Author: danwhitehi@gmail.com

Winter has settled in at our house in Hawaii. (I can hear you snickering at the concept!) The World Series is over, and it is two-and-one-half months until pitchers and catchers report to Spring training.

Judy and I have been looking at the hundreds of slides Mom had at her house. There were slides from the 1940s to the 1970s. Family vacations, contacts with friends, cute pictures of one or or of Mom’s kids at various stages of our growing up (amazingly equal in number per child!): the photos chronicled important parts of Mom’s life.

People of a Certain Age, a word of encouragement: if you have saved pictures of your life, look at them occasionally. It is a way to meet again your former self.

Judy noted that, in a significant number of slides, I was dressed in a baseball uniform. Early me wore gray and red, a store-bought uni. Later me got the white with red trim of my Little League team in Seattle and the white with blue trim of the Mission Hills Realty Giants in San Diego. Apparently, my love of baseball has lasted more than 65 years!

So, as you might expect, as a lifelong fan of the game, I watched the World Series this year. Dear reader, if your eyes glaze over at the mention of baseball specifically or athletics in general, bear with me. My purpose is not to persuade you regarding the beauty of the choreography of defensive plays as a ball is hit or the romanticism of a game where, as George Carlin once noted, the purpose is to move through green fields to go home.

No, the seven games played between the Chicago Cubs , who had not won a championship in 108 years, and the Cleveland Indians, owners of the second-longest title drought—since 1948, the year after I was born—offer the chance to reflect on some things.

First, baseball is a game. The people who play it and the people who watch it should be having the fun playing a game implies, all the tense moments notwithstanding. And, a game is not real life in the sense that war, pestilence, poverty or injustice present themselves to us as real life.

It is a diversion. Thank heavens for diversions! The intensity of the news this fall demanded a time out, a chance to think about something else. This urgency to take a breather is manifested in the pictures we have seen of children playing soccer in a refugee camp or the Christmas Eve soccer game in December 1914 between men of the German and Allied armies. A machine that does not offload pressure is apt to explode.

Second, baseball and its World Series are rituals. The older I get, the more I appreciate ritual. Every November, Americans are encouraged by an annual holiday to give thanks. Every July, American excitement over independence explodes in fireworks. On January 20 every four years, we transfer political power peacefully in a sacred, secular moment.

Rituals connect us, to the past and, one hopes, to the future. Reminding ourselves that we are only small parts of a continuous story is healthy.

Third, this Series itself. As Scott Simon observed on NPR, the Cubs come from a city where more than 600 people have been murdered in 2016, and the Indians are from a city one-third the size of the city when they won the Series in 1948. The teams were bright lights in less bright settings, cities where there were reasons for discouragement.

The excitement of a seven game Series with the final game marked by dramatic ebbs and flows, decided in the end by only one run, gave the residents of both cities, rich and poor, black, brown and white, educated or not, the opportunity to cheer for teams of ballplayers who gave their best efforts to win the game. In that could be found moments of civic pride.

The Series even provided a particular opportunity for humor about God. At a critical juncture in the game, when the momentum had shifted to the favor of the Indians, it began to rain. The delay of the game was a scant twenty minutes but enough to blunt the momentum. Wags observed that God was clearly a Cubs’ fan.

The baseball world has changed because the Cubs won. Their triumph won’t solve the problem of homelessness or income inequality. But it does take away a staple from baseball; those “lovable losers,” the Cubs, defiantly proclaiming, after placing fourth, fifth or tenth, “wait ‘til next year.”

In that there is a ray of hope. “Next year” has come for the Cubs. They are the champs. What other impossibilities can be overcome?

And, winter at the Hawaii White House (the benign daily temperatures notwithstanding) will end when Spring training comes again.

I don’t think I will go out and buy a baseball uniform to celebrate. I have pictures.

 

Daniel E. White

November 28, 2016

 

As Judy’s plane descended into San Diego, she was aware of a dad talking to his little boy about the process of landing. Perhaps this was the boy’s first flight, and explaining about the plane slowing down and then hitting the ground with its tires would reassure the youngster. Dad made brief comments as the plane came closer and closer to touchdown. Finally, everyone felt the wheels hit the tarmac.

“He did it, Daddy. He did it,” squealed the boy, clapping his hands with delight.

I have liked the Sinatra song “My Way” for years. Unfortunately, the words, my way, have been co-opted in a phrase not meant to be positive—my way or the highway! However, I find satisfaction in words that reinforce my feelings of accomplishment and self-value. This, despite the fact that, for me and for most of us, our “way” has been aided time and again by mentors, parents, spouses, friends, etc.

But, whatever any of us does reflects the uniqueness of our individual capacities and humanity. My way is not, and never could be, exactly your way.

These days, it is the verb that stands out for me. I did it. Not I thought about it. I acted.

 My recent work with Ed.D. students at the University of Hawaii has promoted my further thought about action. The program seeks to prepare students for “leadership in social justice.” That emphasis piqued my curiosity about notions of social justice. So I read a little.

How social justice has been defined and understood has varied. A consistent thread, however, is the necessity of social action. To value ideas about equality and upholding the dignity of each individual means little if not accompanied by action. Acting on one’s belief: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, as well as secular theorists about social justice, echo each other on this point.

A favorite verse in the Bible (one used by two Presidents as they swore the oath of office) stipulates three requirements set down by Jehovah. The first is to do justly. Understanding what that means has filled books of philosophy and religious teaching. But the verb is clear. Do.

People of a Certain Age, is not the best way to understand what a person believes to look at what that person does?

You can tell me you are willing to take risks, try new things. My friend who, in her 70s, skydives shows me that she does.

You can tell me about the importance of offering aid to help the people of Haiti who have suffered devastation through earthquakes and hurricanes. My friends’ son has gone to Haiti to serve those in need; he has shown me.

You can tell me what you believe, and I might be impressed. You can show me what you have done, your values in action, and I will believe you.

Teddy Roosevelt once said that the man (read “person” in 2016) to be admired was not the critic or the spectator but the one in the arena. Nike has sold millions of shoes urging people to “just do it.”

If only doing was that easy!

You and I are blessed and burdened by capacities to think and feel. It is usually good for us to think before we act. Can we not also think our way out of worthwhile action because we worry that the costs are too high or the outcomes too unpredictable?

Feelings, too, affect doing. If fear is the default feeling, cannot fear of rejection or criticism or injury check action? Which of us chooses to stand out in a crowd to stand up for something we value? And then backs that up with action?

As a part of a booklet for student leaders, Dr. Kent M. Keith, in 1968, wrote “The Paradoxical Commandments.” The first line of each commandment states the challenge. The second line, in various ways, says “do it anyway.” The last commandment, for example, is “Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world your best anyway.”

Finding the will to do, to act in the face of whatever dangers or hurdles there might be, including those in one’s own mind, is an act of courage. There are among us people who perform daily acts of courage. Veterans Day reminds us of one such group.

You can question my courage, but one thing I probably will not do is to jump out of a plane. I bear an inbred fear of moving at high speed toward the ground and no special reason to overcome that fear.

I wonder if the pilot on Judy’s plane, even with all the training and experience, has the same fear. Did that pilot, when the plane rolled to a stop on the runway, say quietly, “I did it?” Aren’t we lucky that, as we move through our lives “our way,” there are pilots to land our planes?

Daniel E. White

November 14, 2016

“Come on in,” Mom called out when she heard the door from the garage open. I did, and hugged her, careful not to do so when a couple was still in their routine, and then sat down. At the next commercial break, we repeated the hug and spoke until the dancing returned.

Many of my visits to Mom in the last few years began on the night Dancing with the Stars was on TV. Mom followed the show faithfully. She filled in the back stories of the stars for anyone watching with her, expressing special interest in those who had overcome some adversity to get to where they were. If a favorite got voted out of the competition, Mom showed a genuine empathy for the one who lost each week, perhaps even some sadness.

I could never figure out how the acrobatics I watched with her related to the announced dance style for the week. I also had trouble with how the judges squared their comments with the rating number each held up. But, they made sense to Mom. I felt genuine joy for her as she engaged in the show and its people because I believe it engaged fond memories for her.

Mom loved to dance. Or, at least, I think she did. I don’t remember seeing her dance in person ever. I think I can recall her saying that she liked to dance, though. And in my mind, I can conjure up my tallish (for the times), slender Mom and my Clark Gable dark-haired handsome Dad gliding across the dance floor at Bethany College, after Dad gave her his fraternity pin, the first formal act toward engagement.

I see her in the fashion of the day doing the dances of the day to the big band music of Benny Goodman or Glenn Miller, played by the local collection of musicians. None of her dances would have looked much like the Dancing with the Stars routines but that didn’t really matter. It was the romance of moving to the music.

Now for her, the romance was a joyful memory, a fantasy, to be sure, but a moment when Mom was ageless. In my own way, I could identify with the magic of such moments; my memory vehicle is baseball.

People of a Certain Age, what is your joyful memory, the place where you can go in your mind to be ageless?

The Lawrence Welk Show was another set piece in Mom’s week. Saturday evenings revolved around the 6 p.m. telecast of old shows, hosted by one of the Welk Show performers from the old days. Mom could tell you back stories about those performers, too.

The music came from the era, of course, and because Welk was on for 25 years, there was quite a variety. So even I could find moments of nostalgia as favorite songs from my younger days were performed by one or another of the 20+ people on each program.

Several times each broadcast, the cameras turned to the live audience, many of whom were dancing. Mom always smiled when she saw those pictures. Most of the dancers were “of a certain age” but there were younger people as well.

One of the allures of dancing is that it is a democratic activity. Anyone can dance. Not necessarily well. My sense of rhythm extends to six beats. I was saved by the 60s styles of dancing which often did not involve being close enough to your partner to step on her toes.

Judy and I did go to many dances in high school and college, though, because that was the staple of student social life. The longer we dated, the more we preferred the slow dances for reasons not related to dance. Through the years we have enjoyed watching dance performance in many forms. Dance for us is a spectator sport.

That’s what it had to be for Mom in her later life—a spectator sport. She had eclectic tastes. She would watch in awe when a troupe of Irish dancers pounded out their rhythms with the lower halves of their bodies. She delighted in the rat-a-tat-tat of tap dancers, and especially liked Arthur Duncan’s work on the Welk show. She always had a story about him. I can’t recall whether she liked ballet but a tango was as sensual to her at 95 as it must have been when she was 20.

One year ago, I wrote an “About Aging” entitled “Dia de Los Muertos.” In it, I referred to its celebratory character for those who observe the day, a time filled “with dancing and revelry, if not actual, then in spirit.” I pledged to throw a party for Dia each year I am around, stipulating that one could not be physically alive to attend. I knew that, each year, my guest list would grow.

I did not know that the newest invitee for this year’s party would be Mom. We had a wonderful celebration of her life with her friends and family on October 22. Tomorrow, the party will be virtual, actual only in my head.

You aren’t confined to bed anymore, Mom. Dance until dawn. I’ll be watching.

Dan White

October 31, 2016

Several times I have started to write a fictionalized version of my father’s career as a minister. I have a title: The Twelfth Disciple. I have an underlying theme: sons bear fathers’ hopes. I have dramatic scenes in my head of near-cinematic quality. The farthest I have gotten is 24 typewritten pages, done with a friend in the 1970s.

I shared my most recent attempt—15 years ago—with an English teacher friend. She read my description of a son flying down the center of California to be with his dad (named Matthais, like the twelfth disciple, once Judas was gone) as he lay dying. My friend made a few English-teacher-type suggestions, all helpful were I to have continued writing.

Then she asked, “Who is this book really about?”

She nailed me.

People of a Certain Age who may be inclined to record the past for posterity, if you were to write about one of your parents, in a memoir or in fiction, whom would the book be about?

The title, The Twelfth Disciple, offers me a biblical way to talk about the poles of my dad’s life, perhaps any life. Judas Iscariot, we all know about. Matthais was chosen by the remaining eleven disciples for his virtue.

The theme–sons bear fathers’ hopes–is an assertion. More than just genes or a family name pass from father to son. A family business, a sharing of occupation, a host of expectations; those can be part of the package, too. Some sons embrace the father’s vision. Others resist, sometimes not nicely. Seldom is the vision ignored.

My grandfather wanted to be a minister, but his eyesight was too impaired for academic study. Dad wanted to become a doctor but became a minister. Why? How’s this for dramatic tension?

When you and I read the same novel, we bring to our reading our uniqueness, an individualized lens. Why would it not also be true that when we write, we interpret facts through a lens of our own?

I thought Dad’s life had enough drama to make for good reading, events that would serve as teachable moments in the life of the Matthais I would create. Whether I could describe the events as nearly as they happened, though, would be a mark of luck.

For example, I was told that, at a key juncture in his life, Dad was a finalist to be senior pastor at two different churches. One was a small parish in West Virginia. The second was a larger church in Ohio connected with a nearby college, allowing Dad, as was his desire, to work with college students as well as parishioners. The small church offered him its job first and wanted an answer before the second church would choose.

Dad took the bird in his hand. The second church did, in fact, offer him their job. Dad reasoned that he had given his word to the first church, and his word was his bond, the opportunity to do what he really wanted to do notwithstanding.

The telling of the story in this way reflects the value he placed on “giving his word.” I’d like my word to be understood to be my bond, too.

Or, the story about the man in the congregation who called Dad to tell him that he had a gun and was going to shoot his wife and then himself. Probably the call was a sign that he wanted to be talked out of his plan but still, there was a gun involved. Dad went to the house, spent hours listening, talking, and praying. The incident ended with the man getting the psychiatric help that he needed.

I’d like to see myself as cool under pressure, the one who defuses tense situations and saves everyone’s lives.

Who is this book about anyway?

In the 1970s version, I made up a story to explain why Dad left his position at a church he liked, where he was well-liked, and where he could work with college students. He was the number two pastor in the largest church of that denomination in the region. My story involved Dad’s knowing about an affair between the senior pastor and a secretary, and Dad confronting the man.

The senior pastor offered to help Dad land the lead job at the largest church in another region. He was uncomfortable with Dad staying around knowing what he knew.

Another moral dilemma, perfect for a novel about a guy called Matthias, the twelfth disciple.

One evening I shared my tale with older friends who had been actively involved in that church when Dad was there. Their faces turned white.

“How did you find out?” one of them asked.

Pure luck, right?

How much, my men friends, do our fathers inhabit us subconsciously? How far does the apple fall from the tree?

I might yet write the book. Thanks to my teacher-friend, I won’t delude myself about my subject. Dad and I are inextricably a part of each other.

Daniel E. White

October 17, 2016

Recently on NPR, there were two stories, seemingly unrelated, that came together as ringing testimony to the core strength of the United States of America.

A young Sikh-American woman who makes films described a scenario in which one of her professors, also Sikh, was riding a local bus somewhere in the U.S. shortly after 9/11. The professor was aware that anti-Muslim, anti-Sikh sentiment had spiked in the country since the attack, but he had thus far avoided any such unpleasantness himself.

Then a man sitting in the front of the bus stood up, turned and pointed at the professor. “Why don’t you and your terrorist friends go back to where you came from,” he shouted.

(At this point in the story, what do you think is going to happen?)

The professor froze and tried to make himself appear as non-threatening as possible. Before the man could say or do anything else, the people on the bus between the two men stood up and told the man to back off. In the words of the woman telling the story to NPR, “we, the people, stood up.”

The professor got off at the next stop. So did the man. He approached the professor as the people on the bus watched, holding their collective breath. The man thrust his arm toward the professor, palm open, to shake hands. The professor took his hand.

“I’m sorry,” said the man. “My daughter was killed in the second tower, and I have been on the edge ever since. I should not have spoken to you as I did.”

The second story involved an NPR reporter of mixed ethnic heritage telling about his love of “Star Trek.” The original series was about ten years old when the reporter, at that time only 6, saw his first episode. He was immediately drawn to Dr. Spock because Spock, like the reporter was a blend of two ethnicities.

As a teenager, the reporter went on, he realized that the command deck of the Starship Enterprise was multi-ethnic, including an African-American woman who was fourth in command, a representation of the ethnic diversity of the United States.

True, the reporter acknowledged, the fourth in command was never photographed sitting in the command chair; this was, after all, only the 1970s. But the command deck was an ethnic rainbow hurtling through space.

I suspect that few of you celebrated on September 16 this year. You might if you were Mexican, and you celebrate Mexican Independence Day (no, that is not what Cinco de Mayo celebrates). Or you would if you had been married on that date, as were Judy and I.

History wonks might have done because September 16, 2016 was celebrated as Constitution Day (really, it was September 17, but that was a Saturday and unsuitable as a holiday), marking the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787.

People of a Certain Age, because you attended school when high school graduates could be reasonably expected to know U.S. History, you know that the Preamble of the Constitution begins “We the People.” Sometimes in our history, the “we” has been hard to see. In such times, partisans tend to view “we” as applying only to those who are like them or agree with them or both. Seeing individuals as unique persons instead of members of a gender or ethnic group or political party, etc. gives way to a sense of clan, where fear of “other” takes hold.

Whether or not you believe we are now in one of those periods might depend upon your politics. Regardless, our history has such times. If your lineage is Irish, Italian, Eastern European, African, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican—the list is long—at some point in our history, people like you have been excluded because of ethnicity.

But the command deck of the Enterprise represents the ideal United States of America, does it not? The Preamble is inclusive: we the people. The Declaration of Independence is decisive: all men are created equal.

Paralleling the historical record above is a longer and deeper litany of “unremembered acts of kindness and of love,” as Wordsworth put it, performed by average people every day. The people on the bus became a “we” protecting a man of a different faith from intimidation. The threatening man, when rescued from his grief by the others, extended his hand in friendship to the man he had threatened just a moment before, taking his step toward “we.”

We teach children to pledge allegiance to “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” The indivisible part alludes to the Civil War. The one nation idea reflects our aspirations politically. Liberty and justice for all is where the pledge becomes a matter of morality for we, the people.

There is much heat and little light as political figures argue about whether or not something is constitutional. The fact is, in our system, the Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means at any given moment.

What we get to define is the “we” in the Preamble. The people on the bus, and the creators of the Enterprise had visions of “we.” What are ours?

 

Daniel E. White

October 3, 2016

Forty-nine years ago September 20, Judy and I were about to set off on our honeymoon.

My in-laws helped pay for our honeymoon. Not, as in “here’s a check, go knock yourselves out.” They were shrewder. “Here’s a check for the wedding. Whatever you don’t spend, you can keep.”

Dad was a minister. So, the church came free. The church ladies put on a reception. A friend’s mom made the wedding cake, complete with a bride’s cake. My wife made her dress as did her bridesmaids. Another friend got a deal on flowers from the florist where he worked. My groomsmen and I wore our dark Sunday suits. We had money left over.

We planned six nights away, fitted between the last day of my summer job and the first day back for our senior year in college. Those last days of my job would mean a little more cash for the trip.

We planned to drive to Monterey, up the famous Highway 1, taking in, at a leisurely pace, the scenic splendor of the rugged coastline. Our first night would be at Motel 6 in Santa Barbara. We would splurge on a cabin at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park and Motel 6-it back home to Riverside. The trip would be our first experience together where we would make ourselves available for whatever fun thing might pop up, in this case in the Monterey area.

Motel 6 cost $25 a night, plus tax. Gasoline cost 22 cents a gallon. With our plan and our cash, we were set for honeymoon bliss. This became our first lesson about plans and God laughing.

We got to our apartment in Riverside at 5 p.m. to get ready for an early start the next morning. Waiting for us at our doorstep was the college psychologist with a friend of ours in tow. He looked depressed.

“He’s threatened to harm himself. Can he stay with you until his roommate gets here?” she asked.

People of a Certain Age, have you ever noted how easy it is to answer a question when there is only one possible responsible response?

That evening he and I walked around town for three hours. He barely spoke. The next day, the three of us drove to my sister’s house, thinking that a change of scenery might help. For two days, he talked more, telling me a few things that bothered him, none of which seemed too horrible to me but were to him.

Then, we drove back to his apartment and left him in the company of his roommate. Our obligation was over, for now.

The next morning, we raced away, as fast as greater metropolitan Los Angeles morning traffic allowed anyone to race anywhere, even in 1967. We needed to be back in three days, so we by-passed our Santa Barbara reservation and stopped at the Motel 6 in Santa Maria. Along the way, we called the state park, hoping that a cabin would still be available. One of their rustic cabins was open. We booked it.

Thus, we were committed to a faster drive up Highway 1 than we intended or was advisable. Each stop at a scenic overlook was on the clock. We took pictures and moved on. What I remember was pretty but I can’t be sure that I remember the actual scenery or just the pictures.

After dinner, we arrived at Pfeiffer Big Sur and got our cabin. It was at this point that we realized that rustic meant the woods were really, really dark, and there was no heater in the cabin. The air outside was coastal September foggy. It was cold enough and dark enough to make us appreciate the warmth of another human being cuddled up beside you. I don’t think we slept much.

At first light, we were off to Monterey for the highlight of our trip, an abalone sandwich at the restaurant at the end of the Monterey pier. We couldn’t spend much time around town because we needed to be back at the Santa Maria Motel 6 in order to make it home on time to register for classes. This time, we drove U.S. 101.

We slept better that night.

The next day we got back without incident, in time to get the classes we wanted, a little more money in our pockets than we had expected.

Three postscripts. Our friend recovered fully, served one career in the military and a second working in IT. We have never spoken about those darker times. He was the first of several friends who have found refuge at our home over the years.

Secondly, we dutifully transported the bride’s cake with us to graduate school to eat on our first anniversary. It had spoiled. We just laughed.

Third, years later, we ended up buying the psychologist’s home in Riverside; she and her husband were retiring and moving. We suggested a discount on the price, given her role in changing our honeymoon plans. Didn’t work.

Forty-nine years later, we still laugh.

Dan White

September 20, 2016

Have you ever heard of Henry Cuyler Bunner? I hadn’t either until I read his story, “Our Aromatic Uncle,” copyrighted in 1896, the year of his death. Perhaps his greatest claim to fame is that he was, for a time, editor of “Puck.” I haven’t read that publication, though at least I have heard of it.

The short story is in a volume called “Short Stories for English Courses,” edited by Rosa M.R. Mikels. Her Preface begins:

“Why must we confine the reading of our children to the older literary classics? This is a question asked by an ever-increasing number of thoughtful teachers. They have no wish to displace or discredit the classics. On the contrary, they love and revere them. But they do wish to give their pupils something additional, something that pulses with present life, that is characteristic of today. The children, too, wonder that, with the great literary outpouring going on about them, they must always fill their cups from the cisterns of the past.”

Reading these words, I was hooked. They might have been written by any of the fine teachers of English with whom I have worked in my teaching career. What made Rosa Mikels’ words stand out is that they introduced a volume published in 1915 and re-issued in 1920. Obviously, it was intended as a textbook, and somehow I have come to think that the Los Angeles City School District might have been one to adopt it.

I bought the book for two dollars at an antique store in Los Alamos—California, not New Mexico. Its stories kept me affixed for a long enough time to allow Judy a thorough scouring of the shop. Thus continued a long-standing feature of our years of happiness together; as long as I have a book, she has the time she wants to browse.

The story is simple. A bakery boy of small stature idolizes the son of a judge in Boston, early 19^th century. The bulk of the story is the narrator’s account of how the grand-daughter of the judge, now the story-teller’s wife, received an ever-increasing number of gifts of an increasing value from China, where the judge’s son has established a prosperous business.

After many years, this “aromatic” uncle (so dubbed because of the fragrances of many of the gifts), comes to visit. The three form an affectionate bond, amplified by the evident joy the couple’s baby finds in the uncle’s arms.

One day, the uncle’s sister, an unpleasant woman, comes to visit. When she first sees him, she cries out “That ain’t him.” She produces a picture of her brother taken years ago showing him with one arm. Beside the brother in the picture is his business partner, the man now visiting from China and called “our aromatic Uncle.”

Auntie storms away, never to be seen again. This is viewed as a blessing by the couple. They, in turn, embrace their visitor warmly, continuing to regard him as their uncle.

The man explains himself. He is, in fact, the bakery boy of old who ran off to sea to be “body-guard, servant, and friend to the splendid, showy, selfish youth whom he worshipped, whose heartlessness he cloaked for many a long year, who lived upon his bounty, and who died in his arms, nursed with a tenderness surpassing that of a brother.”

The judge’s son had made no attempt to maintain contact with his family so the bakery boy, now business partner, began pretending he was the uncle. He kept up the ruse throughout the lives of all the judge’s relatives; only the narrator’s wife and the haughty aunt remain. The hero-worshipper had become the hero, wrote editor Mikels.

The unmasking unnerved the uncle, and one day he disappeared. Some time later, he sent a note telling of another shipment of gifts. He concluded by saying that the couple would probably never hear from him again, except when they received the proceeds from his will. Once, in the company of the couple, he had complained that the only thing in life he could do well was to make money. So we assume…

I felt warm inside when I finished the story. It was as unexpected a treasure to me as were the proceeds of the will to the couple.

People of a Certain Age, how many times have treasures come to you unexpectedly? I wonder if, in order to feel like a treasure, whatever it is, it needs to be unexpected?

The treasure came to me by chance. I was in a new place rummaging through old things, looking for an interesting book with no specific desire regarding the kind of book. The volume is nondescript, like most texts. There was no particular reason why my hand should have rested on it as I scanned the jumble of books in the shop.

I have been blessed with many unexpected treasures in my life. Many involve people. Others have been places, Still others are books or musical compositions or plays.

What treasures come to mind for you?

Daniel E. White

September 6, 2016

I have noted before that Judy is our “books-on-tape,” the audio presentation of books we think we would like to read together and discuss. These discussions are often on the lanai with a glass of wine. It is one of the perks of our retirement.

We are currently reading Unforgettable, by Scott Simon. Simon has been a favorite NPR host for years, so I was inclined to buy his book anyway. The fact that it details the time he spent with his mother at the hospital in the few days before her death made it a natural for us to read, given Mom’s being in hospice care.

Simon uses tweets to begin and end chapters. An only child, he has collected memories of their lives together, she a single mom with a still-around dad, a drunk who was once a popular comic in clubs around Chicago. She had used her skills and good looks to cobble together the money to keep a roof over their heads. In their common experience of relative deprivation, a strong and loving bond between mother and son flourished.

My Mom was not a single mom, and I have two siblings. My dad provided adequately for us even though ministers in his denomination in those days seemed to be bound by an unspoken vow of poverty. Mom was home every morning when we left for school and when we came back each afternoon. In our common experience of relative security, insofar as 1950s families enjoyed such, a strong and loving bond between my mother and her sons and daughter flourished.

Simon tells stories, of entertainments enjoyed with his mom, of special meals, of contact with his mom’s family. Patricia’s efforts to provide for herself and Scott produced an array of gentleman friends, many colorful characters, some even generous. In the course of his time with her in ICU before she died, there were triggers to memories, and these memories almost always led to their laughing loudly together. The hospital staff took note of their levity in the midst of her end-of-life experience.

My Mom’s confinement to bed since February has meant that our times together often depended upon sharing memories. She took me, for example, to a movie in Seattle when I was about 7. We took the bus downtown to what might have been my first time in an indoor theater. We saw “Run Silent, Run Deep,” a war story about submarines. She remembered going to the movies but not the movie. Moms do things for sons that might not be on their list of must-dos.

Another time we saw June Allyson in “The Glenn Miller Story.” I had a crush on June, a blue-eyed blonde, like Mom. Whenever either of us heard the song “Little Brown Jug,” we remembered the Glenn Miller movie.

The laughter Simon writes about was the same as the laughter folks have associated with Mom. Her caregivers say that she cheers them up with her attitude. She was proud of her attitude. Her hospice nurse says that she has always left Mom’s house happier than when she came. Laughter was always a hallmark of our family, led by Mom.

At one point in those ICU hours, Patricia asked to see a favorite priest. Scott called him, and he came to visit. Patricia and Scott were not regulars at their parish but when the priest was with them in the room, they laughed and told stories, and even got in a prayer together.

Mom was a regular at her church until she was bedridden. Not being able to attend church on Sunday was a final straw for Mom as her world shrank. The first loss was when her neuropathy rendered her unable to use the needles to make her Bears by Ruth. She made teddy bears that ministers at her church took with them on hospital and in-home calls. Countless members of the church have or had one of her bears, and she even sent dozens with a Methodist mission to Vladivostok. The church recognized her “bear ministry” one Sunday with a plaque.

Then she was unable to get out of her pool. Swimming ten laps a day through her 93^rd year (provided the water temperature was within the acceptable range) was a great form of exercise and also a source of pride. But one day her knees did not allow her to climb the pool stairs and her upper body strength had waned. She could get into the pool but not out. We joked that she should get in and call 911 when ready to get out, once.

Not to go to church was to be cut off from her home away from home. Foothills United Methodist Church has sustained a climate of openness and acceptance through changes of ministers and the departure of a few folks who did not understand the central point of the Christian faith, love.

That climate was obvious this last week. The preacher was back from his son’s wedding in Norway, and the new Minister of Music and his wife, a Chinese Professor of Music at a university in Dalien (and bronze medalist in an all-China voice competition) were there to perform outstanding music. The Associate Pastor used various colors of M&Ms to illustrate to the children that, despite the coating, we are all the same inside. Mom would have loved all this.

Then the minister used a story from Luke to illustrate the centrality of love to the Christian faith. He proclaimed forcefully that, if you don’t see that in the teachings of Jesus, you simply miss the point. (Mom would have looked over at me and blinked her eyes in agreement.) To underscore his point, the preacher introduced us, first with a video and then in person, to the family of a transgender child who belong to the church. The congregation gave them a standing ovation for their courage in facing their challenge.

Mom was all about love, of her family and friends and also of those who could be unlovable.

That’s Mom’s church, her family apart from her blood relatives. To be cut off from that family was heart-breaking.

This was the Sunday her death was announced in the church bulletin. We could not have scripted a better hour of worship and celebration for the Sunday her death was noted by her church family.

We will celebrate her 96^th birthday one week early on October 22 and tell some more stories. We will invite owners to bring their Bears by Ruth. We will laugh a lot.

One final note: In ICU, Simon and Patricia hummed a few bars together of Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable.” When I got to Mom’s, about three hours after she died, her CD player was still playing softly the quartet of discs that was the backdrop for Mom every day in her home. The song playing? “Unforgettable.”

I should say so!

Daniel E. White

August 23, 2016

On a recent trip to San Diego, we met up with one set of friends we had not seen in decades and another with whom we had re-established contact after our 50^th high school reunion a couple of years ago. In each conversation, one or more of us commented that we did not feel the age indicated by our driver’s licenses but that various aches and pains reminded us that things, physically, were beginning to fall apart.

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” two phrases from the poem, The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats. The poem has a specific historical context and reflects Yeats’ gloominess over the state of the world. But, since reading the poem in college, these phrases have been worms, persistent residents in the recesses of my mind. As I age, they come into my consciousness more frequently, and not just in reference to my physical condition.

People of a Certain Age, you and I have lived long enough to see many “things fall apart,” and many “centers” that did not hold. Yeats’ lines are a poetic way to say “the only constant in life is change.” We have lived long enough to recognize our own reactions to this dynamism.

How well do you and I cope with change, things falling apart?

One of my friends laughed at herself in San Diego, wondering why she had fretted so much in her life over things that did not seem so important to her now. She had changed. So had the comparative seriousness of the things she had worried about.

You and I grew up in an era with fallout shelters in back yards, when there were no graphic sex scenes in mainstream movies, when most Americans attended church on Sunday. What changed? Besides us? What was falling apart?

That was also an era when women were expected to stay home and raise the kids, homosexuality was in the closet, and non-whites were just beginning to gain traction in their efforts to gain equal rights before the law. What changed? Besides us? What was falling apart?

Much has been written about our living in an Age of Anxiety, where once-established norms are less evident than before. Mistakenly, we think our age of anxiety is unique, usually because we have no sense of history.

Lest you think we are unique, consider this: before the Gutenberg Press, the Roman Catholic Church held a monopoly on Truth because the church controlled who could read what. Once the common man could read, and read more than the Bible… That “center” certainly did not hold. (Anyone thinking internet just now?)

Add into that disruption Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers and voila! You have decades of Catholics and Protestants all over Europe killing each other. A lot of people lived in fear because of what they believed. Things fell apart in a big way. That was an Age of Anxiety for sure!

In response to one of my recent musings, a friend wrote about the scientific assertion that the atoms in our bodies are now integrated into you and me but once were part of something else. Someday those atoms will be part of something else again. This thought is entirely consistent with another scientific assertion that matter is constant; nothing is ever lost or gained.

And, though your Chemistry class was long ago, do you remember entropy?

Years ago, Judy and I visited the home of James Hubbell, the renowned artist. I recall Jim getting very excited about a pile of bricks from a collapsed building. “All of those bricks,” he exclaimed, “just ready to be used again for something else.”

I told him that I admired his optimism. I still do. Jim’s attitude made things falling apart an opportunity.

If you know someone who is troubled by the noises of our daily lives that indicate things are falling apart, try these observations on him.

1) Love is not a thing. Its manifestations, like kindness and generosity of spirit, might dip in and out of our lives, but an act of kindness will forever remain so, a generous spirit will always be welcomed. Love outlasts lives.

2) Good news items outnumber bad ones. We just don’t hear about them because they are so numerous. Their great number might be what leads to bad being news. That, and the fact that bad news sells.

3) Yeats did not end his poem without hope. He wonders, “what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born” after “20 centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.”

4) Perspective helps. More than one act of terrorism occurred every week in the U.S.—in the 1960s! There were over 1000 bombings in the U.S. each year from 1972-74. Remember when we worried about planes being hijacked in the 1970s? Many saw those facts as evidence of things falling apart during those decades? We’re still here.

When centers fall apart, newness emerges. We call this hope.

If our bodies can just fall apart more slowly, maybe we will live to see the new, and it will be good. Meanwhile, we have love and kindness and the countless daily acts of generosity of spirit to hold onto.

Daniel E. White

August 8, 2016

I am lucky. I live in a house with a view. Bisecting the view is the straight line separating the sky from the ocean, the horizon. Of course, the horizon is not really a straight line. The center of my view is an optical illusion.

I had not thought much about horizons until sitting on a hotel lanai in Waikiki one early morning recently. A cruise ship sailed past, on the last leg of its inter-island journey. It carried me back to the Fall of 1965 when I was a student on the Seven Seas, the ship of the World Campus Afloat, headed across the Atlantic, New York and the Statue of Liberty fading out of sight.

There I stood, as close to the bow of the Seven Seas as I could be, looking at the vast ocean engulfing our ship and the sky above. The horizon was everywhere I looked. I felt small, insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but excited, too, anticipating adventure.

For most of recorded history, most people believed that a ship would fall over a precipice when it reached the horizon, the end of the earth. The brave and the curious sailed on and discovered that they never reached the horizon; it moved as they moved.

That morning on the hotel lanai, I refreshed my memory about distances. I was at about sea level, maybe 20 feet above. The horizon was, according to Siri, about 4 miles away. What about at home? How far away was that horizon from 900 feet above sea level? 38.2 miles. There are advantages to standing on higher ground.

When I was 18 in the middle of the Atlantic, the probable horizon of my life, the expected number of years I would live, was more like the view from 900 feet, maybe longer, with miles of ocean (life) to sail toward an illusory line in the distance. People of a Certain Age, you were there with me.

In all likelihood, the likely length of my life span today would be more like that view of the horizon from 300 feet, maybe less. That is not for sure. I cannot know the remaining distance to the horizon of my life.

Out of curiosity that morning, I Googled “Lost Horizon.” The English author, James Hilton, wrote a book by that name which was made several times into movies. From Lost Horizon, we have the name and concept of Shangri-La. I wondered about the significance of Hilton’s title.

I did not Google words about the title, only about Shangri-Law and the plot. The book was seen as a fantasy about Utopia.

Could Hilton have been seeing the horizon as an illusion and been writing about lost illusions? Was he suggesting that life is a journey and not a destination? Or was Shangri-La, the perfect place, a hoped-for horizon, always a goal, never a port? Could a place be a horizon?

I have recently read Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-year old Author by Herman Wouk. Many know Wouk more for movies made of his books–The Caine Mutiny, Winds of War, War and Remembrance – rather than for the books themselves. He’s among America’s most-read authors.

One senses that Wouk never anticipated living 100 years. There was no longevity gene in his family. Neither did he stop thinking about and planning his next great project though he claims that this will be his last book. Most of his books gestated for years before he began to write. They were dots in the distance, indistinct, undefined.

Wouk kept sailing, the winds of hope at his back. Maybe that is the purpose of the horizon, to offer to those who take the time to look at it the promise of adventure and the companionship of hope. Maybe author Hilton, writing in 1933 and anticipating another, bloodier world war, was expressing his alarm that the next adventure of war would lead to humanity sailing off the edge of the earth.

Some mornings when we wake up and see 38.2 miles in the distance, the sky is lit up by the rising sun, its rays creating a light show on the puffy, white clouds resting on the straight-line-that-isn’t. Are they incoming or outgoing clouds? Time will tell.

Sometimes the sky is gray, shafts of sunlight piercing down like messages from angels, and there is nothing to separate the ocean and the sky in the distance except that line. Is that yesterday’s weather or tomorrow’s?

Maybe I am over-thinking. The horizon is just where the sky meets the ocean out my window, and its distance from me depends upon where I am standing. Maybe I romanticize the feeling I had there in the middle of the Atlantic, feeling small and excited all at once.

I also see dots in the distance, indistinct, undefined. I’m not clear about how they might affect my life. But, I am seeing now with more experienced eyes than I did before and with more appreciation of horizons. If the center line of my view is an optical illusion, so be it.

Daniel E. White

July 25, 2016