I Used To Be Pretty

Several years ago, a friend and I would have breakfast most every morning at a little joint known for their good breakfasts. As a rule, we sat at the same table, ordered the same thing from the same waitress: a young Vietnamese girl named Kim.

Because I really like to know people’s stories, I would ask Kim about hers. She came to the USA, as many have, to study. Her story was particularly interesting to me because she came from North Vietnam. Her father was a professor and taught for a time in Moscow.

Anyway… we went from the usual customer/waitperson conversation like, “Want the usual?” “Yes, please.” to a wonderful friendship. Kim came to our house where I tried to fix comfort food for her. I went to the Asian market with a recipe for pho that I found on the internet. Two elderly asian women, detecting my ignorance, helped me find the right ingredients and gave me instructions—none of which I could understand. Kim appreciated the effort; I think. She suggested that the next time we should have burgers, and we did.

The friendship grew. It grew to the point that when we collaborated with some other friends to start a house-church, Kim joined us. She asked if she could invite a few friends and I told her, yes, that’s what this is about.

So the next Sunday she showed up with friends. I was surprised; not that she had actually brought friends, but to see that her friends were an older, anomalous couple named Page and Dicksy. This was great because we were a pretty eccentric bunch anyway.  We were age diverse, culturally diverse, socio-economically diverse, politically diverse and so on.

As it turned out, all of these weird ingredients came together to make a pretty good stew. I didn’t know though, just how powerful this little tribe was until just lately.

I’ve watched them bring compassion, knowledge, expertise, gifts, talents, time, determination and sheer willpower to bear in a situation that desperately needed a solution.

I wish I could tell you all about Page and Dicksy, but for now, you need to know this: they were basically only-children and had no children of their own. For the most part, our little band of believers became their clan.

I wish I could tell you all about the players in this saga; people, that life and God have equipped in ways that have made them a Dream Team for times such as these.

Recently, Page passed away. Dicksy instantly became alone and essentially homeless.

(Oh, believe me it is a story.) The Dream Team stepped in, became Dicksy’s family, planned, funded and conducted Page’s funeral. They found Dicksy a home in a retirement living center and set her up very nicely indeed.

Photo by Molly Hennesy. Taken at Fort Reno, Oklahoma.

They continued to visit her and care for her which was no easy duty. Dicksy’s mother as it turns out, was apparently a colorful character in her own right, at one time married to a country music pioneer. On her deathbed she charged Dicksy with the responsibility of caring for all her worldly treasures. Dicksy took that very, very, very seriously. In her new little retirement home she continued to worry and fret about her stuff. Always the stuff.

Isn’t it funny how treasures become stuff, that becomes junk, that becomes crap, that becomes dust.

Following her husband’s death, a couple of things happened: one, Dicksey became a liberated woman; again (it was not the first time though, that she had become liberated. I’ve seen the pictures). For those of us that knew her, she always wore a wig, a very unflattering one. As soon as Page passed, she took off the wig and threw it away. “I never liked that old thing. Page wanted me to wear it because it made me look younger.”

I’m no expert on grief, but weirdly enough the guy that wrote the book on grief—literally, is the leader of our little band. As an observer, it seemed to me that for Dicksy there was a mix of grief, obsession over her stuff, and fretting, that all combined, bringing her to a sort of defeat.

My Amazing-Missus, who has truly been amazing by being herself in all of this, was with Dicksy when she had her 89th birthday, just a few days after Page’s death. By this time Dicksy had been moved to a rehabilitation unit. A physical therapist came to her room. Arlene told the young man, “Today is Miss Dicksy’s birthday.” “Happy Birthday,” he said.

Dicksy’s reply to him was, “I used to be pretty.” In a few days she was dead.

Her funeral is tomorrow. Once again the Dream Team is busy taking care of details, planning what will be a beautiful memorial service. Afterward, we will gather and remember Page and Dicksy. We’ll laugh at the craziness. And we’ll marvel at the Providence of God. And hopefully we will understand, a little more deeply, that to God: we are all still pretty.

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Earlier I mentioned that our leader, Doug Manning literally wrote the book on grief. This is the book I’m speaking of. I highly recommend it.

The Interrobang

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it. —Alfred Hitchcock

Harper, our middle grand-girl

Interrogatio is Latin for "a rhetorical question" or "cross-examination";
Bang is printers' slang for the exclamation mark. 

Symbols—those little marks that represent something, that tell a bit of a story, that create identity.

For example, if you see a little stylized fish on the back of someone’s car, you assume that they (or the car’s previous owner) professed to be christian. You don’t assume though that the person’s religious convictions extend to more courteous driving or less road rage than their non fish bearing counterparts. And to be fair, we can’t really ask “WWJD” when it comes to driving, because we don’t have any record that Jesus ever drove anything (except the occasional evil spirit—from a person to a pig).

I like symbols. I think they’re interesting. I’ve yet to find a symbol however, that I was so affiliated with that I would have it tattooed on my person, but I have held allegiance to a few symbols over the years, enough at least to wear them as jewelry.

The Peace Sign was one. (Or, as it was called by “rednecks” back in the day: “the footprint of the American chicken.”)

For me, the symbol probably had something to do with my adolescent need to “belong.” It was like the brand of the 60s counter-culture movement and a tribe that was very accepting. Maybe I wore it out of wishful thinking—hoping that somehow if we rallied around the dream of peace I might not get drafted and end up in a jungle in Southeast Asia fighting in a war I didn’t understand.

When that war finally ended, I put the peace sign in a box with my “McGovern for President” button, and my idealism. I still have that box and occasionally drag it out and remember the old days “better than they were.”

Today, if I were to wear a symbol or give serious consideration to symbol-style tattoo, it would be an interrobang. The interrobang has an interesting history. You should Google (v.) it. The interrobang is a punctuation mark that actually appeared on Remington typewriters briefly. It really never made it’s mark though. (Although it is still included in many fonts on your computer.) It was a combination of a question mark and an exclamation point.

As I hinted at the beginning of the post the interrobang would be used at the end of a hypothetical question, being asked with a sort of gusto, like: “Wow, did you see that?!” or “What the what?!” You get the idea, right?!

Just as the peace sign was a good symbol for me in my first coming-of-age, the interrobang serves me well now, in my second.

There was once a day of youthful confidence; swagger, if you will. Today it seems like everything I used to feel certain of, in an exclamatory kind of way, also has a certain question to it. For example, say we’re trekking across country, my Amazing-Missus might ask, “Do you have any idea where we are?” And I reply, “Of course I do! I think?” Or the doctor asks, “How are you doing?” “Great!” I exclaim. “Aren’t I?”

That picture at the beginning of this post, of our middle grand-girl, Harper; her dad took that and commented about her “eye of the tiger” look. She will be 3-years old Saturday. I hope she always keeps her eye-of-the-tiger, strength-of-her-convictions swagger. Some will see it and call it "strong-willed". Her Pops will see it and will remember a day when he had it. A day when he thought Peace was attainable. A day when he was less squishy about his certainties.

Autumn

I LOVE AUTUMN. A few days ago, on the autumnal equinox (first day of fall), I thought I should write a post on About Pops about this amazing point in time. But then I remembered, I already had. It’s called Aequus Nox and you can read it by clicking this link.

Let me add this: another thing I love about fall is the return of favorite shows. “The Blacklist” is the one I’ve looked forward to most. It is spellbinding. Not only is it full of great story-telling, and rich characters, but it is one of those shows that make great use of music. Each episode ends with a song that is almost always new to me. The song is always apropos to the theme of the episode emotionally and sometimes lyrically. The song, along with the cliffhangers, pulls you forward, anticipating next Monday’s episode.

Last Monday, the first episode of the new season did not disappoint; at all. It was full of glimpses of the intrigue to come.

But, my favorite part was that final song. Thankfully I had recorded the program because I had to find my phone, rewind a bit, fire up “Shazam”, and purchase that song.

It’s a song by a group of youngsters that call themselves Ages And Ages. The song is called “Divisionary: Do the Right Thing.” Fortunately, NPR has already discovered this group, brought them in for a “Tiny Desk Concert” and posted it for us all to see, hear and enjoy.

There are several songs on this video. The “Divisionary” song is at the 3:50 mark. Watch them all, but watch this one for sure.

Joining The Club

Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, Sean Connery, Abraham Lincoln, Harrison Ford, Johnny Depp, Jed Clampett... See a theme emerging here?

If these guys have a club; I'm joining. It's partly out of necessity, partly because I just want to be one of those guys--guys who wear hats.

Sean Connery

Maybe you don't know me, or maybe you do and haven't noticed, but I have what they call a "receding hairline." And like Sean Connery, I've fully embraced it. No offense to guys who have, but I have never, ever been tempted to try to pull a fast one on the world by wearing a toupee; nor have I any interest in joining the "Hair Club For Men".

Sure there are cons to the life of the hairless, but there are a lot of pros too. One of the cons: the bald jokes. Not that they're cruel; just tiresome. I've heard them all, trust me; I've heard them all. And I have all the witty, stock replies:

"Hey, if you want to use your hormones to grow hair, that's your business."

"I'm not bald, this is a solar panel for a sex machine."

Well, this wasn't intended to be an essay on baldness. This is my public declaration: I am now a guy who wears hats!

Is it really necessary to declare it? I think so. Otherwise, I'm just another guy with a hat on. Let me illustrate. If you saw Bill Clinton walking down the street in a fedora, you would probably say, "Hey, there's Bill Clinton, why is he wearing a fedora?!"

If you saw Pharrell walking down the street, you might say, "Hey there's that happy guy!" You wouldn't mention his hat, because Pharrell is a guy who wears hats, whereas, Bill is a guy that is inexplicably wearing a fedora. See what I mean?

I mentioned necessity earlier. I don't NEED, in a psychological way, to be a guy who wears hats. But, after my doctor torched about the tenth "abnormality" off the top of my head. He said you better wear sunscreen and a hat. So, if next time we meet, I'm smelling like a coconut and wearing a hat; you don't have to say anything besides, "Sup, POPS? How are the Grand-Girls and the Amazing-Missus?" You don't even need to mention the hat, because you now know that I'm a "hat-wearing guy."

Our oldest Grand-Girl, Karlee in Pops' hat and her Uncle Kyle's shades. The red cups? All hers.

Part of this declaration process is to convince myself that I am now different. (I can hear you.) Self-reinvention is never easy. There are some hurdles I'm trying to clear. For example: I have facial hair--not a full beard, just a goatee. Have had it for years. I'm not just a guy who's grown a goatee, it's who I am. It comes from my part of my life philosophy: grow it where you can.

Anyway, with facial hair and a straw hat, it could appear as if I need to ask my Amazing-Missus to take all the zippers out of my pants and put an orange triangle on the back of the old Volvo® buggy.

But hurdles aside, I'm following doctor's orders, trying to stop the consequences of a youth spent at the pool and tennis courts, and also to become worthy of my new membership in the "Hat Club For Men."

BTW: One of the perks of the club that I've noticed--it is so fun to tip my hat to a lady. I know I sound chauvinistic--get over it. Oh, and if you consider yourself to be a lady, we meet, and I don't tip my hat; it's not that I didn't notice, or that I question your lady-ness, it's just that I'm still developing the lifestyle and sometimes forget.

Cock your hat--angles are attitudes. --Frank Sinatra