Circus Monkeys

Nie moj cyrk, Nie moje malpy.

I don't speak Polish, but I'm a sucker for a good Polish proverb. I ran this one through the Google® Translator and got this: "Not my circus, not my monkey."

So, I'm guessing the take-away in this proverb is: sometimes it's just not my problem. Or maybe the wisdom here is to quit trying to fix everything for everybody; accept your boundaries and limitations.

You have to be careful here though. You could easily become like one of those ugly, narcissistic characters in the Good Samaritan story, or one of those who think "denial is just a river in Egypt."

I bet I could print up a bunch of t-shirts with the "Not My Circus, Not My Monkey" proverb and sell them like hotcakes. I'll admit it--sometimes, too many times, I might as well be wearing one, because that's my attitude sometimes; too many times.

You've seen it, right? It looks kind of like this:

"It's their mess, let them clean it up."
"She made her bed, she can lie in it."
"I've got to look out for Number One."

I heard a guy say this one time and I wanted to reply, "You'd better look out for Number Two too, because if you step in it you're going to spell like, well, $#1T whether your dog's the one who dropped it or not.

Billy Joel wrote a song back in the 80s (yes, it was a low decade for music) where the lyrics were a litany of the famous, the infamous, and a sample of mankind's collective messes and milestones through the years. The chorus (and title) of the song is the equivalent of "not my circus, not my monkey".

It goes like this:

We Didn't Start The Fire

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio,
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television,
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe,

Chorus:
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning

Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom,
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye,
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen,
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye,

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev,
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc,
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron,
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock,
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland,
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev,
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez,

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai,
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide,

Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia,
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go,
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo,

Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land,
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion,
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician Sex,
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say,

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again,
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock,
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline,
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz,
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law,
Rock and Roller Cola wars, I can't take it anymore.

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on and on and on and on
And on and on and on and on...

Maybe this is our Circus and these are our Monkeys

What's Next?

A few posts back I ventured into the topic of hobbies for us "men of a certain age" to take up once we retire. I received feedback from several of my peers: 

"Are you actually thinking of retiring?"
"I'll never retire."
"Who can afford to retire?"
"Retirement's for wimps."
"Don't retire--start a second career."

All of these thoughts run through my mind as I get closer to that magically arbitrary age. That last one though, the one about a "next" career, what would that look like? I started thinking of things I've seen old guys do, and how that might work out for me as a second career. Here are a few that come to mind:

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Wal-Mart® Greeter

Well, lets see, I don't like Wal-Mart® and I don't like greeting.

I'm a tested and confirmed introvert, and way too cynical and judgmental to stand and watch Wal-Mart® shoppers come and go all day.

Even if I did love greeting, the blue vest is a deal killer for me. I do like coffee though, and I have nothing against green aprons, so Starbucks® could work.

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Pundit

You know those old, former-whatevers that they line up four and five wide across the TV screen on the news channels, all talking at the same time, which is fine because no one cares what they're saying anyway.

This could work. I have a lot of opinions no one wants to hear; about stuff that doesn't really matter at the end of the day.

Am I qualified? I have held office. I was the Sergeant-At-Arms of our high school Spanish club. I work with this girl who's dad was in the CIA and protected a former president. I marched in Nixon's inaugural parade--not as a protester, but as a drummer in the band. (I did, however, wear a "Humphrey-Muskie" button under my uniform.)

“My friends tell me that I have a tendency to point out problems without offering solutions, but they never tell me what I should do about it.” ― Daniel Gilbert, "Stumbling on Happiness"

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Haberdasher

I really enjoy strolling through flea markets, estate sales, vintage shops, etc. Great stories are always told there. You know, the ones that start, "Remember when..." I love it when someone picks up an old catcher's mitt and talks about summer games on the vacant lot down the street, back before mosquitoes carried the West Nile virus, before the sun caused cancer and before perverts were everywhere, snatching up little kids.

So, I think I could really enjoy having a traveling shop of vintage stuff, like the haberdashers of old. If you're not familiar with the origin of the term, I found this on the WWW:

Its meaning down the centuries has been as diverse as its origin. When it appeared, in the thirteenth century, it meant a trader in a range of goods. According to early chroniclers, these included: “glasses, daggers, swerdes [swords]”, “mousetrappes, bird cages, shooing hornes, lanthornes, and Jews trumpes [Jew’s harps]”, and “bookes, pictures, beades, crucifixes” etc.

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Blogger

What would be really cool; if I could figure out a way to monetize this blog deal, like that Pioneer Woman has. Best I can tell, the secret to her success includes: sharing recipes, selling recipe books, and writing children's books about a dog-character named "Charlie The Ranch Dog."

Grumpy The Retired Dog.

Let's try it. If you'll send me $7.95 I'll send you the recipe for my award-winning chili AND my crowd-pleasing shrimp boil. But wait! There's more! I will put your name on the list to receive a First Edition of my children's book about "Grumpy The Retired Dog" who spends his days lounging, eating, scratching himself and silently passing gas that is bound to be destroying the ozone.

This book is not yet written but I'm thinking I'll call the first episode "New Tricks--It's not that I can't learn them, it's just that I have all the tricks I need already."

Anticipation

You know the Carly Simon song, "Anticipation"? It starts off:

We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway

We, our family, are in the throes of life's most ancient and wonderful states of anticipation. If fact it is known as "Expecting!" It is so universal that when someone says "They're Expecting." You know what they're expecting without any additional information.

I'm sure right now, if she's reading this, our beautiful and very pregnant daughter-in-law is thinking, "What do you mean WE Ke-mo sah-bee!?" She is obviously doing all the heavy lifting, and other stuff I can't even imagine--having never been an expectant mother.

My Anticipation is easier. I just get to sit and imagine being even Pop-sier (Pops x3).

Back in the day, our cloud of Anticipation was darker. Heck we didn't even know what color to paint the nursery, or which wallpaper to hang: the one with rainbow colored pegasus/unicorns, or the little cowboys.

This is not Nora's actual picture. I "borrowed" it for illustration purposes only.

But we know, because of our complete trust in the doctor's reading of an image on a monitor, that this little baby we're expecting any day now, is a girl. She already has a name: Nora Grace. She has two loving parents, and two big sisters who are about to have their world's rocked.

There are some titles that people seek, you know, like: President, Senator, Miss America. Some are bestowed meritoriously: Homecoming queen, Most Likely to Whatever. Some people bring on themselves: Class Clown, Town Drunk, etc.

Then there are those titles that come by virtue of providence, like: POPS. I've been called a lot of things, but the grandest are Son, Husband, Dad, and POPS.

Today has started as most other days, but today, like yesterday, I am preoccupied--with ANTICIPATION.

Nora Grace, this is your POPS. We're ready when you are. 

Learning About Love: A Chronology

Fall 1969, Freshman at Oklahoma Baptist University: I was eating in the dining hall with my roommate, a basketball player on scholarship. I was a drummer on percussion scholarship. Apparently there was a "mission" of sorts for upperclassmen ministerial students to see how many wayward freshmen they could bring into the fold. Their approach to us was: "Are you guys a part of the "elect?"

I grew up in church, my dad was a pastor. I knew the lingo. I replied, "I'm a Christian; not a Calvinist." The leader of the group said to his posse, "Come on boys. Let's not cast our pearls before the swine." They collected their trays and King James (not Lebron) Bibles and left.

Fall 1970, Sophomore at The University of Tulsa: I was at the BSU for lunch (always eating). The BSU director saw me and asked me to come by his office. He told me of a church that was looking for a part-time music director. He knew I was a musician; he didn't understand that drummers don't make good church musicians--especially in that era where drums were considered pagan instruments that inevitably lead to dancing and sex. But the church paid $25 a week--where do I apply?

At that church a wonderfully kind and gracious woman took me, and every other young musician in the church under her wing with encouragement, grace and support. Her name was Betty. She had a daughter. In fact, she had three daughters and two sons, but she had this one daughter...

New Years Eve 1971: I asked Betty's daughter, Arlene, to go out with me on a date. Betty's husband, Ernie, was a Farmer. I was a long-haired drummer who drove a VW Bus. Arlene said yes, and I guess Betty and Ernie did too.

Valentines Day 1972: I asked her to marry me and she said yes! I asked Ernie if I could marry his daughter and he said yes too!

June 16, 1972: With my dad officiating, we were married. (I'm sure there was some "discussion" around the community about the hurried nature of this romance and marriage. So to remove any doubt we waited eight years to have children.)

June 13, 2014: Today is my Amazing-Missus' birthday. We will celebrate with coneys at Coney-Islander in Tulsa. It's sort of our place.

June 16, 2014: We will celebrate 42 years of marriage. And once again I will marvel at the fact that somehow or another this beautiful soul(mate) of mine chose and chooses to love me.

My Amazing-Missus on the farm where she grew up.

See that's the thing about LOVE; it is about choices and decisions and our wills--our free wills. I will admit though that I cannot deny the Hand of Providence.

I have laid out here a very brief history of how it all happened, but when I look back on our romance and life together, I can see pieces that fell together. And, yes I get that my choice of words makes it all sound fairytale-like.

The theologians will tell me I can't have it both ways, i.e.: "Either you believe in pre-destination or you don't."

But I can have it both ways. I can believe in an omniscient God who gave me the choice to love Him or not. I believe and know from 42 years of experience, I can meet a woman who chose to love me and still chooses to, and I know that can't be easy so much of the time.

So do I believe in Divine Providence? Yes, I do.
Do I believe in free will? Absolutely.
Do I really believe you can have it both ways? Without a doubt.
So, yes I do believe in Destiny. I do believe in Fate. I do believe my Amazing-Missus loves me. And I love her. And if that love comes only from a pre-programmed puppet of some kind with strings pulled by a heavy-handed god, it wouldn't be beautiful at all.

Once again, I will rely on the wise sage, G.K. Chesterton to help me with the words: 

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.
Gilbert K. Chesterton