ANOTHER SEASON

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

How long can we make this request? Is this an all-you-can-eat, daily-serving-at-a-time kind of thing?

Should; at some point our prayer be, “Lord you have given me daily bread every single day for so many days now. However, if you offer today’s portion I will take it, as a gift, without presumption.”

image “borrowed” from Molly Harris who also made the cool bread bag

Doug, my friend, mentor and sage, says that as we age we fall into the “medical vortex” of endless doctor’s appointments, tests, procedures, and on and on.

The band “Blood Sweat & Tears” had a song called “Spinning Wheel”. A snippet of the lyrics:

Drop all your troubles by the riverside
Catch a painted pony on the spinnin' wheel ride

They weren’t writing about the medical vortex. But at the ages they are now, surely they could see the relevance.

I mention this idea, because it is now my reality—one I don’t do well with. Some senior citizens seem to revel in the medical abyss, their lives happily dictated by their appointments and stuff.

I’m one of those who feels like every doctor delights in pulling on a pair of rubber gloves and poking, prodding or probing something, then writing a prescription with a never-ending list of side effects. Speaking of which, I always mute the every-growing abundance of prescription drug ads on TV. As a matter of fact, if I were the TV czar I would prohibit all medical related ads along with any ad where GMC has hoards of people carrying their pickup trucks tailgate up a hill.

Yesterday, I had one of those procedures. It was scheduled for a year ago, but COVID prompted hospitals to shut down “elective” surgeries and procedures. So, I’ve had a year to fret and stew about this one. Going in I knew there was “cause for concern” from an earlier screening test.

So, in these past few days I’ve worried and wondered—can you ask for daily bread again today and tomorrow and the next day? I mean, I know I can, but it’s just that I’ve been given so much. I’ve lived 70 abundant years, more than anyone deserves. Can I ask for a few more? Can I ask for another day, another serving of daily bread so to speak, when I’ve been given so much?

Last night, after a long nap to sleep off the anesthesia from the procedure, we watched the last few episodes of “Anne With An E” on Netflix. (Should I be admitting how much I enjoyed this series?) There were three seasons and I wanted more. I guess we always do. I wanted to see Anne and Gilbert married and having grandkids. I wanted to see more; more of my kids and grandkids living their lives. I wanted to take My Amazing-Missus on the road trips I have promised her which we’ve planned for years, which were stolen from us by COVID, ice storms, snow storms, etc.

But see. There I go. Wanting more. Another season.

We lived through the Siberian Blast. Our heat was on. Our pipes didn’t freeze. We didn’t have to boil our water. But I wanted more.

Somewhere near us lives a person with a Cadillac Escalade. It has a vanity tag that says, “BLESSED”. I assume they are referring to their Escalade. I wonder if there was room for more letters on their tag, would they go on to say: “This is enough. BUT, I would also like to have the daily bread (aka next year’s model).”

By the way. The procedure went fine. Everything is good. I get another season. I’m grateful and blessed. But, I will be grateful for tomorrow’s bread too. And if it’s not too much to ask: could we make it a biscut with gravy?

Measure Your Treasure

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

I VIVIDLY REMEMBER my first dollar of disposable income.

dis·pos·a·ble in·come
/dəˈspōzəbəl ˈinˌkəm,dəˈspōzəbəl ˈiNGˌkəm/
noun: income remaining after deduction of taxes and other mandatory charges, available to be spent or saved as one wishes.

I was probably 7 or 8, walking to a friend’s house up the street. There it was; a dollar bill! You know how in the sketch of George Washington on the ONE he’s turned slightly, facing left-ish, but his eyes are cut back to the right? His look seemed to say to me, “I’m yours now, let’s do something fun.” So my friend and I walked to a little neighborhood grocery store, bought a can of vienna sausages, a loaf of bread and a couple of Tootsie Rolls. It was an impulse purchase spawned from hunger. Once I was full of bread and little weiners, I wish I had bought baseball cards.

Thumbing through my vinyl records, trying to decide what to listen to next, I started estimating how much I had invested in just the records in this one box. From the early days of having a few dollars to spend, often I chose music: records, 8-track tapes, CDs, digital music, concert tickets, drumsticks, stereo equipment, headphones, turntables, speakers. Throw in the guitar in its case behind where I’m sitting right now, a set of Ludwig drums and Zildian cymbals in another room, you could label one large treasure chest “MUSIC” and find a huge piece of my heart.

My love of music is not unlike a hunger. It’s different than that feeling that leads you to use your found money to buy vienna sausages. Music is an experience without end. How can you take a limited number of notes like the eight of an octave and add a few half tones and make endless melodies? Consider a song that you’ve heard many many times before. Play that song from a quality vinyl record on a good turntable with a good cartridge, into a phono pre-amp, to a powerful amplifier through quality cables and into well-designed speakers or headphones and you will hear things there you’ve never heard before: soft strings, the rumble of a distant bass drum or the ting of a triangle, a voice in harmony, all adding layers and more layers.

My dad had a young friend named Ken. He was a school teacher in Tulsa. After school he made pizzas in a little joint called The Pizza Parlor he owned on 11th Street in Tulsa. For several years he taught school and made pizza but finally took up the pizza business full time. He changed the name to Ken’s Pizza Parlor and later expanded to a brand he called Mazzio’s.

I spent a lot of the disposable income of my youth at Ken’s. His original pizza sauce and thin, crispy crust are something I still long for. If you had enough friends to share the cost of a pie, there would be enough left for a few songs on the jukebox. I can close my eyes and picture the checkered table cloth, the red glass candle holder, the smell of the pizzas cooking and I can hear Otis Redding singing “Sittin’ on the dock of the bay…”

So, in the years of my first coming of age, you could measure my treasure or the disbursment thereof and guess that my heart longed for round things that came in square packages like a new L.P. record album or a Ken’s pizza to go.

A really good pizza and a classic record share more than their shape. They are both like a package deal—a complete meal, a complete experience. Together they cover the all the senses: touch, sight, smell, sound and taste.

I’m not an expert in either music or pizza, but I’ve had my share of experiences. I’ve heard live in concert a range from Led Zeppelin to Rene Fleming. From Diana Krall to Jars of Clay. The Beach Boys to Elton John. Vanilla Fudge to Pink Martini.

I’ve had pizza from Ken’s on 11 Street in Tulsa, and pizza in Florence, Italy. A slice or two from Saluggis in New York City to Uno’s in Chicago. Which is better Chicago deep pan or New York City pizza? It’s apples and oranges. It’s Miles Davis and Blake Shelton.

PIZZA AT UNO’S IN CHICAGO WITH OUR BEST BUDS—CHARLIE AND SHIRLEY

It’s all nuanced. Whether it’s a good slice or a cool L.P. you need to enjoy in just the right setting, at the right time. You need to be open to something new. You need to listen and taste slowly and attentively.

Memories and music, treasures and matters of the heart.

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.