Still In Heart and Conscience Free

my papaw, my mother's father, was a giant of a man, or at least he seemed so to me.  he was well over six feet tall with a large, powerful frame.  he had a shock of white hair on his head and a rugged, wrinkled face, full of character.  he dwarfed most other people.  when he spoke, his voice had a tenderness that belied his appearance, though he was a man of few words.

he was a skilled butcher.  when i was a small child, he and my mamaw had a large meat locker in their store, in which huge quarters of beef and pork hung from hooks in its ceiling.  the locker was made of beautiful oak wood.  on its front were small doors with glass in their center where smaller items like dairy products and eggs were kept.  the main door to the locker was heavy with a locking mechanism to keep the cold in.  i was terrified to go into the locker, fearing that i might be trapped in it if the door closed behind me, despite there being a big button with a spring behind it that would open the door from the inside.  as he got older, he reduced the amount of meat that was stored in the locker, and by the time he died from heart failure, he and my mamaw had decided to do away with the locker and end the butcher part of their business.

i remember being in the store one day when a man from out in the country came in and asked papaw if he would be interested in buying some racoons the man had killed to sell in his store.  i was shocked when papaw took him up on the offer.  i couldn't stay around when the beautiful animals were brought in.  papaw prepared the carcasses for sale, skinning them and and carving them up for cooking.  they sold quickly, because several of his customers thought "coon meat" was a delicious delicacy.  i'm sure that it was a violation of the food laws for such wild meat to be sold in this way, but no one was going to report it, so delighted were the people who bought the meat to be able to enjoy this wild game.

papaw was a "new deal" democrat.  he believed that franklin roosevelt was one of the greatest men who had ever lived, second only to jesus.  for as long as i can remember, a framed portrait of fdr hung on my grandparents' living room wall.  for both my grandparents voting a straight democratic party ticket was a religious exercise.  papaw wouldn't brook anyone speaking ill of a democrat officeholder and particularly saying anything bad about president roosevelt or any of his policies.  he also revered eleanor roosevelt, who was the ideal first lady, in his opinion.

neither of my grandparents went to church.  papaw had been raised a methodist, though his ancestors in north carolina were presbyterians.  when his grandfather came with his family to settle in arkansas, there was no presbyterian church in the county where they lived, so the next best thing for them was the methodist church.  succeeding generations of arkansas members of the family remained methodists.  my grandmother's baptist church practiced "closed communion," which meant that anyone who wasn't a baptist was excluded from communion, and my papaw refused to attend a church where he and other members of his family couldn't take communion.  likewise, my mamaw insisted that the only valid baptism was by immersion, and most methodists were baptized as children by "sprinkling."  for that reason, she wouldn't join the methodist church, so after they married, they both stopped attending church.  once that decision was made early in their marriage, religion was not discussed between them, though either was happy to debate on the subject with anyone else.

all through his married life, papaw owned several acres of land somewhere out in the countryside where he would raise cattle.  he always called this little ranch "his farm."  one or two days a week he would leave town and drive out to "the farm" to check on the land and cattle.  i never knew of him killing any of the cattle he raised or butchering one to sell in his store.  instead, he would sell his cattle at auction so someone else would have the job of killing them.  he always bought beef that had already been prepared for butchering from a meat wholesaler.  when i visited, i would sometimes go with him to his farm.  we would spend all day walking the land, ensuring the barn and other structures were in good repair, the fence was intact, and the cattle were alright.  papaw took great delight in these exercises, but i was bored with it all and ready to leave after an hour or so.

papaw was not as important a figure in my young life as mamaw, though i loved him deeply and enjoyed his company.  he was a private man, not given to idle talk.  when a subject interested him, though, he could talk at length with anyone who wanted to engage in conversation about that topic.  he loved mathematics.  his idea of a relaxing evening was to sit alone in his bedroom and study a math textbook, while mamaw and i watched television.  he was determined that his oldest two sons would have the opportunity to study geometry, trigonometry, and calculus and that they would attend the university of arkansas to become engineers after high school.  when the high school in magnolia refused to offer those subjects, he sold his store in magnolia and moved the family to texarkana, where the high school did offer advanced math classes.

like mamaw, he didn't continue his formal education beyond the eighth grade, but he was a brilliant man who could hold his own in debate with anyone.  i admire his determination to see that his children received the best education he and mamaw were able to provide for them and to instill in them a life-long love of learning and the belief that their own children should be well educated.

may we learn from the example of people like my papaw.  may we value learning and realize that not all education comes from books.  may we pass a legacy of respect for knowledge to our children.  may we use whatever skills we have in the service of others.  may we remember that true religion consists of caring for one another.  shalom. 

Missing Your Smile and Your Song

my mother's mother, known by her grandchildren as "mamaw," was a big influence in my life.  she grew up in rural southwest arkansas.  early in her life, her family discovered that she could play the piano by ear, and she became the pianist for the small baptist church that was the center of social life in their community.  her grandfather, the scoundrel her grandmother had left to return home from pine bluff where mamaw's mother was born, is said to have played the violin.  perhaps she inherited her musical ability from him.  

mamaw and my grandfather met when she was teaching school in a little village near where my grandfather worked as a surveyor for a lumber company.  in those days, schools in rural arkansas only went through the eighth grade.  in order to continue education beyond that point, it was necessary to move to a larger town where there was a high school or go a college that supported a high school on its campus.  mamaw's family didn't have the resources for her to do either, and completion of the eighth grade qualified a person to become a teacher, as mamaw did.  teachers were expected to be single women, so when my grandparents married, mamaw had to give up her teaching career.

my grandparents lived in a logging camp deep in the woodlands of southwest arkansas that could only be reached by train.  the lumber company laid tracks, and a train carried in laborers and supplies and carried out the logs that had been harvested.  there is a story that my great-grandmother, grandma kate, made the journey to the railhead to catch the train to visit my mamaw after my mother's oldest brother, my uncle winton, was born in the logging camp.  she was told that there was not room for her on the train because it was so full of supplies.  she was so insistent that she was going to ride the train into the logging camp that the engineer told her that the only way for her to ride was to sit on the cattle catcher in the front of the engine.  she did that and arrived at the camp covered in soot from the steam engine's chimney with her little parasol blown wrong side out after she tried to use it to keep the smoke out of her face.

some time after winton's birth, my grandparents moved their young family to magnolia, arkansas, where they opened a small grocery and cafe near the town square.  mamaw's delicious cooking and my grandfather's skill as a butcher, a trade he had learned growing up on the family farm, caused their business to prosper, and they were able to buy a home and welcome mamaw's sister, my great-aunt bess, into their home while she attended the local college with its affiliated high school.  it was in magnolia that my mother and another son, my uncle bob, were born.  

when my mother was in the fifth grade, my grandparents moved to texarkana, arkansas, which was a much larger town than magnolia.  their grocery/cafe flourished, and they were able to move from the house they were renting into a new brick home.  shortly after the move into the new home, the stock market crashed.  the bank called in their loan, and they lost their home.  they were able to hold onto the business and move it to a storefront attached to a home.  they did away with the cafe part of the business, since few people could afford to eat out, but continued to sell groceries.  there they stayed until both my grandparents had passed away.

i loved the store.  every summer i would spend two weeks with my grandparents and help out in the store.  i went swimming with one of my cousins, my uncle winton's daughter, and played with another cousin, richard, the son of my mother's first cousin.  when i got older, richard and i would walk to the busy downtown area.  sometimes we would go to a movie matinee and get a soda at either kress or newberry, the five-and-dimes downtown.  we'd take the bus back within a couple of blocks of my grandparents' store and walk back from there.  the public library was about ten blocks from the store, and i loved to go there and read or look at their books on stamp collecting, a favorite hobby of mine.  those times in the summer with my grandparents were great experiences for me.  

in my teenage years, i would spend most of the summer there, and after my grandfather and great-grandmother passed away, mamaw was especially thrilled to have my company.  by that time, i could be a real help in the store and could run it by myself, except for waiting on customers in the meat department.  after my grandfather's death, mamaw relied on a local butcher shop where her brother, my great-uncle arch, worked.  he had learned his trade from my grandfather and always made sure mamaw had the most choice meat to sell in her store.  mamaw prepared my favorite lunch, a breaded veal cutlet and french fries with a glass of iced tea with lemon, almost every day.  i can still taste those cutlets, on which a pat of butter would be melted while it was still hot.  i don't believe i've ever eaten any meat as delicious since then.

like her mother, mamaw was a lover of coffee.  there was always hot coffee in the kitchen, and i never saw her without a coffee cup in her hand or nearby.   she doted on all her grandchildren, but i was a special favorite because of the time i spent with her every summer and because i loved the store as much as she did.  i remember one summer she took me with her to see my uncle bob and his family who lived near kansas city.  mamaw didn't drive, so we took the bus from texarkana to fayetteville, arkansas, where her youngest son, my uncle maurice, was a student at the university.  he picked us up at the bus station, and the three of us rode in his car to uncle bob's house, where i played with my three first cousins for several days.  mamaw had brought a box of millionaires, the delicious chocolate candy with caramel and pecans, on the bus trip, and we ate them all the way to fayetteville.  that trip is one of the most memorable events of my childhood.  mamaw would sometimes go with me to the movies in texarkana.  she would call a cab, and off we'd go.  one of the ones i remember most fondly was "the horse soldiers" starring john wayne.  

one of the things mamaw taught me was to be myself.  she never insisted that i think a certain way or behave in a way that conformed to any preconceived notion of what was appropriate for a boy my age, no matter what age i was.  when i was with her, i felt free in a way i never felt anywhere else.  in her company, i felt like i was with a dear friend, a companion who was interested in what i had to say and in what i loved doing.  i'm sure she had her faults, but in my eyes she will always be the perfect grandmother and friend.  i'll always miss her physical presence in my life, but she occupies a special place in my heart and will be with me forever.

may we all be that "special" person to another.  may we seek to see through their eyes and walk in their shoes.  may we give love without condition.  may we remember that we influence others in ways that we will never know.  shalom.

 

There's A Better Day A-comin'

my great-grandmother, my maternal grandmother's mother, was born during the civil war.  no one is sure of the exact year of her birth, but she could recount events from that war that occurred in her childhood.  it seems that her mother, my great-great-grandmother married a man who came through their little  community in southwest arkansas.  he was from pine bluff, arkansas, and after their marriage, he and his bride moved back there.  he was known by the title of "doctor," but we're not sure if he was a medical doctor or had given himself that appellation.  he seems to have been something of a scoundrel, and after several years of marriage and several children, including my great-grandmother, my great-great-grandmother left him in the middle of the night while he was out carousing.  she loaded the children and all the belongings that she could on a wagon, hitched up the horses, and returned to her family's home in southwest arkansas.  such a journey took great courage.  the distance was over 200 miles over primitive roads in the aftermath of the civil war.  

this is where my "grandma kate," as we all called her, grew up, and married a man from her community, my great-grandfather orren.  they had seven children who lived to adulthood, three sons and four daughters, of which my grandmother was the oldest.  after the birth of the youngest child, orren passed away, leaving grandma kate to raise these children on their small farm.  my grandma kate could recall the difficulties this presented in the midst of recovery from the war.  she told of her contempt for the ku klux klan that terrorized people in her area, both black and white, and the struggle to hold onto her land in an era when taxes were difficult to pay from the meager proceeds she and the children could earn from their crops.

after her children reached an age where they could live independently, grandma kate sold her farm and went to live with her daughter, bess, in magnolia, arkansas.  she lived with bess for several years, until she married a man from indiana after her first husband had died.  grandma kate believed that her struggles raising her family on their farm was caused by the northerners who had come into the south after the civil war and told bess that she couldn't live with "that yankee" in her home.  she moved to live with my grandmother and helped raise my grandparents' four children.

grandma kate was a lively woman.  she was a staunch baptist and believed that games that involved cards or dice were the work of the devil, so any time she discovered her grandchildren playing any such game it was burned.  she was a talented seamstress and did lovely embroidery work.  some of it is still in my possession.  despite her strict baptist convictions, she was a loving person.  she and my grandfather had lively discussions about religion and politics, and, though they agreed on many things, when they disagreed, sparks flew.  

one of the things she passed on to her descendants is a love for coffee.  i remember her taking her small great-grandchildren who could barely drink from a cup into her lap, where she would spoon some coffee with cream and sugar into her saucer.  taking a spoon, she would cool the coffee by blowing on it and let the child sip it from her spoon, as she declared that she once had to do without coffee when it was scarce after the war and no one in her family would ever have to do without coffee again.  under her influence, we all became avid coffee drinkers.

when television became commonplace, my grandparents bought a small set for their living room.  grandma kate was scandalized by the costumes women on tv shows wore.  "they might as well be naked," she would say, but she watched them nonetheless.  one of her granddaughters smoked cigarettes, and grandma kate would admonish her for her "unladylike" habit.  she said that while dipping snuff or smoking a dainty pipe was acceptable for a woman, cigarettes should only be smoked by men.  for many years, grandma kate dipped snuff, and i remember her coming home from church one sunday in a huff.  the preacher had exhorted the congregation to abandon the evils of tobacco, mentioning not only cigarettes and cigars but also snuff and pipe tobacco.  grandma kate said he had stopped preaching and started meddling.

one of the many things i learned from grandma kate is that women are the equals of men.  while she adhered to strict gender roles, she was adamant that a woman could do anything as well as a man when the situation called for it.  she never backed down from her position when someone disagreed with her, and she insisted that a woman ought to be able to take care of herself without help from a man.  she also taught all us of the importance of family.  no matter how much someone disagreed with a member of the family, family was still family and should always be there when one needs it.  she said that if we can't or won't take care of our own, how can we be trusted to take care of those outside the family.

may i remember the lessons i learned from grandma kate.  may we all value our families, even when we dislike or disagree with some members of them.  may we learn to help one another and remember that there is really no such thing as "self-reliance."  may we pass on the values of those who've gone before to those who follow after us.  shalom.

The Years I Spent With You

for the next several weeks i want to write about those who have gone before, whose influence and presence in my life have contributed much of what and who i am.  i am fortunate to have known all four of my grandparents for most of my formative years, as well as an extended family that included my maternal grandmother's mother, many great-aunts and great-uncles, my parents' brothers and sisters, and their children.  we lived less than an hour's drive from both sets of grandparents.  for most of my life while living with my parents, we went to one or the other most Sunday afternoons and were often joined there by other family members, including some of my first cousins.

those afternoons with my grandparents and their children and grandchildren were among the happiest of my life.  i was deeply attached to some of my cousins, especially those who were near the same age as me.  i've stayed in contact with those first cousins throughout my life.  i have reached the stage of my life that my parents, their parents, and all of my great-aunts and great-uncles, as well as my parents' siblings and their spouses, save one, and two of my first cousins have died.  my one remaining aunt, the wife of one of my mother's three brothers, is in her nineties and lives in an assisted living facility two states away.  i hope to get one more visit with her during her lifetime and to see her son, my first cousin, who is a year younger than me.  

sundays at my grandparents' homes were magical times for me.  it was the tradition of my maternal grandmother to prepare a meal to be eaten in the early afternoon.  we all gathered around her huge dining table and ate the wonderful food she had prepared.  she was a great cook, and, because my grandparents owned a small grocery store that was attached to their home, she had instant access to every ingredient she could possibly need.  usually there would be ten or more of us at the table, and the chatter was endless.  everyone could speak, and even the smallest children were made to feel as though what they had to say was important.  no topic was off-limit.  we talked about politics, religion, the weather, other kinfolk and friends and reported to the others what was going on in our lives.  this type of family gathering is almost unheard of now, but it was most wonderful for me as i grew up surrounded by so many who cared for me.

when we went to my paternal grandparent's home on sunday afternoons, the atmosphere was much quieter.  my father's brother and his family lived a block from my grandparents, and they would often join us until they moved away when i was in the six years old.  my aunt and uncle had two children, a daughter who was my age and a son who was two years younger.  i enjoyed playing with them both at my grandparents' and at their home down the street.  occasionally, my father's sister, her husband, and their two children would join us for part of the afternoon, but they didn't usually stay for dinner.  they lived about ten miles away in the next town.  my aunt and uncle's two children were a boy two years older than me and a daughter the same age as me.  my father's family was very reserved, and there was much less conversation, even at the dinner table.  my grandmother prepared an evening meal, so we usually ate lunch at our home before we left to visit them or stopped at a restaurant or burger stand along the way.  while this grandmother's food was tasty, it didn't compare to the meals my maternal grandmother served.  there was a sense of calm and quiet that prevailed in their home, a marked contrast to that of my other grandparents.  nonetheless, i enjoyed being there, and because i was always somewhat introverted, i was comfortable with my father's family.  his mother was a very kind person and took a special interest in me.  it was always obvious that for some reason i was her favorite grandchild, perhaps because our temperaments were so similar.

this connection with my extended family on both sides was an important part of my young life.  i will always be grateful for those sunday afternoons and early evenings at their homes.  i look forward to writing about many of the individuals who made up our close-knit families.  

may we cherish those who are important in forming the people we've become.  may we remember happy times that made our childhoods wonderful and be forgiving for times that may not have been so happy.  may we be grateful for those who have gone before us and appreciate the legacy they left behind.  shalom.

Ever Open to Joy and Love

in the last few days, i've been thinking about gratitude.  as i meditate, i try to list many of the things for which i am grateful.  it's impossible to compile a complete list of everything that blesses our lives.  i am amazed, as i contemplate those many things and people.  my list seems endless.  i was talking with a friend about this topic a few days ago.  his wife had placed a tray of cookies in front of us, and i said, "just think of these cookies.  how many people were involved in making it possible for us to enjoy this treat!  there are those who produced the raw products, those who processed them, those who delivered them to the store, the store employees who made them available to us, the person who devised the recipe to combine the ingredients, the manufacturers of the implements, bowls, and oven that made it possible to bake the cookies, and finally your wife who prepared them, not to mention those involved in the creation of the tray on which they are being served."  when we say we are thankful for the cookies, we forget most of those who made our reason for gratitude possible.

in every facet of our lives, we encounter similar situations.  we are dependent on so many people, people we have never seen or thought of.  our lives are made up of an interconnected web of people to whom we owe a debt of gratitude without ever realizing it.  we can take any one thing for which we are thankful and meditate on all those who made our object of gratitude possible.  every sunday in most churches we sing "praise God from whom all blessings flow," but we don't stop to think of all those through whom that flow takes place so that we can enjoy God's blessings.  it is not God alone that blesses us, but a myriad stream of others who are the agents of blessing.

may we not forget that we are dependent on many others for everything that we have and enjoy.  may we become a part of the stream of blessing that flows from God and passes through an infinite number of other beings.  may we take time to be grateful and, in so doing, become the object of another's gratitude.  shalom.

If It Makes You Feel All Right

i had a conversation with a friend yesterday about the complications that our reliance on technology has caused us.  we don't think we can go anywhere without our cell phones.  we believe that we need to have our questions answered immediately by looking up information on the internet.  we watch 24-hour news channels that bring us the latest happenings instantly.  along with this instant access to information and to other people via our phones have come myriad problems.  we have difficulty functioning in our daily lives when we can't access the internet.  we spend large portions of our income on internet access and to have huge numbers of channels on our televisions.

as our conversation continued, my friend and i both longed for the days when we had to wait for the evening news on tv when walter cronkite or huntley and brinkley would inform us about what had happened earlier in the day.  we didn't spend our days seeking the most recent news and worrying about the implications of that news.  we were not instantly accessible to whomever wanted to talk to us.  if someone called and we were not at home, they couldn't even leave a message.  they had to call again later.  we had to go to the library and pull the appropriate volume of an encyclopedia or a book on the subject off the shelf when we needed an authoritative answer to a question.

of course, there was a great deal of inconvenience to the "old way" of doing things.  we couldn't always go to the library at the time we needed an answer to a question.  we couldn't reach someone in an emergency.  we couldn't even leave a message if someone we needed to talk to was unavailable.  we couldn't let another know if we were going to be late for an appointment.  events that had a major impact on our lives couldn't be forseen and prepared for as readily.  

in many respects, the reliance on technology that began with the industrial revolution and continues through the innovations of today's information revolution has made our lives more convenient and less physically demanding, but we pay a price for that convenience.  we become less healthy if we spend much of our time seated in front of one screen or another.  we are more stressed as we try to figure out how to make our new technologically advanced gadgets work and as we are constantly available to whomever calls us.  of course, the solution to these problems is to control the technology rather than allowing it to control us.  no one forces us to sit with our computers, cell phones, and televisions staring back at us.  we don't have to answer the phone every time it rings with a call, text, or email.

may we learn to use what technology has given us responsibly.  may we control the technology rather than allowing it to control us.  may we weigh the advantages these advances have brought us against the harm they may do to us if we are too reliant on them.  may people always be more important than technology.  may we use whatever tools are at our disposal to make our lives and the lives of others better.  shalom.

If You Hear the Song I Sing

we have returned safely from a wonderful trip to canada.  the scenery in the canadian rockies was breath-taking, despite the haze of smoke from the forest fires in northern canada that obscured the views during much of our trip.  during our stay, we went to butchart gardens on vancouver island, and that was the highlight of the trip for me.  the beauty of the flowers there was overwhelming.  i could have spent several days wandering along the paths and marveling at the wonders of the plants and blooms of every hue.

the remarkable kindness of the canadian people touched me even more than the wonderful sights we saw.  on every trip we take, i come home with a heart filled with gratitude to the strangers who showed us kindness on our travels.  the graciousness of those we encountered in canada surpassed any we have experienced elsewhere in the world.  that every person we met was considerate and helpful was beyond anything i can express in words.  we'd always heard that the word "nice" is the best descriptor of canadians, and i can concur with that assessment.  

now that i'm home, i wonder why this is.  the aggressive behavior of americans contrasts with the patience of those who live north of our borders.   even on the highways when traffic was at its busiest, drivers never attempted to cut each other off or refused to let another car change lanes as is often the case here.  during the entire trip, we didn't see one traffic accident.  on the whole, canada appears to be a prosperous country.  we saw no homeless people on the streets of vancouver, the largest city we visited, or anywhere else in canada.  those with whom we spoke never expressed complaints about anything in their society.  their positivity was consistent and refreshing.

perhaps it is the origins of our country that has made us as we are.  the usa was borne from a violent conflict with our british rulers.  our economy was based on the enslavement of africans who were forced to labor in order to enrich their owners in the south and provide the raw material for factories in the north.  a terrible civil war was necessary to bring an end to this vile system.  our canadian friends never experienced any of these things.  maybe that is why the national psyche of our two countries are so different, despite our many commonalities.

may we learn from our "nice" friends to the north.  may we americans see that kindness to others is the best way to live.  may we learn to be more patient.  may we bless rather than curse.  may we learn to seek good for each other rather than seeing life as a struggle to get the best of another.  may we let go of our violent past and learn from it.  shalom.