Author: uponourcommonground

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest…”

From An Essay on Man: Epistle 1 by Alexander Pope

The first of January is now a memory.  The days that have transpired since have made the ringing in of the Gregorian New Year a day I would rather forget as we make our way towards spring.  I have always considered February to be the longest month of the year from a metaphysical point of view—my body and spirit just want it to end. Other than Valentine’s Day, it is bereft of holidays or distracting celebrations, unless we get a good snow and school is cancelled. Valentine’s Day is a brief flash of warmth in an otherwise long and tedious month. It also doesn’t help that the local groundhog saw his shadow, predicting six more weeks of winter.

I just made it through another February and my eyes are fixed on March 19^th—at 11:50 P.M. EST to be exact. It’s certainly not to celebrate the 102nd anniversary of the date the U.S. Congress approved daylight-savings time (DST); rather, it’s to celebrate the vernal equinox, the first day of spring. I liked it better when Indiana didn’t adhere to DST, but that’s another story.

The vernal equinox brings increasing daylight, warming temperatures, and the awakening of our flora and fauna.  “Equinox” is derived from Latin, meaning “equal night” marked by our days and nights being approximately equal and the sun rising and setting due east and west.  The tilt of the Earth relative to the sun is zero, which means the earth’s axis neither points toward nor away from the sun (Old Farmer’s Almanac).

For me, that day in March welcomes the real New Year, not midnight on January 1^st—the latter just another day on the calendar.  The planets align just so, rather than manifest as some tick on the proverbial clock. We have become slaves to the Gregorian calendar.  We go to work, we celebrate birthdays, we take our holidays when the calendar permits, and we live by the seven-day week.  We know the length of each month and what comes after Monday. Can you hear your alarm going off?

The calendar segments our time as it marches on, following the same predictable pattern: 2019, 2020, January, February, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and on and on.  Every minute of every day is counted as if it is a balance sheet or profit and loss statement.  Our cell phones, e-mail, and electronic gadgetry adorn our bodies and souls like chains, binding us to our calendar lives.  The latest and greatest technology only serves to anchor us deeper into the Gregorian year.  Slowly but surely we lose the connection to the rhythms of nature.

Instead of counting twelve months, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, or 31,536,000 seconds, we should pay more attention to nature’s cycles, the cycles of birth, growth, decline, and rebirth—driven by the vernal equinox, the summer solstice, the autumnal equinox, and finally the winter solstice.  The cycles of our planet continue on, oblivious to the Gregorian calendar.  The plants know when to emerge in spring, the trees to bud, the birds to nest, the mammals to den up, the flowers to bloom, the leaves to drop, the winds to blow, the snow to fall, the rains to come and go. 

We march through our lives in parallel systems: one defined by man, the other by nature. In man’s world, we constantly expect nature to adhere to our narrow concept of time.  Try as we might, we will not be successful.  The other system belongs to nature. She doesn’t know the first from the fifteenth but tells us when the buds on the trees will leaf out, the first wildflowers will appear, and the cardinals will sing their mating songs. Perhaps we will never be able to live fully to nature’s time, but the more we try I think the better connected we will be to our natural world. Time moves at a different pace when we use nature’s clock.  We slow down and become more observant of the subtle shifts in our surroundings.  But this is a difficult transition: for most of us, it’s still, “I’ll be home at six, the meeting starts at 3:30 P.M., or the party starts at 8:00 P.M.” Or rather, “I’ll be there at the sun’s rise, when the moon is full, or as soon as the rain stops.”  There is one moment in time when we will all adhere to nature’s calendar.  It won’t be necessary to verify your appointment on your electronic gadget or the Gregorian calendar. No alarms will go off and the calendar won’t mean a damn.

The mere passage of time makes us all exiles – Joyce Carol Oates

According to Merriam-Webster, to be exiled means the state or a period of forced or voluntary absence from one’s country or home. I have always tried to keep to the voluntary forms of exile. I find being able to return home, at least in my mind, to be a peaceful way to escape life’s tribulations. I have always had a knack for conjuring up memories from my boyhood when the going gets rough.

I think we all have some place from our past, likely made of bricks and mortar, that provides an ample supply of wonderful memories. In many cases, we can’t go back there because it is no longer accessible to us physically, so we must rely on the spirit of the place to carry us back. That place for me is a small Cape Cod that still stands on Elm Street in my hometown. I was exiled from there in the summer of 1965, prior to entering first grade at Schmitt Elementary. I guess you could say my exile was involuntary, since my parents gave me no choice but to move to Chestnut Street. What was a six-year-old to do? It wasn’t a horrible exile by any stretch—my new bedroom was a lot bigger. It was also the place where I left the innocence of childhood behind and confronted the realities of being a teenager and young adult.

When I think about my first childhood memories, though, they always take me back to that quaint Cape Cod on Elm Street. Located in the twenty-third block, it was my new world when I was brought home from the hospital in June of 1959. It was there I learned to walk, spoke my first words, smiled for the first time, and got into a hell a lot of mischief. I climbed trees, learned to ride my bicycle in the alley, climbed on my grandfather’s roof and on the neighbor’s garage. Dad gave me my first haircut in the kitchen because it was time I “started looking like a boy” (Mom always said she shed a tear that day because I had such beautiful blonde curls). My first Christmas was celebrated there, my first Easter Sunday, and my first five birthdays.

My siblings and I still laugh about the shenanigans we pulled—like putting every ball we had in the clothes chute upstairs so when Mom opened the cabinet downstairs all our balls would bounce down upon her (we made sure not to include any baseballs). She would just laugh and then threaten us half-heartedly with a paddling. In that same chute, my brother and sister would hold me by the feet as I slid down and then yelled for Mom to open the door. There she would find my smiling face and gently remove me while telling me that I shouldn’t do that because I might cut myself on the tin. There were baths in the kitchen sink, fires in the fireplace, and my brother and sister goading me into telling Mom that she had rocks in her head. I can still hear mom’s gentle admonishment, “Oh, you kids”.

I may have been exiled from my paradise on Elm Street, but I have discovered throughout my life that paradise is where and what you make it. When I’m stuck in a rut, I think about the past and my five short years on Elm Street. Although a flash when compared to the intervening years, the memories of those days are etched indelibly in my mind. Sometimes I long for the way things were. But we have to face the present and the future, regardless of the past.

My experiences on Elm Street remain foundational—they set the compass bearing of my life’s ongoing journey. Family, faith, boyhood adventures, and mischief are my magnetic north. It is just as much a state of mind as a place on the map. Even though I have been exiled for over fifty-five years now, my life’s journey still takes me back to the days in that modest Cape Cod house.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. T. S. Eliot

Circumnavigation conjures up things terrestrial and celestial. The astronauts circumnavigated the earth and moon in orbit while other explorers circled the earth on the seas. Circumnavigation is often thought of in global or celestial proportions. Perhaps we conjure up images of space ships piloted by Glen and Armstrong or wooden ships piloted by the likes of Magellan and Drake. Their adventures were beyond what I accomplished a few days ago with my wife and youngest daughter. But, I still felt like we circumnavigated around the sun for it was shining just for us while we walked on that dirt path near home—and it was a voyage of discovery.

Our terrestrial circumnavigation was around Strahl Lake in Brown County State Park, not a mere thirty minutes from the front door, and just a bit more of a mile circle. It was certainly not an expedition of global proportions—or maybe it was. Drake, Magellan, Glenn, and Armstrong may have had their own challenges but have you ever hiked with a ten-year old? The sun circled around me that morning and held me in her arms. Actually, my daughter was the better crew member that a Captain could have ever hoped for. She was my helmsman, guiding this Captain on a wonderful voyage of discovery. She helped me through both familiar and uncharted waters and helped the wind blow my blues away.

Each step brought discoveries—and a reminder to maintain a child’s eye and mind when nature invites you in. Would not the most trepid of explorers have done the same? How does dirt turn into mud when it gets wet? What makes rocks slippery when they are covered with moisture? How come each stairway that led from the trail down to the lake needed exploring? Why did we use a stout stick to test the thickness of the lake ice at every stop? How come a thin sheet of ice broken from the ground looked like broken glass? What intricate patterns were woven into its surface? When it was tossed onto the frozen surface of the lake, into how many small pieces would it shatter? Could we walk on the ice? Would it hold us? See how the leaves under the water and ice weave intricate patterns and the how roots of the trees on the trail look like dinosaur teeth. There was still green along the trail. The mattes of moss on the ground made a beautiful green carpet—soft to the touch—how wonderful it was to rub your hands over it—one of the softest sensations to experience in nature.

Let’s continue quietly and sit on this block of sandstone over 200 million years old. What do you hear? I hear the sound of the wind rattling the leaves of the dormant beech trees. Do you hear the sound of the chickadee and the squawk of the blue jay? Do you hear the ancient waves that made this rock? Do you see the clouds moving east, blown by the winter wind, as they have for eons? Do you see the track of the coyote in the last of the melting snow? Do you feel the warmth of the sun on your shoulders—the same sun that has warmed life for millions of years?

A stop at the park nature center rounded out our day. We listened silently to the sound of the honeybees as they swarmed around their hive in the warmth of the winter sun. We watched as the resident timber rattlesnake, rescued from an illegal snake farm, slither in its cage. We observed a northern copperhead, garter snake, and eastern milk snake. The eastern box turtle, a painted turtle, and a stinkpot swam in their watery micro-habitat. I also learned that the least weasel is the world’s smallest carnivore, also an Indiana resident. Measuring a little over six inches, it weighs less than two ounces. But what it lacks in size it sure makes up for in feistiness. Sure wouldn’t want one of these little buggers to latch on to your finger (Source: Whitaker, John O. Mammals of Indiana, Indiana University Press, 2010).

Spending the time along the trail with my wife and daughter reopened my eyes – made me reawaken to what surrounded me. I am a fortunate son. The world is often one of confusion but that mud under my feet, my wife, and daughter provided a soft cushion. I treated each step with them around Strahl Lake as an expedition—a circumnavigation—an opportunity for discovery—and renewal. I really did end up where I have always been.

Just a few random thoughts, quotes, and observations about life and nature…

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” – Seneca

Walked around Strahl Lake in Brown County State Park with my youngest daughter who marveled at how the mud was made from dirt and how slick the rocks were.

Heard the Sandhill Cranes heading on their path south.

First snow a few weeks ago; coyote tracks in the backyard; the wild is never far away.

 “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.” – Jim Morrison

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”  Hebrews 13

“Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate patience.” – Hal Borland

The leaves have finally fallen from our Japanese maple.

“Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness. – Henry Ibsen

Lesson from my Mom and Dad: Be generous in praise, reticent to criticize, and eager to encourage. All of us struggle with our own demons; don’t pull out the rug.

Gongoozler (n.) – an idle spectator.

“What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?” – Ursula Guin

Wintery mix today – rain, sleet, snow, but no sun.

“There’s a budding morrow in midnight.” – John Keats

Walked out and felt the rain and wind on my face. Is that not what humans have felt for thousands of years? Is the wind any less strong or the rain any drier? Rain is still wet and the wind still blows.

Life is better in the woods.

“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” – Alan Ginsberg

“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I will try.” – Rainer Maria Wilke

and,” I think I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.” – Alfred (Joyce) Kilmer

My early childhood home in Columbus sat adjacent to an alley that started at Cherry Street alongside Gramp’s house on the east end, then went past our house on Elm Street, and ended at Maple Street to the west—just a two-block run, but chock full of memories. Alleys in my day were made for exploring; you never knew what treasures might have been jettisoned in the trash. But they could be scary, too. Something or somebody might jump out and grab you. Along with my three siblings, we called our little Cape Cod on Elm Street home until we moved when I was five. The alley used to be gravel and the city would come by periodically to oil it to keep the dust down. That toxic coating may have something to do with my mental capacity these days (or maybe it was playing with mercury with my bare hands?). Eventually, it was paved, which made our youthful “wheel sports” a lot more fun—and clean.

I come from a long line of common folk. My family simply lived life: they were good citizens, voted in elections, volunteered in the community, and raised their family—quite admirably, I might add. Mom once served on a jury when we were kids and helped convict a purse snatcher; she did a lot of volunteering at our schools, too. Gramps managed the local Farm Bureau feed store, worked for the County Assessor’s office, and appraised property. Dad owned a civil engineering firm and served on a number of city and state boards and commissions.

I would go to work with Gramps from time to time. One of my favorite memories is when he took me to the A. Tross dry goods store across from the courthouse and bought me a pair of Red Ball Jets—the Nikes of the day. I truly believed I could jump fences, just like in the commercials. The fence along the alley seemed like fair game, but I think I chickened out and climbed it instead.

We also climbed the maple tree in the backyard as high as we could and then would yell for mom to come outside and look. It provided a perfect, bird’s eye view of our alley. Our climbs were usually punctuated by Mom yelling, “You kids get down from there!” We would then climb up on the neighbor’s garage roof using the power pole guy-wire, and when that got boring, we shinnied up the swing-set and got on Gramp’s roof. I remember climbing up to the highest point and imagining I was on Mt. Everest. Mom would yell at us out the kitchen window and we would scurry to the ground. The alley went past the Garlock’s house, but then you were in no-man’s-land. You didn’t go there. We played in our stretch of the alley, rode bikes, roller skated, threw baseballs, and pulled each other in our wagon.

We had a carport at our house on Elm Street that had a flat roof and as a result, had to get a coating of tar periodically.  Dad was an engineer, so I was never sure how he tarred himself into the corner, but he did. Tarred himself in. What did he do? He jumped off the carport roof and broke his heel. At four years old, I have vivid memories of him in that cast and more than a little bourbon and clothes hanger wire to deal with the itching. At least he jumped into the yard and not the alley.

Just across the street lived Miss Hull, a retired school teacher. We would trundle over quite frequently to have her read storybooks to us. Next door lived the high school basketball player who stood better than six feet and would lift us up to the sky. Sure seemed like a long way down back then. Across the alley were our other neighbors with their Boston terrier, Speckles, who would grab hold of a tennis ball inside a sock and then they would twirl the dog around in circles. Our neighbor just to the north raced stock cars at the 25^th Street Fairgrounds. He named his racecar the “Purple Bomb”. I would lie awake on a summer evening and listen to the sound of the races.

My brother had been seriously doubting the existence of Santa Claus, until that Christmas Eve in 1964, when things changed a bit. He heard on his radio that NORAD was tracking a UFO entering U.S. airspace from Canada that they believed to be Santa Claus. He ran downstairs into the alley with his binoculars and gazed intently into the cold night sky to see Santa and his sleigh.  Mom and Dad said they got one more year of belief in Old St. Nick out of him, thanks to the NORAD Santa tracker. Not sure if he saw anything but stars, but the mind can play wonderful tricks on the soul.

There was the walk down the alley on Palm Sunday 1965, just before the tornado outbreak that hit Indiana that spring. We had been at my Gramp’s house watching Walt Disney and soon headed for our basement. I still remember how ominous the sky looked. Fortunately, Columbus was spared from the destruction that caused so much damage and death in Indiana that season.

It was a short walk down the alley from Gramp’s house to our neighbor’s just across Elm Street, where I had a mowing job after we moved. With the alley now paved, the lawn mower was an easy push. The few dollars I earned sure bought a lot of baseball cards at Northside Drugs. Three dollars a job as I recall. Two dollars if I cleaned the gutters. I always admired the geodes in Ethel’s backyard but resisted the temptation break them open to see what treasure lay inside. That would have resulted in the first job I was fired from. I needed to keep mowing to keep the baseball cards coming. Still have all those cards, by the way.

I laugh now about the great pyromania incident in Gramp’s basement. My sister and I thought it would be a good idea to set small fires in the wood chips. Let’s just say a lot of mistakes were made. Fortunately, we didn’t burn his house down. We got seriously busted, but he let us off the hook if we promised to never do it again. I’ll let you guess our answer. Let me say I’m still fascinated by fire, but I’m a hell of a lot more careful—until you give me fireworks. Then, all bets are off.

We moved away from Elm Street in 1965 and I still miss it. I miss it for what it was, rather than the bricks and mortar. I haven’t been down the alley in a long time, although I have driven by my Gramp’s bungalow on Cherry Street and our old home on Elm many times to remind me of the adventures that unfolded there. They still look the same to me, the memories are still fresh. For me, the alley will always be a symbol of those wonderful days of youth when the world was an oyster to a boy full of mischief; it was a road to adventure, even if it was only a few blocks long. Maybe it’s time to go back down the alley.

Tabula rasa

The mind in its hypothetical primary blank or empty state before receiving outside impressions; or something existing in its original pristine state.

Source: Merriam-Webster.com

In Latin, it means, “scraped tablet”. Humans are born “blank” and our identity is defined entirely by events after our birth. This theory was expounded on in the seventeenth century by the English philosopher John Locke, who posited that, at birth, the (human) mind is a “blank slate” without rules for processing data; over time, data is added and rules for processing such data are formed solely by one’s sensory experiences (Source: Merriam-Webster.com).

I have never given it a lot of thought, but I guess I have always been sort of a Lockean. I have always viewed the days of my life as a clean slate. Each day is a new opportunity to wipe the slate clean—apply new chalk on the board in the morning, so to speak. I’ve had many opportunities, besides waking up each morning, to wipe the slate clean: graduation, marriage, divorce, job loss, and more.

I don’t recall coming out of my mother’s womb having any thoughts. I do remember my baby crib when I was around two: I needed to be confined lest I wandered off to do serious damage to the house or myself. Mom once had my crib too close to an end table and I grabbed her favorite lamp and broke it into pieces. I was reminded about that for years. I remember toddling on the floor in the house on Elm Street and diving headfirst through the glass storm door onto the carport floor (Dad didn’t tell me he had fixed that latch). I once took a knife and cut the twine seat in one of our chairs, believing I was the mouse helping free the lion from his ropes in the famous fable by Aesop. I got a paddling for that one. I climbed on house and garage roofs, went on reckless bike rides into the bushes, climbed onto the school rooftop (they conveniently placed a TV stanchion close to the building), and stabbed myself with my own pocketknife.

I did stuff that I don’t ever want my kids to do (or know about), which includes calling my parents from the police station to come pick me up after the infamous egg throwing incident when I was in high school. Let’s just say mistakes were made, my parents weren’t happy, and I played a part in ending the homecoming float competition at Columbus North. I remember buying up all the eggs at our local Kroger and we weren’t having an egg fry.

I did a lot of other shit, some of which will remain confidential for family purposes. I almost rolled my parent’s pick-up truck after leaving a party, drunk on Ronrico 151. I had to pick off the turf from the top of the door before my parents could find it in the morning. How does a teenager explain grass growing out of the top of a truck? I walked across the railing on a bridge over the Potomac River from Georgetown to Arlington after drinking Boilermakers (whiskey and beer). A plunge would have been the end of this tabula rasa. Luckily, my friend pulled me off before “stupid” won the day and my tablet became a true blank slate.

Age has brought a bit more passivity to my life—or maybe it’s my four children who have tamed my wild streak. Passivity, however, doesn’t wipe the slate clean. I keep my eyes open. I have learned to keep an extra stash of chalk to welcome each day. I believe that we are all the sum of our experiences, not the result of some master plan laid down before our birth. You are who you are, and change is yours. Keeping an open eye and mind colors the tablet.

Each day I wake up next to my wife is a tabula rasa. What kind of husband will I be today? Each day I greet my daughters in the morning is a tabula rasa. What kind of father will I be today?  Each day I look in the mirror and ask who I am is a tabula rasa. Who will I be today? Each day I walk through the doors of the elementary school where I work with children with learning disabilities is a tabula rasa. Who will “Mr. D” be today? Each day I walk down that trail in the woods of Brown County State Park is a tabula rasa. What will I see today that I have never noticed before?

Every day is a day to start over—a clean slate. What I did yesterday doesn’t matter anymore. This is a new day with fresh prospects, an opportunity to see life through a different set of lenses—to see a different man in the mirror.

This isn’t about salt in the true sense of the word—that seasoning that gives our food taste yet gets a bad rap for things like high blood pressure, etc. But I love salt.  We keep a number of different types in our spice cabinet—kosher salt, Celtic sea salt, Himalayan pink sea salt, Balinese sea salt, and plain old iodized salt. An oven-baked, large pretzel with a generous dousing of kosher salt—yum! My dad salted everything: watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, and the palm of his hand.

But this is about a different type of seasoning: a salt for the senses. The spice rack is autumn and those seasonings that make my senses come alive—it’s not just a dash of salt that makes my meat and potatoes more vibrant to my taste buds. It is a dash or two of what fall brings that awakens my senses to so many wonderful things.

We recently returned from a trip to Austria to visit my niece and her husband.  Fall was in the air in Vienna. A walk in the Vienna woods felt like a fall walk in Brown County State Park. The farmer’s market was in full swing with all types of late season fruit and a variety of meats, breads, and cheeses. The sights and aromas that wafted across Vienna reminded me of fall trips to the orchard as a young boy and the taste of fresh apple cider. My taste buds came alive with the sights and sounds—they didn’t need any salt. When I got home, I immediately went in search of a gallon of good, fresh-pressed apple cider.

The float we took down the Danube from Krems to Melk was delightful. It was during the the time of year when you still can feel the sun’s fleeting warmth but are dang glad you brought your fleece and a shell. We passed through a cold rain squall, that transition from a warm summer rain to a taste of the colder days ahead. Passing by castle ruins, churches hundreds of years old, and quaint villages, I was reminded of the transition of time, what fall so starkly exposes. Grape arbors dotted the nooks and crannies of every hillside and a good glass of red wine at a Danube winery gave us a robust taste of the season.

We returned to the States and were reminded again that fall was upon us. The leaves from my birch and maple trees covered the yard. The mornings suddenly seemed cooler, the rain colder. The colors were no longer green but turning shades of gold, red, and, brown. The grass had stopped growing, which certainly wasn’t disappointing. The wind felt a bit more brisk, a harbinger of the cold weather that lay just around the corner. A little Indian summer may still be in store for us, but I think we are on the slippery slope to winter. I am waiting for the neighbor’s ginkgo tree to drop its full complement of yellow leaves in the middle of the night: one of those mysteries of nature.

Salt for my senses? You bet, but so much better than what I sprinkle on my food. The feel of the autumn breeze on my face; the sound of the leaves rattling on the trees; the sandhill cranes calling overhead as they head south to their winter grounds; the changing colors as green gives way to the color of fall; the smell of damp leaves lying on the woodland floor and, the taste of that fall apple on my tongue. Each of these seasonings beckon me from the kitchen and into the great outdoors. Leave the salt on the table—there are spices aplenty in other places.

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern. – William Blake

Whose image do you see when you look in the mirror? Is it a stranger or an old friend? Whose reflection? Do you want to pack a leaving trunk? Is it who you are or who you long to be? Or, whom you long to return to? Does it smile back at you when you smile, or sneer at your hypocrisy? Does it frown with you or laugh at you? Does it laugh with you? Does it chide you for your arrogance and serve up a good dose of humble pie? Does it see the lines and blemishes on your face and make you realize you’re not young anymore?

Maybe it reawakens the child in you? Do you see what once was—that boy or girl bounding across the summer landscape? Do you recall all the adventures? What about that picture in the high school yearbook, full of promise, hope, and opportunity?

Have you decided to throttle old age and declare war on decline? Will you welcome tomorrow as an old friend rather than a thief stealing away time? We do have the opportunity to choose who we want to be, even in our fading days. I recently returned from a family trip to Austria where we spent some glorious days with my niece and her husband in Vienna. (Can I just say how delightful the boat cruise down the Danube was?) Now, my daughters perhaps didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I did. It really was a lot of planes, trains, subways, trams, taxis, and walking for a nine- and thirteen-year-old. I know I made my step-count every day. The jet lag on the trip over was palpable for them. My wife and I never knew whom we were going to wake up with in the morning—joyful creatures or a couple of curmudgeons.

I receive an amusing e-mail from wordsmith.org that provides me with an obscure word each weekday and a thoughtful quote (posted by Anu Garg). I must say that I have gained a lot of emotional energy from his posts and they appear frequently in my journals.

Anyway, the week we were in Vienna and dealing with the unpredictable moods of young children, Garg chose to post a very relevant string of five words. I had never in my life found five terms that defined that week better than these:  Eeyore, tapleyism, Debbie Downer, gummidge, and Tigger.

We all know Eeyore, that loveable donkey from Winnie the Pooh. Always gloom and doom hanging over his head. “Woe is me; this day just wasn’t meant to be”. Do we have days like this? For sure! During our trip, I told my daughters to be Tiggers, not Eeyores.

Then there is Debbie Downer from Saturday Night Live. I grew up with SNL and can still hear her monologues. We’ve all been at parties with Debbie and walked away thinking that life pretty much sucked. I spent more than one day in Austria with one or two Debbie Downers in tow.

Then, there’s a gummidge, a peevish, self-pitying, and pessimistic person, given to complaining. It comes from the name of Mrs. Gummidge, a character in Dickens’s David Copperfield. One of my daughters told me that she was having the worst day of her life…in the middle of Vienna?

One can also adhere to tapleyism—being overly optimistic in the face of the direst circumstances. This term also derives from Dickens, from the character, Mark Tapley, in the novel Martin Chuzzlewit. I try my best to be a tapleyist, but one can’t be upbeat all the time.

I’ve been an Eeyore, a Tigger, a gummidge, a Debbie Downer, and certainly a tapleyist from time to time. Of all these, I would rather be a Tigger.  That’s the reflection I want to see when I look in my mirror: that loveable, buoyant Tigger from Winnie the Pooh who always has a lot of bounce in his step. I try to keep a bounce, though I don’t always bounce as high as Tigger. I hear Milne’s words echo: “Glad to meet ya! Name’s Tigger. T-I-double guh-er! That spells Tigger! Well, I gotta go now! I got a lot of bouncing to do!”

Eating dinner with your family: it was something you did when I was growing up. No cell phones, no tablets, no excuses. Okay, none of those things existed when I was growing up.  Nonetheless, you sat down together around the table and you talked. The dinner table is still something I hold sacrosanct—it is a place for breaking bread and communing. No electronics, dammit. To eat in silence is best left to monasteries. I’m not a monk, although it sometimes has a certain allure.

In my youth, we had a rather large dinner table and it frequently welcomed guests. I have some wonderful pictures of family and friends gathered around it. It was over six feet long and five feet wide, slightly oval and made of cherry, Mom’s favorite wood. She kept that table polished to perfection. As the late afternoon sunlight streamed through the dining room windows, you could lean over the tabletop and see your reflection. The rich, dark red grain spoke of depth and character. The cream colors woven into the darker grains spurred my imagination. I always felt that, in terms of various woods, cherry best defined my personality: deep and sometimes dark, but with streaks of light-heartedness shining through.

The oval shape of the table invited inclusiveness. The chairs were also made of cherry: deep, comfortable, and inviting. When you pulled out a chair to seat yourself for a meal, this beautiful wood welcomed you—and the conversation began.

Dinner was full of banter—politics, Cardinals and Reds baseball, Packers football, social issues, Vietnam, race riots, the day’s events from the school yard or my previous weekend’s Boy Scout camp out.  Silence had no seat at our table—you talked with your mouth full if you wanted to get a word in edgewise. Silence was met with prodding. You took the opposite opinion just for the sake of argument. Bullshit died at our table.

Oh, and the food! Mom’s cooking would get you talking or feeding the dog under the table (I didn’t know dogs would eat bean salad). There was Dad’s favorite, “Shit on a Shingle” or chipped beef gravy on toast, waffle Sundays, fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, sauerkraut with potatoes and sausage. All would be followed with Gramp’s apple, rhubarb, or pumpkin pies. Tapioca pudding was my favorite—I hated rice pudding. I don’t recall many leftovers.

I had a running joke that I told my friends and they would almost believe it. I said we were having pork chops one night and there was only one left on the platter. We were all eagerly eyeing that last chop. Suddenly, the lights went out and that was when we heard a scream. When the lights came back on seconds later, Dad’s fork was in that last pork chop and there were five other forks stuck in the back of his hand—the lore of the dinner table.

Many a birthday was feted around that table—candles burning brightly on angel food or German chocolate cakes. Think four kids and over twenty years. Friends and family gathered around to celebrate each occasion. There were tears when Gramps’ chair suddenly became empty and our toy fox terrier no longer had his dinner table companion.

Christmas dinners were memorable. We had an Advent wreath and would light a candle each Sunday during the season. Each of us would read a passage from the Advent story before breaking bread. We children were given a small glass of Mogen David wine—illegal, yes, but none of us could drive.  I recall sleeping soundly on a full stomach and glass of wine.

There was the Christmas that we welcomed guests from China and India. I have always referred to it as our “International Christmas”. It seemed natural to me. Why wouldn’t we welcome all to break bread with us on this holiest of days? Isn’t the dinner table like the threshold of your house? When you welcome a person into your home, shouldn’t you welcome them to your table?

My family sits around a different table now— this one is made of maple. The grain of the wood is equally as inviting as that old cherry table of Mom and Dad’s, but it has a different sheen. It was once the top to a drafting table at my dad’s civil engineering company. His firm designed, among other things, water and sewage plants in the Midwest. Who knows how many of these plants came to life on the top of this table?

The table doesn’t hold the shine that Mom’s cherry table did, but it reflects a lot of hard work and creativity that once took place on its surface. I often think of the engineer who plied his trade in deep concentration on this piece of maple. What designs came to life on its surface?

Now, it serves a different purpose. It is for breaking bread and conversation. The challenge of keeping a conversation going is more complicated these days due to the demands of social media and smart phones. People are more easily distracted. Some would be happier staring at a screen rather than staring in the face of a neighbor, wife, son, or daughter.

My dinners are and will remain free from the effects of the twenty-first century. Conversation over home-cooked meals will rule. The topics will vary. I am resolved to stare into the faces of my family and friends—and lay the not-so-smartphone aside.