Month: October 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