Yogi Berra gets credit for that expression . . . along with some other colorful manglings of English syntax. Think he even wrote a book with a title something like, Things I Didn't Say. Whoever originated it, the phrase seems to fit our outside world today. Two weeks ago, I wrote Snowbound. Well, that experience was but a 'warmup' for what occurred yesterday and is expected to resume for a while today. Let's make the obligatory tip of the hat to other parts of the country where our weather circumstance would be a minor irritant. 'But that ain't here!' and 'it's a mess'.
In central North Carolina, a 6-10 inch snowfall is a big deal; throw in sleet and freezing rain, and hunkering down is wisdom.
How bad was (is) it? Last night's basketball game between HUGE rivals Duke and UNC was cancelled and rescheduled. Now, only a dozen or so miles separate the two campuses and a major four-lane highway connects the towns . . . but travel was more than 'high risk'. So what makes postponing a collegiate basketball game so 'significant'? Even to ask the question can be taken by many 'fans' (short for 'fanatic') as prima facia proof that "You ain't from around here, are you?" Some folks take their ACC basketball more seriously than most anything else. (I must acknowledge that I am no longer a 'fan'.)
Back to Deja vu . . . as a salute to Doug, yesterday I had a bowl of snow cream. Three drivers were unable to navigate our street's hill and had to be towed up by a neighbor with a truck and sturdy chain. I live 60+ miles from my therapy practice. For safety considerations (mine and my clients'), I cancelled yesterday's appointments and came home Tuesday night. The hospital where I work has cancelled all outpatient/ambulatory clinics today except for two Urgent Care Centers which will be closing at 4 pm. Just now, my wife called from upstairs, 'Have you looked outside?' It's snowing again, after last night's sleet. The Governor was just on television, indicating that the storm continues and urging prudence. Apparently, the capitol city, Raleigh, yesterday had a mini-version of what Atlanta and Birmingham experienced a couple of weeks ago. . . gridlocked traffic and abandoned automobiles.
For someone with more than a dash of introversion, I am grateful and happy for the warmth of presence of my wife and dog, good books, delicious coffee, gas logs in the fireplace, occasional naps, good music, watching the birds swarm around the feeder, scenic vistas and the luxury of being indoors. Still, part of the music that drifts through my mind is "In the Good Ole Summertime".
Hope you can stay warm, dry and safe.
Many cannot.
Satchel
Yesterday in a telephone conversation with my daughter, I mentioned that as a second grader I had been hit by an automobile when on the way home from school. I said it within the context of a topic we were discussing; not to issue a 'news flash'.
To my surprise, she said she had not known that bit of my 'history'.
Now, she is too young to have 'memory problems'; nor, I suppose, never was much made of the topic as she was growing up. But that brief conversation snippet prompted yet another 'musing'. What else might 'children' not know about their parents as well as aunts, uncles, and other family members that could be 'worth telling'? Now that my parents, grand-parents, many aunts and uncles are dead, I am frequently encountering questions that I wish I could pose to them. Not necessarily 'humongous' matters but more likely information that could provide perspectives and understandings. A Carthaginian proverb said that 'when an old person dies, it is like losing a library.' Perhaps this is but another example of "We get too soon old and too late smart".
Obviously, there are parental matters that are too 'heavy' for progeny's knowledge or concern. Rather, I am thinking more of 'strings' or 'threads' that potentially could help us better understand ourselves and each other, without causing loss of individuality.
I wish that I had known enough to have asked my paternal grand-father details of how his conversion to Christianity provoked a rift with his Jewish father. I remember his telling of meeting his father on a New York street and the father crossing the street rather than meet his son face to face. Apparently, there was some kind of reconciliation later but I know none of that. Nor do I know how my maternal grand-mother's family became textile workers nor how and when my maternal grand-father became postmaster in their mill village. I know the story of my parents' elopement but not of how they initially became serious in their relationship.
And, there is another variation on the theme . . . what do the children know that has been kept from their parents? If my parents ever learned of my two grade school spankings, they never told me.
(Back in the 'dark ages' of the 1940's, school teachers had in loco parentis authority, that is they could function as parents and if that meant a few licks to the derriere, so be it.) Nor do I know what they knew of my other skirmishes with 'appropriate deportment.'
For that matter, I occasionally still learn of youthful 'adventures' of my now-adult children and grand-children. And, like my own parents, there were some of which I had knowledge that I did not reveal.
Telling and re-telling family stories can be a rich source of entertainment as well as understanding. By now the story has been retold many times of one brother's scaring the bejebbers out of a camper just as a loon on Lake Winnepesaukee shrieked its blood-curdling call. That mischief notwithstanding, his being in New Hampshire that summer has been a pivotal point in his life. When my near-by brother and his family and we 'meet and eat', it has become a truism that our mother is always there . . . either in some topic or some expression she used. Yet one more time . . . Living in the past is not the point. Rather, what from the past can foster healthy ways to live in the right now ?
In earlier posts, I have referenced Malcom Gladwell's The Outliers wherein he made a strong case that we are composites of many influences, including those of which we know little or nothing. As a therapist strongly influenced by 'family systems theory', I have a growing appreciation and understanding of generation to generation legacies, including those that are hurtful. And when I taught U.S. History on college level, my students researched and wrote oral histories of their extended families in the 20th century. Many of the students heard powerful stories for the first time, such as the woman who learned of her grand-father's service and death in World War II.
Whose stories do you want to hear? And, who do you want to hear some of yours?
By the way, as my daughter noted, I survived my encounter with the Buick back in 1945.
Satchel
