FLAT AND GLUM

FLAT! It has a certain undesirableness to it doesn’t it? Flat tire. Fell flat. Flat tired. Flat land. Smashed Flat. Even in music, flat the third of a chord and it becomes a minor chord and maybe The Blues.

B.B. King

I’m a part of a group of old guys that meets once a week at a place called The Quarantine Pub. It’s a virtual place (via Zoom). Our topics of conversation vary widely: world events, sports, art, books, movies, cars, poetry, food & drink, women, death, life, the call of the wild, the past, the future, and the present (just to mention a few). In a recent meeting we were talking about the overall state of things—the pandemic cloud, unrest, too much rest, old age, etc. One of the guys in the group described how he felt as “Flat”. Yes! That’s what it feels like. Not really depressed or discouraged or remorseful, just… Flat. I had been looking for the perfect descriptor and there it was.

One of my favorite YouTube channels is done by a guy named David. He lives aboard a narrowboat on the canals of England. I’ve mentioned him before. In his last video of 2020, he announced that he would not be making as many videos.* It hit me hard. It was the same feeling I had when I watched the last episode of Downton Abbey or The Queen’s Gambit or Seinfeld or Frasier or heard they were closing Bell’s Amusement Park in Tulsa. (Well that may be a little over-stated.)

In his last video* he talked about feeling the impact of this dark, gloomy state we’re in, trying to find just the right word, I was yelling at him through my computer screen: FLAT!!

He didn’t hear me but he used another word: Glum. That’s a very British sounding word I thought. But I like it; so much so that I searched the dictionary to get a bit of history on the word. What I found was so interesting. The word, although it sounds like something from the past, is more popular today than it ever has been. I don’t know who’s keeping the count on these things for all these years, but I’m taking their word for it. Take a look at this screenshot and note especially the graph for the word’s mentions.

Now we have two emotionally loaded, clear words to describe life in the winter of 2020-21: flat and glum. So what do we do about it?

Carpe Diem. Seize the day. If the day is too big and ominous or out of reach, seize the moment. Understand something: I’m talking to myself here. This blog is part public writing and part personal journal. I’m not trying to tell anybody what they should be doing. I’m planting and fertilizing ideas in my own garden. We’ll see what pops up.

Moment seizing I can do. If one-day-at-a-time is too daunting, too fraught, I’ll shoot for moments. Not literal minutes, but the moments. Like Lady Gaga singing the National Anthem. Like Amanda Gorman breathing new life into poetry and recitation. Like the Thunder coming back from 18 points down to beat the Chicago Bulls. Like the Facetime calls with our kids. Like my Amazing-Missus’ banana nut bread.

I can look forward in glimpses too. I can’t focus on a large chunk of time like the rest of 2021 for example. But I can anticipate getting my second dose of the vaccine in a couple of weeks. I can look forward to spring, to our next road trip, to gathering with our family and my brother and his family to finally lay our parents remains in the ground together and celebrate them once more.

Since we’re going slow anyway, why not stop to smell the roses (which I think is another metaphor for seizing the day or the moment), that is if you’re still able to smell things like roses.

Did you hear the news morsel about the flood of bad reviews for scented candles. From Newsweek:

A customer wrote on Yankee Candle's online shop for the Sparkling Cinnamon fragrance—a one-star review, where the purchaser, under the headline of "Waste of money," wrote "I purchased three of these. What a waste. There's virtually NO scent to these at all!! If I wasn't confined to my home because of covid I would return these for sure."

Turns out scented candle sales are down. Complaints about scented candles not being scented are up. But is it the candle or the covid nose? The corelation is too significant to ignore.

I guess if you can’t smell the candle or taste your food… Blame the Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker.

See what happened here? I slipped into a different coping tool: if you don’t like the ways things are, find someone or something to blame. “We wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be flat and glum if it weren’t for the Other—the other guy, the other party, the other worldview, the other politician, the other race, the other religion, the other ____________.

I’ve tried this approach, it’s a gimmick, a fool’s errand. It’s a lie. You can’t rehumanize yourself by dehumanizing others.

So, I’ll be here seeking to seize the wonderful moments, availing myself of the opportunities by reading good books, listening to good music, spending time (in person and virtually) with people I love, watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, praying, meditating, and eating banana nut bread.

I know that “man does not live by bread alone” so, I’ll have some of her biscuts and gravy too. Seize that!

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Here’s a link to David’s video on YouTube. Watch it all but especially the section from 3:05 to 4:32.

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WHO'S NUMBER ONE?

LET’S SAY YOU ARE ASKED TO SIT AT A TABLE. On the table are several items and you are asked to choose one. Your choice is a predictor of your future life. At least that’s the tradition in some cultures. It’s called a picking or choosing ceremony and it is usually done at a child’s first birthday party.

My cursory research on the ceremony lead me to understand that items like paper money are set out and symbolizes that the child will be wealthy if it is chosen. A toy sword represents a successful career in the military. Books, scrolls, and calligraphy brushes or pen and paper represent the child being a scholar or a starving artist.

Based on who I have become, I’m guessing that the things I chose from the items my parents set before me included a drum, a Snickers bar, a pen and notebook, and a pizza.

Who knows at one year old who they will be? It takes a few miles along the road for the journey to matter and make sense. It’s a whole lot easier at 70 to see destiny than it is at One. Abraham Maslow said, “What a man can be, he must be.” That’s true whether you’re One or 70.

For me that means being Pops! I can be that and I must be that. Once again this dang pandemic is standing in the way of my plans. For example:

TODAY. JANUARY 19, 2021 IS JEREMIAH FULLER’S FIRST BIRTHDAY!!!

First Birthdays are a key event for self-acutualized grandfathers who have embraced the high calling of spoiling the Grand-Kids.

Jeremiah is the youngest of our Grand-Kids. His mom and dad are Brooke and Kyle. Somehow they, along with Jeremiah’s siblings: Haddi, Everly, and Malachi, are going to have to provide a worthy party and celebration to make up for the fact that his Pops and Mimi are elderly and at this point have had only the first vaccination of two to try and stay alive so we can attend his second birthday party.

I’m no seer, but I know a thing or two about our Grand-Kids including the Birthday Boy. All of these kids are loved (and sometimes tough-loved), nurtured, and cared for. They are given opportunities to explore, create, discover, and grow.

If Jeremiah’s parents were to put a bunch of items on the table for him to choose from I have no idea what he would pick, but I’m pretty sure the next day he could very well choose something else. I know this: Jeremiah will be happy, he will love and serve others, he will nurture his soul and know deeply he is a child of God. He will be beautiful and handsome. On occasion, because he is an adventurer, he will try the patience of his parents but they will always know he loves them. And he will know he’s loved unconditionally.

So for this First Birthday we’ll have to make the most of things. His Mimi has sent him a party pack with goofy hats and stuff. His Pops has written this post to say, “I’m sorry we can’t be there with you little buddy. Please forgive us. Can you feel the Happy Birthday vibes we’re sending to you in Alva, Oklahoma, from our pandemic bunker here in Oklahoma City?”

You have our full-fledged, unwavering love on your birthday and every day.

DON'T WORRY BABY

WE’VE GROWN WEARY of the news cycle: COVID-Trump-Insurrection-Repeat. We have also grown weary of regular TV—you know, endless ads for prescription drugs with happy old people risking it all on countless, awful side-effects, interspersed with bits of “Wheel of Fortune” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns.

Let’s watch a movie! Netflix had a recommendation for us: “Runaway Bride” with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. It was just the comfortable, predictable, escape we needed. The title says it all (spoiler alert) it’s about a bride that runs away. She’s made several trips to the marriage alter, but flees just before vow time. But, then along comes Gere…

It took me back. Forty-nine years. Just this time of the year in 1972, I was attempting to woo and wow a pretty young lady.

I was a student at the University of Tulsa, playing drums in a rock and roll band, and driving a school bus for Tulsa Public Schools. She was a senior in high school and had just been selected Miss December by the student body. Her life was fine and full. I hoped to make it Fuller (wink, wink).

The top five tunes on the radio for this same week back in 1972 were:

You're So Vain —Carly Simon
Superstition —Stevie Wonder
Me And Mrs. Jones —Billy Paul
Crocodile Rock —Elton John
Your Mama Don't Dance —Loggins & Messina

The political scandal du jour:

In January 1972, G. Gordon Liddy, Finance Counsel for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President and former aide to John Ehrlichman, presented a campaign intelligence plan to CRP's Acting Chairman Jeb Stuart Magruder, Attorney General John Mitchell, and Presidential Counsel John Dean that involved extensive illegal activities against the Democratic Party. According to Dean, this marked "the opening scene of the worst political scandal of the twentieth century and the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency". —Wikipedia (Dean, John W. (2014). The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It).

On Valentine’s Day 1972, I offered THE ring and asked that all important question: “So, do you think Nixon will go down in history as the worst…” NO, NO, NO! Not that question. THE question. The for-better-or-worse question.

She had so many reasons to say NO. She could have said, “You’re in school with high tuition hanging over you. You’re a drummer and a bus driver.” For-richer-or-poorer? “Ummm, No. I don’t think so.”

So how did it turn out?

I just told you about happily watching a Netflix movie together. Are you paying attention? My bride did not runaway. As Paul Harvey used to say: “And, now you know the rest of the story.” Was she ever tempted? Well, if I were married to me, I would have to say YES, I would have been tempted to run away from me on numerous occasions.

Maybe you've seen the movie “About Schmidt” with Jack Nicholson. The movie starts with his character, Warren Schmidt at his retirement dinner. It's the beginning of a road of dark comedy that many of us could relate to but none of us want to travel. The title of this blog--About Pops--is a respectful borrowing from the title and theme of the movie.

Shortly after retiring, Schmidt’s wife passes away. He slips deeper into a funk, believing his life has not counted for anything. He goes on a road trip, all alone, in a motorhome his wife purchased for their retirement years. One night he’s sitting in a park on top of the RV talking to his deceased wife:

“Helen, what did you really think of me, deep in your heart? Was I really the man you wanted to be with? Was I? Or were you disappointed and too nice to show it?”

That is one of the most tragic lines in any movie ever. I just wanted to shake him and say, “Warren; buddy, she didn’t run away did she? She bought the RV. She was looking down the road, the road with YOU. Sure maybe you’ve been a pain in the bumper, but apparently she was holding out hope for some bliss somehow somewhere.”

I remember January of 1972, I almost flunked out of a scuba diving class. (Had to get that pesky P.E. credit.) It was an evening class. On those winter evenings I wanted to be with her, not in a swimming tank learning how to decompress before surfacing from a deep dive. I skipped so many classes I almost failed my final test dive, but I had something more important going on.

Although certified, I’ve never been scuba diving. I’ve had something more important going on. Oh I don’t have the fervor that my 21 year-old self had, but I still hope to woo and wow her at 70 and beyond. Am I the man she really wanted to be with? Or is she disappointed and too nice to show it?

We’ve taken the whole quarantine thing really seriously. That is to say that we’ve had a lot of together-time. So far she hasn’t suggested that I enroll in a scuba diving class. I’m taking that as a good sign.

CUE THE BEACH BOYS—

Well it's been building up inside of me
For oh I don't know how long
I don't know why
But I keep thinking
Something's bound to go wrong

But she looks in my eyes
And makes me realize
And she says "don't worry, baby"

Don't worry, baby
Don't worry, baby
Everything will turn out alright

Don't worry, baby

YOU'VE A GOT A FRIEND

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[FIRST. I had told myself I would avoid politics here on my blog as best I could, but some things need to be said. I wrote this for my personal journal—not intending to share it. Then I read it to a friend who said, “That’s not about politics. That’s about friendship.” He’s right. It is about friendship; my friendship with James and everyone who is a friend whether we agree or not.]

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FROM TIME TO TIME, someone will bring up politics in a conversation with me by saying, “Your friend James Lankford…”

JAMES, ME & OUR AMAZING MISSUSES

Then they try to move the conversation one of several directions: either they think I’m cool to have a friend in high places deadset on protecting us all from the liberals, or they want me to know that they know I have a friend whose fingerprints are all over the Kool-Aid pitcher in the Whitehouse kitchen.

Either way, it’s guilt by association. Why do we do that? I don’t think that I would assume that just because you might have been on a bowling team with Ted Cruz that you are a political nutjob or that his daddy and your daddy had anything at all to do with the Kennedy assassination. (He didn’t did he?)

James and I are friends. We don’t play tennis together or exchange recipes or vacation together. The only time we talk these days is if we happen to see each other at a restaurant, which hasn’t happened since last March, unless we happened to park next to each other at curbside pickup.

I got to know James way before his life in politics. In our early conversations, politics never came up. Here’s how we met. In the 80s, I worked as the youth ministry consultant for Oklahoma Baptist churches. During that time a movement began, known as the “conservative takeover” of the Southern Baptist Convention. The movement, in my view, was set to destroy doctrines that I believed to be not only right, but essential to a church that claimed to follow Jesus.

Not all people and not all churches were signing up for this takeover, but still, for me, in the role I was in; I couldn’t see myself continuing there. During this time I made friends with a guy who understood what was going on and could empathize with the dilemma. He was also a friend that could offer me a lifeline—a way to support my family and still have a ministry to youth. I took it!

After I left the Baptist convention position there was a time of transition, and ultimately they hired a guy for a similar version of that role. That guy was James Lankford. On a couple of occasions I would meet with him to talk about what work had been done, what the priorities were then and what they could be going forward. And that’s how we became friends—over a shared passion for teenagers.

Today we’ve both moved on. We’re too old and disengaged from youth culture to matter or make a difference. So, do we have anything left in common?

Here’s one thing: I would love to have James’ voice. I don’t mean I want to be a senator and be on Fox News. Just being an informed and conscientious voter consumes all the energy I want to give to political involvement these days. When I say I would love to have James’ voice, I don’t mean his words. Don’t get me wrong: James is smart, he is perceptive, and I believe he wants to represent Oklahoma well. But his words of late are not my words.

Please, let me try to navigate these next few paragraphs, knowing that my words will fail, but I’m trying to speak without alienating. I do understand the concern about the drift of our culture, the impact of “elites” and “fundamentalists”. I get the concern about globalization and cosmopolitanism. The desire of the evangelicals to explain declining numbers? I get that too. I hear the argument that people like Donald Trump seem to be necessary in order to reverse the perceived morphing of America. Here’s my question: At what cost? I’ve asked Senator Lankford this question many times.

I am not writing this to defend James or defame him. He is my friend. I do not agree with him on the best ways to solve America’s political and social woes. He and I talked early in his time as a U.S. Representative, before becoming a senator. I asked him how it was being a member of the House. He said it’s pretty much constant negotiating: I’ll support your deal if you support mine. A lot of listening to lobbyists and reading bills. Those are not his exact words, but close. I am fearful that at some point James could become a Politician—a Washington insider, a fortune seeker. I am fearful that is one of the worst things that can happen to our elected representatives.

When I say I would love to have his voice I mean I would love to have that deep, resonate bass voice, but I would not use it in unison with Ted Cruz to read “Green Eggs and Ham” or to join the chorus of his eleven who are conniving to overturn constitutional processes with their collective, elected voices. It sounds sort of like sedition—this challenge of state’s electoral votes on January 6. Please James, as one friend to another…

This is nothing new, I understand that. Many years ago, Will Rogers said:

“About all I can say for the United States Senate
is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.”

Thankfully, friendship can survive politics. If it can’t; politics isn’t worth it, or the friendship wasn’t genuine to begin with.

Please don’t feel like you need to respond or explain to me how things really are. I’m old. I’m set in ways. I will remain unswayed. I am hard-headed, but not hard-hearted. Disagreement doesn’t diminish friendships for me. I will always call James my friend.

Now to quote Penny Wharvey McGill (O Brother Where Art Thou):

“I’ve spoken my piece and counted to three.”