MORE MILESTONES . . .OR, HOW OLD ARE YOU?

      Two men who hold important places in my heart and in my history are having 'special' birthdays later this week. Two others have already had their 'symbolic' birthdays earlier this year and another is reaching the threshold of the 'Big One' coming next year.

    Earlier this year, John whom I have known for many years as friend and colleague turned 60 in March and Willard, a former parishioner and guitarist in the Maple Springs Strings, met # 75 on May 1.  Stan, my banjoist friend mentioned in the previous post, will be practicing 'getting older' when he turns 59 this Friday.  And, now, there are the two whose "Big" birthdays, ending in "5" and "0",  come this week.

    My 'baby brother' becomes 'officially old' on May 31 when he observes his 65th.  Just to show him that I can be the epitome of generosity, I have offered to buy his breakfast that morning.  Funny, when I was 18 and a college freshman, those 10 years between us were a chasm.  Over the years, the gap has narrowed to the point that it is now nonexistent.  In those days, he could not understand why it was not 'cool' for him to accompany me on a date with a girlfriend.

   On Tuesday, quite unexpectedly, I had a telephone call from my long-time friend, Rick, who was driving back home to Florida and was nearing my hometown.  Alas, I was 60+ miles away in my office and unable to enjoy an impromptu visit.  We met in 1990 when we were Clinical Residents in the same training program.  At the time, he was a 'mature' 27 year old and I was the 'old man' of the group at 52.  Now he will be a half-century old on Saturday. Ouch!

    Nostalgia can give a lot of pleasure.  'Homesickness of the Soul' someone has called it;  Or, a 'longing for the good old days'.  But, 'Living in the past' can be tricky.  There is, however, another richer dimension.  Awareness of, appreciation for, formative times and relationships can offer a kind of enrichment of the 'right now' as well as hope for the 'yet to come'.  Friendships are 'gifts', 'treasures' if you please.  I know that they require time, attention, caring to nurture.  And, in marking these birthdays, I become aware that there are other friendships . . . for whatever 'reasons' . . . that I have allowed to fall into disrepair and I have some 'catching up' to do.

    My life has been greatly enriched by having these good men as fellow travelers.  The relationships are of totally different kinds ...one a biological brother and 'kindred spirit' in many ways; the other an esteemed former colleague and warm friend who now lives too far away and with whom reconnecting after absences seems to come easily.  

     

     "Happy Birthday" this week to Bob and to Rick.  And, as Bob Hope used to sing, "Thanks for the Memories" and here's to many more good years and good times to come, with you and with Life. 

       Satchel

     

MUSIC TO MY EARS . . .

      My daughter once correctly noted, "Dad doesn't have any rhythm."  She could also have correctly added: singing ability or musical talent.  
  
    I once told a friend that my parents had paid for me to have seven years of piano lessons.  "You have had seven years of piano?" was the obvious question.  The truthful answer was "No. I have had one year of piano lessons seven times."  Playing ball, hanging out with friends (though we had not heard of 'hanging out' in those days), and other youthful interests pushed piano lessons to the proverbial back burner.

   In college, when our fraternity would serenade someone's girlfriend or we were in inter-fraternity competition, my part was to 'lip sync' (although, again the term had not yet been born).  And, I did my role well.  On two of the three occasions that I 'sang', we won the trophy.

   Stan is a church member in a parish where I was once minister.  He is 'world class', having played at Grand Ole Opry and with the legendary Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys.  So, I offered him a 'deal':  he would teach me to play the banjo so that I could offer that during a worship service and he would , in turn , preach the sermon.  Well, he tried.  My right hand progressed pretty well through the rolls.  Chords with the left hand?  Those were another matter.  And, along with the thing going constantly out of  tune (even my deaf music ear could detect that), I surrendered to the obvious.  However, I concur with someone's definition of banjo:
"It's Spanish for 'out of tune'."  Still, I love it and love hearing Stan play.

    Lacking the knowledge to discuss the nuances of musical composition and  artistic performance, I fall back upon a position no more sophisticated than "I just know what I like and what I donot."  To the despair of an undergraduate girlfriend who was a music major, I was slow in learning not to applaud between movements of symphonies.  At least  I was not like my high school coach who once told our class that he did not like music by 'sympathy orchestras.'

    Several years ago, a neighbor came into our house. Music was playing on the stereo (remember those?).  She said, "I don't understand you."  I answered, "Take a number and get in line. But what are you talking about?"  She said, "Sometimes I come to visit and you are listening to the Statler Brothers and at other times, it's Beethoven."  "I like it all" was the honest answer.  Today, it would be a stretch to say that I like all that gets called 'music'. 

   Shakespeare wrote that "music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak."  Sounds like circumstances that occasionally visit most humans.

    This morning while preparing for a rather solemn responsibility upcoming later today, I have found solace, strength, a balm from an array of music.  Along with songs that promise strong faith perspectives, I have again been 'charmed' by some of Mozart's early symphonies.

    I wear hearing aids as a gesture of accomodation to advancing years and having stood too close to a chain saw while wearing no hearing protection when a younger man.  But just now I am aware that I am hearing the Mozart from the computer and do not have those instruments with me.  What a delight !

   Listen to the music today.
  
     Satchel

    

BIG BOYS DON'T CRY . . .

  "Big Boys Don't Cry. . ."  I heard my boyhood hero, Roy Rogers, sing it on UTube . . .so, it must be right, right?  Well, Roy and Gene and even the Duke (John Wayne) are gone now.  Wonder if it is time to forge a new, more viable, more honest definition of what it means to be a  "Man" in this time.  Someone stereotypically said that when we genderize (is that a word?)  the notion of bodies of water, women are 'babbling brooks' and men are 'dead seas'.  Well, whatever the accuracy of that  characterization, (and there are significant exceptions) the research and the evidence can  be pretty convincing that 'stuffing', not giving expression to. one's emotions can be 'dangerous to one's health.'  Yet, consciously or not, many men still 'sing' Roy's song.  Why?

   Again, stereotypes and labels abound.  "I'll look  weak."; "I will not be in control."; "I'll be called 'sissy' or worse."; "I donot know how to cry."; "I don't want my buddies to see me like that.";  "public displays of emotion are not  spectator sports." . . .on and on they parade.  Parenthetically, men donot own the monopoly on this posture but we are major stock-holders.

   I am not advocating total emotional decomposition or anything close to that. But I have seen many males treat their tears as if they are poison.  The 'language of feelings' is 'foreign language' for many.  Often as couples attempt to articulate their counseling 'goals' in my office, I hear things like "We want to learn to communicate."  To which I may reply, "Which of you does not speak English?", meaning 'it's more than arranging nouns and verbs.'  The therapist, Terrence Real in his book, How Can I Get Through to You?: Reconnecting Men and Women, traced the cultural dynamics by which young boys 'get the message' that emotions are 'bad' and then often spend the better part of their years re-discovering and reintegrating their emotions.  Consequently, he wrote, "The skills needed to tolerate strong emotions are both daunting and unfamiliar to many men." (pp. 62-63) 

   In my opinion, tears serve as 'messengers' from deep within our make-up, our 'souls'.  Our task, our opportunity, is to listen and know how to understand 'the message'.  In Koine Greek, the word that is often the translation for 'messenger' is Angelos.  (With apologies to my friend and former colleague, Roger B. , if I misspell it.)  Still, the messengers are treated as  demons instead of gifts.

    Maybe a sought for balance will be the integration of our emotions and our cognition. So, here's another song, (also that can be found on UTube). This one by Roosevelt Greir, the former NFL lineman, and 'big man'.   'Rosie' sang "it's alright to cry. Crying takes the sad out of you. . . .'  Maybe it is past time for according this song primacy over Roy's.

     Satchel

HOSPICE

    Someone has called it "deja vu all over again".  Here we are again at the Hospice Home in Asheboro, North Carolina.  Two weeks ago, we were here when "Mr. Len" died.  Two days ago, my brother-in-law, the younger of my wife's brothers, was moved here.
Said delicately, we are on 'death watch'.  The appropriate privacy of such matters will preclude any comment on this part of the 'journey'.  Suffice it to indicate that being in the company of someone at this point can be a 'holy' experience.

    This post, rather, is to sing the praises of this place.  (If you want to know more, Google "Hospice of Randolph County")  For the restful, peaceful physical ambiance of the facility to the much more important kindness, compassion and competence of the medical staff,  we are grateful.

                                         (Front Entrance)

                            (Above and Below:  Views from Family Room)

                             (Above and Below: Inside the Chapel)

                                (Above: Another view from Family Room)

(Above:  One of patient suites)

The Medical Staff fiercely guards the dignity and appropriate level of privacy for the patients.  And, furthermore, a patient's comfort and pain management rank at the top of their professional priorities.  Sensitive to the varieties of faith perspectives of their patients, the staff is able to offer spiritual solace and prayers without seeking to impose their own understandings.

Please know, this is not a requested endorsement by anyone connected with Hospice.  If you have been seeking a 'worthy' non-profit organization which you can support, financially and otherwise, I 'nominate' Hospice of Randolph or the comparable entity in your community.

Everyone deserves Death with Dignity.      

Satchel                                                                      

SISTER

      I have noticed a pattern, a theme.  Several of these posts have been about 'brotherly relationships', both of kinship and association.  I have two younger biological brothers whom I do not get to see nearly often enough.  They are 'good men',  "successful" in many of the ways by which the label is measured.  Close male friendship,  ("Brothers", if you please) whether from high school days, college fraternity times, or more recent years has been a gift that I have not always understood or nurtured in ways that I now wish possible. Perhaps aging and the deaths of those who once seemed young and indestructible have further sensitized  me to all this.  So, I am looking and listening for ways to 'catch up'.  There are nascent plans for my two brothers and me to have a long week-end together sometime this Summer.  We all have kind, loving, good wives.  This reflects not at all on our marriages.  We just have not been together, just the three of us since ______?_______ and it seems timely.  And, tentative conversations have begun to have a Sigma Phi Epsilon reunion this Fall back at our undergraduate campus.  All that 'feels' on target for meeting  a 'soul need'.  Somewhere along the way, I remember reading that as 'siblings' get older, there is a strong propensity to 'reconnect'.  Maybe that's it.

    More recently, however, I notice that I am voicing a 'longing' that will never be realized . . .I wish that I had had a sister !  To have said that when an adolescent would have been unthinkable.
The child that my parents lost to a miscarriage would have been our sister, albeit many years my junior.  So that relationship would have been 'different' because I would have been gone from the family home by the time she would have been two years old.
Nor do I believe that I am idealizing what having a sister would have meant, but my observations and conversations with other family members, friends, and clients indicate that there can be about that 'sisterly relationship' ...whether with brother(s) or other sister(s)... something that is 'precious' (and I seldom use that word) beyond all others.

     I first noticed that among my mom and her siblings.  While not the oldest, she in many ways was something of the family 'glue' among that scattered clan after their parents' deaths.  Often she extolled the importance of 'Blood', kinship, family.  My dad lived a great distance, both geographically and chronologically from his biological sisters.  Yet, my foster-Aunt Louise was always "Sister" to him, relationally and in how he addressed her.  Over the years, I have often marveled at the dynamics between my older son and his sister.

                              Mom (3d from left) with several of her sibs.  Only
                                             Rachel (2nd from right) is living.  Ka-rak-ters all!

(Dad , My younger brother, Bob, "Sister" Louise, and 

Grandma Ida on her 80 th Birthday.  Early 1950's)

                    (Uncle Ken with his 'baby sister, Rachel, at her  80th Birthday celebration)

(My older son with his sister.)

(My wife with her two brothers and great-niece)

    While all the above have been and continue to be significant, in the past week I have been (yet again) awe-struck by and in admiration of the deep affection and loyalty that my wife lives and conveys toward her brothers.  Particularly, just now for her younger brother who is suddenly facing health 'challenges' of major dimensions. She has spent long hours at the hospital, just being with him, participating in consultations with physicians and other care-givers, extending emotional and spiritual comfort.  Her mother died just days after her high school graduation. She then took a job so that she could help with caring for her two brothers, some 7 and   10 years younger.  She had promised her mother that she would 'take care' of them and she has done that in profound ways over the years.  Always careful not to infringe upon their autonomy, she has been a source of wisdom and influence for them.  And, their love and regard for her is also evident.  In my opinion, they are two fortunate men.  I am glad for them . . .and, honestly, wish I had a sister like that.

     Satchel

   

MORE THAN 'JUST A GAME'

     I have been 'fraternizing with the enemy'.  That is to say that I as a confirmed Boston Red Sox fan am reading a book about  . . .(gasp) the New York Yankees.  To further complicate matters, I have to acknowledge that I am enjoying it.  

    Driving Mr Yogi:Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball's Greatest Gift celebrates the evolving friendship and affection of these two Yankee players of different generations.  (I almost wrote 'former Yankees' but according to them, there likely is no such person.)  Along the way, there are anecdotes galore about the team and its storied, legendary existence.  It's an easy read and Yogi Berra is certainly a 'treasure' for those who love the game.  For me, as enjoyable as the "Baseball" dimension is, there is another thread that has drawn me to this 'fraternizing with the enemy':  long standing friendships, especially male friendships.

   So, I was not surprised that this book reminded me of another somewhat similar baseball book , about former Red Sox teammates.  And that is the title; The Teammates:A Profile of a Friendship, written a few years ago by the late David Halberstam.  Four men, legendary players each ---Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr and Dominic DiMaggio--- were particularly close during their playing days in the 1940's and 1950's and remained so in the years after their retirement.  Williams called them "My guys".

   Someone aptly noted that Halberstam (who also wrote Summer of '49 about the pennant race of that year when the Red Sox lost to the Yankees in the last game of the season) used "sports as a mirror to reflect the larger society."  Consequently, whether or not one cares for the game of baseball, The Teammates is a powerful story.  Halberstam wrote that "they were all special men--smart, purposeful, hardworking--and they had seized on baseball as their one chance to get ahead in America."

   Friendships are precious.  Men are often criticized for a presumed inability to be sensitive and talk about matters more profound than the latest scores, politics, cars, and other topics external to their souls.  While the book is a story of four men whose friendships originated in the game, they also transcended the stereotypes and remained close throughout their lives.  Doerr, now 93 years old, is the sole survivor of the four.  The dustjacket contains a succinct summary in calling the book "a profoundly human story of four great ballplayers who have made the passage from sports icons . . .to men dealing with the vulnerabilities of growing older.  At the core of the book is the friendship of these four very different but extraordinary men, the key players in a remarkable Boston Red Sox team, who stayed close to each other for more than sixty years."

   Many descriptive words have been written about Ted Williams   . . . profane (and there are several instances of this within the book),vain, intelligent, perfectionist, tempestuous, domineering. . . and they are largely correct.  Yet, Halberstam noted, "Bobby Doerr loved Ted Williams.  He knew all his faults and loved him just the same. . . .It was a cherished friendship for both of them. But that did not mean it was ever easy."  Then there was a time in 1961 when Williams uncustomarily let down his guard and his bravado. He showed Doerr and another  Red Sox scout parts of his childhood and Doerr remembered "all you could feel was the sadness of it. The sadness of that little boy, and the sense that it had weighed on him so heavily for so long."   And the often-arrogant Williams turned to Dominic DiMaggio for support in later years.

   Along with a special male friendship, the author also held up his mirror to the matter of aging in our society.  He wrote that     growing old in America, the country of the young is never easy, not even for those who have been successful in their lives and can afford the best medical care."  At 45, DiMaggio   was diagnosed with Paget's disease; Doerr had to  stop playing because of orthopedic problems and then his wife's MS returned, followed by two strokes.  Williams's physical health remained strong for a long time but there were complicated and volatile relationship problems.  Rather dramatically his health worsened and in October                  2001, Pesky and DiMaggio travelled to Florida to visit  the dying Williams. Doerr was unable to make the trip because of his wife's fragile health. Halberstam noted, "It had all come down to this one final visit.  They had once felt immortal, so sure of their youth  and their strength and their futures, so immune to the vagaries of age."
There is a warmth and poignancy in the account of Dominic DiMaggio's singing to an appreciative  Williams, no longer "The Kid", as sportswriters had once called him.

   For the baseball fan, there are numerous anecdotal nuggets in the book, but the larger story is an enduring and touching one that can appeal to someone who has never heard the umpire call,
"Play Ball !"

   Satchel


( A tribute to the memory of my undergraduate fraternity 'little brother', Fred L. Sigmon , who died last week, apparently from long-delayed complications from an automobile accident in 1960.  And, in appreciation for the men who have been important 'teammates' for me along the way.)

MR. LEN

      "Mr. Len" died on Friday.  He was 93.  He embodied a way to live life that I hope to emulate when I 'grow up'.

     'Hero' is a much used and abused designation in our society.  However, I nominate him as a bona fide.
He served with distinction for many years in the U.S. Navy and was 'there' on June 6, 1944, for the Normandy invasion.  A couple of years ago, our D-2 (second daughter) ran a marathon to raise the funds that enabled Len and another Veteran to fly to Washington to see the Veteran's Memorial. But, the Hero status is more than his military service.

     A raconteur  par excellence, 'Mr. Len' always 'spiced' the stories with his droll New England wit and the 'twinkling eye'.  He and his wife of 70+ years continued to visit relatives in New Hampshire.  Recently, he was telling my wife of their upcoming drive there from North Carolina.
She innocently asked why not fly and rent an automobile at the airport.  He mischievously commented that  Auto Rental Companies considered him 'too old' to rent a car, so they, consequently, would drive the distance.  And , they did. Earlier, a mutual friend told me of having followed Len on the Interstate out of Winston-Salem, N.C., during 'rush hour' and marveled that a '90-something' was undaunted. Now, Winston-Salem hardly has Boston or New York City's congestion.  But, it isn't Mayberry either.

   (Apropos of nothing other than the 'small world' phenomenon, their New Hampshire brother-in-law had knee replacement surgery several years ago.  His surgeon was my brother now retired as an Orthopedic Surgeon in Manchester, N.H.)

    Len and Betty have been faithful members of the local Presbyterian Church where I first met them 8 or so years ago.  I particularly enjoyed our verbal repartee at church picnics. He was keen. Have you ever played the game 'Cornhole' ?  Kind of like 'horseshoes'.  Something of a game of skill.  He was a formidable opponent at those times.

   He was 'gifted' with a good mind, a kind spirit, and an ability to remain engaged until the end...We are grateful for a life well lived and that touched so many in good ways.

     Requiem Aeternam dona ei, Domine; et lux
perpetuam luceat ei.  Rest eternal grant him, O Lord; and let light perpetual shine upon him.

    Satchel