open and 1500 applications. The position required a background check. He told me that the background checkers had that applicant list down to less than 500 almost immediately. How so? Simply by taking a look at what they posted on Facebook. Anything you put on the world wide web is there to stay. Even when you think you have deleted it. Smart people can resurrect it and read it.
I suppose this is the same reason some people Blog. Speaking of which, I need to post this for all 6 of my followers and go watch Duck Dynasty.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Belief, the placebo of outcomes.
There is an old saw about the hummingbird, or bumble bee, take your pick. It is said that aerodynamically there is no reason that either of these two creatures should be able to fly. However the engineers forgot to tell that to the bumble bee and the humingbird. They can both fly. They can fly very, very well.I spent 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry. I was not a scientist however, I had to take the products that the scientists gave us and convince physicians to use them. If I was not successful then the scientist and a whole lot of other people could not cash a pay check. In other words I had to believe in the product and I had to convince others to believe in it.
One of the important avenues that a medication has to travel is the FDA's, very strict approval regimen. An analogue has to progress through several phases to become an approved agent. There are animal studies and ultimately there are human trials. One method for studying an agent is a double blind study in humans pitting the effectiveness of the agent within a population of patients who have been diagnosed with a particular illness. Half of the patients are given the active medication, the other half are given a placebo, a sugar pill. The results are then studied head to head and contrasts are drawn between the two groups. Sample size is very important. You cannot expect very definitive results between two people, one on the active modality and one on the placebo. You must have thousands of people in each group. It is then that the bio-statisticians draw conclusions as to the efficacy of the product. More importantly there is an exploration of the medication's side effects. You would presume that there would be few side effects in the placebo group. You would presume incorrectly. There are tons of pronounced side effects in the placebo group. Because the participants are sick they are susceptible to side effects real and imagined. Those on placebo do not know they are on placebo and they have the side effects. Many are quite impressive. This is called the placebo effect. They ellicit side effects because they believe they are on the active med.
Belief is a powerful thing. I listened to a motivational speaker by the name of Lou Tice. He was quite the effective speaker and used to speak to audiences all over the country. I had several of his tapes. He touched on this subject. A few impressions that he made on me were as follows:
It is interesting the effect that a "WHO SAID" has on us all. What is a Who Said? A Who Said is the person that is authorized by society by virtue of their credentials to perform a certain task. There are those that marry people. The Who Said stands at the front of an audience and pronounces people to be married. " By the authority granted by the state of confusion I now pronounce you man and wife". One minute you believe that you are single and the next minute you believe that you are married. The who said has spoken. That belief is now firmly implanted within two people. Nowadays it is a fleeting awareness and covers a broader spectrum of us humans, or none at all.
You develop an illness you go to see the physician and maybe the surgeon. In this person's history is a "Who Said". One minute he was a medical student with extreme limitation on what he did. The next minute by virtue of the "who said" and whatever, license or certification comes along with the process he/she believes that they can diagnose your illness and actually slice you open and cure you. Not only do they believe it. You also believe it and willingly submit yourself to them with sincere belief.
Belief, is a very powerful thing. Lou Tice tells of a time that he took his little grand daughter to one of his presentations. It was a sold out event and there were many hundreds of people in his audience. He sat the little girl on the stage so she could watch the crowd. He spoke to them and they gave him a standing ovation at the conclusion. He expains what his intent was. He wanted this little child to remember her grand father on that stage. He wanted her to be able to recall that event for the following reason. When a big kid told the little girl that she was ugly, clumsy, dimwitted he wanted her to come and discuss it with him. He would bring to her memory the experience with the audience. " Do you remember all those people who came to listen to me?" Now let me tell you something. You are immensely talented, beautiful, graceful, gifted, etc. You can tell them your grandfather says so your own personal " Who Said." Is it any wonder then that parents have such an immense effect on the way that their little ones turn out? We, as parents, must plant the belief in them that they are special. If we don't then someone is going to come along that will influence them to believe that they are just the opposite.
Lewis Grizzard, a wonderful columnist and humorist wrote a book entitled, " Elvis is dead and I ain't feelin so good myself." It was a popular book and looked at lots of funny scenarios involving our beliefs or lack of them. Such is the fodder of the hypochondriac.
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: " What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." That something that must lie with in us is a belief in ourselves. If we have it then we are unconquerable.
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Chewing Tobacco in Paradise
I was born and raised in the hills of southern West Virginia. I left when I was 14 and moved to Jacksonville, Florida. That was around 1960. The weekly series The Waltons was almost an exact replica of the life I led in those hills. The balladier, John Denver said about West Virginia: " Life is old there, older than the trees." The Waltons was based somewhere in the year 1930. West Virginia was still the same 25 years later when I lived there. As a matter of fact, it is still pretty much the same even today.
My mind goes back to an incident that occurred when I was on my way home from piano lessons. I used to ride the bus over to the Van Stavern sisters, two spinsters, after school and take a weekly piano lesson. I would then walk home. It must have been a couple of miles to walk. The route took me by my cousin Smokey Dunbar's house. I must have been 13 or so years of age the same age as Smokey. On this particular occassion, Smokey, was playing around out by the barn. I saw him out there and stopped off to goof off with him for a little spell.
I noticed right away that he had his cheek all pooched out and a little drizzle of what looked like chocolate escaping down his chin. I asked him what he was eating and he told me that it was some Red Man, did I want some? In a state of constant hunger and no stranger to tobacco I decided that I would try some. He loaded me up and I commenced to chewing and spitting. In spite of the fact that I was coming back from piano lessons, Smokey refrained from beating me up on general principles. I think the fact that I relented to chew some Red Man with him got me a pass on the thrashing for being a sissy that took piano lessons.
We sat there on the fence and talked and chewed and talked about things that 13 years olds do, mostly girls and school. After a brief few moments those beautiful mountains on the horizon began to appear upside down. I also began to feel ill. I uttered a weak " I gotta go Smokey" and took off for home. As soon as I got out of sight of Smokey I cleared my mouth of the vile weed but the damage was done. Man, I was sick. I almost immediately threw up and then broke out into a cold sweat. The nausea and dizziness was more than I could take.
In an effort to find some respite I laid down in the ditch by the side of the road. I laid there for quite some while attempting to start feeling better. It was a little one lane country road. The weather was pleasant and I had decided that it was not a really bad place to die. Not many vehicles passed by. The ones that did did not notice that frail, skinny little kid beside the road, in the ditch with the greenish hue about him. It was starting to get dark and I had about resolved to arise and commence my journey home.
I saw the headlights of an old pick up truck that looked sort of like my Dad's coming towards me. As it got closer I was right about the truck but wrong about the driver. It was my Mom who had become worried about me and came looking for me. I loaded into the cab and she inquired as to why I was so late. I advised her that I had become ill and laid down in the side ditch along the road hoping to get to feeling better. I had no idea as to what it was, obviously a virus floating around school. She drove us home. I went to bed pretty much immediately without dinner. I felt pretty wicked to have been chewing tobacco when I should have been heading home and not worrying my parents.
Today we are a much more sophisticated tribe. You rarely ever see people chewing on that animal purgative, tobacco. Nowadays the habits gravitate in the direction of a capsule, tablet or hypodermic. The masses consume barley by the barrels in front of the television. Somehow we are more developed and aware.
I hear John Denver's refrains: " Dusty road, take me home, to the place where I belong. West Virginia, mountain mama, take me home, country road." In my 70 year old mind I see myself. An insignificant, little country boy living a life in paradise and did not even know it.
My mind goes back to an incident that occurred when I was on my way home from piano lessons. I used to ride the bus over to the Van Stavern sisters, two spinsters, after school and take a weekly piano lesson. I would then walk home. It must have been a couple of miles to walk. The route took me by my cousin Smokey Dunbar's house. I must have been 13 or so years of age the same age as Smokey. On this particular occassion, Smokey, was playing around out by the barn. I saw him out there and stopped off to goof off with him for a little spell.
I noticed right away that he had his cheek all pooched out and a little drizzle of what looked like chocolate escaping down his chin. I asked him what he was eating and he told me that it was some Red Man, did I want some? In a state of constant hunger and no stranger to tobacco I decided that I would try some. He loaded me up and I commenced to chewing and spitting. In spite of the fact that I was coming back from piano lessons, Smokey refrained from beating me up on general principles. I think the fact that I relented to chew some Red Man with him got me a pass on the thrashing for being a sissy that took piano lessons.
We sat there on the fence and talked and chewed and talked about things that 13 years olds do, mostly girls and school. After a brief few moments those beautiful mountains on the horizon began to appear upside down. I also began to feel ill. I uttered a weak " I gotta go Smokey" and took off for home. As soon as I got out of sight of Smokey I cleared my mouth of the vile weed but the damage was done. Man, I was sick. I almost immediately threw up and then broke out into a cold sweat. The nausea and dizziness was more than I could take.
In an effort to find some respite I laid down in the ditch by the side of the road. I laid there for quite some while attempting to start feeling better. It was a little one lane country road. The weather was pleasant and I had decided that it was not a really bad place to die. Not many vehicles passed by. The ones that did did not notice that frail, skinny little kid beside the road, in the ditch with the greenish hue about him. It was starting to get dark and I had about resolved to arise and commence my journey home.
I saw the headlights of an old pick up truck that looked sort of like my Dad's coming towards me. As it got closer I was right about the truck but wrong about the driver. It was my Mom who had become worried about me and came looking for me. I loaded into the cab and she inquired as to why I was so late. I advised her that I had become ill and laid down in the side ditch along the road hoping to get to feeling better. I had no idea as to what it was, obviously a virus floating around school. She drove us home. I went to bed pretty much immediately without dinner. I felt pretty wicked to have been chewing tobacco when I should have been heading home and not worrying my parents.
Today we are a much more sophisticated tribe. You rarely ever see people chewing on that animal purgative, tobacco. Nowadays the habits gravitate in the direction of a capsule, tablet or hypodermic. The masses consume barley by the barrels in front of the television. Somehow we are more developed and aware.
I hear John Denver's refrains: " Dusty road, take me home, to the place where I belong. West Virginia, mountain mama, take me home, country road." In my 70 year old mind I see myself. An insignificant, little country boy living a life in paradise and did not even know it.
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