Yellow Journalism

I’m troubled by the Chicago Tribune’s recent batch of articles and editorials about influence peddling at the University of Illinois. Clout is the term used to describe politicians and other powerful, well positioned individuals that try to help students enroll at U of I, even though they may not qualify. This isn’t to say that the students are dolts or idiots, only that they were not accepted for enrollment based on their application and now some well meaning person, most likely a pol, wants to help them. A little push, as it were.

The “help” usually is self serving. Most Pols help people that are in a position to help them sooner or later. There is always an election on the horizon. From what I read in the Trib, the trustees and others able to nudge the final decision have been unfairly portrayed as despicable sewer dwellers, selling their position for money and jobs. The dean of the law school and others have tried to set the record straight, but no one has given them a forum equal to the daily newspaper. And the Trib, God bless em, isn’t telling that side of the story.

There were two articles in the paper this morning that caught my attention. The first was the headline that the Chancellor of the school had agreed that the system needed to be fixed. The second item was an open letter to the editor by several faculty members giving their side of the story (see below for a link).

What strikes me about all of this is that the very same politicians who are holding hearings (call them a lynching), and bleating about the miss-use of influence are the same people who trade earmarks and support daily without nary a blush. Our political system is based on mutual reward. What does O’Bama expect to get by getting a missile agreement with Moscow during his trip? Certainly there is something the Russians expect to gain from the agreement, just as America will gain something too.

What annoys me most is the style of writing that in the past has been called “Yellow Journalism”. Here is how Wikipedia defines the term. Yellow journalism is a type of journalism that downplays legitimate news in favor of eye-catching headlines that sell more newspapers. It may feature exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, sensationalism, or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or journalists.

Frank Luther Mott (1941) defines yellow journalism in terms of five characteristics:[1]
1. scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news
2. lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings
3. use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudo-science, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts
4. emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips (which is now normal in the U.S.)
5. dramatic sympathy with the “underdog” against the system
I leave it to you to actually read the articles. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-open-letter-college-clout-story,0,2114931,full.story is the link to a rebuttal of the charges by several prominent University of Illinois professors.

It would be easy for me to point to a kinder gentler time when yellow journalism didn’t exist. When people always got a fair shake in the papers and rags like the Trib had tremendous ethics and good judgment. But that would be an impossible task as sensationalism has existed since Gutenberg became the first in Europe to use movable type in the 15th century.

So I lament what the Trib has become and consider stopping my subscription. I would miss the comics and sports, I guess. Even before this incident, I missed the shear volume of news published in the old days. Now, the cost of labor and newsprint curtail the paper to a shadow of its former self.

The problem, as I see it, isn’t that a few individuals were admitted that would have stayed out but for someone speaking on their behalf. The problem is that the Trib has become part of the problem. Instead of even handed reporting that allows the reader to draw a conclusion after hearing both sides, the Tribune has set itself up as both judge and jury.

The very language of each article is so biased as to make a reader incapable of reaching a fair decision. Here is the link to today’s story. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-u-of-i-clout-college-07-jul07,0,370456.story

What we lack today is a safe haven for ethics. The newspaper, the cop on the corner, the parish priest, the coach, our doctor and the school teacher were people that always played by the rules and when we were with them we felt safe. Recent events have proven once again how naiveté is rewarded with a slap in the face instead of a pat on the back.

This topic and all that’s been written about it prove once again how dangerous a slow news day can be, or perhaps what a scandal rag will do to sell papers. Shame on you, Trib.

Sign Up Here for your Free Lunch

People read the paper, get tweets and surf the blogs about medical care and costs without really understanding the impact of what they read. I imagine it’s a bit like a blind man describing an elephant.

The Washington Post has an article today about the Obama plan to change the way we look at health care as part of his plan to reshape the medical world as we know it.

The article talks about moving costs to the private sector, as if that was something new. I’d ask the writer of the article how we as taxpayers, can tell the difference between the private and public sectors when we pay health care premiums on the one hand and then get the bill for every public program in the form of more taxes?

The Post goes on to say: “The challenge is that the administration and Congress are trying to extend medical coverage to the uninsured without increasing the federal budget deficit over the next decade. As a result, they are bound by the budgetary scoring process — meaning they must come up with solutions that can predictably and measurably reduce federal outlays.”

Reduced payments by the government mean more cost to individuals. Can’t everyone see that if private insurance has to bear more of the costs, the premiums will go up to all of us, or you will be paying more out of pocket costs? Anyone who is naïve enough to believe that there is some magic fairy at their employer or in government that has a buried stash of cash to pay for all of this so we, as humble taxpayers don’t have to pay for it is living in Oz.

And while were on the subject, it is a fact that there is a cost to all of us for health care. If you are fortunate enough to have all your fringe benefits paid by your employer, understand that your compensation package (salary and benefits) adjusts to compensate for the shifting of costs, and your total package is no greater than a peer group employee who may pay a share of their benefits. They would predictably have more salary range to make up for what they pay for benefits. Health care, dental and disability coverage and the rest of the benefits, are computed into the total compensation package. Ask your HR department.

And remember that all the health care reform, including providing coverage for those how can’t get it now, will come with a cost. When you read that the government is paying those costs, insert your name where it says government. Because the plain fact is we pay every cost, plus a profit for the insurance companies, and the interest on the debt incurred by Uncle Sam on what he borrows to pay for so called government benefits.

Repeat after me. There is no free lunch.

What we can do is re-examine our attitude toward end of life medical care for a start. Typically, thousands of dollars are spent for care during the last few months or weeks of a chronic illness or aging. We see examples all the time of rushing someone to the hospital that is terminally ill or failing due to age related issues, and bringing them back from the brink, but for what reason? So that they can suffer a few more days or weeks?

What kind of gift is that for someone you love? And the cost involved is horrible in both money and resetting the grief clock to run a little longer.

There is a lot of new medicine and treatments that allow us to live longer. But until our end of life ethics catch up with these advances we will wallow in delusion and self pity as the costs climb out of sight.

We also must decide just how far we go in trying to make people well. We have to start to measure the cost against the predictable results. People die and people get old. We can’t continue to offer a blank check to our health care providers. Just how many new drugs come on the market to reset the patent clock, so that profits can continue to fund more R & D for more drugs? Why should doctors have such obscene debt to pay off, causing increased medical costs to all of us? Why should we allow a legal process that costs millions of dollars in legal fees without the guarantee of impartial compensation?

So, the message here is that we have 535 people in Congress and several dozen more in the White House joining with all the fine folks in our particular state and city making plans to spend part of your income to pay for their plans. And those costs carry forward year after year.

I believe we should all pay our share. I also believe that the media and so called experts should stop acting like we won’t have to pay the entire bill for what they decide is good for America. In my area, it starts with Mark Eisenberg, goes to Jack Franks and Melissa Bean, then to Roland Burris and Dick Durbin.

I’d settle for the ability to be heard and not patronized. I’d ask to be treated as an adult, one of many who understand that there is no easy fix to this mess, other than reasonable people putting aside the rhetoric and slight of hand to instead face these problems with honesty and dedication.

Moving from Apathy to Indifference

It would be comforting, in my opinion, if we could actually see some reform in our political structure.

Reading the paper makes me crazy. Here we have a president, an overwhelming popular choice, having to woo the members of congress to pass real reform. We need to change and reform health care. Anyone who doubts that only has to look at the projections that show that a big part of our GDP will have to support an every increasing burden of medical costs, especially as the baby boomers move into their fifties and sixties.

Medical reform is just one topic, but the question here is why can’t the congress make the tough choices that are truly good for America. Could it be the special interest groups? Could it be the infatuation with power and prestige? And isn’t it obvious that the level of our business ethics have tumbled because of our fixation for profit.

Deferred maintenance in a peanut plant costs some Americans their lives as they eat peanut butter, of all things. Lead paint is found on children’s toys made over seas. The the reason for both is because our business owners have needed to squeeze every last dime from their costs to maximize profit.

The culprit here is us. Perhaps the financial instrument most responsible for our current financial crisis isn’t credit swaps, or bundling home loans, it’s our 401 K plans.

Because of the insatiable desire and demand for more retirement income, so that we can continue a lifestyle of consumption, in our senior years, we now follow our stocks as our parents followed their favorite baseball team. We try to position our investments so that we can out maneuver the other guy. We want to sell high and buy low, but the truth is, we seldom do that. Most of the time we buy high and sell low, because we have little patience and panic when things seem to be coming apart.

We are short sighted and have not the time or the temperament to do a good job of managing our portfolio. We engage our brokers but are they really helping us or their bottom line?

And so, because we crave instant gratification, we elect clones of our own twisted desires and appetites, and give them the impossible task of doing the right thing, no matter how unpopular, while also getting along by going along, and all the while having them accept money for their campaign war chests from those who did not elect them, but own them.

We need change and morality. We need to look in the mirror and then tell our elected officials at every level that we have to start paying as we go, and looking further than the next election to plan for the future. It would help if all of us would start accepting delayed gratification too, but perhaps that’s too much to expect.

Memorial Day Redux

The hardest concepts for me to grasp are thankfulness and contentment. Sure, I, like most everyone else, profess my gratitude for all my many blessings at Thanksgiving and other times, but let’s face it, saying it and living it are very different parts of the same reality. 

And while I’m at it, being forgiving and patient could be in the mix as tough things for me to practice too. I have the suspicion that the clear intent of the beatitudes escape me most of the time. My temper is quick, my patience is non-existent and I’m too self centered to be thankful and too greedy to be content. 

This weekend is Memorial Day. Reflecting about what it means made me do some research and think, really think about what it means. 

Wikipedia defines the holiday as follows. 

Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 25 in 2009). Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the civil war), it was expanded after World War I to include American casualties of any war or military action. 

The actual order as given by the commander of the Grand Army of the Republic includes the following. 

What can aid more to assure this result than by cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead? We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic. 

If other eyes grow dull and other hinds slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain in us. 

Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains, and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledge to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon the Nation’s gratitude—the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan. 

Another misunderstood remembrance is Armistice Day. 

Armistice Day is the anniversary of the symbolic end of World War I on 11 November 1918. It commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany at Rethondes, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at eleven o’clock in the morning — the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”. 

In many parts of the world people take a two minute moment of silence at 11:00 a.m. as a sign of respect for the roughly 20 million who died in the war, as suggested by Edward George Honey in a letter to a British newspaper. 

I started to think about just what it meant to me that over 650,000 American men and women have sacrificed their lives to stand in harm’s way, fighting tyranny, oppression and domination. How each of them gave up all their tomorrows so I might enjoy all of mine. 

I found comfort in the cold statistics of the casualties. There is no reference to race or status, or even rank, just the numbers of dead. I remembered that a boy named Harrell died in July of 1864 in the horible Andersonville prision camp. 

How even more I remember the story of Billy Schlief, son of my great Aunt Mable, my grandfather’s sister. Lt. Schlief never saw his baby daughter before he was killed in the landing at Luzon early in 1945. I’m told by those that new him well, including my mother, that everyone liked Billy, and how keenly the cruel news cut his mother and wife. But in their grief, they were no different than the families of the 291,000 other casualties. 

There were war bond drives and Blue Star and Gold Star mothers. People went without for the war effort. Women replaced men in the factories to keep war production going. Patriotic songs and movies were all around us in an effort to keep spirits high. 

I think of those I know today who are but a breath away from being sent to hostile lands. My nephew Kevin, who is in the army and almost curtain to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, and my son-in-law Rob who is a career man in the Air Force place there lives on hold until they know for sure. Sons of friends too are at risk, such as the two West Point graduates of Wil and Chris Kruger and Chad, the marine recruit son of Jamie and Ken Davis. 

Will war never stop? How much of the cream of our youth have we lost to our ideals of democracy and freedom? 

So it is important to me to pause in the selfishness of my life to remember my emotions the first time I saw a high school classmate’s name on the wall of the Viet Nam memorial. To take the time to reflect on the profound change every family endures with each soldier’s death or injury. How even those that live and are physically whole still bear the scars of the horrors of war as do their families. 

My step great grandfather, Peter Erkes, was a survivor of World War One, the Great War, to end all wars. In 1915, during that war, a Canadian doctor, Lt. Colonel John McCrae wrote a poem inspired by the battlefield death of a friend at Ypres Salient. 

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Nothing should deter us from honoring the many brave people who have paid the ultimate price to preserve our way of life. Take a moment Monday to remember.

Paying the Piper

General Motors on the verge of bankruptcy. Churches closing, hospital layoffs. Retirement funds shrinking, jobs vanishing. Politicians too insulated to appreciate their constituents problems.

 

Obesity rampant among children. End of life ethics debated. Cities crumbling as aged infrastructure fails. Billions needed to bail out the banks. Nationalize the marginal banks. Public transportation in dire straights as fleets age and maintenance is deferred. Schools under funded, teachers leaving the profession in droves.

 

It seems inconceivable to me that America can go to the moon but can’t understand that today’s choices will have consequences tomorrow.

 

Taxes are a necessary requirement so that all of us pay our share for what we believe is critical to all American’s health and happiness. Health Care, transportation, roads and bridges, teacher’s salaries and pensions. Garbage collection, libraries, public health clinics and so on.

 

We have acted over the last fifty years as if we could short change the system and nothing would ever come back to us. Now, with record amounts of tax money being spent to bail out America, how can anyone believe that it won’t be paid for by every worker and retiree over the next few years?

 

Personally, I think I pay enough taxes. Look at every utility bill and see the nickels and dimes that are hoovered up by the local, state and federal governments. Multiply by the number of people state wide and then county wide and it becomes a very large number, a part of the hidden taxes we all pay. But I’ve been on a fairy tail ride the last thirty years. We passed tax reform and tax limits, but we were never able to get our so called public servants to represent our opinions instead of running for re-election. So instead of health reform and school funding, we built sport arenas. Just what did we do with those billions of tax dollars? Why can’t anyone seem to tell us exactly where it all went?

 

Now billions, or perhaps trillions, more are needed to shore up state pensions that will be exhausted before long, leaving teachers and other workers without protection for their retirements. Cities and states are in such financial straights that some cities may have to taken over by the state. Maybe we could auction off the naming rights to Chicago or Illinois. Doesn’t “The Grace L. Ferguson Airline and Storm Door Company” FKA Illinois have a dandy ring to it? How about the Bank of America City, FKA Detroit?

 

How could this happen? Well the answer is easy and ugly. The government was forced to rob Peter to pay Paul. When we wanted sexy sounding programs but not the responsibility of paying for them, the politicians raided the money that was supposed to go to schools and pensions to pay for their priorities. Every loud special interest group with an agenda was given a share of the pie until nothing remained for busses and trains, and maintenance. Immigrant health care, education, more and better trained police, fire fighting equipment, and better salaries for teachers. We can stay mad, ignore the problems and stick our head in the sand, but that will only get us more of the same.

 

 

I like the idea of term limits. I think we should pay all our taxes with an income tax. Add up what we need and divide by the number of tax payers. Limit deductions and credits so that everyone will pay their share. We need to find a way to avoid bankrupting the future. Property taxes are not the solution. Never have been. Never will be.

 

Just like the person that sues McDonald’s because he has heart trouble from too many Big Macs, we seem to think someone else will do the heavy lifting for us here. Someone else will pay the bill, so that we can continue to live the good life. And we continue to frolic along oblivious to the needs of the poor, the helpless and the elderly.

 

But we will learn either the hard way or the easy way. The choice is up to each one of us.

 

Get involved. Let your elected officials know how you feel. Tell them what you want to support. After all we elected them to represent us, not themselves.

Closed on Sunday

The Trib today has an article about the owner of several shopping malls across the country reducing the amount of time the mall is open for business. The reduction is about an hour a day, but the reason given is the savings for the mall merchants in salaries.

 

Maybe this should go farther. Perhaps history has a lesson for us.

 

For years now we have become accustomed to having unlimited access to shopping. The build out of stores allows us to drive a very short distance to shop for almost anything, be it from the local mega mart or a purveyor of electronics. Most clusters of stores have the dry cleaners, clip joints, Starbucks, movie rentals, formal wear, sporting goods, and several banks. An ice cream franchise, Paneras, Fridays, Burger King, Subway, McDonalds, Olive Garden, Arby’s, an oil change place, several grocery stores, optical shops, Target, other clothing stores, Sears, bed stores and furniture outlets. This list is not quite all I can find in the local four corners, but close.

 

Shopping convenience isn’t by itself a bad thing, but how much of a jump is it to equate the overheated economy with the ability to shop every hour of every day. I’d suggest our preoccupation with shopping is the national influenza.  

 

My suggestion is that we start to rein in our need to shop. Let’s go back to having everything closed on Sunday. Banks, gas stations, grocery stores and pharmacies, all closed all day Sunday. And let’s scale back the hours of retail to a reasonable amount of time, say from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. One thing it would do is force us to plan ahead. Like we did before shopping became a form of dementia and obsession. The old Sunday Blue Laws forced everything to close on Sunday. No bars or restaurants were open. Nothing.

 

And even if we close some stores, it isn’t like you couldn’t find a convenience store open to get a quart of milk, or you couldn’t order a pizza. ATM’s and the internet would still be available for the hopelessly addicted shoppers, and with credit cards, there isn’t much need for banks.   

 

What I’m suggesting is that for one day a week we stay home, spend time with our families, study for school, participate in religious services, gather with family, visit with friends, swim in the lake or build a snowman, equally available most of the year in Illinois. Perhaps with less temptation we’d actually enjoy being home.

 

I don’t believe that the loss of a few part time jobs is reason enough to scuttle the chance for families to find their bearings for a day, and have a chance to rest before the rat race starts again on Monday. I’d like to see everything closed, really, just everything, except churches, police, fire and hospitals and perhaps a gas station or two.

 

Is the loss of family life an American disgrace? Why did we lose our desire to visit neighbors and friends? Walk around the block, go bowling, watch grandchildren play on swings, go to Mom’s for Sunday dinner after church? In our selfishness, we’ve decided that we should be in charge of us, and the result of this attitude we plan our day without much thought about what we teach our children by example. It’s little wonder why they hang out in malls. That’s their community. Why shouldn’t it be, it’s our community too. So let’s shut off the PC and the Ipod and relearn the art of conversation. It will be a challenge, but just think what we could learn about each other, about perspective, about our family.

 

If we don’t teach our children by our example, who will teach our grandchildren?

Where Did My Money Go?

Understanding the current economic crisis isn’t all that difficult, really. Maybe looking at the upcoming sugar fest called Halloween is a timely example.

Babies have a built in social and protective devise call mommy and a backup called daddy. Social context will develop from parents and siblings for the first five years or so. Babies careen along for months going from bottles to finger foods until they collide with Halloween. Grandma and Grandpa and mom and dad start looking at costumes when the stores put them out, sometime in August, then October 31 rolls around and the little tykes are dressed up, a bag shoved into their hand and pulled around from house to house, being prompted to say “trick or treat and thank you”. Sometimes the darlings make it all night with out getting shy or scared and sometimes they don’t. So ends the first year.

The next Halloween comes along and the toddler, now two or three, can’t wait. There are parties at Pre School and then the big day arrives. After two or three hours of collecting loot, they happily dump the stuff onto the floor to sort it out and ooh and ahh over what will probably last them for months.

Year after year this goes on and is joined by Easter candy and Valentine’s Day until every year is one sugar buzz after another.

Currently we are seeing the financial system gag on the addiction to profit that characterizes Wall Street and Main Street. The Feds are now trying to rein in the crisis, but they are not equipped to react fast enough in these uncharted waters to stem the tide of fear and outright panic gripping most of the world.

When an athlete lets hero worship and praise effect their self perception usually they become someone that’s tolerated instead of someone to be emulated. So too, Wall Street has let the total worship of the bottom line blind itself to the excesses and self absorption most corporations exhibit to keep their financial ratings high and the executive pay obscene.

This fixation with wealth, both corporate and personal, is nothing new and I figure that only a monk, away from the world since 1950, could have avoided the onslaught of advertising urging all of us to be early adopters and conspicuous consumers.

Few, if any, of us are eager or even ready to take our medicine. All of us have become addicted to self indulgence in a world filled with easy choices and easy morality. We can turn our back to sweat shops in India or China making tennis shoes and toys for pennies but how can we ignore the abusive working conditions so many young workers endure there to pad corporate profit?

I would urge consideration of the idea that corporations should reflect sane personal values, instead of what seems to me to be worship at the hundred foot tall idol of profit. I believe we now should explore the concept of when enough is enough. Do we really think that if we don’t pay our executives excessive compensation they will move to China? Let’s think about the human cost of what is happening now and how many people have been thrown under the bus because it pumped up the bottom line.

I don’t favor every person being able to retire with two homes, one on a lake, cars, boats and disposable income comparable to what they made while working. I feel the same way about everyone living to reach one hundred. Some people will live modestly and others will have more. Some will die at 60 and others will live to 90. Some people struggle to make $20,000 while others are worth 50 billion. I don’t recommend a redistribution of wealth, but instead a different financial model that reflects common sense.

Let’s get back to caring about our workers and making a fair profit. Let’s get employers out of the health care game and government out of property tax. Let’s all of us pay our fair share of what it takes to build and staff first rate schools and give everyone an opportunity to get a quality education. Let’s tax people’s income to pay for the goods and services, including basic medical care, so that everyone contributes, including corporations, and we don’t perpetuate the disadvantaged class of people we have now.

And while we at it, let’s make our leaders truly accountable. We are both a Constitutional Republic and a Democracy in America. For a rich article that defines a republic, use the following link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_republic. Republicanism speaks about the separation of powers in the branches of government and the protection of individual rights and liberties, guaranteed by our constitution. Democracy, on the other hand, was never actually mentioned in the constitution. Democracy is a form of government in which the supreme power is held completely by the people under a free electoral system. The American form has evolved over the years until most people think of democracy and republic as interchangeable terms. Please see the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMOCRACY for a through discussion.

Do the people of America really have control over their elected representatives? If the majority rules, why don’t we have more say in how America operates and certainly how Washington and Springfield operates. Why do we elect people and then abdicate our authority over them? Why do most who are elected become addicted to the power of office and start their re-election campaign the day after they are sworn in to office? What possible sane explanation can there be in someone serving 30 years or more in congress, except addiction to power?

We have many things to be proud of in America. There are many worthwhile efforts to make America a better country. There are good, moral people who care and work tirelessly to help those who most need help. Perhaps we only need to retake control over our companies and our government to start the long process back to sanity. As long as stock funds and hedge funds exist, we will not have any control over corporate America. To the extent we are passive to what our elected representatives do; we will have a minority deciding the fate of the majority based on the influence of special interests.

America will always embrace different ideas and there will always be discourse between opposing views. What we need is the patience to hear all viewpoints and the civility to engage in public discussion without rancor. We need to object to volume over substance and persistence over reality.

America is a great country that could be better with effort and commitment. Perhaps a little self sacrifice and personal accountability are in order.

Remembering Mom

 

January 24, 2009,

 

Betty Jane Harrell, born July 24, 1919.

 

Mom died yesterday, January 23, 2009, and I feel lost, because her being part of my life is all I’ve ever known for almost sixty four years. Her passion for life, her dedication to her children, and her willingness to forgive almost anything were her strengths. She was always compared to her father, but was more like her mother, after all. She was strengths and weakness, all wrapped into a blanket of Catholic faith and contradictions.  

She went back to her set aside Catholic faith in 1951, a product of her bargain with God to return to the faith if He would spare me the terrible consequences of Polio. She volunteered at the March of Dimes to help pay back the financial help they provided to pay the medical bills from my dread disease.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

 

She was all about family picnics and parties. We had most holidays in Flint with her mom and dad, and summers on the beach at Sylvan Lake, only a few blocks from home on Josephine. She relished the Sunday football game and forgave the Lions their years of ineptitude. She liked to drink and smoke, and like others with her genes, was a fun loving Irishwoman, trapped in an unforgiving German conscience, with a Scottish parsimony when needed.

 

She was full of dos and don’ts and most of the predicted dire consequences of our actions came to pass with alarming accuracy. She did not enjoy seeing her country, and the heritage of World War Two, compromised by what she considered the new socialism. She became a staunch conservative at the last, watching O’Reilly and Fox news on cable.

 

She had regrets and heartaches too. The red haired daughter stillborn when I was three was a keen loss. She missed her dad every day she was alive, and he wasn’t. She never completely reconciled her feelings for her mother. She was disappointed in all the changes in marital status of her kids, but she seldom said anything to any of us about it. She loved her grandchildren and great grandchildren and wanted them to be around her often.

 

The life lessons from her came with predictions, but never with instructions. I was left to figure out the owner’s manual on my own, often with inconsistent results.

 

She was, after all, my mother, and loved me with a mother’s love. All bound and tied with her clear desire to see me more than she did. Her parting words always entreating me to return soon, imploring me to move closer to her.

Loss of a Mother Poem- Author Unknown

Now that I am gone

Remember me with smiles and laughter

And if you need to cry

Cry with your brothers and sister, who walk in grief beside you

And when you need me

Put your arms around anyone

And give them what you need to give to me

There are so many who need so much

I want to leave you something, something much better than words or sounds

Look for me in the people I’ve known or helped in some special way

Let me live in your heart as well as in your mind

You can love me most

By letting your love reach out to our loved ones

By embracing them and living in their love

Love does not die, people do

So, when all that’s left of me is love

Give me away the best you can

I don’t know how my life will end, or when, but I know the first person I expect to see in heaven is my mother. She will be making a meatloaf (without green pepper please) and baking a chocolate pie for her eldest. She will have a drink on the table and a cigarette in the ashtray. She will be still complaining about the Lions failure to win the Superbowl (perhaps then measured in decades or centuries) and she will be full of stories about all of her friends and family she has reconnected with in the great beyond. Grandma Belle Erkes, Pat and Waldo Pepper, Jim and Ginny Greenwood, Beulah and George Leach, Charlie and Eva Grace Hall, John O’Hearn and Bob Glass. Her favorite aunt, Beatrice, Don and Ruth McDonald, Uncle Pete, her step grandfather, and all the many people she touched during her life. She will still be riding herd on my father and visiting Irene and Dick (Mom and Dad) every day, just as she did for so many years in Pontiac. She will be listening to Jack Hagan play all her favorite songs on the organ and dancing with her favorite partner, my dad Dan. The old Elks club will be there too, filled with all the nights of bowling and good times with friends she could wish for.

Thinking about her now that she’s gone brings a flood of emotion. I’m glad that at last she is no longer a prisoner of a dying body, and that at last she can bask in the love of Christ and enjoy all of her friends and family. My selfish heart though cries out for her and mourns her leaving me alone in this crazy world. For almost sixty four years she was always there when I called her name.

 

 

I Miss My Dad

I miss my Dad

There are two distinct and separate stages in a son’s relationship with his father. One, where the son refuses to acknowledge the possible existence that any useful information or advice could possibly come from his father, the other, when his father is dead.

There are of course, exceptions to this rule that prove the rule, but for the most part, fathers are disregarded and disrespected until sufficient time passes after their death, and as sure and taxes and death, the son realizes the loss of a source of information unique in all the world. I’m sure there are plenty of Robert Young imitators out there, but for the most part fathers and sons communicate about as well as someone speaking in Swahili to someone who only communicates using sign language. Actually, if you can visualize people trying to communicate in foreign, non-English speaking countries, you get the idea. Use gestures and talk louder. Dad and I were like that a lot.

Part of the reason, researchers say, is the placement of the blank look gene in every male at birth and of course, the head slapping gene. Many times I would listen to my dad explain something about carpentry or such, and my blank look gene would cause his head slapping gene to kick into gear. Son, he’d say, try not to drill through your hand instead of the wall, blank look, head slap. Every time.

This became our frequent ritual during my childhood and teens until I entered that twilight area of my later teens where he felt obliged to offer advice, which pretty much guaranteed I would do something else, anything else.

Somewhere along the line, he stopped giving advise or discussing much with me, and probably saved himself some kind of brain injury from all that head slapping, or the other potential injury from rolling his eyes into his head.

We moved on with our separate lives and I did what I thought was best and lived with the results, for about forty years.

Dad’s been gone five years. I didn’t think I’d ever admit it to anyone, including me, but I really miss the old guy. He was thirty two when I was born, so he had a lot of life experience and practice when I arrived. He was a handy guy, and to my eye then, never made any mistakes.

Because of the gap in our ages, it would be great if I could ask him what being sixty plus is like. Or, now that I’m over sixty, I could ask him what seventy or eighty is like. In his later years he became quite a story teller. He was a good cook, a good host and had lots of useful tidbits about life, that would have been great to hear and remember, if my IQ higher than tapioca gene had kicked in.

So, like many sons, I’ll struggle along with trying to guess the future. Too embarrassed to ask friends for advise, and too proud to admit I don’t know the answers. I like to think Dad’s up there looking down at me, hoping I’ll figure out the answers and trying to tell me that all fathers, and sons who become fathers, walk this final path alone.

Oh, and he’s slapping his head, I have no doubt.

 

Age isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Age isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

 

This morning I couldn’t find my cell phone. I looked in the clothes I wore yesterday, but no luck. I’m supposed to have my phone with me and on 24/7, so not having it is a big deal. What to do. Finally it dawned on me to call the stupid phone and listen for the ring. I dial and listen and sure enough, I hear it ringing. Yup, in my pajama bottoms. Living large at 63.

 

I find that I can nap most anywhere now. In church, during the message, in my recliner, most anyplace really. But my favorite in on the train, either to or from Chicago. I have at least 90 minutes to snooze. What must the person who boards and decides to sit next to a shapeless mound of sleeping man think? I’ve come back to life after the passage of an hour at some station and have to think of where I am. Sometimes the person next to me is different, and I’m thinking, Oh God, please tell me I didn’t drool on someone or snore. Thank God I live at the end of the line and work at the other end.

 

I’m on Facebook now. Some friend (fiend) invited me to join and so I did, and now I can waste even more time on the computer than I do anyway. I did find some friends that I am honored to share many intimate details of their life or mine. I posted some photos of family and exchange students, and I’m thinking, I could use substitute photos so people would have a better opinion of me and mine. OK, just kidding, before I start receiving hate mail. There are so many ways to communicate now. I love the premise of the Iphone 3G. What I really want is something the size of my laptop with the Iphone features.

 

Gabby the cat was so happy the last two days. We had Strider (The Wonder Dog) at Deb’s parents while the roof was being replaced, so it was particularly quiet. And Gabby had the run of the house. She seemed to smile, but that ended tonight. The satellite was removed to do the roof  so no TV until Dish gets here tomorrow. Kind of nice really. But I like the Olympics. Seeing superbly trained athletes in prime physical condition reminds me of my younger days. Oh sure, looking at the stud muffin I am now, it would be hard to visualize, but really, I was a physical tiger in my youth. A virtual legend in my spare time.

 

I had mixed reactions to my last post. Deb thought I might be showing some insensitivity, but I read it again and I like it. I’m not proud of being married twice before, but I believe that both of my former wives are terrific people and I find I’m interested in what happens in their lives. Go figure.

 

I’m wondering now, just wondering, but why is it in any office they always put the bathroom as far as possible from the oldsters. Nothing like hotfooting it to the bathroom, bowling over file clerks on the way. I told my boss that in lieu of a raise or a nice office; just put me closer to the john. My needs are simple really.

 

Finally, I want to thank whoever put the Sears ad beneath my wiper blade in the train station parking lot The sprinkle we had dissolved the paper just enough to make the circular bond with the windshield like Kevlar. Holy Toledo, I had to look around it on the ride home. What were they thinking?

 

Well, I hope you have as much fun reading this drivel as I do writing it.

 

Dan

 

 

 

 

Deb and Dan