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A friend responded to a recent About Aging piece musing about his legacy. That is a word we have heard a lot. In the last year of the previous presidency, pundits prattled on about Obama’s leaving a legacy, and now there is an equally frenzied look at how the legacy might be undone.

The target is too easy, to make fun of those wise souls who inform us that so-and so is adding to her legacy and the legacy of the other so-and-so is being undone. They clamor for attention so that their paper, or station, or cable service, or blog can get notice, meaning financial support from advertisers. For better or worse, that is our system of informing the public in our country.

At least, though, couldn’t we being encouraged to think about something we could actually affect? How many people, if any, can control their legacy, at least as conventionally defined by the media folks?

For example, my friend noted that creating a school contributes to a legacy. My response as one who helped to create a school? You might get a plaque on a wall, and you could cite your role on your gravestone. But some years after you are gone, no child is going to remember who you were unless the school is named for you. You played a role, yes. But the legacy in that school, such as it might be, is the one built by the people who inhabit the school year after year.

People often forget that Thomas Jefferson created a school and even etched that fact on his gravestone. I bet most of the people attending University of Virginia would miss that fact if his statue weren’t on the campus. (Note: Jefferson did not include being President of the United States on that tombstone.)

People of a Certain Age, I don’t doubt that we have all engaged at one time or another in speculation about whether or not we will be remembered after we die and, if so, how. I am hopeful that we seldom take action with our eyes on future critics; we live here and now with today’s problems and possibilities. As Kenny Rogers’ Gambler advises “you never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table…” There’s time enough when the dealing is done, and then you are dead anyway.

My friend’s question arrived as Judy and I were reading what could be the most profound cautionary tale about building legacy in a book called The Invention of Nature, by Andrea Wulf. The book is about Alexander von Humboldt.

Here’s a challenge: Name three important facts about Alexander von Humboldt. If you cannot, you are hardly alone. Only one of our friends (who are a well-educated bunch and a few educated in science), knew more about him than about the Humboldt Current off the Pacific Coast of the U.S.

So, it will surprise you to learn that Humboldt, a Prussian, was the most widely read and universally respected scientist in the world for the first half of the 19^th century. Charles Darwin carried Humboldt’s writings with him on The Beagle and based much of his theorizing on thoughts Humboldt had as well. Name a scientist–Planck, Lyell—of that era and they all owed something of their thinking to Humboldt.

Humboldt got right the shift in tectonic plates, the relationship between the heavens and the tides, the fact that plants at the same altitude but on different continents tended to be more alike than different, that nature was one big interwoven web of complex systems.

He was called the first ecologist (although one of our friends noted that her college professor said that the term was invented in the 1970s), one who took the disparate elements of the physical and biological scientific worlds and made clear how affecting one area impacts another. He was a friend of Goethe and Gallatin, a correspondent of Jefferson’s, a highly sought-after speaker so generous with his financial support of aspiring scientists that he could not afford to purchase a complete set of his own writings.

On the 100^th anniversary of his birth, in 1869, there were large festivals thrown in his honor in the United States.

So what happened to Humboldt? Two main things: increasing specialization in science in the latter half of the 19^th century and into the 20^th; and 2. World Wars One and Two when Germans and their achievements were not popular in the U.S.

I’ve been reading another book, too, called Old Herbaceous by Reginold Arkell about a fictional Head Gardener for an English manor who, now that he has retired, has time to think a bit. Early in his reminiscences, he says:

“Funny that! You planted a tree; you watched it grow; you picked the fruit and, when you were old, you sat in the shade of it. Then you died and they forgot all about you—just as though you had never been…But the tree went on growing, and everybody took it for granted. It had always been there and it would always be there…Everybody ought to plant a tree, sometime or another—if only to keep them humble in the sight of the Lord.”

Happy is he who is more concerned with how he lives than how he will be remembered. Happy is she who, whoever she was so many years ago, planted the tree that now gives me shade.

Daniel E. White

April 2017

Potted lilies lined the side of the entry to Costco, a sea of white flowers on green stalks announcing the return of another Easter season. The steps to the chancel would be similarly clad in Dad’s churches on Easter Sunday morning. The bulletin listed the people who provided each lily, either as a tribute or as a memorial.

We called them Easter lilies. Their blossoms were perfect trumpets for the Easter message.

The Costco display transported me back to memory after fond memory of the pinnacle of every church year; favorite hymns, a pervasive sense of joy, childlike wonder at the miracle being celebrated by the faithful

The same week we visited a garden on the North Shore. The Botanical Garden Club had arranged with the owners for a group to visit. They bought an acre in Pupukea fifteen years ago and, over time, transformed the dirt into a wonderland of succulents and cacti. To jump-start their garden, they brought hundreds of specimens from their home in Santa Monica, California to array into a variety of zones; aloes here, desert roses there, pachypodiums placed in between to provide height, texture and interesting shapes.

Being one of her flock that morning was to hear Elissa share her passion and her advice, her lessons learned and her triumphs. In response to a question about the origin of her ideas, she said that many of her plants represented specific times and places in her life; her garden was part of her visual autobiography.

Then she said, “I have plants that bloom at different times of the year. So I am never without something of beauty to look at.” She was saying, if the cacti are blooming, it’s spring again.

Back home, the book I took up to read began with an author’s note: “The poles of American politics have been stable since the presidential election of 1800. A federalist party proclaiming, ‘We are a nation of laws’ has always been opposed by a ‘Don’t tread on me’ party that resists regulation in the name of personal liberty.”

She went on to note the relative unpopularity of the President, the fractiousness in Congress, the dislocation of the American worker due to technology, and the tensions between urban and rural America in the time about which she was writing: the 1880s.

OK, some cycles are more positive than others.

I attended an assembly at a school in Korea a few months back, featuring three rock bands. First the elementary rock band played. The singer found the right key from time to time but it didn’t matter. The music was loud, and the band’s classmates were on their feet, moving. The middle and high school students remained seated on the floor.

Next came the high school band. Their singer had advanced in “The Voice” competition and was really good. That band got everybody off the floor.

The members of the last band were faculty members; three guitars, drums, and a singer. There was a lot of groovin’ to the music among their peers as the band sang an Eagles hit.

The kids in the elementary band were excited to be playing in front of their friends. A few worked at aping popular rock musicians, and it seemed each one was a bit taller when he had a guitar strap across his shoulder or a microphone in her hand.

The affect of the high school students was blasé, too cool to be seen as excited or nervous. The guys on the guitar did their best to look bored, as though strumming metal strings and making a lot of noise was just the done thing. The girl at the piano was serene, even as the pace of the piece picked up. The energy came from her striking the keys with extra force at moments of crescendo. The singer caressed the microphone and worked into her voice the pathos of heartbreak at appropriate moments.

One of the faculty band members, a man in his 60s, played bass guitar (a math guy) and looked impassive; he let his music do the talking. The lead guitarist jumped and bobbed and shook his head, trying to make well-trimmed hair fly about in the air to show intensity. The singer had one level of volume. Have kids liked loud for all time?

I had trouble figuring out which group had more fun playing for the school. I am certain the elementary kids were the most proud. The faculty made me feel that their short time on stage was a most-welcomed moment to be 18 again. The ones who were 18 that day would never let someone my age know that they thought playing a guitar on stage at school was about the coolest thing to happen that week.

People of a Certain Age, you and I know that, before too long, the elementary musicians will be practicing their teenage affect. The teenagers will be in somebody’s adult rock band. There will be new members of the elementary band, yet unborn or at least yet to be introduced to these tools of deafening noise that seldom fails to cause someone in the room to shake and wiggle and move about in unexpected ways.

In a world of rampant randomness, there can be comfort found in cycles.

Daniel E. White

April 17, 2017

I was eating dinner, doing a crossword, listening to Evening Concert on HPR. Judy was on the mainland, visiting her brother. I meant the music to be background, filling, in a small way, the emptiness of the house.

The familiar strains of Les Miserables began. In was an orchestral version, the various songs organized in a way that made sense to the arranger. There was no mistaking the melodies, though; the sounds of hard labor in “Look Down;” or “Castles in the Clouds;” and “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables;” and so on.

The arrangement culminated with “Bring Him Home/God on High” leading into the triumphant finale reveling in the surety that “Tomorrow Comes.”

I sang along even though there were no vocals. Les Miz is more than musical theater for me. It represents many things, all good. The music caused my eyes to cloud over, blessed with hopes and memories. My puzzle got a little damp.

I first saw Les Miz by luck. I had a day to spend by myself in London, and I went to the theater where it was playing to see if I could score a half price ticket. I did. In the stalls. Twelfth row. I was so enthralled that, for the first time in my life, I bought the CD in the lobby on the way out.

What’s not to like about a story pitting the law versus justice and mercy, set to evocative music ranging from the aching lament of Eponeme, ”On My own,” to the prayer of Jean Valjean to “Let Him Live,” to the hopeful promise that “Tomorrow Comes?”

So I sat at the kitchen table, filling in the words for each song; I had played the CD that much. In doing so, I was transported to a lucky day in London and inspired again by the triumph of right and goodness.

People of a Certain Age, what are your transports to happy memories and ennobling thoughts?

As often happens, my dinnertime pleasure came in close timing with a similar experience that morning. Story Corps on NPR featured a mom and her son, talking about the mom’s dad. He was an African-American who worked in a factory located on the other side of a white neighborhood through which he had to walk to get home. He got tired of being stopped by police as he went through the neighborhood, so he quit his job and became a cop, vowing one day to buy a house in that neighborhood.

He did.

He doted on his grandson and provided the boy with an upright model of dignity and virtuous living. He died when the boy was 18.

Mom capped the interview by saying “the legacy that you leave is the one that honors him.”

Ernest H. Braem and Daniel D. White entered my mind’s eye just then. I am among the fortunate to have know all four of my grandparents, and I can conjure pictures of each easily. There is Poppa Braem, the pillar of the community and the Methodist Church; Dr. Braem, the dentist dressed in all white who, at age sixteen in his basketball uniform looked just like I did at sixteen in my uniform (scrawny, too). There is Poppa White, the first Dan White in the family, high-pitched voice, going blind from glaucoma, a shopkeeper respected as the most upright guy in town.

I daydreamed a while. Most of my time with them occurred more than 50 years ago. Details have blurred, naturally, but, the Story Corps mom’s reminder about how one honors one’s grandfather brought them into sharp focus.

Nowadays, I have to fill in the blanks of my memories of my grandfathers with hints from my siblings, old photos, or similar prompts. When I do, I am rewarded by mind pictures of two men who lived good lives, striving always to do what was right.

As the years go by, People of a Certain Age, we might be less able to sing all the words or recall every detail. Therein lies a blessing of long-time friends and families, pictures, diaries, and so on. They help us to fill in the blanks to produce rich treasures of memories from the past but powerful for us in the present as well.

With luck, the structure remains even when the details are fuzzy. The Les Miz music is stirring even without the words. My grandfathers are men to emulate in their goodness even though I can’t remember all of the details.

It is a gift to recall times a play or piece of music or love from another person has inspired us or given us hope. It is a special gift for those of us who have put in lots of time on this planet to be able to collect more treasures.

One day, tomorrow will not come. Until then, I hope to know how to fill in the blanks that appear in the unfolding story of my life.

Daniel E. White

April 3, 2017

Joe Moore, a local television personality, used to host a show on Hawaii Public Radio called Moore Mozart. Mozart was a special passion for Moore, and he was telling this story to a crowd of classical music lovers.

“I called it Moore Mozart because I was young and boastful,” Moore said. “If I were to do it know, I would call it Mozart and Moore. I’m no longer young.”

I don’t think I was alone in reflecting on, as I laughed at his humor, how his self-judgment might be mine as well. Boastfulness can be a hard habit to break, and I’m not sure that I have completely kicked the habit.

I had an inkling of that during one of the class meetings for the Ed.D. program in which I serve as a mentor and dissertation reader. For this meeting, we were asking the students to discuss what object or piece of writing might capture their understanding of their leadership experiences or style. To get the ball rolling, three mentors identified an artifact that represented in some way the leadership experiences of our lives.

I chose a card in my wallet, a bit rumpled because it has been there since 1964, on which Miss Delight Smith, Girls’ Vice Principal at San Diego High School had typed:

Knowledge is proud that he knows so much.

Wisdom is humble that he knows so little.

I went on to explain that, according to family lore and the probable testimony of what friends I had, I held myself in very high esteem in my early years. Dad used to warn me about “tooting my own horn.”

Since those times, I have come to see bragging as one sure sign of a lack of self-confidence. I can’t psychoanalyze my self of sixty years ago but I can believe that, for some reason, I did lack self-confidence then. Socially, because I had skipped a grade, I know I felt that I had to work hard to belong with my classmates.

But, I told the cohort members that day, I apparently was impressed enough with my own academic prowess that Miss Smith decided I needed a reminder about knowledge and wisdom. After all, I said, I was the valedictorian…

(At this point, one of the cohort member said “toot,” and we all laughed.)

…so I thought I was entitled to be impressed with myself.

The student’s toot was a great reminder that old habits die hard.

The lesson on my wallet card is, I think, an aspiration more than an achievement. Finding the right balance between self-effacement and appropriate pride of accomplishment is probably a lifetime struggle. I told the cohort that the way I could approach in leadership positions the aspiration Miss Smith set for me was to remember how many people made it possible for me to be where I was when I was doing that I was doing. It also helped to put faces on the people who might be affected by whatever I did or decided.

I concluded my talk to the cohort with a story. People of a Certain Age, we all have stories like these that comprise the narrative of our lives. Recall some of them from time to time. My stories often involve luck.

This one comes from when Judy, Larry Caster, and I were working to get Island Pacific Academy opened. We thought that a school ought to have a motto, like the one we had at the Webb Schools in California, “principes non homines,” “leaders, not just men.” We thought the IPA slogan should be in the Hawaiian language. But what to write?

We looked at several options and liked the motto of one school on the mainland, “go forward with confidence.” We asked an experienced Hawaiian language expert to give us a translation and got back “I Mua Me Ka Ha’aheo.” We liked it for a couple of reasons: we believe that a major added value of independent school education is that students emerge with self-confidence. And, we thought that the motto captured the confidence with which we were launching a new school. The motto has stuck, and we’re happy about that.

A few years later, another Hawaiian friend said to us, you know, ha’aheo, like so many words in the Hawaiian language, has several meanings. One of them is “humble pride.” What good luck!

That’s quite a concept, humble pride. It is great that a language has a word for it. Why shouldn’t any person be proud if she has successfully treated the sick or enacted legislation that helps people? Why can’t a fellow feel proud to have invented something useful or been a good dad? Pride gets a bad rap because of its excesses.

Temper the pride with humility. Acknowledge the blessings to your life that have enabled accomplishment. Pay homage to one’s collaborators. Understand that we did not endow ourselves with our unique array of talents.

I think ha’aheo might have appealed to Miss Delight Smith.

Daniel E. White

March 20, 2017

On the way into the Rotary meeting, I met up with the Past President. She asked how I was. I said fine and asked her in return. I thought she looked tired. She said, “you know, I almost didn’t come tonight. I’ve been to so many meetings today. This felt like just one more meeting.”

Then she brightened. “But this one is different. I can just enjoy the people.” And she seemed to, especially the high school Interact members who spoke to our club.

The next morning, I awoke at the usual hour after an unsatisfying night’s sleep. No reason for the fretfulness. No special worries. No vivid or disturbing dreams. Sleep just didn’t meet my expectations. I laid in bed thinking about all the things I should be doing. That, of course, added to my inclination to stay put.

I watched the sun rise over the Koolau Mountains, streaming into the room. Soon, it was hot lying in bed. So I got up, without any drive. Some days are like that; bathed in blah.

Soon enough I found my rhythm and prepared to work at my desk. Awaiting me was an e-mail response to my piece about balance some time back. A high school classmate told me about how he and his wife had taken a young Hispanic girl under their wings. Their son knew about this girl. So did they, because she was proving herself to be a talented athlete whose talent might be the ticket for higher education.

Her family circumstances were tough—little income, large number of children, no history of college attendance. My classmate and his son facilitated community college team scouting trips to watch the girl play. Prospects are promising.

Without doubt, her life had the potential to turn out differently because of the efforts of my classmate and his family. He described his efforts for her as providing balance in his life. For me, that was a chicken skin moment. The day was getting better.

That evening, Judy and I had dinner with another high school classmate. She and her husband were on their way to New Zealand for vacation. We swapped stories about what we had all been doing for the last 50 years or so. Forced to work during her senior year, she couldn’t attend classes with us but the school permitted her to participate in graduation with the rest of her classmates.

She described various jobs she held until she was asked to substitute for a friend of hers in a school with classes for special needs children. She said that brief experience gave her ideas about how kids with such needs could be helped in ways not then being used. Having vowed never to become a teacher, she went back to school to get the needed credentials to begin a career of work with kids with the whole range of needs, youngsters others often felt to be difficult to work with.

Her successes provided children and families with educational experiences that they had no reason to expect they would enjoy. She even became the initiator of a particular form of competition in Special Olympics, taking the time to teach herself about athletic competition, unknown to her before.

Our friend was, in short, a transformational figure in scores of lives because she took an interest, saw possibilities that others did not, made an effort.

What are the chances that, on the same day, I would hear about the extraordinary things two of my high school classmates had accomplished? That turned blah into wow!

There might be some among you People of a Certain Age who have never experienced blah, whose aumakua (in Hawaiian culture, something like a totem or family spirit, like a shark or turtle) is the Energizer Bunny. You might not be able to relate to my Rotarian friend or me.

I bet, though, that all of you know stories about extraordinary things done for others by ordinary people. And, if you are like me, just such stories—or some effort on my part to help someone else—are the surest way out of blah.

I was reminded of something attributed to Woody Allen: “90% of life is just showing up.” I found out that James Kok has published a book with a variation—“90% of Helping is Just Showing Up.” I’ve not read the book. But I accept the premise of its title. So many times, by virtue of just being there for someone, care and empathy are clear.

I also know that 90% is not 100%. The final 10% is usually crucial.

The young girl has needed the additional 10% from my classmate. My special education stalwart did more than just show up. Yet you cannot do the 10% that makes the difference if you have not shown up.

After she told me what she almost did not do, my Rotarian friend asked me if I ever felt that way. The very next morning, I did. I see those low moments as a price of life. I cannot be “up” all the time.

I can will myself to show up, though. Who knows what can happen then?

Daniel E. White

March 6, 2017

There is a universal balance throughout nature and everything finds its level.

Frederick Maryak

My friend, “The Voice” called again and, like the last time, his first few words brought on a flood of memories from our youth. Our paths over sixty years have diverged but the bond between us is firm.

We talked for an hour and a half. First we talked about the differences in the weather between where he was calling from and Hawaii. Their state has recently endured temperatures in negative double-digits. We have put a heavier cover on our bed because the lows have been in the 60s.

He told me his doctors have warned him about being outside in such cold, given his heart condition. It was the first mention of health, an increasing common topic among People of a Certain Age.

We drifted into conversation about his living in rural areas for most of his life while I have been a suburbanite. I reminded him that Thomas Jefferson believed that the further one got from working the land, producing something useful or edible with his or her hands, the more likely corruption would set in. He liked being compared to Jefferson.

He edits books these days. One writer with whom he has worked is Haitian; The Voice has been to Haiti visiting his son. Columbus called Hispaniola, the island on which Haiti sits, the Pearl of the Caribbean. History has been unkind to that pearl: hurricanes, earthquakes, dictators.

The Voice revealed emotion as he lamented that there is a sense among Haitians that they are unloved and unneeded, with too little hope as they struggle to overcome each wave of devastation.

I offered my insights about a population of Pacific Islanders whose plight is also in stark contrast to the pleasures of American society. We agreed that there are too many people like that in too many places around the world.

It is inspiring, he said, to meet people, as he did in Haiti, who aspire to lives like Americans live, free and prosperous. We wondered about how many Americans ever think about how fortunate they are to enjoy lives with freedom and prosperity.

That got us talking about materialism and matters of the spirit.

The Voice asked about my brush with prostate cancer three years ago. He chuckled when I told him that my doctor’s first words at our meeting after my 2013 biopsy were “three quarters of your prostate are in excellent shape.” I assured him that all is well.

I asked about his work, aside from editing. He has worked with his son in a business that requires some physical exertion. Nothing too strenuous anymore, he said. His heart has made him mindful of such things.

People of a Certain Age, is it not sobering when we first become focused, really focused, on our own mortality?

Growing up in San Diego, he and I would talk about the Padres and the Chargers. We listened to The Beatles’ string of hits as they came out, and sang “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” along with the Highwaymen. The Voice had a special knack for the Frankie Valli parts of Four Seasons’ tunes and the falsetto bit in “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

He had a car. We had girlfriends. Both of us married them. We fretted over the impact of the Vietnam War might have on the plans we had made for our lives. Our lives were books yet to be written.

We were naïve to the plight of people in places like Haiti or Micronesia. We did not think much about materialism or spirituality. What little we learned about the world beyond America came from missionaries from our church denomination to places like the Congo or Colombia.

We did not talk about the weather or our ailments or poverty or materialism then.

He is taking several medications these days for high blood pressure. He said that one of the side effects of one or the other of the drugs affected his balance. I don’t take any medications on a regular basis, I said, but I have noticed how my balance has been affected by age. I am more careful on ladders now, I said.

He said maybe I ought to write something about balance. Good idea, I said.

After our talk, I went out for a walk. By the park, I passed a man, balanced between two people, who seemed too frail to be standing, let alone walking. He wore a jacket and a cap though the temperature was past 80. His caregiver’s left arm was around his shoulders and her right hand gripped his right arm as he shuffled along, inches at a time. To his left was a man—a son?—holding a walker, ready to provide it if the man needed to sit down to rest.

Aren’t we all just trying to keep our balance, to find our level?

Always good to chat with “The Voice.”

Daniel E. White

February 6, 2017

We went to see Mamma Mia, the stage play, for my birthday one year. Not long after, the movie, starring Meryl Streep, came out, and I’ve seen that a few times, too. I like Abba’s music. The songs I know feel upbeat and happy, even if the subject isn’t.

My millennial friends, no doubt, think me hopelessly square (People of a Certain Age, we know the real meaning of that word!) for my preferring music where one can understand the words and dance energetically. But, there it is.

A favorite Abba song is “I Have a Dream.” One lyric visits my head from time to time: “If you see the wonder of a fairy tale, you can face the future even if you fail.” What’s not to like about hopefulness and wonder?

Dreams seem a special form of hope. I wonder if hopefulness is a pre-condition to dreaming. And, I wonder how many of us ever chose to dream, really big, about being someone, doing some things, going somewhere.

“You gotta have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?” Can’t you hear Bloody Mary signing in South Pacific?

The movie LaLaLand invites one to think about dreams, too. The two leads have parallel dreams, each involving a passion, a hoped-for self. In a crucial scene, Mia, the aspiring actress, berates Sebastian, the wannabe jazz club owner, for abandoning his dream in favor of playing keyboards in a popular band.

Sebastian replies that, perhaps, his dream is unrealistic and unreachable. Perhaps he needs to modify his dream, acknowledging the realities of daily living. And besides, he continues, some people dream about doing what I am doing now!

There is a cost to dreams. That is one of the points of this movie.

Mia’s and Sebastian’s dreams were their individual dreams. We have recently marked the birthday of a man made famous by the words “I have a dream.” His vision encompassed all of us. It certainly costs. As a nation, we sometimes seem to have settled for less.

Equally worrisome, if some social commentators are right, belief in the American Dream has faded over time. Do large numbers of Americans still believe that they can achieve a better life for themselves and their families than their parents had? That has been a fundamental factor in the sunny optimism that is a part of our national mythology.

I can’t remember having a dream quite like Mia’s or Sebastian’s. I did want to succeed Mickey Mantle in centerfield for the Yankees. I have told my history students that I would like to be a Supreme Court Justice because the court could use someone offering opinions untainted by an attorney’s way of thinking. Neither was a serious dream; if either had been, wouldn’t I have tried harder?

I never dreamed of being a teacher, getting a PhD or co-founding a school. I never dreamed I would be lucky in love, sharing my life with my best friend since a year before King’s speech. I never dreamed that I would live in a nice house with a great view in “the best weather on the planet,” to quote our local TV weatherman.

Looking back, these would all have constituted reasonable dreams.

So Mia and Sebastian make me wonder about the importance of dreams. In dreams like theirs, there seems to be a passion, a thirst demanding to be quenched. Goodness knows that more people dream dreams like theirs than ever win fulfillment. If, like Sebastian said he should do, I’ve “settled,” compromised with the realities of daily living, I have no complaints. I am content.

Of course, Bloody Mary was right. “If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?

Mia and Sebastian have reasons why their dreams are achievable. Mia knew something about the craft of acting. Sebastian was a jazz musician himself. Their dreams, in these ways, were grounded.

My brother-in-law wondered if there is a unique quality to the dreams of aspiring artists of any sort because art and passion always seem connected. He might be on to something. An artist without passion might be a contradiction in terms.

Looking back, I can see that I have sought to be upbeat and happy, like Abba’s music. Perhaps that has been my dream. Nothing grand, like being a Yankee centerfielder or a Supreme Court Justice or a movie star. Just finding happiness and being upbeat.

Dr. King challenges us to work toward that time when all people have the opportunity to just find happiness and be upbeat, to share in the benefits of our unique society. Maybe an American Dream built on this notion, rather than on being better than or making more than, is a worthwhile dream.

In it, there is room for Mia and Sebastian, Bloody Mary and Dan, those who see the wonder of a fairy tale, those with passionate thirst needing to be quenched and those who are content.

That’s the beauty about dreams. They can be as big as we want to make them.

Daniel E. White

January 23, 2017

We were watching pre-inauguration coverage by CBS in 1993 when Walter Cronkite intoned, “No two Presidents have ever taken their oath of office with their hands on a Bible opened to the same verse.” Judy, from the “Show-Me” state, asked, “I wonder if that’s really true?”

People of a Certain Age, you know that the questioning of Walter Cronkite was like asking the Oracle at Delphi, “are you sure?” It was, however, the birth of the research and writing project that resulted in my having ISBN numbers for two editions of So Help Me God. To find an answer for Judy, I had to examine over 50 previous inaugural ceremonies. Once that was done, I was on my way to writing a book.

With the inauguration of the 45^th President a little more than a week away, the fact that I am thinking about inaugurations is not surprising. And, because I have been speaking to retirement communities about So Help Me God and giving away copies, my interest has never really gone away.

I begin my talks with a funny story but move quickly to observe that the phrase “rancorous politics” is redundant. Nastiness is normal in presidential politics. John Quincy Adams refused to attend the swearing-in of Andrew Jackson, and Lincoln’s opponents freely compared him, negatively, to a baboon. In 1884, one party called their opponents the party of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.”

The negativity offends our sensibilities. So why do so many campaigns spend so much money on negative ads?

I point out to audiences that most of our presidents have taken office with nearly half (or more) of the populace opposing them. Which job have you ever taken where 50% of the people affected did not want you? Presidents who can claim to have united these United States behind their leadership have usually led the country in a war. Even then, there is a lively history in the U.S. of opposition to any and all of our wars. Every president promises to unite the country. Let’s hope they keep trying.

I also pose a quiz for the folks. What are the first words spoken by every president, from George Washington to Barack Obama? Answer: “So help me God.” The Constitutional oath ends with the words “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Once the oath is finished, the new president is official. George Washington added “so help me God,” and the tradition was started.

On a wall of the Reagan Library, “So Help Me God” is included in the etched oath, incorrectly, a common mistake.

Washington also began the tradition of swearing the oath on a Bible, a practice he borrowed from the coronation of kings and queens of Europe. Two presidents—John Quincy Adams, and Franklin Pierce—have elected not to use a Bible. Each used books of law. A third president used a Catholic Prayer Book. Bound in black and looking like a Bible, it was used on Air Force One in 1963 for President Johnson because no one could find a Bible. There is a story for each instance in the book.

Some presidents have followed Washington’s lead and sworn on an open Bible. He opened a Bible borrowed from the nearby Masonic Lodge randomly, to Genesis, fittingly to a verse about the beginning of things. Some presidents have even used two Bibles, usually a personal one on top of the one used by Washington.

The inaugural stands used to be constructed on the east side of the Capitol. President Reagan had them erected on the west side, facing the rest of the country.

Jimmy and Roslynn Carter got out of their car and walked in the Inaugural Parade, So has every President since.

Until the 20^th century, few heard inaugural addresses. No microphones, no recorders, no radio or TV. Some of the addresses have not been memorable. Others have entered American mythology—Lincoln’s Second; FDR’s “nothing to fear but fear itself;” Kennedy’s “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country,” a paraphrasing of something said by Warren Harding in 1921.

One president died as a result of the pneumonia he contracted while making a two-hour long speech in freezing weather without an overcoat. William Henry Harrison died 39 days later.

The United States is unique in history for many reasons, not least of which is that enormous power transfers peacefully on a regular basis. We can all be proud of that even if we chafe at a particular president.

My book ends: “In nearly every instance, the unity noted by R.W. Apple and William Safire as the defining quality in the inaugural act has quickly fractured under the stress of practical politics…Inaugurations are a moment of cleansing when we all say we hope to be better, individually and as a nation, in our interactions with others. Often we fail. Yet sometimes we don’t. Through our presidents, in their proud and humbling moment of inauguration, we pledge to keep on trying to be worthy of being the city on the hill, to do justly and love mercy. So help us God!”

(Incidentally, Walter Cronkite was wrong.)

Daniel E. White

January 9, 2017

I got a letter from Hawaii Public Radio the other day. Whenever there is an on-air pledge drive, I show up for a two-hour stint sitting with a station employee and one other person, ready to tell a few stories meant to prod listeners to phone the station with their pledges of support for the next six months. Sometimes we are successful, other times we are not.

A particular target audience is those who listen regularly but do not give any support. The size of that group was driven home to me in the letter. I was being thanked for being one of the 11% of listeners who is a “member” by virtue of a financial gift.

This is the time of year when the holidays focus attention on giving. What a gift it is to us Americans that there is at least one time of year in which people turn their attention to giving gifts; to children, family, friends, co-workers, “the less fortunate.”

Set aside whatever feelings you have about the commercialization of what started as religious holidays or the angst some find in trying to match the perfect gift to the recipient. We still have about one month of the year when the generally accepted mode of behavior is to think about giving gifts to others.

That is a cause for some joy.

A less positive side of me wonders why it takes a special time of the year, promoted heavily by commercial enterprises whose yearly bottom lines depend upon lots of buyers from Black Friday (was there ever a more aptly-named day?) to the end of December, to prod people into a spirit that, in my view, should be present every day, the spirit of giving?

People of a Certain Age, whenever you give—your self, your time, your resources—don’t you feel really good? If the result of giving can be feeling good, why aren’t we giving all the time?

My letter from HPR reminded me of a story I first heard my Dad tell, one that has been around for a long while. A fellow came back to his hometown after many years to find that the church he had once attended was out of business, the windows boarded over. He asked a friend what had happened. The friend replied:

“Most of the members thought others would give enough so that they did not have to. Pretty soon, the bank foreclosed, the pastor left town, and the church was gone.”

We 11% of HPR listeners who are members are aware of the consequences to ourselves and to our community if we stop giving. But, we are of a certain age and aging. Will a new 11% emerge?

Mom was an easy target for a good cause. Each year when I helped her with her tax return, I noted how many causes received a $5 or $10 check from her. For her, a product of the Great Depression (when $5 was worth $5), a $5 gift meant something, and I came to see her point of view.

If one hundred thousand people gave $5 each, a lot of people would be fed, many hours of research could be funded, many doses of needed medicines could be made available. Presidential candidates in recent times have understood Mom’s principle; enough small gifts can raise a lot of money.

Mom’s gift reminded me of the story in the Bible in which Jesus observes a widow giving a small sum of money. He describes hers as a gift greater than some larger amounts given by others because she has given out of her poverty. There are data to show that, measured as a percentage of wealth, poorer people tend to be more generous than rich ones.

I wonder what Jesus would say to the billionaires who have generously pledged to give one-half of their fortunes to charity: “Thanks. Nice start. Now how much more will you give?”

What if the spirit of giving so evident in this season of the year was an everyday attitude? What if everyone woke up each day wondering “what can I give today?”

Another of Dad’s stories told of a grain elevator operator in a farming community agreeing to be church treasurer for one year but only if no one asked him any questions about the books for that year. At the end of the year, the church had a surplus several times the size of its annual budget.

When asked about this, the treasurer said, “I store all your grain. I took away 10% of your grain every month and saved it for the church. You never missed that grain, did you?”

For the sake of HPR, I would like the 89% who listen but don’t give to set aside one dollar every day, to be collected and given to the station once a year. I would like those who care about hunger or homelessness or mental illness of life-threatening diseases to do the same. Remember Mom’s wisdom: a little from many can make a lot.

Giving could become a habit.

Daniel E. White

December 26, 2016

At the celebration of Mom’s life last October, I told how she described her days in the weeks and months following Dad’s death. “I opened the curtains, I closed the curtains. I opened the curtains. I closed the curtains.”

I called that the rhythm of her grief. I speculated that any of us who loses a loved one is likely to develop his or her own rhythm. At that point, 2 ½ months after Mom died, I didn’t feel that I had experienced grief. Certainly, there did not seem to be any rhythm to my feelings.

I matched how she described her daily experience with the curtains to how she described her reaction to the death of each of her parents. She said that she had shed few tears but that certain situations would draw from her moments of wistful memory; more history than histrionics, she might say with a chuckle.

That she has a visceral and physical manifestation of grief about Dad is no surprise. They were married for 56 years and had raised three children together. Their presence for each other was daily, for better and for worse. The disappearance of that daily reality was bound to leave a hole in her life for which she needed to find a fill.

Those moments of wistful memory, though, I am coming to see as a form of grief. This is not the numbing form, the kind that blocks the sun in one’s life until it has ebbed. Its ache is more like the twinge of a muscle tweaked by an awkward step, the briefest of heartaches, suddenly there and suddenly gone.

It is a fact, fellow People of a Certain Age, that, as we live on, we will endure more and more such flashes of fleeting sadness, not for the departed but for the growing number of rents in the fabric of our lives.

Such tears can be tiny. I was first mindful of tiny tears when Charles Schulz died. My only connection was that I read Peanuts. More recently, the death of Gwen Ifill affected my humor for a while, so accustomed was I to her presence on the PBS News Hour and Washington Week. The orderliness of my world, caused by the untimely passing of a gifted and dedicated person, had been disturbed ever so slightly by the introduction of a whiff of grief.

When Dad died, we were in the midst of moving to Hawaii. We left even before I had the chance to share with my siblings the act of placing his ashes at the memorial park. My focus from afar was Mom, how she would handle her loss and loneliness. I can’t find anything in my memory, though I loved Dad, that feels like grief over his death. I felt sadness that his life did not turn out as he had hoped, but not grief. I have wondered about that.

And so it seemed was the case after Mom died—no grief—until it wasn’t the case.

Judy and I mark the start of our Christmas music CD playing with the same piece each year, written and sung by Keali’i Reichel. We understand only some of the words as it is sung in Hawaiian. But it is magical in the way it separates not-Christmas from the Christmas season.

For several years, the song has transported us to a rental car parked in the lot of Foothills United Methodist Church in La Mesa. Mom, Chad, Sandee, Judy and I were waiting in the chilly darkness for the choir’s Christmas music show to begin. Nobody spoke as the CD played. It was one of those special moments one shares with loved ones.

When we played the tune this year, I ached for that night in the car in a different way than I had before. It felt like grief.

In her Christmas letter, a friend from college years wrote about her mom, now gone. “She makes us smile when we think of travel, or see a puppy, or go to the beach, or go to the store, or read without enough light, or feed the birds. Those are the small and endearing things that were so central in her life.”

My friend nailed it: “the small and endearing things.” It is drizzling today—Mom would have wanted to know that and how many hundredths of an inch we caught in our rain gauge. She might have told me then about the article she had read in the Yale Divinity School journal she read whenever it came, or talked about the theme of last week’s Lawrence Welk show.

Some days I think I need to share my day yesterday with her in my morning e-mail to her, and then I remember. No big deal, she would say, and she’s right. No big deal. The momentary flash of loss is real, though.

I am lucky. A profound sense of happiness for her and her life nearly always follows the ache and flashes alike, replacing my moments of wistful memory. I expect things to be like this for a long time to come, possibly for the rest of my life; ache—happy thoughts—flash—a smile of joy; a rhythm of grief, perhaps, after all.

Daniel E. White

December 12, 2016