Noel

My brother Noel had a stroke today.  It’s early in the game and there is still time to look for substantial recovery—but it sucks.

I grew up in a household where my father, 48 at the time of my birth, lived the traditional 1960’s style executive life.  He was a Lutheran minister but was busy every day and most evenings.  He had services and classes and church and synod meetings, he had house calls and hospital visits.  My dad wasn’t really all that present in my life.  He was a wonderful man in so many ways but he was busy.

Noel was 10 years my senior and old enough to be a grown up in my eyes.  At the same time he was young and wild and visible and active in all the ways that made me aware of the advantages and possibilities of being an older male. I had two other brothers who were older than Noel but they were, by and large, gone and off to school by the time I was old enough to consciously observe grownup behaviors.  Dan, my other older brother was my age plus 4 and too close to offer any guidance in the ways of adult male behavior.  So it fell to Noel by default to impress me with a girlfriend, to impress me with a first car, to impress me with going away to college, and to impress me with making big decisions based on personal beliefs and commitments even when it ran contrary to the family system of beliefs. I watched Noel grow from a high school kid to a college man to a man in a life and family of his own.  And with Noel at the helm the education was frequently an entertainment.

It has taken today’s event to bring all this to mind and make me realize just what an influence he’s been.  Not to overplay it either.  I have many memories of being crashed on my bike, dumped from my wagon, having the runner in the upstairs hall pulled out from under me, sending me tumbling in space like Charlie Brown trying to kick that football—all done at his hand and for his own entertainment. 

Somehow, through all of that big brother hazing, I still looked to him as a role model and an example of how an older boy behaves.   I am happy to report I have seen the foolishness of many of his early examples and have adjusted accordingly.  That said, I’m sad to see this big brother - dad of mine suffer the indignity of neurological injury. He’s a substantial and wonderful piece of who I am and I wish I could hold him now.

It's About Us

It’s About Us

As the leadership of our local, state, and national government changes with the elections of this past week, I hope that those who are new, or feel renewed in re-election, to public office will keep one thing in mind:  The job to which you have been elected is about us.  

In an election which saw tens of millions of dollars spent by special interest groups in an effort to ensure their interests would find representation, I call on you to remember that ours is a government for the people.  The people you have been elected to represent do not all agree on issues of policy, personal beliefs, or even expression of personal rights. But we are the foundation of this society and it will fall to you, our elected, to insure that this democracy will continue to acknowledge and represent every member in a manner that respects all, protects all, and insures the future for our young despite our many, sometimes passionate, disagreements.  It will fall to you to move us forward in a time when polarizing politics threaten to paralyze.  It will fall to you to move us forward in spite of the imposing presence of the many special interests which may feel entitled to your every effort.  No matter what a person’s gender, beliefs, occupation, party, or tax bracket, this society will only remain strong if every member can be acknowledged and given heartfelt consideration by his or her elected representative.  

No one will convince every citizen to lock philosophical arms in the diverse population that is the United States of America.  But it will be incumbent on this leadership to form a cohesive whole out of the many parts.  Healthcare, education, employment, hunger, shelter, protection, and fiscal responsibility—these are some of the most cumbersome and crucial issues ever faced by our nation and they require your attention.  As you do so just, please, remember: it’s about us:  Young and old, Democrats, Republicans, Green, and Independents, working and unemployed.  We may not all have been able to write the big checks, but at the end of the day, it’s us, not them.  

Close of Season

            If there’s one thing we’re really good at in this small Michigan town it’s seasonal cleanup.  Bring on the massive snowstorm and we’ve got loaders and graders and plows and dump trucks ready and rollin’.  18 inches of snow today and by afternoon the next day it’s bare pavement, open parking spaces and navigable sidewalks.

            The same holds true as autumn comes to close.  This most beautiful season seems to just edge its way onto the stage over the course of so many weeks.  Then, within what seems like a moment it sings out full volume, bursting with color and all the stored emotion of the past summer.  And then autumn takes her bow and begins her retreat into the wings.

            As I write this she is in full retreat.  A landscape which just days ago seemed loaded with bouquet after bouquet of reds and yellows and gold is now just a sketch of its former self.  Here and there a tree stands which, like the tardy student to class, seems to have not gotten the message or not cared enough to get the project done on time.  But otherwise, the majority have completed their work and stand bare; many with just a few reluctant leaves punctuating the intricacies of their many branches with spots of color.

            On the lawns and in our streets the winds of the coming winter have had a field day blowing leaves from one neighbor's yard to another, from one well swept curb to another, reducing the children’s hay mounds of colorful leaves to expansive oceans of colorful debris.  And the rakes and the blowers seem to be active for days on end, even into the evenings, pushing and pulling these remains of the summer into assorted piles again and again and again—until today.

            Today it ended.  This morning the plow trucks arrived pulling their leaf vacuums and shredders.   And behind these came the street sweeping machines and the dump trucks heaped with leaf remains and the unfortunate few on foot with brooms to capture any escapees.  In the wake of their passing the lawns are green and bare, the streets are clear, and the trees pretty well without foliage.

            A few neighbors, like a few of the trees, weren’t entirely on the ball and they will have to work on to tidy up the remains of the season.  The trucks and the sweepers will make one more pass in a few weeks and then it will job done.  All assignments will have been completed:  all lawns will be brown and all trees will be bare, and the winds of November will usher in the gray skies filled with the snows of winter, ready to whitewash the entire barren landscape, drape us in white like furniture under the sheets in a summer cottage at the close of the season.