Flippin’ The F

REMEMBER YOUR FIRST COMING OF AGE? That time that’s pretty much filled with excitement and terror and rites of passage. Remember puberty, your voice finally changing, and all those Firsts?

In a feeble attempt to establish credibility, let me point out that I have a degree in sociology with a focus on adolescence, and 30 or so years of working with teenagers. I also have 44 years of experience trying to realize that I’m not a teenager anymore.

One of my old textbooks, Arnold van Gennep’s book, The Rites of Passage, he explains, “I propose to call the rites of separation from a previous world, preliminal rites; those executed during the transitional stage liminal (or threshold rites); and the ceremonies of incorporation into the new world postliminal rites.”

For example, around 14 or so, we begin to long ardently for independence—our own transportation—to come and go as we please. Call this “the rite of separation from a previous world.”

None to soon we get a driver’s manual, probably the most diligently studied textbook in school history and we take Driver’s Ed: “transitional stage liminal (or threshold rites).”

Finally the day comes that we get our license and Dad hands us the keys: “the ceremonies of incorporation into the new world postliminal rites.”

If you’re a faithful reader of About Pops, you know that one of my favorite story genres is bildungsroman (coming-of-age stories). You also know that I like to talk about the age of nearing retirement as my second-coming-age. If you’re bored and want to read more about that, here are links to a couple of posts I’ve made on the subject.

LIFE AS STORY
AGE IS A NUMBER

While I am not yet retired, and in fact, I can’t even see retirement from where I am, still I can see I’m in the that preliminal rites stage of separation from a previous world.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a great job and I get to work with some amazingly creative and energetic young adults, but I do look forward to the weekends and Monday morning often comes to soon. Maybe it’s Nature’s way of preparing me for the time when I will not get up and go to work M-F. Maybe I’m entering the threshold rites stage.

Last Friday morning I was going through the morning ritual: make my toast for peanut butter and strawberry fruit-only spread, start the coffee, take my daily tablespoon of olive oil, and so on.

I commented to My Amazing-Missus, “I LOVE flippin’ the F.”

“I beg your pardon?” she lovingly replied.

All of my peers these days take a cocktail of pills: baby aspirin, fish oil capsule, multi-vitamin, vitamin D, and assorted other pills for heart health, arthritis, etc. We all put them in a little box divided by the days of the week. On the lid of each section is the letter of the appropriate day. When I get to flip the lid on the F I know I get to wear jeans to work and that the weekend looms.

The second-coming-of-age isn’t as exciting as the first, but it is something. Someday instead of getting a driver’s license I’ll get a metaphorical Gold Watch. I wonder if after the “ceremony” it will be as fun to flip the S, the M, the T, the W, the other T, and the other S has it has been to flip the F?

Beautifuller

The band (a small group of very talented, humble musicians) was playing, the stained glass windows colored the light as it came through; it all had a beauty to it. To make it beautifuller I was sitting next to Karlee, at 5 years-old, our oldest grand-girl.

The words to the song the band was singing were projected on a screen at the front of the church. One of those words was “beautiful”. Karlee pointed out to her Mimi that she knew that word. Then she took an offering envelope and a little pencil from the pew rack and wrote the word to prove it.

She wrote the word again and then added an “ler” to the end of it. She explained to me, “See, Pops, normally you would say, ‘more beautiful’ but I wrote ‘beautiful-ler’, so it has my last name ‘Fuller’ in it.”

She went on to add a little cloud and rainbow as if to give us a visual reference for “beautifuller”.

From the 5 year-old hand of Karlee Fuller

Now I won’t insult your intelligence by trying to convince you that this post is largely about anything but an opportunity to brag about my granddaughter, but there is more to it. Indulge me.

The thing about kids is that they see more beautifuller than we do. There is still a wonder and curiosity stirring in them that causes them to be fully alert, asking, “Why, Pops; Why?”

Take the beauty of the colors that nature is offering us right now. I’ve seen autumn sixty-four times now—I get it. The theme song of the bored and cynical should be: “Been There, Done That”.

I have a certificate in a box of treasures my mom gave me that says I was enrolled in the “Cradle Roll” of the Brookside Baptist Church of Tulsa, Oklahoma, when I was just weeks old. Last Sunday morning I sat in what could have been church service number ten-thousand-plus for me. (64 years times 52 weeks times three, for two service on Sundays and one on Wednesday, not counting revivals, camps and vacation Bible school.) I’m not complaining, bragging or expecting a medal of some kind; I’m just saying…

Some times it takes a 5 year-old, to say, “Look Pops! It’s Beautifuller.” And when I do look—she’s right!

I just finished a wonderful book by Wendell Berry, “Jayber Crow”. I highly recommend it. Maybe you won’t read it but at least read this excerpt. This is written in Jayber’s voice. He is the bachelor barber and church janitor in a small town in Kentucky: 

     In general, I weathered even the worst sermons pretty well. They had the great virtue of causing my mind to wander. Some of the best things I have ever thought of I have thought of during bad sermons. Or I would look out the windows. In winter, when the windows were closed, the church seemed to admit the light strictly on its own terms, as if uneasy about the frank sunshine of this benighted world. In summer, when the sashes were raised, I watched with a great, eager pleasure the town and the fields beyond, the clouds, the trees, the movements of the air—but then the sermons would seem more improbable. I have always loved a window, especially an open one.
     What I liked least about the service itself was the prayers; what I liked far better was the singing. Not all of the hymns could move me. I never liked “Onward Christian Soldiers” or “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Jesus’ military career has never compelled my belief. I liked the sound of the people singing together, whatever they sang, but some of the hymns reached inside me, all the way to the bone: “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” “Rock of Ages,” “Amazing Grace,” “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” I loved the different voices all singing one song.
     I thought that some of the hymns bespoke the true religion of the place. The people didn’t really want to be saints of self-deprivation and hatred of the world. They knew that the world would sooner or later deprive them of all it had given them, but still they liked it. What they came together for was to acknowledge, just by coming, their losses and failures and sorrows, their need for comfort, their faith always needing to be greater, their wish (in spite of all words and acts to the contrary) to love one another and forgive and be forgiven, their need for one another’s help and company and divine gifts, their hope (and experience) of love surpassing death, their gratitude. I loved hearing them sing “The Unclouded Day” and “Sweet By and By”.
     And in times of sorrow when they sang “Abide with Me,” I could not raise my head.

Thank you Karlee. You have made your old Pops see beautifuller.

"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives."  —Albert Einstein

Labor Omnia Vincit

HAPPY LABOR DAY. Or, is it Merry Labor Day? Labor Day is a mystery, but I’m glad we have it.

For you in other lands who read About Pops, Labor Day was, best I can tell, a holiday set aside to celebrate the American worker. In Oklahoma, where I live, by creed we honor that sentiment perpetually. Our state’s motto is Labor Omnia Vincit. 

“It is a Latin phrase meaning "Work conquers all". The phrase is adapted from Virgil's Georgics, Book I, line 145-6: ...Labor omnia vicit / improbus ("Steady work overcame all things"). The poem was written in support of Augustus Caesar's "Back to the land" policy, aimed at encouraging more Romans to become farmers. Currently the state motto of the State of Oklahoma and incorporated into its state seal in 1907, the motto originally appeared on the territorial seal of Oklahoma Territory.” —Wikipedia.

My bro-in-law Art, travels extensively and unearths some of the coolest treasures. He could have his own TV show. Recently, he ran across a safety kit from Conoco Oil. Inside the kit was a safety manual. It was issued September 1, 1964. On Labor Day. Intentionally?

The manual is full of excellent safety guidance, like this: 

“Do not use compressed air to clean clothes. Never discharge compressed air onto other employees because serious injuries have resulted from such “horseplay” antics.”

Some of the guidance seems to be outdated, but it was probably the best available in 1964. Here, for example is the entire procedure to treat “Heart Stoppage”:

“Give closed heart massage (only if heart is stopped) and mouth to mouth respiration [sic].”

The thing I found most interesting about the Conoco safety manual was the Workman’s Creed printed on the back cover. I share it here, on this Labor Day, September 1, 2014, 50 years after its publication.

And the end is that the workman shall live to enjoy the fruits of his labor; that his mother shall have the comforts of his arm in her age; that his wife shall not be untimely a widow; that his children shall have a father; and that cripples and helpless wrecks who were once strong men shall not longer be a by-product of industry.” —P.B. Juhnke.

Not exactly the words I would have chosen, but what a beautiful, re-humanizing sentiment.

Labor Omnia Vincit

Graduation and Tarzan

Our Alma Mater,
Thou art strong and true
Thy name shall live in the deeds thy children do.
Thy gift will be in life our guide,
We will be true to thee,
Will Rogers High.

Remember graduation? Here's my ode to graduation day:

A GRADUATION POEM
By POPS

O' the thoughts that ran through
The mind under that mortarboard
The emotions that quickened the heart
And stirred the butterflies
In the belly beneath that robe.
Mission accomplished! Oh, crap; what now?!

I was a member of the Class of '69, Will Rogers High School, Tulsa, Oklahoma. I wasn't much of a member really; I only went to school there my senior year. Prior to that I was a Jenks Trojan!

BTW: the term Alma Mater is Latin, meaning "nurturing mother". Obviously it is used most often these days to refer to the school one attended, but it also refers to the school song or hymn, as in the case of the lyrics at the beginning of this post.

2014 grads of Oklahoma Baptist University. (borrowed from the OBU Facebook page without permission)

Though my time at Will Rogers High was short, I grew to love that little song. The tune is as nice as the lyrics. It's kind of cool that it is literally the school's Alma Mater--the song, it's about our Alma Mater--the school, and it's written using the literal meaning, "nurturing mother", as a metaphor of the school as mother and the students as the "children."

If you're still with me, which is probably unlikely, how about digging through whatever box might contain the old school tassel, or grab a school yearbook. Reminisce a bit. Then say to yourself, "Life is full of transitions and graduations, I survived that big one and I'll survive the next." Now move your tassel to the other side (figuratively of course), and let's take the summer off.

Tarzan and the fam.

Oh, one more lesson before we go: My friend Grady Nutt observed an important life lesson from Tarzan. For those who don't know Tarzan lore, his favorite mode of travel through the Jungle was swinging from one vine to the next. Grady pointed out that if Tarzan had been afraid or unwilling to let go of one vine to grab the next, he would have been known as a real swinger, but would have never gotten anywhere.

Congrats to all you grads wherever you are.