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.

The Politics of Halloween

It’s nights like last night that leave me happy I’m not embroiled in the heat of an election to public office.  Not that it wouldn’t provide some degree of entertainment:  It might be fun to see the skeletons marched out of my closet.  I’m sure there are a few although probably more ghosts than skeletons.

I don’t know if I really could have survived the media assault which would have followed last night’s behavior when, at 5:30PM, as the doorbell rang for the second time, we realized we were trapped like rats, caught empty-handed for trick-or-treaters.  Last night was the 30^th.  

In this small town in mid-Michigan, members of our city council deemed it wise to move Trick-or-Treating to Saturday the 30^th instead of today, Sunday the 31^st. Tonight is Halloween and we are enjoying a quiet evening at home—no little voices, no footsteps, no doorbells.  I think the un-official reason was, although a couple of official versions were offered, I really think the reason was God.  I guess, given the proper mix of current council members facing Halloween occurring on a Sunday for the first time in their tenure, they must have held a WWJD meeting and came up with this idea. 

And so, there we were, empty-handed on Saturday, the 30^th of October.  Facing the prospect of having to quickly turn out the lights and lie on the floor or get out of Dodge, we opted for both.  We turned out the lights, did the commando crawl to the garage, loaded into the truck, and went out for dinner.

I’m certain, however, if I were a political candidate there would have been media staking out the place to see if I participated in the distribution of treats.  They’d want to see my face painted up in some appropriately un-scary but clever makeup. People would want to know: Snickers or Dum-Dums? And God help me if they’d seen me slip out on the sly: “Candidate Spurns Local Children in Act of Self-Indulgence.”  Hardly a model for community service!  And the negative ads! 

It turns out we were the only community within 20 miles that observed Halloween on the 30^th.  Good thing we ran as every family within those 20 miles loaded up the kids and brought them to our town.  Hell yes!  It was a two-fer Halloween in mid-Michigan!  The people who stood firm and gave out candy got slaughtered by the shear numbers of little buggers and their parents; all of whom would be back at it the next night on their home turf.  By morning, most members of this community were ready to ask the architect of this plan to stand up and take a bow so they could give him a good swift kick in the butt!

As it is, I’m not a candidate and there was nothing to deal with other than my own slightly guilty conscience.  We went out for Italian, and the place was packed.   

Learning to Learn

When people look at my writing, letters, policies, announcements and the like, believe it or not, most are impressed by my writing skills.  (Even if that first sentence leaves you somewhat bedazzled.) I am considered a good communicator although I have a couple of ex-wives who might disagree.

The other day I was working on a piece someone else had written.  I was sitting here looking up words in the dictionary (iPhone was in the other room) and I got to thinking about how my interest and ability evolved.  Looking back, I have always contributed my love of writing and interest in writing well to my public education in Los Angeles and my mother who was a monster for grammar, syntax and spelling. As much as I can acknowledge those sources, especially the latter, I almost overlooked one of the most important, my brother Dan.

Dan is 4 years older than me. We grew up together adjacent to UCLA.  One of our rituals was going up to the Research Library to do our homework.  Although I almost always limited my research to the entries in the encyclopedia, the Research Library had several up to date volumes of encyclopedias and the environment made me feel that I was doing really important work.  

Dan was always busy doing his own assignments but he would always find time to help me out.  In the course of doing so he would be critical of my writing, encouraging me to grow up and make the effort to write well.  In the course of doing so he also introduced me to Roget’s Thesaurus and directed me to the dictionary every time I needed to know how to spell a word.  All of this kindness was undoubtedly fueled by his immediate need to get me to stop pestering him but it did work well in getting me involved in learning about words.

The best part of those excursions, however, was the trailer we would pass on campus which housed a refreshment stand.  If we could come up with 30 cents between us it would buy us each a cup of hot chocolate for the walk home.  It was served in small Styrofoam cups and was so hot that first sip would make you jump and leave your tongue feeling fuzzy for days.   But it made you feel all the more grown up, walking through that campus at night, coffee cup in hand, enjoying the smell of eucalyptus and sycamore.  It was nights like those, with my brother Dan, on the campus of UCLA, walking with steaming cup of cocoa in hand, that made me want to grow up, go to college, and be smart.  Now, if I had only learned to type.

Freshman Daze

It's amazing to me just how true the old saying is, "what goes around, comes around." And I hate that saying.  To that you can add, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."   And yet, just as my late mother had predicted, these, and a host of other little truisms, do seem to be coming around to haunt me.  (Seasonal reference not intended.)  As things stand, I'm sure she's smiling down with just a smidgeon of self-satisfaction.

My daughter is a first year student at the University of Michigan.  So far she loves the experience and I am so happy for her.  Unlike my college days she is living in a dorm away from home and surviving the change, getting involved in campus life, and truly living and succeeding as an independent college student.  That is, as independent as one can be who derives her entire income from her father's bank account.  Great!

As did I, she is discovering that the transition from a unchallenging high school to a highly challenging university setting can provide some startling academic surprises at the start.  As did I, she is experiencing the fun to be had in having a close "mate" at this age.  And, much as did I, she has decided to stick with a mate who lives and goes to school some distance from hers.  Not so great.

I've provided the obligatory lectures about the danger of distractions while at school, the extent of her good fortune to have this opportunity to attend such a fine school, the limited life expectancy of long-distance relationships, and the likelihood of having ones feelings trashed by a mate who lives considerably more than an arm's distance away, to say the least for having a serious relationship at her age.  All of that a rehash of lectures I received more than 35 years ago and all with exactly the same effect: none.

I guess I have to take a deep breath, examine the outcome of such behaviors when measured in terms of personal history, try to relax, and hope that history continues to repeat itself.  Then someday it will be my turn to smile down....or up.  Good luck, kiddo. Just remember, I told you so.