'WRITE' ON !

   Creativity and memory, however defined, are quixotic muses . . . Sometimes they are 'here' in great overflowing abundance; sometimes, they go into hiding so deeply that it seems nothing can coax them into the daylight.
  
  Dad used to tell me that there was a time and place for all things. I marveled at his innovative insight until I read Ecclesiastes.  Or, as the author of a comparative philosophy text used in undergrad school phrased it, there is 'a principle of alternation'.  Freely translated for these purposes . . . 'sometimes you got it and sometimes you ain't ; sometimes they flow and sometimes they don't'..

   Some of the posts that have appeared on this blog were written with great ease (almost wrote themselves; now, I know. . .I'm not talking 'great literature' !); others, were a struggle.  So it goes. It is becoming clear that attempting to 'force' the 'juices' is futile. At times like those, I find it best to 'sit still' and pay attention to what bubbles up and to remember why I even initiated a blog and why I consider writing to be important.  Among the 'answers' that I receive, some seem  more pertinent than others.

    Many years ago, my counselor would coax me with "How are you going to know what you are thinking if you don't hear yourself talk?"  I wanted to say, 'But I'm an Introvert; I think  inside."  And now when posts take on a life of their own, I wish Vernon were still living so that I could point out the times when I didn't know that I thought, believed, felt in a particular  manner until I 'heard' it written.  Those are the Musings . . . just thinking 'aloud' . . .a kind of 'layman's philosophizing', I suppose.  For example, the post about the old truck:

   The last post about my Uncle Ken was 'fun' to write. I love to tell stories and there are lots of good stories in most  (reasonably) normal families, especially one with as many kar'akters (see earlier post by that title) as are in our entourage.  As the oldest grand-son of a large extended family (I have two older female cousins), I 'was there' and saw, heard, experienced family interactions in ways that my younger cousins (born soon before or after the deaths of our grand-parents) did not know first hand.  Obviously, the cousins are 'storehouses' of a wealth of lore as well.  Maybe we 'older ones' have the opportunity to remember, preserve and make available 'family treasures' . . .some very valuable, some just pedestrian . . . for the next generations.  And, while the specifics are relevant for but one family, I am learning that what resonates in specifics often resonates in the generalities.  Readers who do not share blood kinship with me and my families report that occasionally they recognize traces of their own clan in something written here.  I suppose that those posts are the 'Meanderings' .

                  My cousins and me.  Find the oldest grand-son.  Clue: he is not standing.
                                                Five cousins  are not pictured.


    The 'Mutterings' ? . . . Well, a synonym might be 'grumblings' or 'kvetching'.  Those I prefer to minimize. ( An exception would be the early post 'Curmudgeon'.) There are allegations that we 'old timers' take such as our perogative.  Ah, now there's a stereotype: 'the Grumpy Old Man'.  I have met a few of those of both sexes but I donot believe that persona is the norm.

      The motivations for and benefits of writing are many.  Several of my clients utilize writing as an adjunctive aid for their therapy, as I was urged to do in the 1970's.  A few write blogs, others write poetry, some keep journals, and still others explore meaning & purpose in their sermons.  

     In an earlier career as an academic historian, after MA thesis and doctoral dissertation, I published a few 'scholarly' articles and papers.  And, at the time, those were reasonably enjoyable. But not like the blog writing is proving to be.
   
    An undergraduate fraternity brother began his career as newspaper reporter and columnist then went in diametrically different directions as Urban planner and later Congressional lobbyist.  In his mid-late 50's, he returned to his first love and has since published several acclaimed novels and, most recently, a non-fiction work.  Along the way, he teaches creative writing in nearby colleges and does book readings.  He is a 'fulfilled man'.
(See his website: www.charlesfprice.com which also has a link to his blog.)

     Trained as a journalist and later as a clergyman, my younger brother for several years was the editor of the local county weekly newspaper.  Additionally, he wrote a column of opinion, local lore, legend and personalities, as well as some wonderful stories.  Along the way, he has picked up several state press association writing awards. "Aunt Bea" of Andy Griffith Show fame is buried in our town. The funeral  was a 'By Invitation' service and although not among the invitees, he wrote a story about the event that won a North Carolina Press Association award. It was all factual, though sprinkled with a bit of the Blarney Stone effect.  Although no longer the editor, he continues to write the column.

     A story has three parts . . .beginning, middle and end.  So, in conclusion, " 'Write On' about whatever you feel like you need to say" .

     Satchel
     

   
    

BASEBALL and UNCLE KEN

     Perhaps it's just the time of the year for baseball. Perhaps it's because the perennial 'swoon team', the Red Sox,  are currently in first place in their division ( though barely).  Perhaps it's because I would like again to take a swing at 'Junior's' curve or once again make the first-baseman's stretch.

   For whatever the reason, I have been reading 'baseball books' recently  . . .half-dozen or so in recent weeks, a kind of respite from my usual reading fare.

    As a high school athlete, I was smart enough to know that football was not my game.  I did not like to hurt.  I was barely o.k. at basketball.  My game was baseball. 

   I came across some of my 'stats' recently. My batting average in my Senior year was respectable, .300 + in county competition, even managing one home run. It happened like this: playing a cross-county rival, we were having 'batting practice', peppering their pitcher pretty soundly. I went to bat with 'home run' in mind, only to hear the coach call my name. I turned to see him flash the bunt signal...crossing his arms.  ( Crossing his legs meant 'steal' a base. I missed that signal in another game .  To make it up, I ran on the next pitch only to be called 'out' by the base umpire. I was lectured. ). Back to the bunt . . . after a half- hearted attempt went awry, I didn't look at Coach again. I sent the next pitch over the centerfielder's head. When I tagged home plate and sat down, Coach merely said, "Nice bunt, MY NAME !"

    I often speak of 'heroes' in these posts.  'Heroes', role models, 'examples' . . . these can be good, even necessary, persons, especially if chosen with care.  My bias is that very few contemporary professional athletes qualify.  And, it may be a moot point as to whether they ever did.  For example: "Say it ain't so, Joe" the young boy's plaintive plea  to his 'hero', 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson, in the aftermath of the 'Black Sox Scandal' of the early 20 th century.  (Several players on the Chicago White Sox were bribed to 'throw' the World Series.)

    As a child, my baseball 'hero' was my Uncle Ken, though the idea  probably didnot occur to him.  "Pshaaw", he would have said. He was just being himself. He was the main pitcher on the local mill village's baseball team. In the early-mid 20th century such teams were a source of much civic pride in those places.  Sometime in 1949, the Durham (NC) Herald had a lengthy article about the town where he and much of our family lived.  The article's title was What We're Really Proud of Is our Baseball Team.  Ken  was featured prominently in the article and there were two pictures of him, one of his being shaved by his brother, Lewis, in the latter's barbershop.  (The original of that clipping is somewhere in my 'archives'. )

   Uncle Ken's pitches were fast and often, WILD.  He was not the kind of man who would deliberately throw a 'beanball'. But this was the era before batting helmets and it was a brave ...or foolish...batter who would 'dig in' against him.

   He was discovered by professional scouts and played a few seasons of minor league baseball in North Carolina. I was perhaps 10 years old when he took my brother and me to one of his pro games in Raleigh. I was in awe.  He was at a Spring  Training tryout camp for the Pittsburg Pirates in 1951when he received the urgent call to return home . . .his dad had had a fatal heart attack.  He never returned to the tryout camp.  Instead, he turned his attention to business pursuits and became a prominent local businessman.  Still, late in life, he acknowledged that every Spring the 'bug' would bite and he wished he could play again.

    The group picture below (my technological limitations prevent my being able to rotate it) is of a team for which he pitched in the late  1940's.  Although no identification was provided, the man on back row left bears a strong resemblance.

     As a boy in the mill town, he was early known to have

a strong work ethic and financial 'savvy'.  My mom often told of

adults who would borrow money from the 'newspaper boy' and promise to repay him on 'payday'.  He enlisted in the US Navy in   World War II as soon as he was age eligible, following the military death of an older brother.  Somewhere in those same 'artifacts' is a huge coconut that he mailed to me from Guam when deployed there.

Ken (we rarely used 'Uncle') was mom's youngest brother and her sons often teased her that he was her fourth, and perhaps favorite, son.  It was not unusual for him to appear in the Summer with a large supply of cucumbers, asking mom to make him some kosh '-er pickles.  The most upset I ever saw her usually-Stoic demeanor was when he was hospitalized and near death.  (He later recovered and lived several more years.)

        It was after WWII that our Summertime Saturday ritual was for dad, other relatives and me to go wherever the team was playing.  They usually won, due in large measure to Ken's strong right arm.

      Retrospectively, I am sure that my initial affinity for baseball came from seeing him pitch.  So, I also aspired to be a pitcher. Dad bought a catcher's mitt for our games of 'catch'.  My first ever pair of spikes were hand-me-down's from Ken.      

            (  Mid-to-early 1940's )

(The above two pictures are of Uncle Ken and his youngest sister, Rachel.  The top one was made in the early to mid- 1940's.  The second was made in 2007 on the occasion of her 80th birthday.)

A few days from now will be the fifth anniversary of his death.

Increasingly, I am aware of the importance of family, community, heroes, institutions, traditions, values, etc., that provide stability and guidance for youth who are striving to establish their own identity.

       Such roots are steadying, enriching and empowering.  I am grateful for the influence that Uncle Ken provided in my youth and adolescence . . . in baseball and in life.    

           Satchel


                                                                                                       

"IT'S ALWAYS 15 YEARS FROM NOW . . ."

    ( A 2018 revision:  "Now that he has been convicted of sordid deeds in his past, it is painful to remember that Bill Cosby was once consider a  'funny man'.  And one of the earliest recordings of his monologues had a title somewhat like that.  I used the following quote before the accusations became public, to the great disappointment of many who had liked his persona. While he has been discredited, the following quote need not be.)  

  When Bill Cosby turned 50, he expressed his hope that "old age is always fifteen years from now."  Many Americans are discovering the truth of his book title, Time Flies, as they count these flying 'fifteen years'.  Statistics from the late 20th century ---1995 --- gave something of the dimensions
of the greying of the population.  In that year, there were  approximately thirty-three and a half million Americans sixty-five and older, or about one in eight persons. Some counts reflect a female/male ratio on 145 women for every 100 men.

     Stereotypes abound ---most of them denigrating to older persons.  A kind of 'if you have seen one, you have seen them all' bias persists, though, in fact, there is greater diversity among the sixty-five and over population than among any other age cohort.
And, despite popular assumptions to the contrary, a very small percentage of those 65+ live in retirement homes, nursing homes , and other similar institutions.

    Now that the counting has begun on my own 'fifteen years til old', I sometimes think of two of my personal heroes that defied age-stereotyping.  One was William Jenkins, a retired Methodist (pre-United) minister, who at 89 built a bookcase that I still have.
He would also borrow my seminary class texts, and on returning them would ask me, "What do you think [Paul] Tillich meant by such and such?"  The year that I turned 50, I ran a fifteen mile road race through the hills of Charleston, West Virginia.  Later I discovered that my respectable time had been bettered by half and hour by 81 year old John Pianfetti. The next year he was 'only' a quarter of an hour ahead of me at the finish line.  His hometown newspaper later did a feature on him with the title, "The Fact That I Run is Why I am 93".  I was told that he died at 97.

                                          (She is Stretching our definitions of "Old")


  Another damaging stereotype is that 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks.'  Older people, like anyone else, can change if they are motivated and have the requisite health.  They (we) are not too set in their (our) ways to experience  emotional change and growth.  Many years ago, Hugh Downs wrote Thirty Dirty Lies About Old.  I would add a "Thirty First" lie: 'Counseling for older persons is useless.'  In truth,  "the mental health needs of older persons are increasingly becoming the central counseling concern of those in ministry." (Koenig and Weaver,  Counseling Troubled Older Adults)

   Among the mental health needs of the older adult, late life depression is a significant public health concern.  When older persons become depressed, many erroneously assume that this is just a part of 'getting older'.  Depression can be precipitated by various causes--biological and physiological reasons, health changes, grief and losses, and life disruptions.  Older persons' depressive symptoms can also be mistaken for dementia.  Tragically, depressed older adults commit suicide at a rate greater than any other age group.  In truth, depression among this age group can be treated with a high rate of success.  

    For others, an emotional-health possibility is a life review--an opportunity to assess the meaning of our lives.  And, putting 'the story' in a written form for our progeny can be an inestimable gift.  I often wish that I had my grand-parents' and parents'  'autobiographies' in a written form.  

   Those '15 years' move at an inexorable pace.  May we not 'get too soon old and too late smart' . . . nor 'old' too soon.

    Satchel

     Satchel

WHEN THE MAP AND THE GROUND DO NOT AGREE

      Daniel Boone, the legendary pioneer and explorer, was asked if he had ever been lost.  He supposedly said "I ain't ever been lost but there were them three or four days when I was powerful confused about where I was."  Much of his travels were without the convenience of a map.

    I saw the map pictured below in a restaurant in Georgetown, South Carolina, several years ago.  I knew that it 'looked different' and close examination revealed that it was a 1935 map of the US 
. . . notice the absence of interstate highways.  Likely, most of the roads on there still exist . . . but travel with this guide could be slow, cumbersome, and just plain inconvenient. . . or, powerful confusing.  We contemporary 'Boone's' often find ourselves 'powerful confused' about our location and bearings because our life 'map' is outdated and no longer reflects the new terrain.

   Dr. Gordon Livingston in his book,  Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now, wrote of a field exercise that he as a young army lieutenant experienced at Fort Bragg, NC.  His sergeant saw him studying his map and asked if anything were wrong.  Livingston replied that according to the map, there should be a mountain over there and he saw none.  Whereupon the sergeant replied, 'Sir, if the map and the ground don't agree, then the map is wrong.'  He said he knew that he had just heard wisdom spoken.

     How do our 'maps' become outdated and at variance with 'the ground' ?  And, what can we do to prevent them (and ourselves) from becoming obsolete?  As for how, we can inquire about forces and factors ---within ourselves and in our world --- that cause CHANGE.  It is a 'challenge' to come to terms with this process that happens to our bodies, our institutions, our relationships, indeed, to everything.

     In 1971, I heard my grand-father at 87 recount the changes that he had witnessed since he came to America around 1890: the automobile, the radio, the television, airplanes, man on the moon, penicillin, nuclear  weapons and energy were among the most obvious.   And  he died before computers, the internet, smart phones, and all that goes with the new technology.  That's a lot of new 'Ground' around which to redraw one's life 'maps'.  

   On an individual level, life-expectancy far outdistances that of even a century ago.  That change can be attributable in large measure to improved nutrition, medical innovations and discoveries, as well as to levels of public education.  This demographic shift brings with it new implications around a long-standing query: 'how old is  OLD?  Once, when as a 66 year old I was bounding up a flight of  steps, a stranger informed me that to her 58 was old.  I would not want to navigate my life using her map.

    What to retain, what of the new to embrace?  A young woman once said to Thomas Carlyle: "Sir, I accept the universe." To which the crusty old man replied: "My God, you'd better !"  Conversely, dad enjoyed telling the story of a young minister who reviewed with one of the deacons the many changes in the parish that had occurred since the pastor's arrival. 'We've changed this and we've changed that'. To which the Deacon replied, 'Yes. And I have been against every damned one of them.'  To dad, the hero of that anecdote was not the stubborn old man.

    I have noticed that the 'Maps' by which I lived my 40's, 50's and even parts of my 60's no longer agree with the ground on which I now live.  And, like Dan'l Boone, sometimes it has been powerful confusing.  Listening to friends and to clients, I know that such is the case for all except for the most encrusted dinosaurs among us.  And, even for those long-extinct creatures, their inability to adapt meant that their maps no longer coincided with the ground on which they lived.  "And the rest is History." By contrast, folks who strive to keep living by updating their maps have some impressive names . . .like Pioneers, like Explorers.  I much prefer to be called one of those than Dinosaur.

     Satchel

    

"ONCE UPON A TIME . . ."

      Do you see any of the same persons in the progression of Reunion pictures?

                            Class of 1956 . . .Twenty-five years later.

                                                       Forty years later

                             Class of 1956...forty-five years later

                                                        Fifty Year Reunion

         Lots of Seventy-Five Year Olds... 57th Year Reunion



        "Hello, My Name is . . ."

      "Your face looks somewhat familiar . . ."

    "You haven't changed a bit in ______ years."


    Well, there were not many of us . . .even in the beginning . . . who graduated from high school that May evening in 1956.  There were 43 of us, or was it 44? Can't remember and at the moment , my yearbook is packed away.

      Some of those folks I have not seen since that night; others, rarely; still others, sporadically. I now live only 15-20  miles away from what was then the high school.  But, in many ways, it is light years distance. The town has grown in geographic size and in population.  ( I attended worship service in the United Methodist Church there last Sunday ...the same church that I attended during my last two years in high school and on college week-ends when home.  I saw 'Zero' persons whom I knew, although there were a couple of familiar names in the bulletin.)

    The class has had reunions marking 25, 40, 45, 50, and 57 years.  (There may have been others that I cannot remember.) I attended those of  25, 40, 45, and 50 years.  While their appearances have changed, many of the same persons are in all the above pictures. Some attendees are 'regulars', others are less so; and some, alas, have died.  From our small graduating class, nine are no longer living and a few others have or have had health crises.  There apparently are tentative plans to have annual get-togethers while those who are alive and able to travel can see  each other yet another time.

    Many of the stories are re-told for the upteenth time ---and sometimes are as fresh as when they first occurred:  The 'White Rats' escapade on the Principal's yard. (There had been 'allegations'. . .); the water-filled item that fell from Sam's locker right at "Mrs. Lossie's " feet  with Coach (aka 'Curly' ...for his bald pate) looking on; the auto collision with the train on a Spring evening. Gratefully, no one was killed. Carl actually returned to the baseball team and hit a home run, until it was discovered that he still had a damaged bicep; Have you ever seen a Six-Man football game? It's 'different'.; DWT 'ratting' out the perpetrators of the cherry bomb explosion in the boys' restroom; 'Fizz Merrel' trying to explain the intricacies of Algebra and Plane Geometry, Mrs. Yates having us to diagram sentences and to memorize (!) lots of poetry.  Some I still remember. ; Billy Joe's telling the 'newbie' History teacher that his class absence was because of his appointment with 'Dr. Friday'. She didn't know that 'Friday' owned the local pool hall.; Coach's car (known as 'The Goat' for the ram ornament on the hood) rolling down the incline beside the gym as he conducted infield practice many feet away.  When the catcher couldnot contain his mirth and literally rolled on the ground, Curly drawled in his nasal twang: 'Ain't funny, White !'; Some of the distinctive nick-names given classmates: Lightnin', Razor, Shane, Chubby, Whip, Speedy, Moosie, Tex, Red (aka Chico)...and those are just the ones that I can recall/or put in print.

    One of my dear friends recently chided me about the unhealthy effects of focusing on aging.
Actually, he said, "I worry about you worrying too much about aging. It ain't healthy!"  I have noted several times in this blog that the past is an interesting place to visit ...we just cannot 'live' there.  A former neighbor once commented that 'everyone wants to live in Mayberry'. . .a reference to Andy Griffith's idyllic little town.
    
       While our town and school district were hardly 'Mayberry', there were many positive circumstances, events, and influential people that provided us with structure, mostly good values, and directions while we were formulating our own set of values and life guidelines.  Those are good things to remember and share again with those who were our early 'travelling companions.'

    Satchel