Column

The morning of July 4th is so quiet around here, you might wonder if the entire subdivision entered the witness protection program.

But aound 9, garage doors start rolling up. Bicycles, ride toys, wagons and strollers emerge as Operation Decoration begins. Red, white and blue streamers wrap handlebars, balloons are anchored to Big Wheels and patriotic pinwheels glimmer in the sun.

Neighbors who know each other, and don’t know each other, begin congregating a block down from the corner. Friendly greetings of, “hello, good morning, nice to see you, and how ya been?” fill the air. The political divides and acrimony that often pierce conversations these days are temporarily suspended.

A convertible led the parade last year, a pickup the year before. The parade commences and loops through the neighborhood as parents steering toddlers and babies in strollers gradually fall to the rear. After the last set of short, pudgy legs cross the finish line, our brood returns home. Whoever drew the short straw lights the charcoal.

I can still see my dad firing up the grill on the Fourth years ago. The ritual began with a small stand to hold utensils taking its place next to the grill. On the front of the stand was a yellow sign that read “Men at Work” in big black letters.

Forever a farm boy, Dad loved the summer heat. The only thing better than an outdoor temperature of 101 was 102 with his shirt off.

Mom would be bustling around inside, putting a dash of paprika on the potato salad and monitoring the baked beans. She worked culinary magic in a small kitchen with countertop space not much bigger than a placemat.

Meanwhile, back at the grill, having subdued flames shooting 10 feet into the air, came the sound of hisssss-crack-pop. Man at Work just opened a cold one. Tradition and hydration all in one.

Most of the cracking and popping around here will be from ball games in the backyard. The grands are growing bigger, swinging harder and sending balls flying faster and farther. The zinnias are nervous and so am I.

The flag will fly from the front porch. We used to hang it only on holidays, or when family members who are veterans came to visit, but when our son-in-law deployed to Iraq, we began flying Old Glory every day and never stopped. Those red and white stripes are sobering reminders of the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands throughout the years. Flying the flag is a small way of saying thanks.

Fireworks at a sprawling sports park in a burb to the north will finish the day. Traffic is always horrible, parking is terrible and when it’s all over the thick ominous cloud of smoke hanging low overhead may send us to an early grave, but oh what a show.

With any luck we’ll be home by 11:30, in bed by midnight and fall asleep grumbling about the fireworks still popping off all around us.

It’s good to be an American. Happy 250^th!

 

 

 

Stone tablets are so yesterday.

A professor from Princeton recently shared that his Ivy League students had to have the Ten Commandments explained to them. Yes, that is the same New England college where the famous Jonathan Edwards was once president.

For the record, I went to Princeton. Once. I walked the campus when one of our kids lived nearby in New Jersey. The Princeton campus is so drenched in history and beauty that you can gain IQ points by just wandering around the buildings.

Who knew that beneath that grand exterior lurks a pocket of cultural illiteracy.

They are not alone. Voices from other prestigious schools chimed in, noting they, too, had to explain allusions to the Bible not only in the founding documents, but in the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln.

The good news is, I can help. I didn’t teach adult Sunday school as did President Jimmy Carter, but I did teach kids, including our own. We taught them to memorize the Ten Commandments with their 10 fingers. Hold up one finger and you have the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me.” God gets first place.

For the Third Commandment, place three fingers on your mouth in a “shush” position: “You shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain.”

Their favorite was the Tenth Commandment: “You shall not covet.” Stretch out both arms, make wild grabbing motions with all 10 fingers and shout, “Gimme, gimme, gimme!”

What’s so wrong about not knowing the Ten Commandments or biblical themes? They’re part of our DNA as Americans.

The founders not only knew the Bible well, they lived out some of the themes. Early settlers weren’t fleeing Pharoah and Egypt like the Hebrews in the Old Testament book of Exodus; they were fleeing King George and Great Britain. They didn’t cross the Red Sea, but they did cross the treacherous Atlantic. Early arrivals came ashore and began wandering in the wilderness, just like the Hebrews.

The founders’ beliefs were as varied as the founders themselves, but they all knew the Bible—even if they didn’t believe in the Bible. It is like knowing Shakespeare even if you don’t like Shakespeare.

Jefferson famously made his own loose-leaf notebook version of the Bible, taking out the parts he didn’t like, a practice still in vogue today. Despite differences, those founders carved out the framework for one of the strongest, freest, most prosperous and powerful nations in the world, based on the principle that human beings have inherent rights and freedoms because they were created in the image of God.

As Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

To be unaware of the history of the themes and thoughts that so heavily influenced our country’s founding is like mom without apple pie, or the red and white without the blue.

It dangled, wiggled and squirmed on the hook. It was click bait and I clicked. No pause, no hesitation. Click. Just like that.

I’ll tell you what hooked me. Mature women. They had me at the word “mature.”

Well, let’s back that up. They actually had me at “Hosin garlic noodles.” It was a recipe for a weeknight meal. When you’ve been cooking as long as I have, you need something fresh occasionally, motivation to keep dragging yourself to the kitchen one more live-long day.

When I opened the noodle recipe, “5 Eyelash Tips for Mature Women” popped up. Beside it was a picture of a woman 48 years old, tops. By my calculations, she could still have kids at home and has not filed for Social Security. But sure, let’s go with, “mature.”

Mature beats “senior.” Senior conjures up memories of high school graduation and being carded at certain establishments for proof of age. The only time I’m carded now is when I buy spray paint at Walmart.

Mature also beats the term “older adults.” I hear that and want to know, older than whom? Shall we all line up by age?

I’m not wild about the term “elders” either. It conjures up images of Walton’s Mountain with old women darning socks in rocking chairs alongside old men whittling with pocketknives.

Mature has a somewhat different connotation. Mature implies confidence. Mature hints of a refined woman who always matches her shoes with her purse and owns a vacation home along a coastline somewhere. I’m amenable to mature.

As any mature woman would do, I followed the essential steps to stop damaging my eyelashes. Step one was, “Quit using expired mascara.”

I had no idea mascara expired. This will not surprise our kids and grandkids, who check everything in our fridge and pantry for expiration dates. We tell them we don’t check expiration dates, because our eyes and noses tell us when something has gone bad. Case in point, when the sour cream grows blue green fuzzies on top, it has expired.

My mascara is not growing blue green fuzzies, so I assume it is good.

The next warning was to “Stop using waterproof lash products because they are a nightmare to get off.” I’ve never had nightmares after removing eye makeup, so, again my mascara must be excellent. I’m now two for two—not bad for a mature woman.

The last warning said: “Stop pulling out falsies.” I didn’t write it; I’m just quoting it. Clearly, they mean you should not rip out your false eyelashes.

Confident that I did not need to purchase the miracle mascara with 5,000 five-star reviews, I returned to the recipe for noodles.

A mature woman can survive without long lashes, but no woman in any season of life can survive without food.

Years ago, we had a financial adviser who was so young I often wondered if I should bake cookies before he came to the house—peanut butter or chocolate chip?

He once said something that I found semi-appalling. He asked if we knew the three phases of retirement. We confessed we did not. With a grin, he said, “Well, there’s go-go, slow-go and no-go.”

Maybe I felt miffed because he was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and had no crow’s feet around his eyes. Yet at the same time, a neon light flashed in my head saying, “Remember that!”

The young man was right. I see it now, both in the rearview mirror and the crystal ball.

We are still “go-go,” but “slow-go” and “no-go” will surely be coming. Probably not today, next week or next month, but someday. Therein lies the problem – Someday.

You can’t plan on Someday. Someday has a mind of its own. Someday may come sooner or later than you expect. Besides the matter of timing, there’s already a heavy load hanging on Someday.

Someday, I plan on contacting a college roommate and suggest we meet for breakfast in Louisville like we did some years ago.

Someday, when we head west, we will keep going all the way to Kansas and once again walk the rolling hills of the Konza Prairie covered in tall grasses swaying in the wind. You can see buffalo herds and wild horses in your mind’s eye. Best of all, you can reach up and nearly touch the sky.

Someday, we’re going to spontaneously pick up some of the grands, go to a park that borders the river, take off our shoes and socks, let the mud ooze between our toes and spend an entire afternoon skipping stones.

Someday, I’m going to show up unannounced at a friend’s house with a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers just to say thanks for the friendship and prayers that have gotten me through the hard spots.

Someday, I will grab my hubby and announce we are driving out to the country to sit under a dark sky and count the stars.

Someday, I’m going to make tiramisu, crème brûlée and broccoli cheddar quiche with heavy cream because it’s a waste of time to go years without such delights.

Someday, I’m going to pin all my loved ones to the wall and say, “Look me in the eyes. I have something important to say. Thanks for making life wonderful.”

Maybe today is a good time for a Someday.

 

Paul is my new physical therapist. He’s a British guy on YouTube. The great thing about YouTube medical care is that there’s no paperwork to fill out and your insurance is never questioned. Plus, your health care professional doesn’t know if you leave the workout to answer text messages.

PT Paul has been helping me with my trick knee. It can’t pull a rabbit out of a hat, but it can do other tricks. That knee had surgery twice as a kid and likes to remind me.

Because I am sometimes exuberant, I’ve been watching PT Paul twice a day doing the full regimen of knee-strengthening exercises. Now, not only my left knee hurts, but I sometimes limp, and my right hip hurts.

It’s not Paul’s fault; it’s mine. I should have taken more text message breaks.

All of which is how I found myself sitting in an orthopedic surgeon’s office. This doctor replaced both knees for a friend. When you are young, you compare notes on fashion trends, concert venues and coffee shops. When you are retirement age, you compare notes on surgeons, joint replacements and recovery times.

I brought a translator to the ortho appointment with me— our oldest daughter who speaks fluent medical.

My translator and I were shown to a room to wait for the doctor. I enjoy waiting for doctors because studying everything on the wall is how you get to know them.

The walls were plastered with photographs. “Look at this one,” I chirped. “A woman standing by a helicopter wrote, ‘Thanks for putting me back in the air.’”

Next to that was an equestrian rider jumping a horse over a fence. Below that was a picture of a woman whacking the stuffing out of a tennis ball. She wrote, “Thanks for giving me my life back. My TKR has made all the difference. You’re the best!”

TKR is code for total knee replacement. I know that thanks to my translator.

“This is incredible!” I said. “I could be flying helicopters, playing tennis and jumping horses.”

My translator rolled her eyes.

The last picture showed two fellas on a wrestling mat and the inscription said, “Thanks for getting me back on the mat in six weeks!”

After discussion with the doctor, I opted to see how a cortisone shot would work. I thanked him and said, “You must be really good to have that fella back on a wrestling mat only six weeks after surgery.”

He said the one he did surgery on was the 60-something referee standing next to the two fellas on the mat.

“Oh, I see,” I said. “But tell me this, how long after surgery before I could get my pilot’s license or be jumping horses?”

 

There’s a good chance the husband has his Cincinnati Reds ball cap surgically attached to his head. It’s that time of year.

We were in the quaint historic river town of St. Charles, Missouri, leaving a sidewalk café, when a voice yells, “PETE ROSE, JOE MORGAN, JOHNNY BENCH!”

It came from an older man wearing a St. Louis Cardinals ball cap sitting on a bench across the street.

Without a moment’s pause, the husband shoots back, “I PHOTOGRAPHED THEM ALL!”

The two red ball caps meet in the middle of the brick street. “I was a photographer for the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1974, a year before the Big Red Machine won two back-to-back championships in ‘75 and ‘76,” my husband says.

“My dad was a scout for the major leagues,” the man says.

Game on. I’ll see you one and raise you two.

“My father took me to a ball game and said I want you to see this man in the dugout. The man came out and threw a couple of pitches. I said, ‘He’s just an old man.’  Dad said, ‘Yes, but he was one of the best players ever –Satchel Paige. But he couldn’t play in the major league his first 24 years in baseball because he was black.’”

The man said that was the first time he realized what prejudice was.

A driver taps his horn and the two move the baseball roundup five steps closer to the curb.

“Have you been a Cardinals fan all your life?” the husband asks.

“Lou Brock—nicest guy ever,” the man says. “He walked into a restaurant with Mike Shannon and Ken Boyer. A man asked Lou if he could take his picture with his little boy. Brock said sure and held the 3-year-old right on his lap.”

Two women carrying shopping bags notice the conversation, slow their pace, lean in and say to me, “He loves to talk baseball.” They wave to the Cardinals fan and continue down the street. For all I know, the man just lost his ride home.

Rapid-fire pitches and hits continue. My husband tells his new friend he photographed Lou Brock in St. Louis when he broke the base stealing record of Maury Wills.

“I was at that game, too,” the man says. He and his wife bought tickets to every game so they wouldn’t miss it.

They’re having a wonderful time recalling the greats and sharing baseball history. They never exchange names or introduce themselves to one another.  They never mention if they are retired or still working. They never mention where they are from or where they are headed.

I’m no longer listening to the conversation. I am relishing the camaraderie of two baseball-loving Americans, standing side-by-side in the late afternoon sun, thoroughly enjoying the company and conversation of one another.

Amid all the things that divide us, pit us against one another, and alienate friends and family today, baseball may be one of the last common threads still holding us together.

Play ball!

 

 

I grew up when people wrote letters in longhand on pretty stationery. Going to the mailbox and finding a letter was a whiff of Christmas morning.

Many Sunday nights, as a young girl, I wrote to a great aunt who was a retired schoolteacher. You mind your p’s and q’s when you write to a teacher. She wrote wonderful letters back, often with original and amusing poems about life. When people ask how I got my start writing, I say, “Letter Writing 101.”

When our children were young and we lived in the Pacific Northwest far from family, my mother wrote wonderful newsy letters every week in her beautiful cursive penmanship. I did not have beautiful handwriting, which is why she asked that I type my letters. Mom saved the letters I wrote in a three-ring notebook and gave them to me many years later. There’s nothing monumental in them, just a litany of everyday happenings—all the small bits and pieces of life that tumble together and create a marvelous three-layer cake.

It is rare to find a personal note in the mail these days. Were it not for junk mail, some days we’d have no mail at all.

Today we received a letter from a southern politician asking for support for one of his favorite non-profits. Anticipating a favorable response, he included the recipe for his maw-maw’s Louisiana gumbo. We’ll decide whether to support his non-profit depending on how the gumbo turns out.

We also received an offer to give our air conditioner a tune-up, an alert that our plumbing may be at risk, a dire warning that we need more insurance, an offer to spray for termites and—drum roll, please– an opportunity (offered only to a select few) to make some big money before the economy collapses.

Most of our mail is addressed to somebody named “Current Resident” and his kinfolk who all go by the name “Resident.”

The husband nixed my suggestion we place the trash bin directly under the mailbox. He says the answer is to replace the mailbox with a shredder.

We’ve opted for email communication in every situation possible, but there are still some pieces of snail mail we could not survive without—handwritten thank you notes from grandchildren.

“thank you for the wallet. I relley Love it. (Happy face.) I also Love the gift card. (Another happy face.)”

A few months ago, I wrote a note to a friend I haven’t seen in years who recently lost her husband. Last week I received a beautiful blue and white notecard in which she wrote, “Thanks for your note. It helps to know others care.”

That’s mail doing what mail once did best—shortening the distance between two hearts.

 

 

Just taking an informal poll today: What were you eating when you cracked a tooth?

My top three answers, which correlate to three new crowns in recent years, are: toffee, a crunchy taco, and broccoli cheese soup.

The milk chocolate toffee may have been worth it—probably because I’ll never ever eat toffee again. The taco I have forgiven and, besides, a foodie can always move from hard-shell tacos to soft tacos.

The soup one is unbelievable right? Literally. The recipe is titled Best Broccoli Cheese Soup Ever. And it is.Several years ago, our youngest daughter cracked a tooth eating a blackberry. The pit inside did it.  My sister-in-law cracked a tooth playing Twister as a child and, as an adult, pulled out a crown eating a Tootsie Roll.

Now in the process of having yet another new crown, I’m thinking I probably should be addressed as Her Majesty. I wouldn’t mind if certain people curtseyed and bowed now and then either. Come to think of it, a robe would be nice. A scepter could come in handy, too.

Sorry, I got carried away. Probably because my wisdom teeth are gone.

My mom once lost a tooth eating corn on the cob. She and Dad were on the screened-in porch one summer night having dinner. She said to him, “You have corn on your chin.”

He said to her, “That’s nothing. You’re missing a tooth.”

My brother and I had a lot of fillings as kids. The dentist we went to let us choose a plaster of Paris figurine from a special box after every appointment. The figures were of the 12 disciples—or so the dentist said. It was hard to tell, as the figurines were only about 3 inches tall.

The disciples in the Bible were all from the Middle East where people are usually dark-skinned, but these were chalky white which came off on your hands. You could paint them. So then the disciples were blue, green, red, purple, you name it.

It took years to straighten out my theology, but I’m good now and all my permanent teeth came in fine.

Going to the dentist is not nearly as scary as it once was. The pain management aspect has improved immensely. Our dentist is king. I know this is a fact because his bills are royal.

I should make him a little “plaque” with a crown and sign it from Her Majesty.

 

 

I just finished a book on AI and its impact on humanity. It was billed as nonfiction but read more like science fiction. I don’t mean to spoil the ending, but here’s a hint as to who wins dominance—it’s a short name with two letters. First letter: A.

The future appears jaw-dropping, amazing and bone-chilling terrifying, all at the same time. I wonder what the next generation will do for jobs? Will a single teenager ever work fast food again?

Will there be a smart dryer one day that folds clothes while they’re still in the dryer for us? Will a smart toothbrush one day brush our teeth? Will our arms and hands eventually atrophy and disappear from lack of use?

Our brains may already be on the way out. Take a guess as to two of the most frequently asked questions on Google. Ready?

“What time is it?” and “What day is it?”

Our son and family have had one of the early “smart” vacuums for years. It is like a miniature UFO on wheels that rolls around the house bumping into furniture and knocking into pets and walls while picking up dirt. They emptied it a while back and sent a picture of the contents. It had rolled over a newspaper with my column and picture in it and tried to eat my head. And they call it smart.

One of our neighbors has a small robotic lawnmower. It, too, is like a miniature UFO on wheels randomly roaming across their lawn, cutting their grass. Or at least nibbling and ripping clumps of it. Are the neat lines of a push mower suddenly relics of yesterday?

On the amazing side of AI is a smart watch that can detect skin changes that precede epileptic seizures and alert wearers of an oncoming seizure.

Jaw-dropping is the Ghost Murmur technology used to locate the ejected U.S. serviceman hiding high in a mountain crevice in Iran. The technology can detect electromagnetic signals such as a human heartbeat over immense terrains while AI filters out background noise.

Sometimes when I start to answer an email from a reader, several bubbles pop up with possible responses such as “Thank you,” “Thanks,” or “I appreciate this,” already crafted for me.

They are all appropriate choices, but I would feel like a slacker answering a personal email with an AI prompt. So, I navigate past the prompts and keyboard in, “T-h-a-n- k  y-o-u.” I often let a few typos slide so recipients will know it was written by a human.

Amazing as technology is, there are some things AI will never rival. No computer program can rub noses with an infant, dry tears, hold a trembling child in a thunderstorm, sustain eye contact with a loved one, or hold the hands of the sick and dying.

Maybe humans will stay in the game after all.

 

 

My desk drawer is a mess. It’s always a mess. Even after I tidy it up, it reverts to a mess as soon as I close the drawer.

I think it’s because I do things quickly. I move fast and mess things up fast. But even if I slowed down, it would still be a mess, just a mess on slow bake.

My desk is considered communal property in that it sits in the family room, which means it is a grandkid magnet. You try saying no to 11 sets of big pleading eyes. All they want to do is play office, school, stage a musical, or set up a bank. (Their lending fees are criminal!

The old rolltop desk has two side trays that pull out, a main desk drawer with a maze of small dividers, eight pigeon holes, and six tiny drawers beneath the two cubbies holding letter-size paper.

Wedged in the corner of the desk is an acrylic cube stuffed full of comics the husband has clipped from newspapers. They are like potato chips. You can’t laugh at just one.

The desk is furnished with a 3-hole punch, colorful rubber bands in an old Ball jar, scissors, assorted Post-its, tape (regular and double-sided) and numerous pens, some of which actually work. There’s also an X-acto knife, glue sticks and a monogrammed letter opener that was a gift from our son’s eighth grade language arts teacher for talking to her class. I should have been the one gifting her.

The desk is also home to one of those big red Staples buttons. You push the red button and it says, “That was easy!” We got it for our daughter to punch after she had open heart surgery on her 25^th birthday. These days we save it for other momentous occasions like losing a tooth, finishing every book in the Hardy Boys series, or smacking a wiffle ball into the neighbor’s yard.

Sometimes I’m tempted to say, “The desk is off limits; you’re messing with Grandma’s office.”

I would if I could, but I can’t.

I remember going to my dad’s office as a kid, sitting in his big desk chair on wheels, pulling open the middle desk drawer and gasping in wonder. Ballpoint pens galore. Paper clips. Yellow No. 2 pencils—with erasers even! He had an electric pencil sharpener and his very own stapler! So this was the privileged life of grown-ups.

The most jaw-dropping wonder was the adding machine. The adding machine made a racket as you punched in numbers. The paper chugged and chugged, then the contraption fell silent with a final tally. The machine was right. Every. Single. Time. Tell me again—why did I have to go to school?

Somedays I open the middle drawer of my desk and flash back to prowling in my dad’s desk drawer. Maybe one day these kids will have memories of ransacking Grandma’s desk. I’ll bet two glue sticks, a pair of safety scissors and a jumbo blue crayon on it.