Welcome to the 2009 Rawlins family Christmas newsletter and I’m happy to report I have not had one carbuncle! Just what you were dying to hear I know. Thank God there was less turmoil at home as I reported in the ever popular 2008 newsletter.
This years letter is so authentic I am actually writing it on Christmas day. The kids are playing with their new toys, Linda is napping. I’m in my robe in my chair with the laptop, gazing out the window at the white. (frozen ground fog but still a layer of white) We just finished breakfast (Costco quiche and cinnamon rolls) We are simplifying this year. The Family Christmas dinner was prepared by Costco and will be pre-heated and served at my insistence and to the horror of my eldest, protesting son. We are going stress- free as much as possible.
Still, a smattering of presents and wrapping cover the floor and the lights glow on the tree that stands before me: The stupidest looking tree in the world.
The tree was Pookies idea. It’s a live tree and I absolutely hate it. Here’s why. Always one to stretch a dollar, Pookie found it in town and made the command decision to buy it, totally unauthorized by myself and the children. “When we’re done with Christmas we can plant it by the barn for shade.” Also, its deer proof, meaning if you touch the needles they draw blood. She brought it home and it took three of us to unload it and drag it into the garage taking special care to not touch it with our faces. Since it was “dormant” it couldn’t come in the house until 4 days before Christmas which was great because my lumbar muscles had plenty of time to heal before I would have to lift it again. On that magical day when we would ceremoniously skid it from the garage to the front door I discovered the root ball was jammed askew in the plastic pot causing the tree to list aft at forty five degrees. Me and Charlie and Wade skidded the monster into the living room without much bodily injury but when I tried to straighten it- with the aid of the entire, gloved family, water poured forth from the crinkled plastic pot and left a big coffee stain type water mark on the carpet. Twice. Soon Pookie was on her knees scrubbing with both hands and demanding more, towels, hotter water, pronto. I could sense she was beginning to hate the tree. Shrub, we call it. Fortunately, in the interest of being a good sport I had bitten my tongue for the most part because I did not want to ruin Christmas time festivities. I went to the barn and brought in a big water tub and with herculean effort deposited the root ball into the tub. The girls covered the tub in red velvet, adjusted the tree so the fat side points east, the bald side to the west, offset at a mere ten degrees to look like a pregnant gorilla, arching her back with hands on hips. They decorated it with enough lights and bulbs to make it official, and wala’! Soon she declaired She wants the thing out of here on Christmas day, when my strong tall nephew Cole is here to help, well within the dormancy window. So I need to get this letter done, so we can wrap Christmas up early, and get the tree back into the garage. So much for simplifying.
Other than the tree episode it has been a wonderful year here at the Chicken ranch. This year’s letter will not contain much about the chickens, or rather what’s left of the chickens, as they have been kind of dying off and disappearing and molting and producing about one to three eggs a day, when we manage to locate the eggs. I built them a for real chicken coop complete with an honest to goodness chicken run. They rarely get out although they are out right now, at the writing of the Christmas letter. No doubt they made a special attempt to be out on Christmas day so they can make some timely deposits before our guests arrive.
One of the reasons they get out often is because they are managed by Wade, 13 who prefers a loose management style, opposite of his mother, whose management style is, by and large that of wanting to ring Wade’s neck most of the time. Often times his mother will turn to me and say, “ Its almost dark and The chickens haven’t been fed yet.” When I hear this I’m hoping she is speaking code and meaning something entirely different but she never is, no matter how much I wiggle my eyebrows. So we gang up on Wade and often times due to our constant admonishing he will feed the chickens well before ten o’clock at night.
We homeschooled Wade the first half of this year. He did public school on the web for half days and in the afternoons he’d hop on the four wheeler and ride over to work for the neighboring rancher who operates a pumpkin patch and petting zoo. It was a cool gig while it lasted. When the pumpkin patch job ended basketball started and he had much interaction with his friends playing point guard at Central Christian where he spent the first 7 years of his schooling career. We all decided it was best if Wade had a more social atmosphere for his schooling so we enrolled him at the Lone Pine school where his mother works part time and is very involved in all the kids schooling. I discovered that perhaps Wade was spending too much time in the world of technology when I caught him one day with a laptop computer on his lap, TV on, texting on his cell phone, and, literally, I’m not machining this up, he was using his big toe to operate the mouse on another laptop, which was on the floor. That’s when I knew he’d hit rock bottom. That, and the chickens were running roughshod throughout the village. He is tall, strong, smart, respectful. As his coach and dad I was very proud of the way he played basketball this fall and proud of his work ethic and reputation in the community. We spent some good time together hunting and fishing, without much catching an killing involved, but if you buy him some soda pop and food he’ll suffer any road trip with a happy attitude. We had fun together this year.
Charlie is in the first grade at Lone Pine school. He is an athlete, specializing in basketball, although as of late and due to the influence of country friends at school he has shown some interest in becoming a mountan man and cowboy, often wearing a coon skin cap to school, or sometimes a cowboy hat and boots. Let it never be said that Charlie Rawlins is all hat and no ranch. He’s a heck of a good little rider and he always picks his horses feet clean before he rides. Also, he is a willing fisherman and goes with dad, and his friends on fishing trips and the men don’t mind at all that he comes along because he is a fine boy to be around, although he doesn’t understand its bad manners to catch more fish than dad.
Gracie is in the third grade at Lone Pine school. She likes to go catch her mare in the pasture and ride, sometimes by herself. She has been known to ask Charlie or me for assistance and Charlie is willing to bring along a mop handle to smack any unruly horse who might show signs of attacking. She is a determined little rider and won some ribbons (as did Charley) at a local horse show recently. She is very conscientious and reliable and organized. I know I can count on her to do anything for me with a happy expedient attitude. She takes after her mom and both her grandmas.
The thing I’m most proud of my kids is that they are willing to hug the elderly, lonely people who live in the nursing home. What a delight to see Charlie and his friend Faith disappear around a corner pushing a sweet, half deaf, elderly man named Bill in his wheelchair, returning 10 minutes later, kids riding double in the wheelchair, Bill pushing them. Sometimes its scary for teeny Gracie to reach out and hug the people because some of them look threatening, but she puts her fears aside and hugs away and smiles and those people are genuinely touched and fed. And so am I. Most recently Charlie administered a hug to Grandma Opal while another, very elderly and somewhat distressed appearing lady in a wheelchair looked on. I asked Charlie to give her a hug. He did so without hesitation and when he returned, he said, as only a child could get away with, simply and without malice, “she stinks.” Ministering to the elderly is not for the feint hearted. The people who work there are saints.
There is so much to be thankful for especially healthy happy kids. So many people are going through hard times. Linda mentioned that several times last night, during the Christmas eve festivities around here. A few old friends and some relatives took the time to call and she was on cloud nine. She kept saying, “I’m so thankful for all my friends.” And so am I. So if you get a chance, please, write, text, call or better yet, stop by and see us- hopefully you can make it this afternoon, and help us get rid of this damned tree.
Timmy and the Rawlins family.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
The horse show
Today we loaded up the kids and horses and went to a horse show. It was a little horse show, a casual affair, a bunch of common horses, most all were haired up for winter and pretty shaggy. Participants were mostly po-dunk riders- hayseeds, also fitting nicely in the fairly shaggy category. These were not your slick, hip, and cool quarter horse type people with thirty thousand dollar horses and silver adorned saddles and pressed, starched jeans. We fit right in.
It was for all practical purposes Gracie and Charlie?s first crack out of the box in their show careers. We chose the show because it is low pressure, low stress, relaxed and mostly because it featured a costume class in due to Halloween season. We are not Halloween people but costumes are a great way for the kids to be excited about riding their horses and keeping the emphasis off winning and losing, or so we thought. Early in the week, when Gracie got wind of the costume class she started planning right away. She chose her Indian maiden outfit, which is a fake buckskin Indian dress with a headband. She would paint a white circle around her little mare?s eye. She can?t take all the credit for her outfit because I'm the one who came up with the suggestion that she should also paint a white hand print on the horse?s bottom. She looked cute as a button in her little outfit with her blond pig tails. (8 inchers) She rode the little mare that her mom and I bought as a two year old, trained and sold to friends for their little girl. We recently bought her back and she is as gentle and quiet as a fawn. She is a bombproof babysitter for our kids. Her name is Misty. The kids sometimes call her Pony Gal because of her small size.
Charlie had to ride old Henry for the costume class. Henry is older than God, about 27 to be exact, and he is bit of a handful. The kids can handle him if they wear spurs and show him who is boss. ?Leadership? is the term now used my natural horsemen because ?show him who is boss? went out the window because of political correctness and also because many people thought ?show him who is boss? meant to hit him in the head with a two by four. Mostly, it is Henry who provides the leadership and they do pretty much whatever he wants which is mostly the right thing. So he?s a good old boy who doesn?t owe us anything. He knocked around Grant County in eastern Oregon for twenty four years before we bought him. He?s drug calves to the branding fire and packed elk. Been hunted off and cowboyed off so now whatever Charlie throws at him is easy money.
When we arrived at the show grounds we tied the horses to the trailer and the kids proceeded to spray their horses tails with this stuff that untangles mains and tails. Then they rip their brushes through the tails like they are killing snakes. When they are finished the horses are missing a few tail hairs. This would just not do at the thirty thousand dollar horse type horse shows. But I think it?s neat that the kids mimic what they have seen their mom do, which is brush out tail, only she can do the thirty thousand dollar thing if need be. Soon they are picking out the feet, being all conscientious and thorough and I'm glad they are not sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons.
Gracie rides Misty around the pasture/ parking lot and Henry stands next to the trailer and whinnies and farts, those crackly farts that make me wonder if they don?t sound like dynamite fuses burning down to an explosion. Henry has never bucked hard with the kids. He bogs his head a little and his lope gets kind of hoppy, like he's plowing through ocean swells, but that?s the most he ever does. He really is a trustworthy old guy but he's a little work for the kids to ride. I've roped colts -big, old colts off his back and snubbed them up and drug them around and Henry has no trouble dragging a big colt around the pen despite his age. But it kind of takes a man or strong riding women to get much out of Henry. So it?s not all joy when Charlie somehow gets the short straw and opts to ride old Henry.
When Charlie was four he had way less fear of Henry. That first fall we had him we'd put the saddle on him. While I rode and gave lessons down at the arena Charlie would ride with me, loping right behind me and hang out with me . The other kids were at school and Linda substituted often so it was just Charlie and me and it was a neat, neat fall. As long as there was someone around for which Charlie could show he had no qualms at all about riding Henry and no trouble galloping around the huge arena with his feet stuck out to the sides like he was doing the splits because Henry was so round. It was cute but I think the time I got after Charlie for following me too close on my horse kind of hurt his feelings and he wasn?t so interested in riding after that and he gradually lost some of his nerve. Charlie's seven now and still rides Henry but mostly at a jog and mostly when he can?t ride Misty.
Charlie climbed on the old horse and rode him around but Henry was a little snorty and spooky so I made the command decision that Linda should warm him up for Charlie. Linda is in her tight jeans and tennis shoes and she bends her knee all Lady-like for me to give her a leg up. I take her tenny in my hand and soon discover its going to take both hands and soon she's squirming and struggling to get on this teeny saddle on this big old fuzzy gelding who, for all his supposed faults, stands still as a statue while the old hick couple gets ma mounted.
We took the horses down to the warm up arena and Linda decides to go for the warm up lope and goes to kicking with her white tennis shoes and finally gets the old boy into a hand gallop. He makes it a lap or two and nearing the top of the arena stumbles and almost falls down. Literally stuck his nose in the dirt. The saddle flipped up and the misses almost went over the top. So Henry was warmed up but Linda almost needs surgery to get that little teen kid saddle horn our of her belly button. The children and I are entertain with accounts of the incident throughout the morning.
Charlie climbs on wearing his complete Seattle Seahawks uniform, sans the helmet which he would wait to put on for the actual competition. The kids traded horses back and forth and they rode fairly aggressive, Gracie because her confidence was up and she is becoming a good little hand with the horses. Charlie is too, but he was in show off mode, which he thrives on. He?s chewing gum acting all cocky because he knew people were watching him and were impressed with him and his sister, these two tiny people, a professional quarterback and a mini-squaw who rode with abandon. Charlie dismounted once to stretch his legs and chew his gum and pull his uniform pants out of his bottom.
Gracie tied for first in this huge costume class with six other people. Unless you?ve seen it you probably wouldn?t believe the amount of people who would dress themselves and their horses in costumes. Charlie and about 20otheres didn?t make the cut but they were complimented on their outfits by the announcer. I'm talking grownups and teenagers and grandmas and all manner of frightened children here. Charlie was probably the littlest in the class. But Gracie came away with the blue ribbon.
I warned the kids, sternly on the way to the show about not getting caught up in winning and losing and ribbons. I stressed the importance of having a good attitude. They agreed they would just have fun. Of course all that went out the window during the first class when Charlie didn?t get a ribbon. Charlie?s horse also got attacked by a horse that was being ridden by a masked eleven year old girl in a Zoro disguise. Apparently he didn't like the way Henry looked at him and lashed out biting him on the butt. I thought Linda was going to jump over the fence and slug the horse in the face but she just commented about some people and the horses they put their kids on. Some of the horses our parents put us on would have eaten any horse out there for lunch and won a bucking contest afterwards.
So Gracie, in her little pink cowboy hat, showed Misty in the walk, trot class, navigating gingerly in a sea of horse-back humanity. I'm talking kids and grannies and teenagers and grown men here, some aboard ill mannered knot heads in need of a little ?leadership.?
Then there?s little Gracie trotting around on her tame fawn, who keeps her out of trouble. Gracie placed fifth in a class of about thirty.
Charlie told Gracie to make sure she stuck around for his class in case he came in "first place" he said, while performing a little cocky pre-victory dance. Finally, or so he thought, he would get his turn on Misty. His Class was a little smaller. But it was an equitation class and since he doesn?t know a thing about what the judge looks for in such a class, the rider is judged, not the horse; Charlie didn?t know what was really going on because we haven?t gotten that far yet. So even though Misty jogged around cute and behaved well, Charlie didn?t get a ribbon, so when he left the arena there were tears and the lower lip stuck out and we felt bad for our kid because he didn?t understand. Charlie stuck his lip out also.
Linda decided to let them both take a turn on Misty and enter the trail class. They each had their chance, riding through a little obstacle course and over a tarp that was supposed to be all scary. Misty didn?t bat an eye although the tarp got hooked around her leg once which is not supposed to happen because it is supposed to be fastened down. Neither she nor Charlie seemed to notice they were dragging this floppy loud thing around. A tarp around a hoof would cause many a bug eyed Cayuse to leave the planet passing through fences and barns and trees, but Misty was unfazed. Charlie and pony gal cruised through the course so quick he caught up with the horse ahead of him who was so freighted by the obstacle he locked his brakes and required fervent coaxing the entire way.
I saw both the kids? runs. Charlie by far had the better ride in the trail class. So I figured he would win the class and get a ribbon and it would take his mind off the fact that Gracie had won several. We waited until the very end of the show because the trail class was the last class for which the all important standings were to be announced. By the time they announced the results Charlie had long forgotten about any ribbon issues and was enjoying the game of tickle Charlie?s armpits I was playing with him. The kids wanted to go home but I told them just to be patient. I thought Charlie had won the class and I wanted him to get a ribbon- he didn?t care anymore but I made a big deal out of it: Mr. just have fun and don?t worry about the ribbons. Sure enough the last announcement for the day was for the trail class (ages ten and under) And Charlie came in about fourth and finally received his long awaited ribbon. The announcer made a big deal about it. I got the monkey off my back. Charlie was satisfied and I was satisfied for a split second until the announcer lady declared that Gracie Rawlins won first place.
It was for all practical purposes Gracie and Charlie?s first crack out of the box in their show careers. We chose the show because it is low pressure, low stress, relaxed and mostly because it featured a costume class in due to Halloween season. We are not Halloween people but costumes are a great way for the kids to be excited about riding their horses and keeping the emphasis off winning and losing, or so we thought. Early in the week, when Gracie got wind of the costume class she started planning right away. She chose her Indian maiden outfit, which is a fake buckskin Indian dress with a headband. She would paint a white circle around her little mare?s eye. She can?t take all the credit for her outfit because I'm the one who came up with the suggestion that she should also paint a white hand print on the horse?s bottom. She looked cute as a button in her little outfit with her blond pig tails. (8 inchers) She rode the little mare that her mom and I bought as a two year old, trained and sold to friends for their little girl. We recently bought her back and she is as gentle and quiet as a fawn. She is a bombproof babysitter for our kids. Her name is Misty. The kids sometimes call her Pony Gal because of her small size.
Charlie had to ride old Henry for the costume class. Henry is older than God, about 27 to be exact, and he is bit of a handful. The kids can handle him if they wear spurs and show him who is boss. ?Leadership? is the term now used my natural horsemen because ?show him who is boss? went out the window because of political correctness and also because many people thought ?show him who is boss? meant to hit him in the head with a two by four. Mostly, it is Henry who provides the leadership and they do pretty much whatever he wants which is mostly the right thing. So he?s a good old boy who doesn?t owe us anything. He knocked around Grant County in eastern Oregon for twenty four years before we bought him. He?s drug calves to the branding fire and packed elk. Been hunted off and cowboyed off so now whatever Charlie throws at him is easy money.
When we arrived at the show grounds we tied the horses to the trailer and the kids proceeded to spray their horses tails with this stuff that untangles mains and tails. Then they rip their brushes through the tails like they are killing snakes. When they are finished the horses are missing a few tail hairs. This would just not do at the thirty thousand dollar horse type horse shows. But I think it?s neat that the kids mimic what they have seen their mom do, which is brush out tail, only she can do the thirty thousand dollar thing if need be. Soon they are picking out the feet, being all conscientious and thorough and I'm glad they are not sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons.
Gracie rides Misty around the pasture/ parking lot and Henry stands next to the trailer and whinnies and farts, those crackly farts that make me wonder if they don?t sound like dynamite fuses burning down to an explosion. Henry has never bucked hard with the kids. He bogs his head a little and his lope gets kind of hoppy, like he's plowing through ocean swells, but that?s the most he ever does. He really is a trustworthy old guy but he's a little work for the kids to ride. I've roped colts -big, old colts off his back and snubbed them up and drug them around and Henry has no trouble dragging a big colt around the pen despite his age. But it kind of takes a man or strong riding women to get much out of Henry. So it?s not all joy when Charlie somehow gets the short straw and opts to ride old Henry.
When Charlie was four he had way less fear of Henry. That first fall we had him we'd put the saddle on him. While I rode and gave lessons down at the arena Charlie would ride with me, loping right behind me and hang out with me . The other kids were at school and Linda substituted often so it was just Charlie and me and it was a neat, neat fall. As long as there was someone around for which Charlie could show he had no qualms at all about riding Henry and no trouble galloping around the huge arena with his feet stuck out to the sides like he was doing the splits because Henry was so round. It was cute but I think the time I got after Charlie for following me too close on my horse kind of hurt his feelings and he wasn?t so interested in riding after that and he gradually lost some of his nerve. Charlie's seven now and still rides Henry but mostly at a jog and mostly when he can?t ride Misty.
Charlie climbed on the old horse and rode him around but Henry was a little snorty and spooky so I made the command decision that Linda should warm him up for Charlie. Linda is in her tight jeans and tennis shoes and she bends her knee all Lady-like for me to give her a leg up. I take her tenny in my hand and soon discover its going to take both hands and soon she's squirming and struggling to get on this teeny saddle on this big old fuzzy gelding who, for all his supposed faults, stands still as a statue while the old hick couple gets ma mounted.
We took the horses down to the warm up arena and Linda decides to go for the warm up lope and goes to kicking with her white tennis shoes and finally gets the old boy into a hand gallop. He makes it a lap or two and nearing the top of the arena stumbles and almost falls down. Literally stuck his nose in the dirt. The saddle flipped up and the misses almost went over the top. So Henry was warmed up but Linda almost needs surgery to get that little teen kid saddle horn our of her belly button. The children and I are entertain with accounts of the incident throughout the morning.
Charlie climbs on wearing his complete Seattle Seahawks uniform, sans the helmet which he would wait to put on for the actual competition. The kids traded horses back and forth and they rode fairly aggressive, Gracie because her confidence was up and she is becoming a good little hand with the horses. Charlie is too, but he was in show off mode, which he thrives on. He?s chewing gum acting all cocky because he knew people were watching him and were impressed with him and his sister, these two tiny people, a professional quarterback and a mini-squaw who rode with abandon. Charlie dismounted once to stretch his legs and chew his gum and pull his uniform pants out of his bottom.
Gracie tied for first in this huge costume class with six other people. Unless you?ve seen it you probably wouldn?t believe the amount of people who would dress themselves and their horses in costumes. Charlie and about 20otheres didn?t make the cut but they were complimented on their outfits by the announcer. I'm talking grownups and teenagers and grandmas and all manner of frightened children here. Charlie was probably the littlest in the class. But Gracie came away with the blue ribbon.
I warned the kids, sternly on the way to the show about not getting caught up in winning and losing and ribbons. I stressed the importance of having a good attitude. They agreed they would just have fun. Of course all that went out the window during the first class when Charlie didn?t get a ribbon. Charlie?s horse also got attacked by a horse that was being ridden by a masked eleven year old girl in a Zoro disguise. Apparently he didn't like the way Henry looked at him and lashed out biting him on the butt. I thought Linda was going to jump over the fence and slug the horse in the face but she just commented about some people and the horses they put their kids on. Some of the horses our parents put us on would have eaten any horse out there for lunch and won a bucking contest afterwards.
So Gracie, in her little pink cowboy hat, showed Misty in the walk, trot class, navigating gingerly in a sea of horse-back humanity. I'm talking kids and grannies and teenagers and grown men here, some aboard ill mannered knot heads in need of a little ?leadership.?
Then there?s little Gracie trotting around on her tame fawn, who keeps her out of trouble. Gracie placed fifth in a class of about thirty.
Charlie told Gracie to make sure she stuck around for his class in case he came in "first place" he said, while performing a little cocky pre-victory dance. Finally, or so he thought, he would get his turn on Misty. His Class was a little smaller. But it was an equitation class and since he doesn?t know a thing about what the judge looks for in such a class, the rider is judged, not the horse; Charlie didn?t know what was really going on because we haven?t gotten that far yet. So even though Misty jogged around cute and behaved well, Charlie didn?t get a ribbon, so when he left the arena there were tears and the lower lip stuck out and we felt bad for our kid because he didn?t understand. Charlie stuck his lip out also.
Linda decided to let them both take a turn on Misty and enter the trail class. They each had their chance, riding through a little obstacle course and over a tarp that was supposed to be all scary. Misty didn?t bat an eye although the tarp got hooked around her leg once which is not supposed to happen because it is supposed to be fastened down. Neither she nor Charlie seemed to notice they were dragging this floppy loud thing around. A tarp around a hoof would cause many a bug eyed Cayuse to leave the planet passing through fences and barns and trees, but Misty was unfazed. Charlie and pony gal cruised through the course so quick he caught up with the horse ahead of him who was so freighted by the obstacle he locked his brakes and required fervent coaxing the entire way.
I saw both the kids? runs. Charlie by far had the better ride in the trail class. So I figured he would win the class and get a ribbon and it would take his mind off the fact that Gracie had won several. We waited until the very end of the show because the trail class was the last class for which the all important standings were to be announced. By the time they announced the results Charlie had long forgotten about any ribbon issues and was enjoying the game of tickle Charlie?s armpits I was playing with him. The kids wanted to go home but I told them just to be patient. I thought Charlie had won the class and I wanted him to get a ribbon- he didn?t care anymore but I made a big deal out of it: Mr. just have fun and don?t worry about the ribbons. Sure enough the last announcement for the day was for the trail class (ages ten and under) And Charlie came in about fourth and finally received his long awaited ribbon. The announcer made a big deal about it. I got the monkey off my back. Charlie was satisfied and I was satisfied for a split second until the announcer lady declared that Gracie Rawlins won first place.
Friday, October 23, 2009
What you need
What you need is someone who constantly reminds you of your strong points. You need to be around someone like that. At least that's what I need. Maybe your the type of person who is not constantly fighting your head, but I am. I think I'm being honest with myself but close scrutiny of my thoughts combined with occasionally feedback from friends and acquaintances who have witnessed my actions and heard my words have caused me to realize that I have a tendency to naturally default into a glass half empty kind of guy. I'm too hard on myself. They say that I always accentuate the negative and disregard the positive. Alright already.
Ray Hunt, an old horseman who made his livelihood helping people understand their horses said, "Don’t find fault with your horse. Try to find the good things he does and then the bad will get less and less." It's so true and not only with horses but wives and kids and people in general, including my own, personal self. So if your one of us guys who is constantly critical of yourself you need to be around someone who will continually remind you of your good points.
If your conscientious you'll find an irresistible urge to take inventory of your good and bad faults and you'll most likely error on the side of being too critical. Maybe everyone does that, I don't know. Its like when you hear your voice on the answering machine. Your own voice always sounds stupid when you hear it played back. But nobody else thinks that about you. They don't think about your voice much at all. Because they are thinking of their own voice, which to you sounds normal, Besides even if their voice is a little weird sounding to you, it doesn't matter, its just THEM after all.
My friend and I video ourselves announcing our church announcements prior to the actual service so during service we are shown on a quick video segment to save time. Also, I look, and sound exactly like an idiot. On camera I've even got this huge space between my teeth. I always pretend I have to go to the bathroom when they play the video before the congregation. Then I watch from the hall which I refer to as the "foyer" in the announcements and I sound like a hillbilly when I say it. Anyway I'm so embarrassed that I watch from the hall. Because I am self conscious of the fact that I sound like Barney Phife on helium and look somewhat Chinese.
But the reality is that the pastors chose me because they saw something they liked. That's the theory I'm going with. So I choose to dwell on that positive idea when I do think of the announcements and try to imagine how they might see it from a pastors point of view as opposed to my point of view; the gaped toothed, Oriental, Barney Phife point of view. That's another thing that gets me in trouble. Self Deprecation. It really is the best kind of humor but sometimes people dont understand it and they think your hard on yourself. Which may be true although my favorite people have always been able to laugh at themselves and tell funny stories on themselves. But you have to be care full when you go this route because if all you do is self deprecate, you could be too full of yourself. In which case you become self centered, full of pride, and negetive. If you don't watch it you'll get bitter and cynical and crabby. Not that I would know.
So you need this cool person nearby to blow some smoke up your trousers. Its a good smoke, like cherry scented pipe smoke. Its a sweet smelling savor and it reminds you of what you do good. So you take in a compliment and savor the compliment and roll in the compliment like a dog rolls in something that stinks for whatever reason then runs around like his butts on fire. Like the dog you are infused with life because you are concentrating on what you do good and your chest sticks out a little further and you step a little lighter and the happy thoughts come and you imagine yourself doing great things. Sometimes you allow cool music to play in the background while you are doing these cool things and through some cosmic Dallas Cowboy stadium of the universe, people watch.
I had a friend do just such a thing for me. I wrote to him asking if I could get a quote about my abilities for a business website I am building. He wrote back with a wonderful account about this great person he knows who is vested with all types of talents and wisdom. I almost had to write back and make sure he wasn't talking about someone else. It was so encouraging. It was a "Hey, honey, come look at this" moment. I wanted wallpaper my room with it and read it every day and inscribe it on my toilet paper. I wanted to rub up against it like a cat rubs on catnip. I wanted to mail it out, to memorize it, memorialize it. I wanted to eat it. It inspirited me. It was true, even truer than the writer meant it to be, I know this in my own heart. I never really say this but it was one of those times when you want to say, "Damn Strait" and walk out and conquer the world (after a short pause to google "Damn Strait")
But anyway, it encouraged me, it made me want to be accountable to it. I wanted to live up to such lofty ideals and knew I could if someone besides my own doubting self believed in me and thought highly of my skills and talents. On one hand I am so confident and on the other I'm so critical and nit picky and set goals that are ridiculously high or low. I get so focused on what I do wrong and what needs to be fixed and what could be better. Soon, I'm frustrated; pounding on the negative, focused on driving it out, attacking it. But the more I chew on it the bigger it gets like a big piece of gristly bull moose jerky.
So when this angel shows up and breaths life into the atrophied part of your brain that sometimes thinks positive things but mostly suffocates, when this event happens everything takes on fresh meaning and you wonder how you got so messed up.
This new life will lead you to find someone and encourage them. You'll want to tell them how they really are because you can see it plainly while they have probably lost sight of it. If they'd just believe you for a few minutes they could see the future for them that you do. They would see themselves setting higher goals, or allowing lesser goals. That little part in them that wants to do more and better but is overshadowed by that little fearful bug that tells them, Nah, your ok like you are, you probably couldn't do it anyway, that's for lucky, better people, you might make a mistake in front of everyone and that could be catastrophic and possibly embarrassing- a fate worse than death!
But I would tell you, you know that thing? That thing you've dreamed about, or thought about, That thing that wouldn't require much more energy than your using now, wouldn't take much time, would just take a little more focus, a little more risk, a little more life. Yeah, that thing. You can do it.
Ray Hunt, an old horseman who made his livelihood helping people understand their horses said, "Don’t find fault with your horse. Try to find the good things he does and then the bad will get less and less." It's so true and not only with horses but wives and kids and people in general, including my own, personal self. So if your one of us guys who is constantly critical of yourself you need to be around someone who will continually remind you of your good points.
If your conscientious you'll find an irresistible urge to take inventory of your good and bad faults and you'll most likely error on the side of being too critical. Maybe everyone does that, I don't know. Its like when you hear your voice on the answering machine. Your own voice always sounds stupid when you hear it played back. But nobody else thinks that about you. They don't think about your voice much at all. Because they are thinking of their own voice, which to you sounds normal, Besides even if their voice is a little weird sounding to you, it doesn't matter, its just THEM after all.
My friend and I video ourselves announcing our church announcements prior to the actual service so during service we are shown on a quick video segment to save time. Also, I look, and sound exactly like an idiot. On camera I've even got this huge space between my teeth. I always pretend I have to go to the bathroom when they play the video before the congregation. Then I watch from the hall which I refer to as the "foyer" in the announcements and I sound like a hillbilly when I say it. Anyway I'm so embarrassed that I watch from the hall. Because I am self conscious of the fact that I sound like Barney Phife on helium and look somewhat Chinese.
But the reality is that the pastors chose me because they saw something they liked. That's the theory I'm going with. So I choose to dwell on that positive idea when I do think of the announcements and try to imagine how they might see it from a pastors point of view as opposed to my point of view; the gaped toothed, Oriental, Barney Phife point of view. That's another thing that gets me in trouble. Self Deprecation. It really is the best kind of humor but sometimes people dont understand it and they think your hard on yourself. Which may be true although my favorite people have always been able to laugh at themselves and tell funny stories on themselves. But you have to be care full when you go this route because if all you do is self deprecate, you could be too full of yourself. In which case you become self centered, full of pride, and negetive. If you don't watch it you'll get bitter and cynical and crabby. Not that I would know.
So you need this cool person nearby to blow some smoke up your trousers. Its a good smoke, like cherry scented pipe smoke. Its a sweet smelling savor and it reminds you of what you do good. So you take in a compliment and savor the compliment and roll in the compliment like a dog rolls in something that stinks for whatever reason then runs around like his butts on fire. Like the dog you are infused with life because you are concentrating on what you do good and your chest sticks out a little further and you step a little lighter and the happy thoughts come and you imagine yourself doing great things. Sometimes you allow cool music to play in the background while you are doing these cool things and through some cosmic Dallas Cowboy stadium of the universe, people watch.
I had a friend do just such a thing for me. I wrote to him asking if I could get a quote about my abilities for a business website I am building. He wrote back with a wonderful account about this great person he knows who is vested with all types of talents and wisdom. I almost had to write back and make sure he wasn't talking about someone else. It was so encouraging. It was a "Hey, honey, come look at this" moment. I wanted wallpaper my room with it and read it every day and inscribe it on my toilet paper. I wanted to rub up against it like a cat rubs on catnip. I wanted to mail it out, to memorize it, memorialize it. I wanted to eat it. It inspirited me. It was true, even truer than the writer meant it to be, I know this in my own heart. I never really say this but it was one of those times when you want to say, "Damn Strait" and walk out and conquer the world (after a short pause to google "Damn Strait")
But anyway, it encouraged me, it made me want to be accountable to it. I wanted to live up to such lofty ideals and knew I could if someone besides my own doubting self believed in me and thought highly of my skills and talents. On one hand I am so confident and on the other I'm so critical and nit picky and set goals that are ridiculously high or low. I get so focused on what I do wrong and what needs to be fixed and what could be better. Soon, I'm frustrated; pounding on the negative, focused on driving it out, attacking it. But the more I chew on it the bigger it gets like a big piece of gristly bull moose jerky.
So when this angel shows up and breaths life into the atrophied part of your brain that sometimes thinks positive things but mostly suffocates, when this event happens everything takes on fresh meaning and you wonder how you got so messed up.
This new life will lead you to find someone and encourage them. You'll want to tell them how they really are because you can see it plainly while they have probably lost sight of it. If they'd just believe you for a few minutes they could see the future for them that you do. They would see themselves setting higher goals, or allowing lesser goals. That little part in them that wants to do more and better but is overshadowed by that little fearful bug that tells them, Nah, your ok like you are, you probably couldn't do it anyway, that's for lucky, better people, you might make a mistake in front of everyone and that could be catastrophic and possibly embarrassing- a fate worse than death!
But I would tell you, you know that thing? That thing you've dreamed about, or thought about, That thing that wouldn't require much more energy than your using now, wouldn't take much time, would just take a little more focus, a little more risk, a little more life. Yeah, that thing. You can do it.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Dougy
I cut my firewood this week and remembered Dougy,
Dougy
Last winter, for the first time in my life, I had too much firewood. I cut it in the fall and now it’s split and stacked in the utility room and the back yard and by the gate and by the driveway. I even gave some away. I drove my little pick up to a place in the mountains called Keeney meadows which is the best, closest place around here to get firewood and I tourtured the timber.
My pickup is a little under powered and has a messed up front door on the drivers side from the time I left it open and fell a tree on it. Luckily the tip of the tree was all that hit the door so it didn’t tear it off the hinge. It sags really bad, kind of like a bird with a dislocated wing. I fixed it the best I could but it still has a big dent in it. My wife hates it because she thinks it makes us look poor, but I think it looks macho. I finally took the drivers side rear view mirror off because the bolts came loose and wallered out the holes so it remained quite wobbly no matter how much wire I used to help secure it. There is also the place on the front mud guard under the chrome bumper where I hooked a choker cable around when I pulled it out of the woods with a D4 Cat. By the time I was home free the choker had sucked down tight and ripped a long, jagged, horizontal gash in the mud guard. Now, it looks like my little pick up has a shark mouth. A junior high kid I know described my pick up as, and I quote, “gross.” It is the perfect wood getting truck. It’s small so you don’t have to work your tail off to fill it up with a good load of wood. You spend the better part of your time drinking coffee and eating chocolate snacks on the way up and back which is nice, especially if it happens to be snowing sideways. Although small, if you really try you can grossly overload the pick up and come back with a pretty impressive jag of wood. It’s downhill all the way home. The citizens of Mt Vernon never really let on that they were impressed but some of them did remark about the size of my woodpile, which caused me to swell with pride although I always blamed it on the chocolate.
I pretty much disliked wood cutting until last fall when I was forced to get my entire supply before they shut the woods down in November. When I lived on the ranch I got my wood as I needed it because it was right out the back door and easy picking. But now, living in Mt Vernon I have to get my wood from the national forest, which required permits. But the wood is of much better quality and I would learn to love good firewood, although getting wood was, as near as I could tell, work and I am not particularly fond of working when I could be out trapping chasing coyotes, or fishing or hunting or writing about it. But my friend and back yard neighbor Dougy offered to go with me and show me the best places to get firewood, and he brought most of the victuals. Although he is somewhat of a health food nut I ate just about all his food and drank most of his distilled water because I wanted him to feel welcome as a guest.
Our first load was somewhat of a half-hearted attempt on my part. To save work I cut the wood a little long not wanting to run the saw any more than necessary and forgetting that the length of my wood stove is about sixteen inches. Dougy made the comment that he thought perhaps I was cutting fence posts which I thought was pretty funny coming from a man who’s neighbor had just eaten all of his organic cheese puffs. Also, somewhat in denial I had elected to wear my Romeo’s to get the first load because throughout the course of the summer I had chosen to forget how much work getting firewood is and how steep the ground can be and also how quick slippers fill up with sawdust. And somehow the head fell off of Doug’s splitting mall when I was using it. It thought it was a weird coincidence because I had just broken the handle too.
On the way back we were only able to travel at a top speed of thirty five miles an hour because I had neglected to fill my tires with air. Under the weight of a fairly good load we swayed back and forth like an over loaded barge in rough seas. I could tell by the nervous look in Dougy’s eyes that I had made quite an impression on him. Fortunately, my wife fed him a big dinner that night. He happily joined me for more loads throughout the course of the fall.
As autumn wore on I began to enjoy our wood gathering expeditions into the mountains and even became obsessed with the idea that there was wood up there for the taking and if we didn’t get it some other Mt Vernonite would. I made trip after trip, sometimes with my family, sometimes with Dougy or another friend and sometimes by myself and I am happy to report I only lost my chainsaw once. I had been king around looking for the perfect tree and having picked a so-so candidate I stopped to sharpen, oil and gas up my saw. Afterwards I decided that the tree I had chosen was marginal and I began hearing voices. Actually it was one voice, the voice of a tree. A Tamarack “Oh Yooohooo.” The tree whispered. Did you forget about me?” The voice groaned lasciviously. “I’m straight and I'm tall and I’m…”
“Yes, gulp,” I said, What, what?
“I’m standing, dead!” Suddenly I remembered the straight grained, dead-standing-beauty that was calling me. She was just up the road a couple miles. Such was my passion, I threw in my saw and chose not to take the time to close the tailgate. As I roared up to the tree I jumped out and went to grab my saw but it was gone. It was then I knew exactly what I must do, so without hesitation, I panicked. Leaping into my pickup I fishtailed wildly up and down the road searching desperately, franticly, and at one point, not noticing a particularly high bump, airborne. The dread of replacing a seven hundred-dollar saw was only enhanced by the thought of reporting my folly to my wife Linda, who would most likely cost more than seven hundred dollars to replace. When I returned home, I was clinically depressed. “How was wood cutting honey?” She said. “I’m thinking about committing suicide.” I wimpered.
“That’s nice,” she said. “Don’t track mud in the house.” She calmly put an ad on the local radio while I slumped into the corner, sucking my thumb in the fetal position. The next day a kind fellow who had been grouse hunting in the area returned my saw.
Challenges like this only strengthened my resolve to cut more wood. I became a fanatic. Early in the morning I would rise, sharpen, oil and gas up my saw, clean her air filter, clean my pickup, air the tires and shut the tailgate. The Blue angels take less care in pre-flighting their fighter jets than I did in preparation for a day of wood gathering. Once prepared, I called Doug.
Me: “Good morning ol’ boy. Ain’t it a beauty? Listen, I’ve got gas and my tailgate’s shut!”
Dougy: “Is this some kind of an obscene phone call?”
Me: “Saw’s sharp, tires aired and I’ll be by to pick you up in five. Any questions?”
Dougy: “Just one. Who is this?”
Me: “Don’t be funny, you know exactly who this is!”
Dougy, “No speaky de spanglish.”
Me: “Nice try Dougy, but it’s too beautiful of a day to waste laying around in bed.”
Dougy: “It’s three o’clcok in the morning for Pete sake!
Me: “I’ll take you out for breakfast!”
Dougy: “The restaurant won’t be open for two hours.”
Me: “I’ll come over and we’ll eat your food. Got any more of those organic cheese puffs?”
Dougy had a certain flair and style all his own. He was a sweet, ragamuffin like fellow. His dark brown, long hair was a little messy and he usually kept the top button of his jeans unbuttoned although I don’t really know why because he was slender. Sometimes he wore suspenders and left the tails of his flannel shirt un-tucked causing them to get kind of bunched up but he never seemed to notice. In contrast, he operated a chain saw with meticulous precision; the tip of the bar never touched the dirt when Doug was running it. Dougy was an unusually and wildly hard worker. He was slim and not tall, but he was solid muscle, and very strong. He was never really at home in Mt Vernon, not because he didn’t belong but because just two years earlier he had lost his sweet little wife to cancer. He had struggled since Lisa died. She was the love of his life. All he ever really wanted was to be with her again. But he kept himself busy helping people, and driving a log truck for Kenny Speakman, a logger who we both had worked for on different occasions. Slowly but surely Doug was coming back to life. He had even packed up some of Lisa’s stuff in boxes. He hadn’t touched it in two years since her death.
Nowdays a gentle smile gleamed underneath Dougy’s mustache and he usually had a twinkle in his eyes, especially when I was doing something humorous such as breaking his splitting maul. He was a nice guy and trustworthy. We had a hole in the fence between our yards through which I would send my four-year-old son Wade whenever I needed to borrow something. Dougy was not only trustworthy in that I could entrust him with my young son, but also in that he only tried to fix the fence once, and he didn’t try very hard. We made a fine team, united by our covetous lust for firewood, which we suitably entitled “Wood Greed.” It was our own private, insider joke. Most men lust for money and power and women but we lusted after firewood.
What were once half-hearted attempts at gathering wood became well prepared forays into the woodlands to extract the straight grained tamarack and red fir bounty. No longer did we hack up a haphazard load and toss it indiscriminately in the back of my pickup. We became hagridden with an insatiable urge to find dead standing firewood logs, cut them with fastidiousness and even take precious time to hand hew the rounds in order to make a tight stack with no voids. I have seen fancy ski lodges that were slapped together with less care than the loads we hauled out of the woods. The wood was stacked as high as possible with ultimate care, then tied down hard and fast with a lariat rope. Once, when we ran out of saw gas, we broke off the last twenty feet of a tamarack snag by means of hacking it with a little hand axe and jumping madly up and down on it until it snapped, because, although there was no room left in the pickup, I wasn’t about to let the tip of a perfectly good wood log go to waste or worse yet, be found by the competition. By the time it was lashed on the pickup the knarly snag stuck far out over the cab of the truck. It looked like the mast of a log laden pirate ship. Luckily it was downhill all the way home. Log trucks pulled off the road in awe and reverence as the tiny king cab swayed and swaggered out of the woods under the gargantuan load of seasoned wood rounds, the gnarly snag on top valiantly pointing the way home. Local folks referred to the scene as an ant carrying a hummingbird. Children playing in their yards ran for cover as the straining, grimacing Datson thundered by, causing loose berries to rattle off Juniper trees. She squatted down hard in the back and rose high in the front as if popping a permanent wheelie while hauling the glorious load out of the woods, the shark mouth mud guard wide and vicious and impressive as the tiny pick up creaked and groaned under it’s mammoth burden into my yard already buried in firewood.
One time during a particularly blizzardy day we went up for our second load and became engrossed in an Oregon Ducks football game that was on the radio. Previously Dougy had shown no inclination towards being a football fan. The Ducks were down by two touchdowns when we finally found a good tree. We were both hollering and cheering as we sat in the clear-cut and watched the blizzard go by the windshield. By the time the second overtime was over, the blizzard had subsided, Dougy had nearly cut a load of wood, I polished off a thermos of hot chocolate and the Ducks had won by one point. I had stayed by the cab to oversee the hearing of the game and to offer Dougy technical advice such as, “Hurry up, it’s starting to snow again!” It was a most memorable day. We were in our glory.
I will always remember the fall that Dougy helped me get my wood. But my memories will be bittersweet.
Three days before the fall equinox and one day before his fortieth birthday Dougy was killed in an accident while unhitching the trailer from his log truck. I was down at the church and the secretary told me she had got a call that Doug had been killed in an accident. I jumped in my pickup and tore up to Kenny’s shop as fast as I could, hoping that there had been some kind of mistake and praying that Dougy would come back. But when I got there and saw him I knew that he would never come back. So I held his hand and Said “Oh Dougy.” I couldn’t think of much to say. I asked him why. Then I told him goodbye.
Later, Kenny told me Doug wasn’t even supposed to work that day but he had offered to come up for a few minutes, just to help out. Dougy deserved to die a more noble death but it does not surprise me that he died helping somebody out. He was always helping somebody out.
Besides giving me a hand he spent his spare time getting little ol’ ladies free loads of firewood for the winter. I had accompanied him to unload some firewood at the little ladies homes, so now that I have this insatiable lust for firewood and I know where the little old ladies live, the job belongs to me alone.
Mt Vernon has lost one of her very finest. When I peer over the back fence and see his little home, dark and deserted and lonely, I feel very empty. I see his wood stack (that he had brought in last year) and the splitting maul that I had broke. (He fixed it) There is no smoke coming from his chimney. I try to understand. I stare at this paper. I try to understand. I grab an armload of firewood for the stove and I flat just don’t understand.
But life goes on.
Next fall while I am gathering firewood, alone, for myself and the little old ladies of Mt Vernon, I will invariably find myself with a hand axe beating on a snag and madly jumping up and down on the stupid thing in an effort to break it. Dougy will be in the presence of Jesus, laughing, and dancing in the arms of his sweet little wife. Some things in life are just not fair.
Dougy
Last winter, for the first time in my life, I had too much firewood. I cut it in the fall and now it’s split and stacked in the utility room and the back yard and by the gate and by the driveway. I even gave some away. I drove my little pick up to a place in the mountains called Keeney meadows which is the best, closest place around here to get firewood and I tourtured the timber.
My pickup is a little under powered and has a messed up front door on the drivers side from the time I left it open and fell a tree on it. Luckily the tip of the tree was all that hit the door so it didn’t tear it off the hinge. It sags really bad, kind of like a bird with a dislocated wing. I fixed it the best I could but it still has a big dent in it. My wife hates it because she thinks it makes us look poor, but I think it looks macho. I finally took the drivers side rear view mirror off because the bolts came loose and wallered out the holes so it remained quite wobbly no matter how much wire I used to help secure it. There is also the place on the front mud guard under the chrome bumper where I hooked a choker cable around when I pulled it out of the woods with a D4 Cat. By the time I was home free the choker had sucked down tight and ripped a long, jagged, horizontal gash in the mud guard. Now, it looks like my little pick up has a shark mouth. A junior high kid I know described my pick up as, and I quote, “gross.” It is the perfect wood getting truck. It’s small so you don’t have to work your tail off to fill it up with a good load of wood. You spend the better part of your time drinking coffee and eating chocolate snacks on the way up and back which is nice, especially if it happens to be snowing sideways. Although small, if you really try you can grossly overload the pick up and come back with a pretty impressive jag of wood. It’s downhill all the way home. The citizens of Mt Vernon never really let on that they were impressed but some of them did remark about the size of my woodpile, which caused me to swell with pride although I always blamed it on the chocolate.
I pretty much disliked wood cutting until last fall when I was forced to get my entire supply before they shut the woods down in November. When I lived on the ranch I got my wood as I needed it because it was right out the back door and easy picking. But now, living in Mt Vernon I have to get my wood from the national forest, which required permits. But the wood is of much better quality and I would learn to love good firewood, although getting wood was, as near as I could tell, work and I am not particularly fond of working when I could be out trapping chasing coyotes, or fishing or hunting or writing about it. But my friend and back yard neighbor Dougy offered to go with me and show me the best places to get firewood, and he brought most of the victuals. Although he is somewhat of a health food nut I ate just about all his food and drank most of his distilled water because I wanted him to feel welcome as a guest.
Our first load was somewhat of a half-hearted attempt on my part. To save work I cut the wood a little long not wanting to run the saw any more than necessary and forgetting that the length of my wood stove is about sixteen inches. Dougy made the comment that he thought perhaps I was cutting fence posts which I thought was pretty funny coming from a man who’s neighbor had just eaten all of his organic cheese puffs. Also, somewhat in denial I had elected to wear my Romeo’s to get the first load because throughout the course of the summer I had chosen to forget how much work getting firewood is and how steep the ground can be and also how quick slippers fill up with sawdust. And somehow the head fell off of Doug’s splitting mall when I was using it. It thought it was a weird coincidence because I had just broken the handle too.
On the way back we were only able to travel at a top speed of thirty five miles an hour because I had neglected to fill my tires with air. Under the weight of a fairly good load we swayed back and forth like an over loaded barge in rough seas. I could tell by the nervous look in Dougy’s eyes that I had made quite an impression on him. Fortunately, my wife fed him a big dinner that night. He happily joined me for more loads throughout the course of the fall.
As autumn wore on I began to enjoy our wood gathering expeditions into the mountains and even became obsessed with the idea that there was wood up there for the taking and if we didn’t get it some other Mt Vernonite would. I made trip after trip, sometimes with my family, sometimes with Dougy or another friend and sometimes by myself and I am happy to report I only lost my chainsaw once. I had been king around looking for the perfect tree and having picked a so-so candidate I stopped to sharpen, oil and gas up my saw. Afterwards I decided that the tree I had chosen was marginal and I began hearing voices. Actually it was one voice, the voice of a tree. A Tamarack “Oh Yooohooo.” The tree whispered. Did you forget about me?” The voice groaned lasciviously. “I’m straight and I'm tall and I’m…”
“Yes, gulp,” I said, What, what?
“I’m standing, dead!” Suddenly I remembered the straight grained, dead-standing-beauty that was calling me. She was just up the road a couple miles. Such was my passion, I threw in my saw and chose not to take the time to close the tailgate. As I roared up to the tree I jumped out and went to grab my saw but it was gone. It was then I knew exactly what I must do, so without hesitation, I panicked. Leaping into my pickup I fishtailed wildly up and down the road searching desperately, franticly, and at one point, not noticing a particularly high bump, airborne. The dread of replacing a seven hundred-dollar saw was only enhanced by the thought of reporting my folly to my wife Linda, who would most likely cost more than seven hundred dollars to replace. When I returned home, I was clinically depressed. “How was wood cutting honey?” She said. “I’m thinking about committing suicide.” I wimpered.
“That’s nice,” she said. “Don’t track mud in the house.” She calmly put an ad on the local radio while I slumped into the corner, sucking my thumb in the fetal position. The next day a kind fellow who had been grouse hunting in the area returned my saw.
Challenges like this only strengthened my resolve to cut more wood. I became a fanatic. Early in the morning I would rise, sharpen, oil and gas up my saw, clean her air filter, clean my pickup, air the tires and shut the tailgate. The Blue angels take less care in pre-flighting their fighter jets than I did in preparation for a day of wood gathering. Once prepared, I called Doug.
Me: “Good morning ol’ boy. Ain’t it a beauty? Listen, I’ve got gas and my tailgate’s shut!”
Dougy: “Is this some kind of an obscene phone call?”
Me: “Saw’s sharp, tires aired and I’ll be by to pick you up in five. Any questions?”
Dougy: “Just one. Who is this?”
Me: “Don’t be funny, you know exactly who this is!”
Dougy, “No speaky de spanglish.”
Me: “Nice try Dougy, but it’s too beautiful of a day to waste laying around in bed.”
Dougy: “It’s three o’clcok in the morning for Pete sake!
Me: “I’ll take you out for breakfast!”
Dougy: “The restaurant won’t be open for two hours.”
Me: “I’ll come over and we’ll eat your food. Got any more of those organic cheese puffs?”
Dougy had a certain flair and style all his own. He was a sweet, ragamuffin like fellow. His dark brown, long hair was a little messy and he usually kept the top button of his jeans unbuttoned although I don’t really know why because he was slender. Sometimes he wore suspenders and left the tails of his flannel shirt un-tucked causing them to get kind of bunched up but he never seemed to notice. In contrast, he operated a chain saw with meticulous precision; the tip of the bar never touched the dirt when Doug was running it. Dougy was an unusually and wildly hard worker. He was slim and not tall, but he was solid muscle, and very strong. He was never really at home in Mt Vernon, not because he didn’t belong but because just two years earlier he had lost his sweet little wife to cancer. He had struggled since Lisa died. She was the love of his life. All he ever really wanted was to be with her again. But he kept himself busy helping people, and driving a log truck for Kenny Speakman, a logger who we both had worked for on different occasions. Slowly but surely Doug was coming back to life. He had even packed up some of Lisa’s stuff in boxes. He hadn’t touched it in two years since her death.
Nowdays a gentle smile gleamed underneath Dougy’s mustache and he usually had a twinkle in his eyes, especially when I was doing something humorous such as breaking his splitting maul. He was a nice guy and trustworthy. We had a hole in the fence between our yards through which I would send my four-year-old son Wade whenever I needed to borrow something. Dougy was not only trustworthy in that I could entrust him with my young son, but also in that he only tried to fix the fence once, and he didn’t try very hard. We made a fine team, united by our covetous lust for firewood, which we suitably entitled “Wood Greed.” It was our own private, insider joke. Most men lust for money and power and women but we lusted after firewood.
What were once half-hearted attempts at gathering wood became well prepared forays into the woodlands to extract the straight grained tamarack and red fir bounty. No longer did we hack up a haphazard load and toss it indiscriminately in the back of my pickup. We became hagridden with an insatiable urge to find dead standing firewood logs, cut them with fastidiousness and even take precious time to hand hew the rounds in order to make a tight stack with no voids. I have seen fancy ski lodges that were slapped together with less care than the loads we hauled out of the woods. The wood was stacked as high as possible with ultimate care, then tied down hard and fast with a lariat rope. Once, when we ran out of saw gas, we broke off the last twenty feet of a tamarack snag by means of hacking it with a little hand axe and jumping madly up and down on it until it snapped, because, although there was no room left in the pickup, I wasn’t about to let the tip of a perfectly good wood log go to waste or worse yet, be found by the competition. By the time it was lashed on the pickup the knarly snag stuck far out over the cab of the truck. It looked like the mast of a log laden pirate ship. Luckily it was downhill all the way home. Log trucks pulled off the road in awe and reverence as the tiny king cab swayed and swaggered out of the woods under the gargantuan load of seasoned wood rounds, the gnarly snag on top valiantly pointing the way home. Local folks referred to the scene as an ant carrying a hummingbird. Children playing in their yards ran for cover as the straining, grimacing Datson thundered by, causing loose berries to rattle off Juniper trees. She squatted down hard in the back and rose high in the front as if popping a permanent wheelie while hauling the glorious load out of the woods, the shark mouth mud guard wide and vicious and impressive as the tiny pick up creaked and groaned under it’s mammoth burden into my yard already buried in firewood.
One time during a particularly blizzardy day we went up for our second load and became engrossed in an Oregon Ducks football game that was on the radio. Previously Dougy had shown no inclination towards being a football fan. The Ducks were down by two touchdowns when we finally found a good tree. We were both hollering and cheering as we sat in the clear-cut and watched the blizzard go by the windshield. By the time the second overtime was over, the blizzard had subsided, Dougy had nearly cut a load of wood, I polished off a thermos of hot chocolate and the Ducks had won by one point. I had stayed by the cab to oversee the hearing of the game and to offer Dougy technical advice such as, “Hurry up, it’s starting to snow again!” It was a most memorable day. We were in our glory.
I will always remember the fall that Dougy helped me get my wood. But my memories will be bittersweet.
Three days before the fall equinox and one day before his fortieth birthday Dougy was killed in an accident while unhitching the trailer from his log truck. I was down at the church and the secretary told me she had got a call that Doug had been killed in an accident. I jumped in my pickup and tore up to Kenny’s shop as fast as I could, hoping that there had been some kind of mistake and praying that Dougy would come back. But when I got there and saw him I knew that he would never come back. So I held his hand and Said “Oh Dougy.” I couldn’t think of much to say. I asked him why. Then I told him goodbye.
Later, Kenny told me Doug wasn’t even supposed to work that day but he had offered to come up for a few minutes, just to help out. Dougy deserved to die a more noble death but it does not surprise me that he died helping somebody out. He was always helping somebody out.
Besides giving me a hand he spent his spare time getting little ol’ ladies free loads of firewood for the winter. I had accompanied him to unload some firewood at the little ladies homes, so now that I have this insatiable lust for firewood and I know where the little old ladies live, the job belongs to me alone.
Mt Vernon has lost one of her very finest. When I peer over the back fence and see his little home, dark and deserted and lonely, I feel very empty. I see his wood stack (that he had brought in last year) and the splitting maul that I had broke. (He fixed it) There is no smoke coming from his chimney. I try to understand. I stare at this paper. I try to understand. I grab an armload of firewood for the stove and I flat just don’t understand.
But life goes on.
Next fall while I am gathering firewood, alone, for myself and the little old ladies of Mt Vernon, I will invariably find myself with a hand axe beating on a snag and madly jumping up and down on the stupid thing in an effort to break it. Dougy will be in the presence of Jesus, laughing, and dancing in the arms of his sweet little wife. Some things in life are just not fair.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Encouragement
I have long been a believer in encouragement because I have such an adamant hate for discouragement, especially the kind that comes from outside sources. Yuck. Give me good a old compliment any day and trust me too fill in the gaps on my own. At least that is my theory for dealing with other people. I'm talking about sharing information or teaching or motivating others to keep trying.
I break and train horses as and advocation and the first rule of thumb for teaching anything to a horse is to reward the slightest change and the smallest try. So that is the foundation I use when working with horses and people. By people I mean sixth grade basketball players although I think it works for everyone. If I'm trying to teach a horse to take a step backwards I put some pressure on the bit in his mouth by pulling on the reins. As soon as he even thinks about taking a step back I release the pressure on the reins. I build on this foundation.
It is the same with teaching kids to play basketball. I help coach my boys team each fall and at the beginning of the season some of them are so lousy they can hardly heave the ball within orbiting distance of the hoop let alone put it in the hole. So I often encourage some of them with a heart felt attaboy in hopes that they will at least keep trying until they can get the ball near enough to the rim that it may go through the hoop. But I try to be honest and not shine them on. I try to encourage them so maybe they will go home and practice and get to the point where I can say "Hey, nice one, you made it (or touched the rim) now try this technique" I show him the technique such as hand position on the ball or bending the legs more. Sure enough the next shot, in most cases, hits me upside the head. But the point is, if he is encouraged in such a way as to keep his confidence up he may at least practice on his own enough to where a foundation can be laid upon which to build.
Another case in point. One Danny Dunne. I met him on a on line humor writers group. He is niether a sixth grader nor a basketball player but his story will serve to illistrate how encouragement works. When he first started posting his missives to the group I feared for his life because he seemed to have a preoccupation with his own death. He posted hilarious stories such as, My Life as a Dead Person and My Obituary. They were not necessarily the lighthearted, humorous stories normally produced by the group. He'd scratch out a few morbid words in random sentences that flowed painstakingly uphill until coming to a merciful ending by which time we first readers were contemplating our own death.
But nobody in the group was critical of his writing. We just encouraged him and made a few kind suggestions sensing that any undue harshness might discourage him or possibly cause the old boy to throw himself off a cliff or try to strangle himself with his own mouse cord. Sure enough it wasn't long before he wrote an amusing story about his childhood. Then another about his high school mishaps. They were lighthearted, interesting and actually contained a laugh or two. Nothing about death. What we didn't know was that what seemed like a preoccupation with death was really a dry sense of humor with a unique little twist. Before long he had his own Blog and had written a book that could be categorized as "delightful" with favorites of mine like Shower Songs. And, I'm looking forward to some that will be even more delightfuler. (Thats the beauty of belonging to the encouragement crowd, you can get away with delightfuler)
Danny and I have branched out from the group and created a group of our own now. We are prohibited from saying anything negative by federal mandate and professional courtesy since we have both been, ahem, published. You would think it wouldn't work very good but every time he reads my work and compliments me on a funny line it motivates me to write something. The nearest thing we come to criticism is reporting if something isn't clear. "Tim, not sure what delightfuler means. Please extrapolate." "Dan, not sure what extrapolate means, please..." etc.
I kind of broke off from the original group when an old nemesis of mine, posing as a writer no doubt infiltrated the group as a new member with no other thought in mind but to commit the fox paus of criticizing my work. Its not that I don't want criticism. Its that I don't appreciate rude criticism. And I don't like criticism that is based on personal preference. I took a break from the group after the critiques became so rude and opinionated I could take no more. I came back a year later but when I wrote a humorous story about elk hunting this certain member me took offense and criticized me sanctimoniously about what seemed to him a flippant attitude towards the taking of a game animal for meat. I wrote a scathing rant about people that despised hunting but wore leather boots and used leather saddles and ate chickens without so much as batting an eye. Poor chickens.
Also there is the public speaking story. Actually it was preaching. My wife and I took a preaching class at our church. When it was my turn to do my little preaching deal I shared about Gods love and told a story about my third grade teacher Mss. Klampee who washed poor David Dunleavys mouth out with soap for Saying "Gawwd." Not that he meant to take the Lords name in vain but probably because he had heard everyone in his immediate family say it a million times daily since his feetus hood.
Unbeknownst to poor David the wrath of God came in a fiery hand full of that pink powdery hand soap that Ms. Kampee shot up his nose when she crammed it in his mouth. About half killed the poor kid right in front of all of us. The event so traumatized me and our entire third grade class, let alone poor David, that, upon regurgitating (no pun intended) the sad tale of woa to the preaching class I burst out in tears and slobbered and snorted out the rest of the "sermon." The instructor a lady preacher was very gracious to me in front of the class and did not criticize my "delivery" for lack of a better word. She told me in my quiet prayer time God would show me where I could improve my style.
When my wife and I got in the car I asked her what she thought the lady preacher might have meant. My wife sayed, "Well, she probably meant that you shouldn't go SSNOOORRRRTT! and wipe your nose on your sleeve if you happen to be overcome by emotion on the pulpit" My Pookie does not often feel indebted to the non criticism clause in the federal mandate or anything else for that matter. She is handy too have around when one must cut the crap and incorporate a more direct approach. It saves time.
Anyhoo, it was sweet of the kind reverend to leave me with some dignity intact in front of the class. Dignity and confidence go hand in hand with encouragement. I went on to preach quite a few times after that when it would have been just as easy to give up. Ive also never forgotten her kindness. Also, thanks to my wife I have learned to keep poised when addressing a wowed congregation amidst a sea of tears and snot. Thanks Honey!
And finally there was the bucking horse ride I actually made in front of a small crowd where I received a compliment that I have never written about. I was attending a horse training clinic in Montana during the days when I fancied myself as a proud buckaroo and rider of the rough string. In reality I was neither but at least I was young and gullible enough to not know any better. An elderly lady brought a big mare that she had kept out on green grass who was tight as a tick and higher on grass than any crack addict in the territory. A group of people on horseback were instructed by the clinician to gallop their horses to the end of the arena and back. On the way back the slick fat mare packing the elderly women broke in two as it were, exploding in a wild bucking horse fit that culminated with the old girl homesteading a fine piece of arena dirt with such an awful violence that the crowd leaped to its collective feet and dashed to her aid. She sat up and emitted this horrible groan such as old people do before gasping their final breath. Then, she collapsed like a dead lady.
She was fine. Since she was an old cowgirl from Montana she didn't even break a hip, but she did need a little rest before riding again. The clinician said, "Wheres that Rawlins kid?" And I happily volunteered to ride the wild beast because I fancied myself a young bronc stomper and also because I was stupid.
I climbed on the mares back and waited and listened while we were given instruction. Before long the mare decided to blow up again into another bucking fit. In my typical fashion I rode her to a standstill much to the amazement and awe of the appreciative crowd. It was a spectacular bucking display if I do say so myself but because the old gal had topped her off before me my ride contained an element of surprise that most of my bucking horse rides did not, which was that I wasn't actually harpooned into the arena dirt myself. The crowd, which consisted of horsemen and family and pretty girls and basically everybody who I could have hoped to impress in the world granted me a lively ovation much to my humble and craving delight. To top it off, when the crowd quit clapping the experienced and highly revered clinician turned to his hapless assistant and said, " Alan, that kid's got more talent in his little toe than you have in your whole body!"
Compliments like this did not happen to me often or maybe ever but I will never forget the unfamiliar boost I get every time I think about it. I don't know about poor Allen. I guess I should bury the hatchet and contact my old writers group and see how he's doing.
I break and train horses as and advocation and the first rule of thumb for teaching anything to a horse is to reward the slightest change and the smallest try. So that is the foundation I use when working with horses and people. By people I mean sixth grade basketball players although I think it works for everyone. If I'm trying to teach a horse to take a step backwards I put some pressure on the bit in his mouth by pulling on the reins. As soon as he even thinks about taking a step back I release the pressure on the reins. I build on this foundation.
It is the same with teaching kids to play basketball. I help coach my boys team each fall and at the beginning of the season some of them are so lousy they can hardly heave the ball within orbiting distance of the hoop let alone put it in the hole. So I often encourage some of them with a heart felt attaboy in hopes that they will at least keep trying until they can get the ball near enough to the rim that it may go through the hoop. But I try to be honest and not shine them on. I try to encourage them so maybe they will go home and practice and get to the point where I can say "Hey, nice one, you made it (or touched the rim) now try this technique" I show him the technique such as hand position on the ball or bending the legs more. Sure enough the next shot, in most cases, hits me upside the head. But the point is, if he is encouraged in such a way as to keep his confidence up he may at least practice on his own enough to where a foundation can be laid upon which to build.
Another case in point. One Danny Dunne. I met him on a on line humor writers group. He is niether a sixth grader nor a basketball player but his story will serve to illistrate how encouragement works. When he first started posting his missives to the group I feared for his life because he seemed to have a preoccupation with his own death. He posted hilarious stories such as, My Life as a Dead Person and My Obituary. They were not necessarily the lighthearted, humorous stories normally produced by the group. He'd scratch out a few morbid words in random sentences that flowed painstakingly uphill until coming to a merciful ending by which time we first readers were contemplating our own death.
But nobody in the group was critical of his writing. We just encouraged him and made a few kind suggestions sensing that any undue harshness might discourage him or possibly cause the old boy to throw himself off a cliff or try to strangle himself with his own mouse cord. Sure enough it wasn't long before he wrote an amusing story about his childhood. Then another about his high school mishaps. They were lighthearted, interesting and actually contained a laugh or two. Nothing about death. What we didn't know was that what seemed like a preoccupation with death was really a dry sense of humor with a unique little twist. Before long he had his own Blog and had written a book that could be categorized as "delightful" with favorites of mine like Shower Songs. And, I'm looking forward to some that will be even more delightfuler. (Thats the beauty of belonging to the encouragement crowd, you can get away with delightfuler)
Danny and I have branched out from the group and created a group of our own now. We are prohibited from saying anything negative by federal mandate and professional courtesy since we have both been, ahem, published. You would think it wouldn't work very good but every time he reads my work and compliments me on a funny line it motivates me to write something. The nearest thing we come to criticism is reporting if something isn't clear. "Tim, not sure what delightfuler means. Please extrapolate." "Dan, not sure what extrapolate means, please..." etc.
I kind of broke off from the original group when an old nemesis of mine, posing as a writer no doubt infiltrated the group as a new member with no other thought in mind but to commit the fox paus of criticizing my work. Its not that I don't want criticism. Its that I don't appreciate rude criticism. And I don't like criticism that is based on personal preference. I took a break from the group after the critiques became so rude and opinionated I could take no more. I came back a year later but when I wrote a humorous story about elk hunting this certain member me took offense and criticized me sanctimoniously about what seemed to him a flippant attitude towards the taking of a game animal for meat. I wrote a scathing rant about people that despised hunting but wore leather boots and used leather saddles and ate chickens without so much as batting an eye. Poor chickens.
Also there is the public speaking story. Actually it was preaching. My wife and I took a preaching class at our church. When it was my turn to do my little preaching deal I shared about Gods love and told a story about my third grade teacher Mss. Klampee who washed poor David Dunleavys mouth out with soap for Saying "Gawwd." Not that he meant to take the Lords name in vain but probably because he had heard everyone in his immediate family say it a million times daily since his feetus hood.
Unbeknownst to poor David the wrath of God came in a fiery hand full of that pink powdery hand soap that Ms. Kampee shot up his nose when she crammed it in his mouth. About half killed the poor kid right in front of all of us. The event so traumatized me and our entire third grade class, let alone poor David, that, upon regurgitating (no pun intended) the sad tale of woa to the preaching class I burst out in tears and slobbered and snorted out the rest of the "sermon." The instructor a lady preacher was very gracious to me in front of the class and did not criticize my "delivery" for lack of a better word. She told me in my quiet prayer time God would show me where I could improve my style.
When my wife and I got in the car I asked her what she thought the lady preacher might have meant. My wife sayed, "Well, she probably meant that you shouldn't go SSNOOORRRRTT! and wipe your nose on your sleeve if you happen to be overcome by emotion on the pulpit" My Pookie does not often feel indebted to the non criticism clause in the federal mandate or anything else for that matter. She is handy too have around when one must cut the crap and incorporate a more direct approach. It saves time.
Anyhoo, it was sweet of the kind reverend to leave me with some dignity intact in front of the class. Dignity and confidence go hand in hand with encouragement. I went on to preach quite a few times after that when it would have been just as easy to give up. Ive also never forgotten her kindness. Also, thanks to my wife I have learned to keep poised when addressing a wowed congregation amidst a sea of tears and snot. Thanks Honey!
And finally there was the bucking horse ride I actually made in front of a small crowd where I received a compliment that I have never written about. I was attending a horse training clinic in Montana during the days when I fancied myself as a proud buckaroo and rider of the rough string. In reality I was neither but at least I was young and gullible enough to not know any better. An elderly lady brought a big mare that she had kept out on green grass who was tight as a tick and higher on grass than any crack addict in the territory. A group of people on horseback were instructed by the clinician to gallop their horses to the end of the arena and back. On the way back the slick fat mare packing the elderly women broke in two as it were, exploding in a wild bucking horse fit that culminated with the old girl homesteading a fine piece of arena dirt with such an awful violence that the crowd leaped to its collective feet and dashed to her aid. She sat up and emitted this horrible groan such as old people do before gasping their final breath. Then, she collapsed like a dead lady.
She was fine. Since she was an old cowgirl from Montana she didn't even break a hip, but she did need a little rest before riding again. The clinician said, "Wheres that Rawlins kid?" And I happily volunteered to ride the wild beast because I fancied myself a young bronc stomper and also because I was stupid.
I climbed on the mares back and waited and listened while we were given instruction. Before long the mare decided to blow up again into another bucking fit. In my typical fashion I rode her to a standstill much to the amazement and awe of the appreciative crowd. It was a spectacular bucking display if I do say so myself but because the old gal had topped her off before me my ride contained an element of surprise that most of my bucking horse rides did not, which was that I wasn't actually harpooned into the arena dirt myself. The crowd, which consisted of horsemen and family and pretty girls and basically everybody who I could have hoped to impress in the world granted me a lively ovation much to my humble and craving delight. To top it off, when the crowd quit clapping the experienced and highly revered clinician turned to his hapless assistant and said, " Alan, that kid's got more talent in his little toe than you have in your whole body!"
Compliments like this did not happen to me often or maybe ever but I will never forget the unfamiliar boost I get every time I think about it. I don't know about poor Allen. I guess I should bury the hatchet and contact my old writers group and see how he's doing.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The Troubleshooter
The Troubleshooter
>
>
> MY Pookie, God love her, spends her every waking moment
> doing chores, thinking up chores to do, or thinking up
> chores for me to do. On a weekend night when its time for
> normal people to wind down she will curl up on the sofa with
> a magazine and a sleepy look in her eye. I will be in my
> chair, almost drooling with non productivity, which to her
> Protestant way of thinking is one of the seven deadly
> sins. She, on the other hand will look up at me with a
> lascivious look in her eyes and say: "This Magazine I'm
> reading says right here in the home maintenance section that
> you should check your dryer duct to make sure a bird doesn't
> build a nest in it and burn the house down.
>
> Of course I'm thrilled to hear this revelation because
> I have often wondered why all of our houses keep burning
> down. I know better than to say something smart so I act
> bemused to hear this interesting tidbit of home owner
> information. Also, I'm acutely aware that if I make a
> wisecrack, six months later a bird will build a nest in our
> dryer duct and burn our house down. So I act interested.
>
> But all I am interested in at the time is watching the Suns
> Play the Blazers while I'm surfing the internet on the
> laptop to find out more about my cholesterol. I make an
> interesting discovery. Stress is what raises your
> cholesterol. Also, stress can give you a heart spasm and
> make you croak. I'm more determined than ever to stay
> relaxed now. To me relaxation is being productive in a very
> manly way because it ads years to your manly life.
>
> Moments later she pipes up again. "It says here that
> you can go to this cool website and type in "handyman
> tips" and watch a video of a handyman explaining how
> to do all kinds of household projects from pluming a kitchen
> sink to remodeling a house." Apparently she has
> forgotten about the last thing I tried to plumb.
>
> Now she has lost the sleepy look in her eye and is
> enthusiastically thumbing through the pages. "How
> many minutes did you use your text messaging this month? she
> asks.
>
> "Not very many, but I did just use it." A friend
> of ours texted me to reminded me it was our anniversary
> Friday, I neglect to tell her that part because I already
> made sure she knew I remembered our anniversary. We made
> plans. I just didn't think it prudent to mention how I remembered.
>
> "So would you say you use it five, maybe six times per
> month?
>
> Actually, I wouldn't say, because I don't want to think at
> the moment. "Yeah, give or take."
>
> "It says right here that I could save up to seven
> bucks a month if I canceled our unlimited texting. I never
> use mine"
>
> It is tempting to suggest that she should start right now but
> I'm on shaky ground here because I don't want to lose my
> unlimited texting privileges. It's very handy to text
> when you don't have time for an actual phone call or you don't
> want to have a phone conversation that could turn into a
> detailed dialog when you just want to send a quick message,
> or if your in hot water. Convincing her to keep the
> unlimited texting is doable but it would require me coming
> up with all kinds of provocative thoughts and lawyerly
> arguments which would be stressful. Also the game looks
> like it could go into overtime.
>
> I need to come up with something because it has been my
> experience, that if I don't have unlimited texting and have
> never needed it anyway, for some reason in the near future I will most likely be using up texting minutes faster than the rate at which the
> national debt is tallied and suddenly there will be an
> emergency and I will need to send a quick text such as
> "house on fire" and my texting minutes will
> immediately expire.
Therefore I will have to call and try to
> explain to her why I didn't rush out and check the dryer duct
> the moment she brought it up months ago. I will remind her
> that if she wouldn't have canceled my immortal texting
> minutes we wouldn't be having this argument, which, by
> the way, could give me a heart spasm.
Luckily the leak from my last plumbing project will extinguish the fire, a small victory for me which will settle the score. The score is Blazers 106, Suns 103, Cholesteral 199, National debt: negative five hundred
> trillion, Pookie: positive five hundred trillion,
> me two, Unlimited texting zero, Marriage: 15 years.
>
>
> MY Pookie, God love her, spends her every waking moment
> doing chores, thinking up chores to do, or thinking up
> chores for me to do. On a weekend night when its time for
> normal people to wind down she will curl up on the sofa with
> a magazine and a sleepy look in her eye. I will be in my
> chair, almost drooling with non productivity, which to her
> Protestant way of thinking is one of the seven deadly
> sins. She, on the other hand will look up at me with a
> lascivious look in her eyes and say: "This Magazine I'm
> reading says right here in the home maintenance section that
> you should check your dryer duct to make sure a bird doesn't
> build a nest in it and burn the house down.
>
> Of course I'm thrilled to hear this revelation because
> I have often wondered why all of our houses keep burning
> down. I know better than to say something smart so I act
> bemused to hear this interesting tidbit of home owner
> information. Also, I'm acutely aware that if I make a
> wisecrack, six months later a bird will build a nest in our
> dryer duct and burn our house down. So I act interested.
>
> But all I am interested in at the time is watching the Suns
> Play the Blazers while I'm surfing the internet on the
> laptop to find out more about my cholesterol. I make an
> interesting discovery. Stress is what raises your
> cholesterol. Also, stress can give you a heart spasm and
> make you croak. I'm more determined than ever to stay
> relaxed now. To me relaxation is being productive in a very
> manly way because it ads years to your manly life.
>
> Moments later she pipes up again. "It says here that
> you can go to this cool website and type in "handyman
> tips" and watch a video of a handyman explaining how
> to do all kinds of household projects from pluming a kitchen
> sink to remodeling a house." Apparently she has
> forgotten about the last thing I tried to plumb.
>
> Now she has lost the sleepy look in her eye and is
> enthusiastically thumbing through the pages. "How
> many minutes did you use your text messaging this month? she
> asks.
>
> "Not very many, but I did just use it." A friend
> of ours texted me to reminded me it was our anniversary
> Friday, I neglect to tell her that part because I already
> made sure she knew I remembered our anniversary. We made
> plans. I just didn't think it prudent to mention how I remembered.
>
> "So would you say you use it five, maybe six times per
> month?
>
> Actually, I wouldn't say, because I don't want to think at
> the moment. "Yeah, give or take."
>
> "It says right here that I could save up to seven
> bucks a month if I canceled our unlimited texting. I never
> use mine"
>
> It is tempting to suggest that she should start right now but
> I'm on shaky ground here because I don't want to lose my
> unlimited texting privileges. It's very handy to text
> when you don't have time for an actual phone call or you don't
> want to have a phone conversation that could turn into a
> detailed dialog when you just want to send a quick message,
> or if your in hot water. Convincing her to keep the
> unlimited texting is doable but it would require me coming
> up with all kinds of provocative thoughts and lawyerly
> arguments which would be stressful. Also the game looks
> like it could go into overtime.
>
> I need to come up with something because it has been my
> experience, that if I don't have unlimited texting and have
> never needed it anyway, for some reason in the near future I will most likely be using up texting minutes faster than the rate at which the
> national debt is tallied and suddenly there will be an
> emergency and I will need to send a quick text such as
> "house on fire" and my texting minutes will
> immediately expire.
Therefore I will have to call and try to
> explain to her why I didn't rush out and check the dryer duct
> the moment she brought it up months ago. I will remind her
> that if she wouldn't have canceled my immortal texting
> minutes we wouldn't be having this argument, which, by
> the way, could give me a heart spasm.
Luckily the leak from my last plumbing project will extinguish the fire, a small victory for me which will settle the score. The score is Blazers 106, Suns 103, Cholesteral 199, National debt: negative five hundred
> trillion, Pookie: positive five hundred trillion,
> me two, Unlimited texting zero, Marriage: 15 years.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
March: The Year of the Cat
When I was in High School in the seventies there was this song that was a major hit called The Year of The Cat by Al Stewart. I dont really know what the song was about but it must have been deep and very meaningful because in March of 2009 some scant thirty years later my wife couldnt keep our darned cat out of the house! Yeah, I always hated that song too.
The amazing thing to me about the wife verses cat scenario is that Pookie is normally the standard bearer for savvy home /farm /business interactions and has no trouble whatsoever in dealing with livestock or people in general. Take today for instance. We were in the barn when our neighbor pulled up in is dump truck, intorduced himself and offered to remove a gigantic mountain range of large rocks that decorates our property (about eight dump truck loads worth) for the sum total of eight hundred dollars.
"Six hundred" were the first words out of her mout. No hesitation, No stammering.
I swallowed my bung hole. These people dont even know each other yet the man comes uninvited to my home, makes an elaborate proposal, and The Pookstress slaps him right up side the head with: "Six Hundred." Ha, Ha, Ha, she said. Ha, Ha, Ha, he said. Gulmp I said.
I was glad they were yucking it up adding levity to the situation and all because my standard comeback to such a proposal would be to freeze in a frozen position and become all serious and say: "I'll see what my wife says." Or if I'm feeling special sporty and confident I might come back with : "A thousand, and you've got yourself a deal!" So without my teliprompter I'm pretty much stuck with the standard, I'll see what my wife says type answer for ALL situations. I think I'm this way because I've been taught by well meaning preachers and Sunday school teachers since my youth that my job here in this life is to convert everybody I come in contact with to Christianity. Also, it was sometimes implied by the Powerful Religeous Implyers to Children Union (PRICU) that it could definately, possibly be your fault should an average aquaintance burn in Hell for all of eternity. So I'm slightly self concious about always being perfect when meeting someone. Its a great strain but now, as an adult, I've learned to deal with the stress by returning to my home and yelling at the children.
But Pookie could give a fat rats fanny about what you or me or anybody else thinks about her. I admire this trait in her often, sometimes with my jaw dropped. She can talk down a health insurance billing type person by meer persistance and even be quite blunt and think nothing of it. I can assure you we have not paid one penny extra on any of our bills and often get a discount because of her schrewdness. Sadly, none of the billing people are converted to Christianity that I know of thanks to Pookie and her go to hell attitude.
If I was left to do the bill paying I would probobly pay extra to avoid conflict and make sure any people encountered along the way were convinced I was a nice guy so they would convert to my religion. I doubt I have any conversions to my credit using this technique but it is engrained in my phsychy. Therefore I have a little trouble because I try to get people to like me and sometimes they take advantage of me because I am what is commonly refered to as a people pleaser. But Pookie has no trouble with the concept of people not liking her. Rather, she invites it, but people seem to like her anyway. She looks out for herself (and me) and the kids and we always get the best deal and makes sure no one takes advantage of me. Like I say, she's savvy.
But she is a total moron when it comes to keeping the cat out of the house. She should know better. She grew up with animals, has a Bachelers degree in animal science, has opereated large horse breeding facilites, trained horses proffesionally and most recently has kept an entire squardran of my sons uninhibited chickens from pooping on aproximately ten billion square feet of asfalt that composes our driveway. (As a sidenote I've neuterd pigs. Actually, I just watched as Gary Detwyler, when we were seventh graders, neutered a flock of piglets with no adult supervision while I held them down. He sprayed purple stuff on 'em when it was over. I know this is about Pookie but I didnt want her to get all the glory).
My point here is that this women should know a little bit about animal psychology. But that cat has her number. The cat can sense when we are leaving and Pookie wants her out of the house. Pookie emmits these intense, womenly brainwaves that all women send out when they are leaving their home. These brainwaves say ok I'm leaving therefore my house must be perfect when I return or I will be incomplete as a human. At this point the cat understands that these preliminary brainwaves are merely ornamental serving only to ignite the primordeal switch in the women that excites her to clean, do the laundry and vacume the entire stratosphere before any leaving takes place. About the time I turn off the remote and stand to leave when Pookie hollars "Load Up! to the kids, and remembers the cat, Ol' Butterscotch squirts under the bed where she is innaccecible to an enraged women who is suddenly in a hurry. Even more amazing is the fact that this women is the ultimate planner when it comes to activities. In February She'll plan for an event that will take place in June with an urgancy that would suggest that its happening today. "Lets see, we better make reservations because Saturday mornings can be swamped at the Pancake house in the third week of June. I'll give them a call, hand me the phone. Hurry."
But as important as it is that there is no cat in the house during her absence Pookie refuses to plan cat evacuation operations untill the very last minute. To make things worse, Pookie panics when when she tries to catch the cat. She often uses the same language the dad in Christmas Story uses when he tries to fix the furnace. Its uninteligible. "Concarn melmfing Patafinga!" she hollers.
So its at times like these, as the head of the household I "step up to the plate" as father and leader to take care of the cat procceedings on our home. I can do this from my chair. When the little woman begins emmitting the womanly rays I pick up on the situation almost immideately because in fifteen years of marriage you lean to read these imperceptible que's with uncanny accuracy. Also she begins vacuming in front of the TV. I'll signal one of the kids over and say, "Gracy, baby, would you please put the cat out. Gracy will walk into my bedroom where the cat is preening herself on my bed. Picking up the cat who remains as limp as a wet bathtowel Gracie plops her outside with no effort whatsoever.
Upon whitnessing this event Pookie, the rule maker extrodinare of the household will make a decree throuout the living room that "from here on out the cat shall remain an outside cat sleeping in the barn and performing other barn cat type chores such as catching and consuming mice for her room and board." What she doesnt know is that at precicely the moment of said decree Charlie is in the other room letting the cat back in the house. Or sometimes the Queen herself will, in a fit of cat empathy, let the cat back in on a cold night resulting in an entire new cycle. The cycle is never ending, only intereupted when the cat pees on our bathroom little rug, always the south rug, never the north, like clockwork. If the cat finds out that she is engaged in an actual fued, in the rare event she does spend the night out of doors she will "hold it" untill Charlie lets her back in through the forbidden living room window. The cat will run into our bathroom, with its legs crossed, barely making it in time to pee. It never ends.
I was awakened the other morning by the sounds of Pookie grabbing an armload of firewood at o 'dark thirty, when I heard the familiar mutering that signals the begining of a cat eposode. "You stupid cat, dont you do it, GET BACK HERE PADAFIINGA! (sound of an armload of firewood being dropped all over the floor) A few seconds later I hear the sound of little paws as the cat gallops by my bed where she vanishes out of reach. I make no attempt at hiding my myrth and even holler out a few barbs in jest at my hapless wife who is now blowing the hair out of her eyes and picking up the mess on the floor. She has to laugh, only because the scene has replayed itself so often at our house that it has become ironic. An hour later I'll walk by silently with a limp, purring cat, strutting by as if to say, "whos your daddy?" and gently plop the cat outside. Poor Pookie. Where would she be without me?
The amazing thing to me about the wife verses cat scenario is that Pookie is normally the standard bearer for savvy home /farm /business interactions and has no trouble whatsoever in dealing with livestock or people in general. Take today for instance. We were in the barn when our neighbor pulled up in is dump truck, intorduced himself and offered to remove a gigantic mountain range of large rocks that decorates our property (about eight dump truck loads worth) for the sum total of eight hundred dollars.
"Six hundred" were the first words out of her mout. No hesitation, No stammering.
I swallowed my bung hole. These people dont even know each other yet the man comes uninvited to my home, makes an elaborate proposal, and The Pookstress slaps him right up side the head with: "Six Hundred." Ha, Ha, Ha, she said. Ha, Ha, Ha, he said. Gulmp I said.
I was glad they were yucking it up adding levity to the situation and all because my standard comeback to such a proposal would be to freeze in a frozen position and become all serious and say: "I'll see what my wife says." Or if I'm feeling special sporty and confident I might come back with : "A thousand, and you've got yourself a deal!" So without my teliprompter I'm pretty much stuck with the standard, I'll see what my wife says type answer for ALL situations. I think I'm this way because I've been taught by well meaning preachers and Sunday school teachers since my youth that my job here in this life is to convert everybody I come in contact with to Christianity. Also, it was sometimes implied by the Powerful Religeous Implyers to Children Union (PRICU) that it could definately, possibly be your fault should an average aquaintance burn in Hell for all of eternity. So I'm slightly self concious about always being perfect when meeting someone. Its a great strain but now, as an adult, I've learned to deal with the stress by returning to my home and yelling at the children.
But Pookie could give a fat rats fanny about what you or me or anybody else thinks about her. I admire this trait in her often, sometimes with my jaw dropped. She can talk down a health insurance billing type person by meer persistance and even be quite blunt and think nothing of it. I can assure you we have not paid one penny extra on any of our bills and often get a discount because of her schrewdness. Sadly, none of the billing people are converted to Christianity that I know of thanks to Pookie and her go to hell attitude.
If I was left to do the bill paying I would probobly pay extra to avoid conflict and make sure any people encountered along the way were convinced I was a nice guy so they would convert to my religion. I doubt I have any conversions to my credit using this technique but it is engrained in my phsychy. Therefore I have a little trouble because I try to get people to like me and sometimes they take advantage of me because I am what is commonly refered to as a people pleaser. But Pookie has no trouble with the concept of people not liking her. Rather, she invites it, but people seem to like her anyway. She looks out for herself (and me) and the kids and we always get the best deal and makes sure no one takes advantage of me. Like I say, she's savvy.
But she is a total moron when it comes to keeping the cat out of the house. She should know better. She grew up with animals, has a Bachelers degree in animal science, has opereated large horse breeding facilites, trained horses proffesionally and most recently has kept an entire squardran of my sons uninhibited chickens from pooping on aproximately ten billion square feet of asfalt that composes our driveway. (As a sidenote I've neuterd pigs. Actually, I just watched as Gary Detwyler, when we were seventh graders, neutered a flock of piglets with no adult supervision while I held them down. He sprayed purple stuff on 'em when it was over. I know this is about Pookie but I didnt want her to get all the glory).
My point here is that this women should know a little bit about animal psychology. But that cat has her number. The cat can sense when we are leaving and Pookie wants her out of the house. Pookie emmits these intense, womenly brainwaves that all women send out when they are leaving their home. These brainwaves say ok I'm leaving therefore my house must be perfect when I return or I will be incomplete as a human. At this point the cat understands that these preliminary brainwaves are merely ornamental serving only to ignite the primordeal switch in the women that excites her to clean, do the laundry and vacume the entire stratosphere before any leaving takes place. About the time I turn off the remote and stand to leave when Pookie hollars "Load Up! to the kids, and remembers the cat, Ol' Butterscotch squirts under the bed where she is innaccecible to an enraged women who is suddenly in a hurry. Even more amazing is the fact that this women is the ultimate planner when it comes to activities. In February She'll plan for an event that will take place in June with an urgancy that would suggest that its happening today. "Lets see, we better make reservations because Saturday mornings can be swamped at the Pancake house in the third week of June. I'll give them a call, hand me the phone. Hurry."
But as important as it is that there is no cat in the house during her absence Pookie refuses to plan cat evacuation operations untill the very last minute. To make things worse, Pookie panics when when she tries to catch the cat. She often uses the same language the dad in Christmas Story uses when he tries to fix the furnace. Its uninteligible. "Concarn melmfing Patafinga!" she hollers.
So its at times like these, as the head of the household I "step up to the plate" as father and leader to take care of the cat procceedings on our home. I can do this from my chair. When the little woman begins emmitting the womanly rays I pick up on the situation almost immideately because in fifteen years of marriage you lean to read these imperceptible que's with uncanny accuracy. Also she begins vacuming in front of the TV. I'll signal one of the kids over and say, "Gracy, baby, would you please put the cat out. Gracy will walk into my bedroom where the cat is preening herself on my bed. Picking up the cat who remains as limp as a wet bathtowel Gracie plops her outside with no effort whatsoever.
Upon whitnessing this event Pookie, the rule maker extrodinare of the household will make a decree throuout the living room that "from here on out the cat shall remain an outside cat sleeping in the barn and performing other barn cat type chores such as catching and consuming mice for her room and board." What she doesnt know is that at precicely the moment of said decree Charlie is in the other room letting the cat back in the house. Or sometimes the Queen herself will, in a fit of cat empathy, let the cat back in on a cold night resulting in an entire new cycle. The cycle is never ending, only intereupted when the cat pees on our bathroom little rug, always the south rug, never the north, like clockwork. If the cat finds out that she is engaged in an actual fued, in the rare event she does spend the night out of doors she will "hold it" untill Charlie lets her back in through the forbidden living room window. The cat will run into our bathroom, with its legs crossed, barely making it in time to pee. It never ends.
I was awakened the other morning by the sounds of Pookie grabbing an armload of firewood at o 'dark thirty, when I heard the familiar mutering that signals the begining of a cat eposode. "You stupid cat, dont you do it, GET BACK HERE PADAFIINGA! (sound of an armload of firewood being dropped all over the floor) A few seconds later I hear the sound of little paws as the cat gallops by my bed where she vanishes out of reach. I make no attempt at hiding my myrth and even holler out a few barbs in jest at my hapless wife who is now blowing the hair out of her eyes and picking up the mess on the floor. She has to laugh, only because the scene has replayed itself so often at our house that it has become ironic. An hour later I'll walk by silently with a limp, purring cat, strutting by as if to say, "whos your daddy?" and gently plop the cat outside. Poor Pookie. Where would she be without me?
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
April, Barn Raising Month
The warm weather and the long days are like an interveneous shot of antidepressants to my soul, empowring me to, once more, to head out to the barn and dig some holes and plant some posts and raise some beams, and yell at the chickens (will you guys SHHUUTTT UUPP!!!) (sound of me pulling my hair out) etc, untill at last the barn is complete and my life has reached its ultimate destiny and I can, with clear conciounce, hurl myself off a cliff.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Does Sin Sepeate us From God?
Does Sin Separate us from God?
At childrens church last week the curriculum called for us to blindfold two children and ask them to find two other volunteer children, the results being that the blindfolded children groped about in the darkness unable to find their friends. The purpose of the exercise was to illustrate how sin separates us from God.
I realize that by and large this is pretty much your standard church doctrine and does have a bit of truth in it but as Christians we sometimes make big sweeping statements because we have taken a passage of the bible and applied to all instances without asking who, what , when, where, or why. We read in Isaiah 59:1 Your iniquity has separated you from God. A little study reveals a hard hearted, backslidden, unrepentant people who are hands are covered with blood and hearts filled with hypocrisy.
I?m not saying that sin cant possibly in any way have an effect on our relationship with God, All I?m saying is I think we need to find out what sins might separate us from God and how much of that sin separates us and how it can be and why. Especially when the bible says that God is no longer imputing our sins against us because of the work of Jesus and our faith in that work- and beyond that the word also tells us that we have the ministry of reconciliation: God is not imputing your sin against you.
In adult church w$e are learning that we are the righteousness of God. That If we blow it and sin and feel condemnation for that sin we do not have a sin problem we have an identity problem. Sin doesn?t separate us from God- but condemnation for that sin will. And of course people sometimes freak out with this type of preaching because they feel it will give people a license to sin. And it must be pointed out that people are doing a fine job of sinning without a license. You don?t even need a learners permit. There is no paperwork involved. But that is not good enough for these people. Why? Because as children they have learned in Sunday School that Sin separates us from God.
Now there are tons of scriptures you can go to to prove a point in the bible but I?m not really trying to prove any points, I?m just saying we need to make it clearer to the children, what the bible says without sweeping blanket statements from one scripture to apply to every instance. Believe me, I grew up in a church that was very legalistic and some of the notions we kids and adults came away with was staggering. (as in, stagger out of church, again) Somehow either directly or indirectly we came away with the idea that if you sinned, you weren?t just out of fellowship with God (which I don?t really buy either but it?s a step up from what I cut my teeth on) No, in our outfit if you sinned, certain fractions were pretty open minded to the idea that if you didn?t hurry up and repent before you died you could go to Hell or worse yet need to go forward in church and repent in front of the entire church. In our church going forward was this huge deal fraught with guilt and shame, and ultimately sweet relief. I went forward a record three Sundays in a row. Thank you very much.
At least in the churches I frequent these days (the last 15 years) Its basically understood that everybody sins and everybody is aware of it so most everybody goes up front to at least be prayed for something specific, and sometimes because we just feel the need to go forward because our hearts getting a little hard. Its standard maintenance. But in the old days you went forward for a complete overhaul. While the audience was, as I understood it, basically, sin free, and proud of it. Which explains why I went forward so much. Ok, call me mister Black and White but I had recently sinned, therefore I went forward.
So these days I?m fascinated with gray areas because now at least I can see them. So think about it. Sometimes we are in the closest fellowship with God when we do sin. The holy spirit convicts us. It can be very intense communion. Right?
And did God expel Adam and Eve from the Garden because he could not fellowship with sin? No he continued to talk to them and pursue them even after they sinned. He expelled them from the Garden so they would not eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in their fallen condition.
And yes, I?m aware that Jesus taught that if we don?t forgive others God cant forgive us. Also in the new testament Peter writes that if we treat our wives harshly God will not hear our prayers. Also, if we regard iniquity in our hearts God wont hear us. I think we need to sober up about sin. But we don?t need to be in a tormenting fear of it, because we all do it.
It is our faith that links to God and if we do not properly maintain our faith our relationship with him can be interrupted but that is on our end, not Gods. Part of maintaining faith is maintaining a clear conscience. I somehow ended up with an overactive conscience that needed to be retrained. When I understood the bible more clearly my conscience became bearable. Bearable or not, if we defile our own conscience our own faith can become shipwrecked and shipwrecked faith does not take us to our destination, which is our salvation, daily. By Grace ye are saved, through faith.
The plane fact is that sin is deadly and has consequences and we will reap what we sow, but yet, somehow God is not imputing our sin against us. Lucky for us because if you get truly caught up in the doctrine that all sin separates us from God and buy into that line of thinking hook, line and sinker then I don?t think you know what sin is. Whatever is not of faith is sin. Doubt, worry, unbelief, negativity, covetousness, sarcasm, gossip, self righteousness, pride, knowing to do right but not doing it, judejmentalism. Trust me, you?ve got some of that going on. And what about the sins you don?t know about? You have sins you don?t even know about. Ask the people around you. You might be a jerk and not even know it! Congratulations!
What sins? Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that we are doing ok because we don?t do the bad sins. I don?t drink, smoke or chew or run with them that do! There are no good sins. Call me crazy but I don?t think it goes over all that well with God when we practice the good sins and judge those who commit the bad sins.
I have heard it said that the really mature Christians do not necessarily improve with time but cling tighter and tighter to Jesus. They have discovered their need for reliance on him because they can see clearer and clearer how truly sin ridden their old man is, especially the more they know God and His nature and His Holiness and His Glory and Goodness. I guess you could make the argument their sin drives them closer to God.
The only sin that keeps us from God is basically unrepentace- you could lump it in with a heard heart, or unbelief, or pride- its all kind of basically the same animal. Known, habitual, unrepented sin will most likely make you at least feel alienated from God- yet his spirit hounds you and is ever present, ready to invade that hard heart at the first sign of repentance. Why do you think Jonah got into such a snit with God and experienced the big fish ordeal and everything? He was mad because he knew if the Ungodly so much as hinted at repentance God would forgive them. He didn?t like that. Of course, my theory was that he was told in Sunday school that sin separates us from God. Permanently.
At childrens church last week the curriculum called for us to blindfold two children and ask them to find two other volunteer children, the results being that the blindfolded children groped about in the darkness unable to find their friends. The purpose of the exercise was to illustrate how sin separates us from God.
I realize that by and large this is pretty much your standard church doctrine and does have a bit of truth in it but as Christians we sometimes make big sweeping statements because we have taken a passage of the bible and applied to all instances without asking who, what , when, where, or why. We read in Isaiah 59:1 Your iniquity has separated you from God. A little study reveals a hard hearted, backslidden, unrepentant people who are hands are covered with blood and hearts filled with hypocrisy.
I?m not saying that sin cant possibly in any way have an effect on our relationship with God, All I?m saying is I think we need to find out what sins might separate us from God and how much of that sin separates us and how it can be and why. Especially when the bible says that God is no longer imputing our sins against us because of the work of Jesus and our faith in that work- and beyond that the word also tells us that we have the ministry of reconciliation: God is not imputing your sin against you.
In adult church w$e are learning that we are the righteousness of God. That If we blow it and sin and feel condemnation for that sin we do not have a sin problem we have an identity problem. Sin doesn?t separate us from God- but condemnation for that sin will. And of course people sometimes freak out with this type of preaching because they feel it will give people a license to sin. And it must be pointed out that people are doing a fine job of sinning without a license. You don?t even need a learners permit. There is no paperwork involved. But that is not good enough for these people. Why? Because as children they have learned in Sunday School that Sin separates us from God.
Now there are tons of scriptures you can go to to prove a point in the bible but I?m not really trying to prove any points, I?m just saying we need to make it clearer to the children, what the bible says without sweeping blanket statements from one scripture to apply to every instance. Believe me, I grew up in a church that was very legalistic and some of the notions we kids and adults came away with was staggering. (as in, stagger out of church, again) Somehow either directly or indirectly we came away with the idea that if you sinned, you weren?t just out of fellowship with God (which I don?t really buy either but it?s a step up from what I cut my teeth on) No, in our outfit if you sinned, certain fractions were pretty open minded to the idea that if you didn?t hurry up and repent before you died you could go to Hell or worse yet need to go forward in church and repent in front of the entire church. In our church going forward was this huge deal fraught with guilt and shame, and ultimately sweet relief. I went forward a record three Sundays in a row. Thank you very much.
At least in the churches I frequent these days (the last 15 years) Its basically understood that everybody sins and everybody is aware of it so most everybody goes up front to at least be prayed for something specific, and sometimes because we just feel the need to go forward because our hearts getting a little hard. Its standard maintenance. But in the old days you went forward for a complete overhaul. While the audience was, as I understood it, basically, sin free, and proud of it. Which explains why I went forward so much. Ok, call me mister Black and White but I had recently sinned, therefore I went forward.
So these days I?m fascinated with gray areas because now at least I can see them. So think about it. Sometimes we are in the closest fellowship with God when we do sin. The holy spirit convicts us. It can be very intense communion. Right?
And did God expel Adam and Eve from the Garden because he could not fellowship with sin? No he continued to talk to them and pursue them even after they sinned. He expelled them from the Garden so they would not eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in their fallen condition.
And yes, I?m aware that Jesus taught that if we don?t forgive others God cant forgive us. Also in the new testament Peter writes that if we treat our wives harshly God will not hear our prayers. Also, if we regard iniquity in our hearts God wont hear us. I think we need to sober up about sin. But we don?t need to be in a tormenting fear of it, because we all do it.
It is our faith that links to God and if we do not properly maintain our faith our relationship with him can be interrupted but that is on our end, not Gods. Part of maintaining faith is maintaining a clear conscience. I somehow ended up with an overactive conscience that needed to be retrained. When I understood the bible more clearly my conscience became bearable. Bearable or not, if we defile our own conscience our own faith can become shipwrecked and shipwrecked faith does not take us to our destination, which is our salvation, daily. By Grace ye are saved, through faith.
The plane fact is that sin is deadly and has consequences and we will reap what we sow, but yet, somehow God is not imputing our sin against us. Lucky for us because if you get truly caught up in the doctrine that all sin separates us from God and buy into that line of thinking hook, line and sinker then I don?t think you know what sin is. Whatever is not of faith is sin. Doubt, worry, unbelief, negativity, covetousness, sarcasm, gossip, self righteousness, pride, knowing to do right but not doing it, judejmentalism. Trust me, you?ve got some of that going on. And what about the sins you don?t know about? You have sins you don?t even know about. Ask the people around you. You might be a jerk and not even know it! Congratulations!
What sins? Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that we are doing ok because we don?t do the bad sins. I don?t drink, smoke or chew or run with them that do! There are no good sins. Call me crazy but I don?t think it goes over all that well with God when we practice the good sins and judge those who commit the bad sins.
I have heard it said that the really mature Christians do not necessarily improve with time but cling tighter and tighter to Jesus. They have discovered their need for reliance on him because they can see clearer and clearer how truly sin ridden their old man is, especially the more they know God and His nature and His Holiness and His Glory and Goodness. I guess you could make the argument their sin drives them closer to God.
The only sin that keeps us from God is basically unrepentace- you could lump it in with a heard heart, or unbelief, or pride- its all kind of basically the same animal. Known, habitual, unrepented sin will most likely make you at least feel alienated from God- yet his spirit hounds you and is ever present, ready to invade that hard heart at the first sign of repentance. Why do you think Jonah got into such a snit with God and experienced the big fish ordeal and everything? He was mad because he knew if the Ungodly so much as hinted at repentance God would forgive them. He didn?t like that. Of course, my theory was that he was told in Sunday school that sin separates us from God. Permanently.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Harlem Globtrotters
I took the boys to see the Harlem Globetrotters this week and I have come to the conclusion that we all, meaning me, need to be more like the Harlem Globetrotters. The Globetrotters are large springy black men who are so full of life it almost makes me ashamed to be a white guy.
Before the Globetrotters were introduced to the crowd, composed of a few thousand of us white people, A group of male cheerleader, dancer type black fellows worked their fannys off in an effort to whip us into semi frensy. We tried to come to life but it was a little out of our comfort zone so we offered up some half hearted, self concious woops which raised the noise level enough to send in the Trotters who arrived on a tide of excitement and I feared that in our apathy we might suck the very life right out of them or at least drag them down to our level.
There was such a stark contrast in the globtrotters themselves and us, the crowd of white settlers that you couldnt miss it unless you were in a comma like most of us were. We sat in our seats, all self conciouse like, while the laughing, smiling, joking dancing, singing trotters, who were totally uninhibbited exuded waves of lifegiving LIFE our way and we the crowd responded by sitting there with our collective fingers up our nose.
Occasionally, Big Easy, todays Meadowlark Lemon - Meadowlark- what a nickname- (nobodys ever called me a meadowlark, you?) would draw (drag) a feet skidding white peorson out of the crowd that was comprised, believe me, eniterley of white, white, WHITE, folk and entice them to dance by way of putting them on the spot. Low and behold the white people, though forced, cut loose and by cutting loose I mean going way overboard here, and did some dances that were downright obscene and terrifying. My theory is these people were quite soberminded but once put on the spot they panicked and reacted by acting out primordal dance urges that were created in them intrinsically at birth but most likely that they learned last time they were really drunk.
The Globetrotters danced naturally. They had these huge, happy, devil-may-care smiles. We white guys seemed to be saying, dont, please, anybody look at me. I dont want to call attention to myself. I care too deeply about what you think of me! While the Trotters seemed to say, YOOHHOOOO! OVER HEEEEERE! LOOKATME, LOOKATME, LOOKATME! Who cares what you think, Lets have fun!
I think the culture that we live in out here is a little on the sober side, we cant have too much fun, especially on a week night, after all there are chores to be done, some of which are terribly important, such as settling the west, and welding. Some wrenching may be involed, also, there will be talk of valves. Therefore we are quite, resolute, strong, silent, and boring.
Then there were the Washington generals, the Trotters opposition, a team comprised of blacks and whites, some of whom were excellent ball players, but I swear, it was like glaring white legged Generals were so incredibally prone to gravity, it wasnt even fair. I'm sure that face to face these generals were normal hight, but from where we sat, they looked short, soggy, and stiff - unspringy and pasty- kind of a dull bright, I wasnt pleased because I new I was one of these and not a tall, dark, springy, athletic, singing meadowlark with big bright laughing white TEETH- whiter than any generals legs could ever be!
So I was inspired. I've made a concious decision to be more like the Globtrotters. Funny, happy, less inhibited, less self centered, more lively, less worried, prone to dance- to let some life out and be less terrified by mistakes, saying something wrong, to quit fretting about everything I say and just say what is honest but in a happy, jovial way ("I Dont know!") in everything I do and with everyone I interact with. I tried it some yesterday, and while it took a little effort it seemed to spread over into everything I did- and I slept better than I had in a long time, although I think it was mainly from practicing my outside jumper.
Before the Globetrotters were introduced to the crowd, composed of a few thousand of us white people, A group of male cheerleader, dancer type black fellows worked their fannys off in an effort to whip us into semi frensy. We tried to come to life but it was a little out of our comfort zone so we offered up some half hearted, self concious woops which raised the noise level enough to send in the Trotters who arrived on a tide of excitement and I feared that in our apathy we might suck the very life right out of them or at least drag them down to our level.
There was such a stark contrast in the globtrotters themselves and us, the crowd of white settlers that you couldnt miss it unless you were in a comma like most of us were. We sat in our seats, all self conciouse like, while the laughing, smiling, joking dancing, singing trotters, who were totally uninhibbited exuded waves of lifegiving LIFE our way and we the crowd responded by sitting there with our collective fingers up our nose.
Occasionally, Big Easy, todays Meadowlark Lemon - Meadowlark- what a nickname- (nobodys ever called me a meadowlark, you?) would draw (drag) a feet skidding white peorson out of the crowd that was comprised, believe me, eniterley of white, white, WHITE, folk and entice them to dance by way of putting them on the spot. Low and behold the white people, though forced, cut loose and by cutting loose I mean going way overboard here, and did some dances that were downright obscene and terrifying. My theory is these people were quite soberminded but once put on the spot they panicked and reacted by acting out primordal dance urges that were created in them intrinsically at birth but most likely that they learned last time they were really drunk.
The Globetrotters danced naturally. They had these huge, happy, devil-may-care smiles. We white guys seemed to be saying, dont, please, anybody look at me. I dont want to call attention to myself. I care too deeply about what you think of me! While the Trotters seemed to say, YOOHHOOOO! OVER HEEEEERE! LOOKATME, LOOKATME, LOOKATME! Who cares what you think, Lets have fun!
I think the culture that we live in out here is a little on the sober side, we cant have too much fun, especially on a week night, after all there are chores to be done, some of which are terribly important, such as settling the west, and welding. Some wrenching may be involed, also, there will be talk of valves. Therefore we are quite, resolute, strong, silent, and boring.
Then there were the Washington generals, the Trotters opposition, a team comprised of blacks and whites, some of whom were excellent ball players, but I swear, it was like glaring white legged Generals were so incredibally prone to gravity, it wasnt even fair. I'm sure that face to face these generals were normal hight, but from where we sat, they looked short, soggy, and stiff - unspringy and pasty- kind of a dull bright, I wasnt pleased because I new I was one of these and not a tall, dark, springy, athletic, singing meadowlark with big bright laughing white TEETH- whiter than any generals legs could ever be!
So I was inspired. I've made a concious decision to be more like the Globtrotters. Funny, happy, less inhibited, less self centered, more lively, less worried, prone to dance- to let some life out and be less terrified by mistakes, saying something wrong, to quit fretting about everything I say and just say what is honest but in a happy, jovial way ("I Dont know!") in everything I do and with everyone I interact with. I tried it some yesterday, and while it took a little effort it seemed to spread over into everything I did- and I slept better than I had in a long time, although I think it was mainly from practicing my outside jumper.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Pain and Suffering
I read the chapter on pain and suffering in the book about animals in transition tonight while the kids were playing wii. The game required stomping on this stupid pad. That sound of children stomping on the floor annoys me to no end so I was on the threshold of pain and suffering myself.
What interested me most about the chapter was that some animals if injured appearantly hide their pain if they are in plain view and often will eat and act normal. The author supposed this was because an animal in the wild that didnt hide its pain was more vulnarable to being picked off by a predator.
Also she explained that because the frontal lobes of the brain are not as developed as ours animals may experience pain differently. I think she wrote that about 1949 they experimented with disconecting the frontal lobes from the rest of the brain in human patients experiencing debilitating pain. My understanding is that a labotomy is when they remove the fronal lobe- dont ask what me what a frontal lobe is exactly- but a leucodamy- or something like that - is when they just disconnect them. After the operation the people appeared to return to normal - doing routine activities they used to. Their response when asked about the pain was that they still had the pain but it didn't bother them as much. It wasnt debilitating. The author supposed that they had the pain but thought about it differently. They experienced the pain but not the suffering. She thought animals could probobly be similar. In fact she wrote that to an animal fear was probobly worse than pain. She failed to mention the wii game.
To think about my pain differently, I chose to be happy I have healthy rambunctious kids who are able to enjoy physical activity and bounce off the walls and pound on the floor like so many jackhammers. So I have the pain of the wii but not the suffering because I've chosen to look at it differently and also because they are now in bed.
What interested me most about the chapter was that some animals if injured appearantly hide their pain if they are in plain view and often will eat and act normal. The author supposed this was because an animal in the wild that didnt hide its pain was more vulnarable to being picked off by a predator.
Also she explained that because the frontal lobes of the brain are not as developed as ours animals may experience pain differently. I think she wrote that about 1949 they experimented with disconecting the frontal lobes from the rest of the brain in human patients experiencing debilitating pain. My understanding is that a labotomy is when they remove the fronal lobe- dont ask what me what a frontal lobe is exactly- but a leucodamy- or something like that - is when they just disconnect them. After the operation the people appeared to return to normal - doing routine activities they used to. Their response when asked about the pain was that they still had the pain but it didn't bother them as much. It wasnt debilitating. The author supposed that they had the pain but thought about it differently. They experienced the pain but not the suffering. She thought animals could probobly be similar. In fact she wrote that to an animal fear was probobly worse than pain. She failed to mention the wii game.
To think about my pain differently, I chose to be happy I have healthy rambunctious kids who are able to enjoy physical activity and bounce off the walls and pound on the floor like so many jackhammers. So I have the pain of the wii but not the suffering because I've chosen to look at it differently and also because they are now in bed.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Details
A book I've been reading about animal behavior by an autistic woman is helping me understand why horses sometimes behave the way they do. They can freak out for no reason. At least it can seem like no reason. This may be of interest to you if you've ever been bucked off onto a pile of lava rock. It is not uncommon for horses to suddenly act scared when nothing in the immideate atmosphere seams different, to the human. Its because they see details. They see exactly what is taking place. We, as normal humans see what we want to see or at least what our brain tells us to see.
Humans and horses are commonly unindated with a barage of details from our environment through sights, sounds, smells, vibrations, and feelings. But as humans we have this special feature in our brain that filters out the details that may interfere with a task we are set on.
With horses its different. They rely on the barage of details for their survival. Thats one reason their ears, eyes, and nose is so big. Their senses are hightened to detect any detail that might alert them to danger. Thats why if your elk hunting with your horse his head will come up, his ears will rise his muscles will tighten and he will spot elk way before you or will spot something you dont see and may never see. You say, "What is it boy, hunh?"
According to the author someone watching a basketball game may not notice if someone walks into view dressed in a monkey suit. And if an autistic person is watching the game he will most likely see the monkey because they also pick up on the details that we filter out. That is why she is able to help people who are having trouble handling livestock at meat packing plants and feedlots, or just ordinary pet owners. She can understand things from the animals point of view.
For me its becoming easier to understand why and how they see hear, smell and feel every single tiny detail whereas we are hardwired to filter out details. So when you are riding a horse, especially a green one, by an object, like a rock jack, that you have ridden by a million times on previous days with no problem. one day out of the blue the animal will blow and snort and shoot sidewas and pretty much acts like he's walking by a tiger. We may not see anything out of the ordinary but the animal see's shadows, or reflections, or demonds , or a wearewolf. All we see is a dumb pile of rocks. And we think, Stupid horse!
There are lots of different reasons a rock jack might look dofferent to a horse on any given day. They day could be bright or cloudy, the wind could be from a different direction bringing in new smells, which animals are way more intuned to than we are. Or maybe they smell us differently because our body is emmitting a different odor because of some mood or fear or anger. They hear what we dont hear. They also feel more comfortable at night. They can see excellent at night. We are blind as a bat at night. And horses are pretty much color blind. Wild prey animals like elk feed at night under cover of darkness because they feel safer from predetors. (I guess they feel safer at night) So maybe horses feel more vulnerable in the dailight. Basically they sometimes experience sensory overload. Thats why they want to snort and run from the scary rock jack.
So the moral of the story is: Be nice to your horse. I'm speaking to myself here. They obviously see, think, smell and feel entirely different, especially emotionally, than we do. You have to be understanding. The best horseman are those that can detect minute details and subtle changes in the horses behavior, or body position or whatever. They have an in depth understanding of the horse not built on something mystical but on tangible evidence that is usually so insignificant its overlooked by most: A little quieting of eyball movement or the re-positioning of an ear, a sigh, or when they make that sound like they're giving you a rasberry that means theyre begining to relax.
Horses are like children too. They dont have mixed emotions. Children arent ambivelent. I looked that word up and what it means is that kids usually dont have mixed feelings about who they love. I think they are hardwired to love their parents. Mixed feelings and ambivelanced dont rear their ugly heads untill children grow up some and become more like adults and their frontal lobes develop. I dont know exactly when this happens. But I'm starting to think it must be during the teenage years which makes me a little nervous because my son is turning thirteen. Darned frontal lobes anyway.
Children love us parents so much that you can mistreat them, ignore them, exasperate them and even hurt them - I tipped over some livestock panels on my boy and broke his leg and so far he's still wild about me- They always take you back with open arms because fortunately God has hardwired them to love the smell of your shirt and the nap of your neck and the sound of your voice and your big arms (to them) and the big veins that poke out on your hand. Even after you've punished them the same day- sometimes even morseso after the punishment.
Horses are a little like that. They can kick the poop out of each other out in the pasture over some jealousy or feed issue but they dont seem to hold a grudge for too long once the issue is settled. If you try to seperate them they have a cow. So sometimes after you've ridden them too hard or schooled them too harshly they've huffed and puffed and sweated and have been mad and frustrated and confused. All we feel is guilt. But afterwords when you've turned them out in their pen and they've had a chance to cool off you can walk right up and scratch them and they'll act kind of curious to see you. Of course if you turn them out to pasture they usually dont' let you walk right up to them, specially if you've used them really hard that day. But its not because they hate you, they just want to eat. They dont want to get caught and rode again after a hard day. After all, theyre not stupid.
One mare I bought, and paid way to much for has given me fits for almost two years. The feeling is mutual I'm sure. Anyway, Ive been trying to make a reining horse - show horse- out of her and its not going great. She sees a boogyman behind every rock and shadow but the fact is her genes and make -up are more like that of a wild antelope. She doesnt like her ears touched, doesnt like her feet picked up and prefers not to be touched in the flank. For six months she paced the fence if she was seperated from other horses and screamed all night. This kept me awake. She is often in sensory overload mode. So to try to make her something that she is really not meant to do has been extremely frustrating for us both. But we are making headway and I am trying to be more understanding of her. She still lets me catch her and ride her, moreso if I have a bucket of grain. If she had a brain in her head she would jump the fence and head for the hills and hide out with the elk or wild horses so she wouldnt have to be ridden at all. But kids and horses always take you back because they are not yet developed in the frontal lobe department.
Now that I have a little better understanding of this mare and my kids. I have also been recently reminded that there are two extremely important things I need to do to maintain my sanity and live in peace. The first thing is to always be thankful. When I go on a run, to get in shape, and lose weight and destress after struggling with my expensive antelope mare, I listen to music and sometimes preaching. One of the things I learned while running and listening was that the lepers who obeyed were healed but the one who also gave thanks was pronounced whole. The bottom line to me is that if I want to be healed and whole I must be thankfull. So no matter how my kids are acting or how wild and loud they can be I am thankful every day of my life that I know them and they love me and especially that they have frontal loves the size of walnuts. And I can be thankful that I've invested in this mare that has caused me to struggle and grow and learn and investigate and ponder and lay awake at night thinking of new and innovative ways to get her to do what she most likely shouldnt by nature.
The other thing that put it all together for me was this. Anger and frustration come from unforgiveness and self centeredness. I have to forgive my son for being a twelve year old. He is amazing. After school we made him water his chickens. So, its January and he goes out in his mothers sandals, and my big down jacket because he left his on the ground by the woodpile. Another of his tricks is stuffing his toes into his tennis shoes and smashing the heel of his foot over the heel of his shoes. Yes, my brothers and I pulled this stunt when we were kids. Adults always told us, "you'll break your shoes down!" As if broken down shoes were the cause of the meltdown of society. I warned my son that he would break his shoes down. Doesnt seem to bother him either but it really bugs me now, enough that I rarely do it anymore. He always wears one of my coats or his mothers to do the chores. Probobly because he feels connected and warmed emotionally as well as physically and also because he left all of his coats at school.
After his mother browbeats him into doing his chicken chores and he is dressed totally inadequate for any kind of physical labor, he shuffles outside and hooks up the hose to the frost free hydrant. Its over a hundred feet of hose so instead of uncoiling it he grabs the end and pulls on it for all he is worth untill it almost reaches the chicken waterer. The probem is that he blindly yarded on it untill there is this knot the size of a large rattlesnake colony in my hose. Then he fills the waterer, leaves it in the middle of the driveway, miles from any chickens and goes inside and sits it the warm kitchen while I stay out and untie the rattlesnake knot, drain the hose, which, by the way is all a part of watering his chickens. Then I coil it up and call his mother in the kitchen on my cell and tell her to send him back outside. And now its really cold and he comes back out in his t-shirt and mothers sandals.
According to what I've learned through interviewing veteran parents of twelve year old boys this is pretty much normal behavior. I wonder how he is ever going to make it. Of course, when I was twelve I was a total moron. But then agian I still dont know if I am ever going to make it. Whatever that means. Also there is occasionally some speculation by the children's mother as to the developement of my own personal frontal lobes.
And so I must forgive him if by appearances he does not look like he is going to be a brain sergeon at this point. Ive learned from people who are successfull at having lasting relationships that the principal reason for their success is they dont let little irritaitons drive them crazy. They dont even seem to notice them. Talk about filtering out details.
So my aim is to learn to appreciate his classic yet unique twelve year old style and love and accept him and nurture our relationship before he develops frontal lobes and turns ambivelent towards me. Because if I dont forgive him for being a twelve year old and learn to embrace his twelve-year-old-ness I could become angry and bitter because he has not discovered a cure for cancer or knotted garden hoses by his thirteenth birthday. And he might hate me, which I would deserve. So I hereby forgive all my children for not becoming rocket scientists like me. Mr. horsey.
And also I forgive the little mare. The bible clearly states: forgive the mare of thy youth, thou dipstick. and lighten up for in a short while she will wither like the grass and your not getting any younger either I might add, shorty." Seriously, I forgive her not because she needs forgiven but because I need to be less angry. I'm thankfull that I paid about 5 times what she is actually worth, not including feed, shoing, vet, my time training, psychaitric trauma etc. I forgive her because I may have thought I had this horse training deal figured out had it not been for her. She has definately humbled me, if not humiliated me but she is who she is and I thank God for her.
Humans and horses are commonly unindated with a barage of details from our environment through sights, sounds, smells, vibrations, and feelings. But as humans we have this special feature in our brain that filters out the details that may interfere with a task we are set on.
With horses its different. They rely on the barage of details for their survival. Thats one reason their ears, eyes, and nose is so big. Their senses are hightened to detect any detail that might alert them to danger. Thats why if your elk hunting with your horse his head will come up, his ears will rise his muscles will tighten and he will spot elk way before you or will spot something you dont see and may never see. You say, "What is it boy, hunh?"
According to the author someone watching a basketball game may not notice if someone walks into view dressed in a monkey suit. And if an autistic person is watching the game he will most likely see the monkey because they also pick up on the details that we filter out. That is why she is able to help people who are having trouble handling livestock at meat packing plants and feedlots, or just ordinary pet owners. She can understand things from the animals point of view.
For me its becoming easier to understand why and how they see hear, smell and feel every single tiny detail whereas we are hardwired to filter out details. So when you are riding a horse, especially a green one, by an object, like a rock jack, that you have ridden by a million times on previous days with no problem. one day out of the blue the animal will blow and snort and shoot sidewas and pretty much acts like he's walking by a tiger. We may not see anything out of the ordinary but the animal see's shadows, or reflections, or demonds , or a wearewolf. All we see is a dumb pile of rocks. And we think, Stupid horse!
There are lots of different reasons a rock jack might look dofferent to a horse on any given day. They day could be bright or cloudy, the wind could be from a different direction bringing in new smells, which animals are way more intuned to than we are. Or maybe they smell us differently because our body is emmitting a different odor because of some mood or fear or anger. They hear what we dont hear. They also feel more comfortable at night. They can see excellent at night. We are blind as a bat at night. And horses are pretty much color blind. Wild prey animals like elk feed at night under cover of darkness because they feel safer from predetors. (I guess they feel safer at night) So maybe horses feel more vulnerable in the dailight. Basically they sometimes experience sensory overload. Thats why they want to snort and run from the scary rock jack.
So the moral of the story is: Be nice to your horse. I'm speaking to myself here. They obviously see, think, smell and feel entirely different, especially emotionally, than we do. You have to be understanding. The best horseman are those that can detect minute details and subtle changes in the horses behavior, or body position or whatever. They have an in depth understanding of the horse not built on something mystical but on tangible evidence that is usually so insignificant its overlooked by most: A little quieting of eyball movement or the re-positioning of an ear, a sigh, or when they make that sound like they're giving you a rasberry that means theyre begining to relax.
Horses are like children too. They dont have mixed emotions. Children arent ambivelent. I looked that word up and what it means is that kids usually dont have mixed feelings about who they love. I think they are hardwired to love their parents. Mixed feelings and ambivelanced dont rear their ugly heads untill children grow up some and become more like adults and their frontal lobes develop. I dont know exactly when this happens. But I'm starting to think it must be during the teenage years which makes me a little nervous because my son is turning thirteen. Darned frontal lobes anyway.
Children love us parents so much that you can mistreat them, ignore them, exasperate them and even hurt them - I tipped over some livestock panels on my boy and broke his leg and so far he's still wild about me- They always take you back with open arms because fortunately God has hardwired them to love the smell of your shirt and the nap of your neck and the sound of your voice and your big arms (to them) and the big veins that poke out on your hand. Even after you've punished them the same day- sometimes even morseso after the punishment.
Horses are a little like that. They can kick the poop out of each other out in the pasture over some jealousy or feed issue but they dont seem to hold a grudge for too long once the issue is settled. If you try to seperate them they have a cow. So sometimes after you've ridden them too hard or schooled them too harshly they've huffed and puffed and sweated and have been mad and frustrated and confused. All we feel is guilt. But afterwords when you've turned them out in their pen and they've had a chance to cool off you can walk right up and scratch them and they'll act kind of curious to see you. Of course if you turn them out to pasture they usually dont' let you walk right up to them, specially if you've used them really hard that day. But its not because they hate you, they just want to eat. They dont want to get caught and rode again after a hard day. After all, theyre not stupid.
One mare I bought, and paid way to much for has given me fits for almost two years. The feeling is mutual I'm sure. Anyway, Ive been trying to make a reining horse - show horse- out of her and its not going great. She sees a boogyman behind every rock and shadow but the fact is her genes and make -up are more like that of a wild antelope. She doesnt like her ears touched, doesnt like her feet picked up and prefers not to be touched in the flank. For six months she paced the fence if she was seperated from other horses and screamed all night. This kept me awake. She is often in sensory overload mode. So to try to make her something that she is really not meant to do has been extremely frustrating for us both. But we are making headway and I am trying to be more understanding of her. She still lets me catch her and ride her, moreso if I have a bucket of grain. If she had a brain in her head she would jump the fence and head for the hills and hide out with the elk or wild horses so she wouldnt have to be ridden at all. But kids and horses always take you back because they are not yet developed in the frontal lobe department.
Now that I have a little better understanding of this mare and my kids. I have also been recently reminded that there are two extremely important things I need to do to maintain my sanity and live in peace. The first thing is to always be thankful. When I go on a run, to get in shape, and lose weight and destress after struggling with my expensive antelope mare, I listen to music and sometimes preaching. One of the things I learned while running and listening was that the lepers who obeyed were healed but the one who also gave thanks was pronounced whole. The bottom line to me is that if I want to be healed and whole I must be thankfull. So no matter how my kids are acting or how wild and loud they can be I am thankful every day of my life that I know them and they love me and especially that they have frontal loves the size of walnuts. And I can be thankful that I've invested in this mare that has caused me to struggle and grow and learn and investigate and ponder and lay awake at night thinking of new and innovative ways to get her to do what she most likely shouldnt by nature.
The other thing that put it all together for me was this. Anger and frustration come from unforgiveness and self centeredness. I have to forgive my son for being a twelve year old. He is amazing. After school we made him water his chickens. So, its January and he goes out in his mothers sandals, and my big down jacket because he left his on the ground by the woodpile. Another of his tricks is stuffing his toes into his tennis shoes and smashing the heel of his foot over the heel of his shoes. Yes, my brothers and I pulled this stunt when we were kids. Adults always told us, "you'll break your shoes down!" As if broken down shoes were the cause of the meltdown of society. I warned my son that he would break his shoes down. Doesnt seem to bother him either but it really bugs me now, enough that I rarely do it anymore. He always wears one of my coats or his mothers to do the chores. Probobly because he feels connected and warmed emotionally as well as physically and also because he left all of his coats at school.
After his mother browbeats him into doing his chicken chores and he is dressed totally inadequate for any kind of physical labor, he shuffles outside and hooks up the hose to the frost free hydrant. Its over a hundred feet of hose so instead of uncoiling it he grabs the end and pulls on it for all he is worth untill it almost reaches the chicken waterer. The probem is that he blindly yarded on it untill there is this knot the size of a large rattlesnake colony in my hose. Then he fills the waterer, leaves it in the middle of the driveway, miles from any chickens and goes inside and sits it the warm kitchen while I stay out and untie the rattlesnake knot, drain the hose, which, by the way is all a part of watering his chickens. Then I coil it up and call his mother in the kitchen on my cell and tell her to send him back outside. And now its really cold and he comes back out in his t-shirt and mothers sandals.
According to what I've learned through interviewing veteran parents of twelve year old boys this is pretty much normal behavior. I wonder how he is ever going to make it. Of course, when I was twelve I was a total moron. But then agian I still dont know if I am ever going to make it. Whatever that means. Also there is occasionally some speculation by the children's mother as to the developement of my own personal frontal lobes.
And so I must forgive him if by appearances he does not look like he is going to be a brain sergeon at this point. Ive learned from people who are successfull at having lasting relationships that the principal reason for their success is they dont let little irritaitons drive them crazy. They dont even seem to notice them. Talk about filtering out details.
So my aim is to learn to appreciate his classic yet unique twelve year old style and love and accept him and nurture our relationship before he develops frontal lobes and turns ambivelent towards me. Because if I dont forgive him for being a twelve year old and learn to embrace his twelve-year-old-ness I could become angry and bitter because he has not discovered a cure for cancer or knotted garden hoses by his thirteenth birthday. And he might hate me, which I would deserve. So I hereby forgive all my children for not becoming rocket scientists like me. Mr. horsey.
And also I forgive the little mare. The bible clearly states: forgive the mare of thy youth, thou dipstick. and lighten up for in a short while she will wither like the grass and your not getting any younger either I might add, shorty." Seriously, I forgive her not because she needs forgiven but because I need to be less angry. I'm thankfull that I paid about 5 times what she is actually worth, not including feed, shoing, vet, my time training, psychaitric trauma etc. I forgive her because I may have thought I had this horse training deal figured out had it not been for her. She has definately humbled me, if not humiliated me but she is who she is and I thank God for her.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Gracie Grabs the Rebound! (with her head)
Today I was going to edit my story about Edd and I will eventually because it needs some cleaning up but for now I must tell you about my kids basketball game.
Charlies game was pretty much the norm for him as at age six he is an old veteran of games which end up pretty much the same. So I will not comment on it at this point. But Gracies game was no ordinary game because Gracie starred in it. It was her first official game with uniforms and refs and such. The teams consisted of 2nd grade boys and girls with skills ranging from those of pretty good little basketball players to children who wandered about in a daze thinking they had stepped into an unruly line for snacks. Gracy was more excited about the postgame snack than the game itself. She was extremely nervous about the game.
Once the game started and she began playing it was evident that she had spent much time around the basketball court. Her coach who was also the referee asigned her to guard an opposing kid who was larger than her and sported sideburns and a mustache. She did a fine job and shut him down, holding him to 27 points and 30 rebounds. Actually I think he scored like one baskeet but my point is her defense could use a little work. But she made up for it by guarding him on the offensive end of the court also. What that means for you non basketball types is that when her team had the ball and were trying to score she guarded the kid who was guarding her, which strategically took him out of the equasion. A brilliant display of gamesmanship if you ask me. So they stood face to face, or face to bellybutton, most of the game - a foot apart - with their arms out in defensive stance mode, waving their arms. Sometimes they jumped hysterically.
When a shot was fired up Gracie assumed elite rebounder positioning by crossing her arms over her head, ducking and closing her eyes. This did not go unnoticed by the crowd who showed their appreciation by shouting positive reinforcement statements and esteeme enhancing encouragement while laughing hysterically..She did get to touch the ball once when she was guarding her man beneath the basket where her mother was sitting- coachlike on a metal chair. She hollered "GRACIEGETBEETWEENYOURMANANDTHEBASKET! And Gracie lowered her arms- a mistake that sometimes tired boxers make before being KO'd. Someone shot the ball and sure enough the ball careened off the rim and bonked her right in the head. "COVER YOUR HEAD YOU FOOL! I shouted to no avail. I think it rung her bell because she kept holding her head but she was smiling- many a child in these games leaves bawling like a calf to the sidelines where they colapse in their mothers arms and sob but not Gracie, she stepped her game up to a new level to borrow a phrase that sportscasters blather about but nobody really knows exactly what it means.
Anyway the climax of the game was when the ball bounced off some kids knee and dribbled down the court of its own accord untill it came treacheraously close to Gracie who, assuming elite rebounding position, opened here eyes long enough to see the ball rolling by. Eerily there were no defenders within several feet of her so she picked up the ball and executed a textbook jumpshot and drained that baby. Nothing but net. Swish. The crowd erupeted in euphoria and praise and her mother and I looked at each other in jaw dropped disbelief. We were relieved and happy for our delicate little girl and she was excited, ready to make basketball a major part of her life. She didnt even act upset at the revelation that her coach did not bring snacks. Charlie gave her one of his cheese and crackers. He didn't care. He was in a sharing mood because he'd had a pretty good game himself ammassing 35 points and 45 rebounds.
Charlies game was pretty much the norm for him as at age six he is an old veteran of games which end up pretty much the same. So I will not comment on it at this point. But Gracies game was no ordinary game because Gracie starred in it. It was her first official game with uniforms and refs and such. The teams consisted of 2nd grade boys and girls with skills ranging from those of pretty good little basketball players to children who wandered about in a daze thinking they had stepped into an unruly line for snacks. Gracy was more excited about the postgame snack than the game itself. She was extremely nervous about the game.
Once the game started and she began playing it was evident that she had spent much time around the basketball court. Her coach who was also the referee asigned her to guard an opposing kid who was larger than her and sported sideburns and a mustache. She did a fine job and shut him down, holding him to 27 points and 30 rebounds. Actually I think he scored like one baskeet but my point is her defense could use a little work. But she made up for it by guarding him on the offensive end of the court also. What that means for you non basketball types is that when her team had the ball and were trying to score she guarded the kid who was guarding her, which strategically took him out of the equasion. A brilliant display of gamesmanship if you ask me. So they stood face to face, or face to bellybutton, most of the game - a foot apart - with their arms out in defensive stance mode, waving their arms. Sometimes they jumped hysterically.
When a shot was fired up Gracie assumed elite rebounder positioning by crossing her arms over her head, ducking and closing her eyes. This did not go unnoticed by the crowd who showed their appreciation by shouting positive reinforcement statements and esteeme enhancing encouragement while laughing hysterically..She did get to touch the ball once when she was guarding her man beneath the basket where her mother was sitting- coachlike on a metal chair. She hollered "GRACIEGETBEETWEENYOURMANANDTHEBASKET! And Gracie lowered her arms- a mistake that sometimes tired boxers make before being KO'd. Someone shot the ball and sure enough the ball careened off the rim and bonked her right in the head. "COVER YOUR HEAD YOU FOOL! I shouted to no avail. I think it rung her bell because she kept holding her head but she was smiling- many a child in these games leaves bawling like a calf to the sidelines where they colapse in their mothers arms and sob but not Gracie, she stepped her game up to a new level to borrow a phrase that sportscasters blather about but nobody really knows exactly what it means.
Anyway the climax of the game was when the ball bounced off some kids knee and dribbled down the court of its own accord untill it came treacheraously close to Gracie who, assuming elite rebounding position, opened here eyes long enough to see the ball rolling by. Eerily there were no defenders within several feet of her so she picked up the ball and executed a textbook jumpshot and drained that baby. Nothing but net. Swish. The crowd erupeted in euphoria and praise and her mother and I looked at each other in jaw dropped disbelief. We were relieved and happy for our delicate little girl and she was excited, ready to make basketball a major part of her life. She didnt even act upset at the revelation that her coach did not bring snacks. Charlie gave her one of his cheese and crackers. He didn't care. He was in a sharing mood because he'd had a pretty good game himself ammassing 35 points and 45 rebounds.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Dummy!- Year in Review Wrap up
The last notable thing that happened this year, not really, but at least before the kids had gone back to school after Holiday break was that my wife called me a dummy. She had been racking her brain getting our taxes squared away before the new year began and two days into the year I asked her to pay a bill that she had dismissed. We could have financed the bailouts with my health insurance deductibles this year- we paid so much that we were up to the point we could deduct them off our taxes.
A few years ago I traded a dentist in town a root canal for some horse training. I got my root canal done- it was somewhat of an emergency. I was chewing on a candy cane and and old filling broke taking part of my tooth with it. Anyway she never collected although we contacted her several times. She was too busy or something. Anyway Pookies take on the deal was that we contacted her several times and she never got back to us so therefore she was no longer interested in the training and chose not to collect on the debt. My take was that she had done us a favor when we were poor people living in an apartment in a pole barn and we should pay her back now that we can afford it.
Being the thoughtfull and sensitive husband I am I waited till after the first of the year, "when the dust settled" to tell her that I wanted it paid off. We're talking 700 bucks here. When I gave her the news she was flat out mad. "Why didn't you tell me before the first of the year when I needed tax deductions. Dummy!"
Except for the fact that she meant it Dummy is not what it sounds like at our house. I call the kids Dummy, We call our dog and cat Dummy and our horses Dummies. Its a term of endearment. I think its funny when someone gets uncontrollably mad and calls somebody else a dummy. So its a joke.
It started for me in Alaska when I worked for fast Eddy, a local land developer who bought up parcells of peat moss and spruce trees, and developed the land using talented employees such as myself to lay water and sewer pipe in the bogs. It was glamerous work. We wore hip waders. Eddy gave me a job and invited me to go to his church. I wrangled horses for a hunting guide in the alaska range and met Ed who flew in local moose hunters to the area. After hunting season I lived in a single wide in town with another guide named Duane whose wife had left him. There was no running water or electricity in the single wide but the manager of the McDonalds across stthe street had told Duane that his wife was welcome to use the toilet whenever she wanted. But Duane couldnt figure out why she left.
Anyway I worked for Eddy that fall and he took me in as kind of an adaptee. I wore my wrinkled wool sweater and long hair and stupid beard to his church and everyone treated me like a long lost friend so I felt right at home. They might have thought I was a bum. Its amazing how people sometimes cant tell a real mountain man from a bum. Anyway I was in my early twenties and there wasnt a Sunday that went by that I wasnt invited to have dinner with Ed and somebody at church. Every Sunday. In fact Ed had a heart to heart talk with me about the Lord sittiing in Ed's pickup in the Denny's parking lot. In later years would offer me a tool shed to camp in, then one of his homes, and then his own home. Sometimes we would play hookie from work and fly his cub across the inlet and salmon fish. Once, later when I was flying my brother and dad came up for a visit. Eddy had two airplanes and he let me fly one so I could take my brother and He could take Dad. We flew to the Kustatan and caught silver salmon until our arms gave out... that was quite a deal- "Here kid- you take your brother in this airplane- pull back on this to go up, keep pulling to go back down ha ha."
My brother reminded me the other day that when we were about to land I said, "Well, here goes nothing." Gave him lots of convidence.
Anyway there are lots of stories about Ed to tell, like how his dog would sit outside the Dennys parking lot waiting for him and sometimes drag her itchy fanny across the parking lot in an effort to get relief. Everybody gave her scraps from Dennys so she stunk like a rotten billy goat- once when it got really cold we tried to let her ride up front in the pickup but she had gas so bad we changed our mines and threw her back in the back again. We used Crisco to lube the pipes and once somebody got a but chewin for not using enough. Come to find out Ladybug - that stinking dog had come behind the lube technition and ate all the Crisco.
One time at Dennys they gave Edd raw eggs- when he asked them kindly recook them they got their pantys in a wad and the manager came out and got all defensive and was a total dipstick and finally about the third time they brought the eggs back he said "Good, cause I'm just gonna feed them to my dog anyway and he took the plate outside and flipped them to Ladybug who was dragging her hiney across the parking lot with a stupid grin on her face. I'm sure he's not to proud of that story- he probobly felt bad- He was a larger than life friend and I looked up to him and we spend lots and lots of time together and were close friends.
Once we were in a shopping mall and he got tired. We worked lots and fished and goofed around a lot when we could so when he got tired, he just went to sleep. So we were in this mall and he layed down on the floor and fell asleep. He used to do that in his airplane with his kids. Here
Travis take the airplane- so Travis would steer while his dad took a nap.
People walked by and ask if he was ok- I was using a pay phone-- he was on the floor sleeping- two steet people in waders who smelled like Crisco.
Anyway, once in a while when we were actually doing some work, he was my boss you know, If I made a little mistake he would call me a Dummy. Then he would get this big grin on his face. And maybe if it was a good day and we were doing more goofing off than work he would call me Dummy twice in the same day and laugh and for a long time he was my very best friend.
A few years ago I traded a dentist in town a root canal for some horse training. I got my root canal done- it was somewhat of an emergency. I was chewing on a candy cane and and old filling broke taking part of my tooth with it. Anyway she never collected although we contacted her several times. She was too busy or something. Anyway Pookies take on the deal was that we contacted her several times and she never got back to us so therefore she was no longer interested in the training and chose not to collect on the debt. My take was that she had done us a favor when we were poor people living in an apartment in a pole barn and we should pay her back now that we can afford it.
Being the thoughtfull and sensitive husband I am I waited till after the first of the year, "when the dust settled" to tell her that I wanted it paid off. We're talking 700 bucks here. When I gave her the news she was flat out mad. "Why didn't you tell me before the first of the year when I needed tax deductions. Dummy!"
Except for the fact that she meant it Dummy is not what it sounds like at our house. I call the kids Dummy, We call our dog and cat Dummy and our horses Dummies. Its a term of endearment. I think its funny when someone gets uncontrollably mad and calls somebody else a dummy. So its a joke.
It started for me in Alaska when I worked for fast Eddy, a local land developer who bought up parcells of peat moss and spruce trees, and developed the land using talented employees such as myself to lay water and sewer pipe in the bogs. It was glamerous work. We wore hip waders. Eddy gave me a job and invited me to go to his church. I wrangled horses for a hunting guide in the alaska range and met Ed who flew in local moose hunters to the area. After hunting season I lived in a single wide in town with another guide named Duane whose wife had left him. There was no running water or electricity in the single wide but the manager of the McDonalds across stthe street had told Duane that his wife was welcome to use the toilet whenever she wanted. But Duane couldnt figure out why she left.
Anyway I worked for Eddy that fall and he took me in as kind of an adaptee. I wore my wrinkled wool sweater and long hair and stupid beard to his church and everyone treated me like a long lost friend so I felt right at home. They might have thought I was a bum. Its amazing how people sometimes cant tell a real mountain man from a bum. Anyway I was in my early twenties and there wasnt a Sunday that went by that I wasnt invited to have dinner with Ed and somebody at church. Every Sunday. In fact Ed had a heart to heart talk with me about the Lord sittiing in Ed's pickup in the Denny's parking lot. In later years would offer me a tool shed to camp in, then one of his homes, and then his own home. Sometimes we would play hookie from work and fly his cub across the inlet and salmon fish. Once, later when I was flying my brother and dad came up for a visit. Eddy had two airplanes and he let me fly one so I could take my brother and He could take Dad. We flew to the Kustatan and caught silver salmon until our arms gave out... that was quite a deal- "Here kid- you take your brother in this airplane- pull back on this to go up, keep pulling to go back down ha ha."
My brother reminded me the other day that when we were about to land I said, "Well, here goes nothing." Gave him lots of convidence.
Anyway there are lots of stories about Ed to tell, like how his dog would sit outside the Dennys parking lot waiting for him and sometimes drag her itchy fanny across the parking lot in an effort to get relief. Everybody gave her scraps from Dennys so she stunk like a rotten billy goat- once when it got really cold we tried to let her ride up front in the pickup but she had gas so bad we changed our mines and threw her back in the back again. We used Crisco to lube the pipes and once somebody got a but chewin for not using enough. Come to find out Ladybug - that stinking dog had come behind the lube technition and ate all the Crisco.
One time at Dennys they gave Edd raw eggs- when he asked them kindly recook them they got their pantys in a wad and the manager came out and got all defensive and was a total dipstick and finally about the third time they brought the eggs back he said "Good, cause I'm just gonna feed them to my dog anyway and he took the plate outside and flipped them to Ladybug who was dragging her hiney across the parking lot with a stupid grin on her face. I'm sure he's not to proud of that story- he probobly felt bad- He was a larger than life friend and I looked up to him and we spend lots and lots of time together and were close friends.
Once we were in a shopping mall and he got tired. We worked lots and fished and goofed around a lot when we could so when he got tired, he just went to sleep. So we were in this mall and he layed down on the floor and fell asleep. He used to do that in his airplane with his kids. Here
Travis take the airplane- so Travis would steer while his dad took a nap.
People walked by and ask if he was ok- I was using a pay phone-- he was on the floor sleeping- two steet people in waders who smelled like Crisco.
Anyway, once in a while when we were actually doing some work, he was my boss you know, If I made a little mistake he would call me a Dummy. Then he would get this big grin on his face. And maybe if it was a good day and we were doing more goofing off than work he would call me Dummy twice in the same day and laugh and for a long time he was my very best friend.
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