His Final Breath

 
The invitation was a Father's Day special that read, "What did your father teach you or how did he inspire you with regard to medicine?"

It would have been much easier had it been, "What did the Old Man have to say about the Big Slab (biker slang for the interstate)?" Then I could respond, in my best gravely ZZ Top growl, "He had me on a Hogg before I could walk. Why, he and mom almost named me 'Harley,' you know, as in Don Henry's song, Harley?"

There was a motorcycle mama and her man
With a wind-burnt tan and a Harley
Roarin' through Bakersfield when her water broke
They pulled into a hospital and for a little joke

They named him Harley
They bought a sidecar
And a small bandanna band
And they loved their Harley

Leaning closer and jutting out my long ZZ Top beard, I'd look at you over the tops of my Ray-Ban sunglasses and whisper with mock menace, "You do know Don Henry --  don'tcha?" 

But, that wasn't the question and my father never owned a Hogg or any other kind of motorcycle, much to my distress as an adventure-seeking teenager. Much to his relief, I might add.

Nope, my father didn't teach me a thing about motorcycles except I could get killed riding one. I came close one Fourth of July weekend, racing my uncle's beat-up Vespa scooter round his property as fast as first gear would take me. A patch of soft soil brought an end to my dirt bike career. They say speed kills, but in my case, it just knocked me out. No, I wasn't wearing a helmet -- in those days we didn't worry about head injuries quite so much and besides, my uncle didn't have one, anyway.

Dad did teach me a great deal about horses, though, mostly how to love them like your best friends. For a tough guy -- not a gruff guy -- he had a soft spot for horses. I remember the night he woke me up and led my mother and I out to the barn where we watched a baby colt being born. It was my first "childbirth." There was poetry in his relationship with horses and he taught me how to write my own over the years.  

He also taught me a lot about hard work, accepting responsibility, taking risks, and following your heart, all of which he exemplified regularly. It's been sad that he didn't live to see me through medical school. I would have dearly loved to share the folly and fun of my daily efforts to become a physician with him. Some of the situations I managed to get myself into would have had him laughing until he cried. Others wishing he could board a plane, despite his illness, to stand alongside his son when he experienced hard times.

If my father taught me anything about medicine, apart from how to "doctor" horse injuries. it was that I never knew as much as I thought I did. People will surprise you. His own life-long struggle with chronic pain resulting from a back injury at age 19, made him a model of endurance that earned the admiration of his physician. He worked through pain that would have laid me out and did it every day. His determination to wave off the beating wings of the death angel until his final heartbeat was a testimony to his disbelief in the word, "quit." 

So, what did he teach me? Where do I start? He taught me everything worth knowing and then some. He taught me about his fallibility, his fears, and to accept and overcome my own. He taught me to tolerate what I couldn't change and change whatever I could. He taught me how to face the worst life has to offer by going through it with me until I was ready to go through it alone. 

And that's when he took his final breath.

Happy Father's Day. 

(Creative Commons image of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top by Filipe Neves via Flickr; "Harley" words and music by Don Henry who owns the copyright)

Now You See Me -- Or Do You?

I am easily delighted. I'm also easily entertained, though when I was little, hearing the words, "I'm bored," exit my mouth was my mother's cue to reach for the Bayer (aspirin). My attention could be as difficult to hold as a kid's hand in an amusement park. I loved the films Houdini (1953) and The Great Imposter (1961), starring Tony Curtis, and still do. Both were about illusion, magic, "now you see it -- now you don't." The impossible becoming possible with the blink of an eye.

I remember seeing my first and only, sword-swallower in a traveling circus when I was five or six. We lived in the country, as I've mentioned before, and one weekend a circus, with three rings under the bigtop, arrived at our local fair grounds. They had all the acts you associate with larger operations like Ringling Brothers or the Shrine Circus, including a fellow who had himself shot out of a canon. A young, pretty, blond-haired girl astride a dappled Welsh pony, stole my heart and galloped through my fantasies for weeks afterward (sigh). 

I saw my first "Punch and Judy" puppets the same night, in the side-show. I remember how a devilish puppet, clad in black, crept onto the stage to scare Punch. With a menacing voice, he said, "I am the Devil." Punch responded, sarcastically, "Well, you look like the devil!" I'd heard my mother use that phrase often enough to get the hint. When Punch and Judy appear in The Santa Clause (1994) each Christmas, my mind replays that evening.

Anyway, like I said, that's also where I saw my first sword-swallower. He stood next to Punch and Judy's stage, and with great flourish, proceeded to swallow a decorative sword which he said was "only a toy," and then what he insisted was a "real" blade. He even stepped behind a flouroscope so the audience could see the instrument of death inserted vertically through his mouth with the tip resting benignly in the curve of his stomach. When medical school and gross anatomy entered my life a few centuries later, I realized there was no way on earth that sword could have done what the flouroscope displayed. It was a "trick," an illusion, but one that delighted me as a child and continues to do so when I think of it.

I'm certain this is why I love the film Now You See Me (2013) with an ensemble cast including Jessie Eisenberg, one of my favorite new actors. It just delights me. The story revolves around four magicians who have been mysteriously contacted about membership in a secret society called The Eye, which is dedicated to preserving pure magic, righting wrongs, and overcoming injustice. As the plot moves forward, it includes tricks worthy of David Copperfield, slight of hand, hypnosis, and has the lead characters pursued by the FBI. Honestly, I could scarcely contain my inner child the first time "we" saw it.

Some have described Now You See Me as evidence The Illuminati have taken over Hollywood in an attempt to pull the wool over our eyes, deceive our better judgment, and secretly promote a "New World Order." Critics proclaimed the film's illusions were unrealistic and its ending unsatisfying. Personally, I wonder if we were watching the same film. I was captivated from the outset and couldn't wait for the credits to roll before hitting the restart button. Once was not enough and the second, third, and fourth viewings triggered my sense of delight as readily as the first.

Now You See Me isn't merely a story -- it's a yarn, a rambling and implausible tale, according to the Concise Oxford, though the film doesn't ramble and any implausibility lies in the eye of the beholder. There is no moral, such as you'd expect from a fable, but it does make a point, i.e. the ego can be so wrapped up in its own perceptions that it prevents us from realizing we're one, two, three steps behind what's taking place right in front of our us. I've been there, haven't you?

It also reminds us that to be captivated by wonder, we need to have a little faith, to suspend our natural disbelief, and be willing to trust. Not everything needs to be explained, as the film urges, and some things are best left unexplained. I'd agree, particularly when they make us feel like children, fascinated by what defies reason and once again, believing that anything and everything is possible.

(Creative Commons Image by ictusoculi via Flickr)

Contraception and the New Fisherman

 
What's going on in Rome, lately? Is there a new voice crying in the wilderness? Pope Francis declaring the Church has become obsessed with birth control, abortion, and gay marriage? Shades of Anthony Quinn.

Who's Anthony Quinn? He was an actor probably best known for his roles in Zorba the Greek (1964) and The Guns of Navarone (1961). He was also cast as the first Russian pope in the film, The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968). What brings him to mind was his character's willingness to drain the Vatican of its wealth and holdings in order to feed a starving Chinese nation and stave off World War III. For him, charity took precedence over tradition. I wonder if that may be true for Pope Francis as well.

Whether it is or it isn't, he's certainly not afraid of going out on a limb. In an interview published in September, 2013, he stated: "A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: 'Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?' We must always consider the person."* This is fairly radical, it seems to me, bending Church doctrine around the needs of people rather than the other way around. 

Such a pope might prove to be a powerful ally at a time when faith-based groups are arguing for exemption from the stipulations of the Affordable Care Act regarding coverage for contraception. Bearing in mind their legitimate concerns about conscience, it helps to bear in mind another, equally legitimate concern, namely, of the four million births in the United States in 2011, 393,772 were to mothers ages 15-19. What is that, about 10%? The picture is complicated by the fact that teen pregnancies are associated with greater risks for low birth weight, preterm birth, and death in infancy.

How many of these births could have been avoided had their mothers had access to contraception? All of them, potentially. What if one was your daughter or mine? Which would we prefer, to discover she was having unprotected sex whether we approved of it or not, exposing herself to sexually-transmitted disease and unwanted pregnancy? Or to be assured that even if she was having sex, her future (and ours, by the way) was far less likely to be altered, negatively, by an unwanted pregnancy? 

I don't think there's a parent on the planet who welcomes the thought of their daughters or sons being sexually active teenagers, but it happens. It happens to the best of families in the best of communities. It happens to families of faith as well as families with no faith. It happens to Democrats and Republicans, Whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, and everyone else. It just happens.

Effective parenting is not ideal parenting because there are no ideal parents. There's only us and we try to do rightly by our children and sometimes that's not enough. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Admitting the truth is hard, but the consequences of denial are much harder. Preparing our children for adulthood entails protecting them from the impact of their own impulses. I can't be with my children 24 hours a day and expect them to grow into independent, functional adults. I've got to give them a measure of freedom and that means taking a few risks. Of all the ones I must take, an unwanted pregnancy is not one of them. I hope it turns out, the New Fisherman agrees with me.

*Citation from The New York Times, 9/20/2013.

(Creative Commons image by twm1340 via Flickr)

Scientific Myth-Busting and The Hearing Curve

It is a little known otologic fact that hearing improves with age. 

You don't believe me. 

You've heard and read and perhaps even experienced the opposite. Well, I'm sorry to tell you this, but hearing loss in adulthood is an urban myth desperately in need of busting and we're going to do that, right here and now.

The truth is, hearing develops, declines, and recovers in a manner comparable to an inverse bell curve, a phenomenon known as The Hearing Curve. We start out hearing rather well in our elementary years as evidenced by the fact that our parents can't open a can of pop on the other side of the house, quietly as a mouse, with the barest hisssss of carbon dioxide escaping, without us hearing them and calling out, "I want some!"

With the onset of puberty, hormonal changes occur, resulting in observable physical changes such as increased vertical growth, the appearance of secondary sex characteristics, and gradual hearing loss that peaks at about age 16, usually coincident with the passing of one's driving test. We know this to be true because teenagers listen to LOUD music, particularly in the car. They talk LOUDLY and make LOTS of noise doing absolutely nothing.

Adulthood is marked by the gradual recovery of hearing acuity, accelerated in some cases by childbearing and child-rearing, and becoming most noticeable in the mid-40s to 60s. Adult hearing can actually become highly sensitive to the most subtle of sounds. For instance, the creek of the front door when teenaged son creeps in past curfew can awaken the soundest of sleeping fathers more readily than a gun fired off beside the bed. The best medical evidence for hearing improvement in adulthood, however, derives from the observation that parents the world over shout at their teenaged children who, naturally, are listening to LOUD rock and roll, "Turn that crap down!" It's obviously painful, otherwise why say anything at all?

So much misunderstanding and familial conflict could be avoided if parents only knew the truth. When asking, for instance, if their teenaged daughter or son was "deaf" when told to take out the trash, help with dinner, or clean their room, what a great thing to know that, yes, their teenagers were in fact, quite deaf or so close to it as to make no difference. Furthermore, that it's only temporary, literally "a stage" they're going through. On the other side, just as it takes becoming an adult to realize one's parents aren't stupid, it takes becoming one to be able to hear what they're saying without misinterpreting their shouting as expressions of anger or frustration. Everyone benefits.

It's really quite amazing what the teensiest bit of scientific myth-busting can do to improve our lives and relationships. And we did it all without mentioning "evolution." Isn't that amazing?

(Text copyright 2013 by the author -- written with tongue firmly planted in cheek)

(Creative Commons image by Rob Gallop via Flickr)

The Night Train to Christmas

 
"Nite train!" he called, waving with one hand and holding his daddy's with the other, as they walked out the door. I'm guessing he was probably four years old and he'd been playing so quietly, it wasn't til he spoke that I realized what held his attention. 

I was wandering through my favorite toy store, Tree Top Toys, in the Old Port. The Old Port is a gentrified section of downtown Portland that abuts the harbor (hence, the name) and could easily be mistaken for the backdrop for A Christmas Carol, especially during the Holidays. My attention was held by a Schilling display of wonderful classic tin toys that echo a time before batteries, when toys were wound up by keys and ran on pure imagination. 

The store was crowded, though not so much you couldn't move, and he stood in a corner, near the entrance. His father watched from a few feet away, holding baby sister in his arms and ensuring both daughter and son were kept occupied, freeing mommy to play Santa. I noticed them at first just in passing, like I'd noticed other shoppers, picking up puzzles or stuffed bears, turning them over to look for prices or stroking their soft fur and turning into children as if on que. Some items go to the cash register right there and then, others wait for dreams of sugar plums and a jolly old man with a sleigh to find their way "home."

Like a fictional doctor of my acquaintance, a four foot tall stuffed giraffe resting high on a display rack with a smaller one planted between his hooves and a smaller one yet, between his, caught my eye. The clerk told me she'd recently sold one exactly like the tallest to a little girl who saw him last Christmas, fell in love, and saved her allowance the entire year to raise the purchase price. I brushed away tears at the thought of her carrying him home. Christmas brings out the magic of the heart in ways we rarely anticipate.

 Working my way back to the entrance, I heard a small voice call, "Nite train!" and looked over to see him leave with his parents and wave as though the cars and engine understood. And maybe for him, riding the night train to Christmas, they did, indeed.

(Photo of horse-drawn carriage in the Old Port copyright 2013 by the author)

So Much Fun

 
The snow started so timidly last night, I could count the flakes drifting cautiously past the shadow of my CRV, as though they felt self-conscious being seen. By midnight, their courage having grown in proportion to their numbers, enough had gathered for me to shovel an inch off the front patio; by morning, they reached, shamelessly, halfway to my knees. 

Depending on your inseam, that can be a lot or a little. Mine's 36 inches, so this was a lot. The dogs, by the way, agreed with me. When we went out for morning bathroom break #1, my Yellow Lab took one step, then looked at me and intuited, "Where did all this come from?" 

"From the sky, big guy," I responded, aloud.

Now, if I was a kid, an arguable point on days like this, I'd be torn between anticipation and lament. Anticipation because it snowed and that meant play, lament because it fell on Sunday and not Monday, guaranteeing a snow day. Overall, though, I'd be gladder than sadder since this much, this close to Christmas, ensures this year it will be white. 

We didn't spend much time shoveling snow when I was younger, certainly not in comparison to what I did today. My father would clear off the back walk to enable my mother to reach her car, but otherwise, we'd trudge through the drifts to the barn to feed the horses. If we'd had a snow thrower, it would have been different, but as they hadn't been invented yet, it makes no difference. Besides, dad was raised on a ranch where knee-deep snow was common and no one thought twice about it. 

I probably wouldn't think about it either, but for the fact that snow accumulates in Maine. At the foot of the Colorado Rockies, where I grew up, snow is like a relative, just passing through. Back here, the snow moves in and sets up housekeeping. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of snow days I had in high school. Back here, it takes both hands and a few toes to keep track of them.

One thing is incredibly similar, though, between the snows of my older youth and those of the younger one I discovered as a medical student, and that is, any snowfall is a chance to play. My new snow brush -- the one I use on the car? -- has a  movable head that lets me pull the snow off the car in sections, creating little avalanches as I move from the hatchback to the windscreen. 

With snow flying in all directions and oblivious to the cold, it came to me: I cleared the cars the same way as a kid. All I had then was a straw broom, so my avalanches had to move away from me. The push broom from my father's shop was okay, but the brush was too soft to work very well. My new one is perfect and as it was then, creating avalanches is still, so very much fun.

Am I ever glad.

© 2013 All Rights Reserved (text and photo) by the author.

Remembering Where I Was, How I Felt, and Why

They say days like today, you always remember where you were when you got the news. I was in my classroom, it was lunchtime, and a fellow student rushed in, out of breath, and announced, "Kennedy's just been shot." I was too young, I suppose, to understand what that would mean, though I recall going through the rest of the afternoon with a feeling of tenuousness in my stomach and I couldn't wait to get home. 

Two years earlier, during the presidential campaign, an older teacher admonished our class that if JFK was elected, "we'll be under the Pope." Obviously, that never materialized but it reflects the mindset of some at the time. Change was difficult for them to envision and embrace, not unlike it seems now. All I knew was, my parents voted Democratic, they liked Kennedy's youth and energy, and neither cared whether he was Catholic, Baptist, or Jewish. He served in the military as had my father and we watched PT-109 (1963) with pride. 

That night, though, we watched the news all evening long. The information was mixed and we weren't certain from one minute to the next whether he'd survived or not. All I really remember was midnight and the screen flashing the American flag. The national anthem played, my mother wept, and so did I. Dad, as always, was the pillar we leaned on, but I vaguely remember him wiping his eyes as he led me down the hall to bed.

Days later, I stayed home from school and we watched the funeral. Everything and everyone moved so very slowly, to me it seemed endless. I had met death twice by then, my dog and pony both having passed away two and three years earlier. But I'd never encountered it in human form and seeing John Jr. and his sister, I was so glad it wasn't my father we were laying to rest.

In November 2000, it would be, replete with military honor guard, the firing of rifles, and a bugler playing "Taps." I wasn't thinking of John Jr. and Caroline then, nor was I thinking of their father. Not until later, when Barack Obama was running for president and I felt the same optimism and hope my parents talked about in 1963. Not until a snowy day in Portland when I met John's brother, Ted, campaigning for the president. And not until today, when I remembered where I was and how I felt and why.

 
(Creative Commons image by the smuggler via Flickr)
 

Can You Cuss a Little?

I must have been around seven, seven or eight, though it could have been nine -- certainly no later -- when I met my paternal grandfather the first time. If he held me as a baby and surely he must have, I'd be hard-pressed to dig the memory out of my distal recesses. The other first time, however, is as vivid as this morning's frost on the grass. 

He lived in Oklahoma, my parents and I in Colorado, and he'd come for a short visit. More like a stopover than a "visit," he was gone the next morning. I sat in a brown or green -- I never knew which -- overstuffed relic from the 1940s with short, fat wooden feet and a flowery pattern that rose off the fabric like continents on a globe. It was big enough to curl up in while he talked with my parents about people and places they knew and I did not. After a while, he turned to me and suddenly young blabbermouth Beggar was at a loss for words. Particularly, the ones he wanted to hear.

"Have you learned how to cuss yet?" 

For the record, I wasn't really at a loss for words -- by then I'd acquired a vocabulary of two bad and two really bad words and combinations thereof, thanks to my father's verbal creativity. I just wasn't supposed to say them. Ever. And now, here's my father's father, asking me to do what would ordinarily result in my catching the word that began with an "h" and ended with me wishing I'd said "heck," instead. I looked from my mother to my father, hoping for permission. They may as well have been playing poker for all the help I got from their expressions. Hell -- I mean, heck -- of a time to enforce the rules.

"Come on, Beg, you must know one or two. Let me hear you cuss," he said with a truly conspiratorial glint and grin. Let's play a good one on your folks, I read. Talk about caught between "the devil" and the deep blue sea. I wanted to, oh, how I wanted to, the blood rising to my neck and then flowing like a flood over my face. 

The clock was ticking, he was waiting, they're silent, and all I can think is, "Damn it, Grandad, you know I'll get in trouble if I do!" If there was ever a time I needed a Get Out of Jail Free card. 

"Well, I can see you'd rather not go against your folks and that's good. We can save the cuss words for later," he said, winking, after my shirt had nearly soaked through with nervous sweat. 

I felt relieved, but also felt I'd let him down. I wanted to do both, be good (and incidentally, avoid a lickin') and be grown up at the same time. It's funny how these things go. Eventually, you do find out how to be both at once and true to yourself in the bargain. Back then, all I knew was, that's the night I began to love my grandfather. 

I sure hope he knows.  


(English: New Year's Day postcard. Reads: "A New Year's Resolution / Jan. 1st / To Gossip, Slang and Cuss words / I'll bid a last "Adieu" / And place a bridle on my tongue / And thoughtless actions, too!" Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Sighing Thing

"Oh, God!" he sighed, heavily. So heavily I thought he and the ancient, paint-stained,  ladder back chair he was sitting in were going to sink through the scraped and scratched wooden plank floor to the soil beneath. I waited for the thunk! -- it never came. His eyes were closed, but he wasn't sleeping. Nor was he being profane.  

"It's all right, Beggar, he's just praying," my grandmother said, overhearing him. I wondered if she knew how many times I'd heard him before. So many I'd lost count.

I looked at her and smothered a smile. Did she really believe that or was she trying to preserve my youthful innocence, the very thing my grandfather -- her husband -- had done his best to turn into good judgment, something he considered eminently more practical.  

He did the "sighing thing," as I came to think of it, mostly while sitting in the shade near our bunkhouse door. It wasn't really a bunkhouse, but we called it that, just the same. It was a detached single car garage that had never housed a car, at least in my memory. My father converted it into a saddle shop at one point and I've written about cutting firewood for his stove. Summers, it was the bunkhouse where my grandfather stayed. Those months, I've realized since, were a journey in character development.

"If you absolutely have to point a gun at someone to protect yourself or your family," he said once, "it's too late for threats. Indecision at a time like that can be deadly." He spoke from experience. Another summer night, years before, he stared down a neighbor who had the nasty habit of occasionally firing his gun in the general direction of my grandfather. "The man's crazy," he said, refusing to get dragged into something he knew he'd have to finish, "and besides, he can't shoot worth a damn." Only this particular evening, it was different. The man had shot at my father who was about my age and I was thirteen. 

Why not call the police or sheriff, I imagine you're thinking. That would have been the thing to do, if they'd had a phone. Forty miles into barely civilized northwestern Colorado, the ranch was a two or three hour drive by Model A Ford from the nearest town. There were no phones, nor were there corner stores or gas stations. I'm not even sure there was electricity. It wasn't that you took the law into your own hands, there just wasn't anyone else who could take it into theirs.   

So, father and son rode out to address the situation. Watching the scene unfold, my father was fearful, certain he was going to witness my grandfather meet out justice just as his father had fifty years earlier. In my imagination, reliving those long seconds, I see my grandfather with a look in his eye that left no doubt, as his hand strayed to the pistol at his side, that he fully intended to use it. The neighbor must have seen that look, too, because he backed down and that was the end of it.

Grandchildren are a second chance for parents to get it right. Those summers, I was my grandfather's trusty teen sidekick, Cowboy Toby to his Roy Rogers (photo). I listened, learned, and hopefully digested far more than I actually remember. I've never forgotten the "sighing thing," though, nor the day I finally asked him what it meant.

I'd really been hoping he'd tell me himself when he was good and ready. That's how things usually went between us, though I never knew from day to day where his mind would lead. But it was nearing the end of summer and he'd said nothing, so I screwed up the courage one day and asked what was he thinking about when he sighed so deeply. He was surprised I'd noticed. How could I not? 

"You live as long as I have, Beggar, you're going to make a few mistakes. Don't be afraid, everybody makes a few and so will you. Some, maybe most, don't matter, least not as much as we give them credit for. People who know you, forgive like you forgive them. Some mistakes do matter -- maybe more than they should, but that doesn't change the fact. Problem is, you either don't realize it or you're too stubborn to admit it, until it's too late. I think about those."

"So you don't make the same ones again, right?" 

"No, because I made them the first time." 

I was too young to understand regret. Sorry, wish I hadn't said or done this or that, oh yes -- plenty. Regret was something else, something -- I don't know -- bigger, something I hadn't lived long enough to become acquainted with. Something that only comes about with experience, with trying to do what you think is right even though you don't and can't know everything but you have to try anyway because it's all you can do and it's really all anyone can do. Don't worry, we all make mistakes, so will you. It's okay. My grandfather said so.

Happy Thanksgiving.


(Creative Commons image by vintagecobweb,com via Flickr)

A Little Boy's Dream

I was four years old when my love affair with fire trucks began. At the time, it was a pumper with a hook and ladder truck and an ambulance that caught my eye just before Christmas. I still have them, battered and scarred with parts missing from good times. I wish I'd taken better care of them since they're worth many times more than what my parents paid on the collector's market. Not that I'd sell them, because, well, you know, they're a part of my childhood. For everything else there's MasterCard. You can't buy memories -- not like these, anyway.

On that Christmas morning, though, I was in for a bit of a disappointment. The only sets left on the shelf were ones without the ambulance and I really wanted the ambulance most of all. How else can you rescue the people, I thought? Someone has to take them to the hospital because they've been hurt in the "fire." It was a childhood fantasy I later fulfilled as an adult when, in my first pastorate, I volunteered as an ambulance driver. Little did I know, either then or as a four year old, I'd end up a medical student seeing patients in a hospital. The most amazing things creep up on you when you're least expecting them.

Kind of like another little boy's dream, the one you see in the photo. It's a 1936 Chevrolet I saw a few nights ago, parked in front of the Knights of Columbus in Old Town, Maine. Of course, I had to stop and take pictures. How could I not? My guide for the best tour I could have asked for, was a tow-headed little guy about seven or eight years old who happily indulged me by climbing into the back to ring the bell. He was able do that, you see, because his daddy, as he proudly informed me, owned it.

Old Town has a special connection for me which I discovered the same evening, when I noticed a sign on its outskirts identifying it as the home of Old Town Canoes. We paddled Old Towns when I was a Scoutmaster on white water canoeing trips in Southeastern Oklahoma. And there I was, driving through the place where they were made. I don't know, it just struck me as sweet, and it brought back very pleasant memories of sunburns, campfires, and friends far away.

Anyhow, back to the fire truck. Walking around it I noticed a plaque that told me everything I needed to know about the person who owned it and why. If you look closely you can see it, right there on the passenger side. It reads simply, A Little Boy's Dream. Yeah, you guessed it. Daddy wanted a fire truck when he was was young and promised himself one day, when he was all grown up, he'd have one for his very own. And now he does and he shares it with his son.

Who shared it with me.


(Photo copyright 2011 by the author)

Clinging to the Curves

It was my 19th Fourth of July weekend and I was beginning to feel grown up in ways I'd never known. Up until then, my uncle and I drove across the mountains together to visit family over the holiday, frequently in his 1966 Mustang GT. The GT model had a 289 cubic inch V-8 with four-barrel carburetor, four-speed stick shift, and a nice, tight suspension that made the curves on Berthoud Pass a teenager's delight. This particular year, however, I drove myself in my own 1966 Mustang.

It struck me as appropriate to be driving through the mountains in a car designated the "High Country Special," though I never figured out what made it "special" except that it was mine. I could have ridden with my uncle and he offered, but the idea of being "lost and alone on some forgotten highway, traveled by many, remembered by few," was too great and I yearned for the freedom of the open road.

I've written about my Mustang on other occasions and if you recall, I mentioned it had a 200 cubic inch in-line six cylinder engine. In-line means the cylinders were quite literally placed in a straight line, front to back, unlike the newer V-6s that place three cylinders on a side at oblique angles from one another. Like my uncle's, mine had a stick shift, but only three forward speeds and first gear was non-synchromeshed, which meant double-clutching to downshift from second. I guess you could say it was a transitional gearbox, incorporating elements of the old and new, perfect for someone in transition from youth to manhood.

Anyhow, my Mustang, with its Dunlop radials, clung to the curves with the same smooth grace every woman wants in a slinky black silk dress. Uphill was another matter, because those six cylinders couldn't generate enough power to get me out of second gear. So, there I was, being passed by everything from eighteen wheelers to grandparents towing aluminum Airstream motor homes behind massive Chevy V-8s. It was embarrassing, for sure, so I kept my eyes straight ahead and waited for the downhill when I'd make them eat my dust.

I knew the route by heart and every stop and start was like an old friend, but it still felt as though we were being introduced for the first time. At long last, the road was mine and I was meeting life head-on in a rush of cold mountain air. I'll never forget that first trip -- it was like my first date, only better. There was no kiss at the door -- neither had there been on my first date, by the way, but since I didn't know how to kiss it would have probably been a let down for both of us. Still in all, each one left me feeling I'd done something meaningful and in a perhaps small but decisive way, I was becoming a man.


(Creative Commons image of the view from Berthoud Pass, Colorado by ajaswa via Flickr; Sweet Surrender, words and music by John Denver, copyright 1974)

Memories of June

I've always felt June got shorted. April has April Fool's Day, May has Mayday -- along with Cinco de Mayo -- and then here comes poor June with nothing. It's like being a bridesmaid at a wedding with one of the groomsmen out sick. As the other couples are walking back down the aisle, she's bringing up the rear, smiling bravely -- and wishing she was somewhere else.

When I was a kid, of course, the first of June signaled the end, or close to, of school. Any time spent in class after that date was torture, even worse than what I'd experienced the ninth months previously. Visions of prison camp danced in my head as I imagined my teacher morphing into a whip-cracking taskmaster to rival Severus Snape. Well, maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but it sure seemed like it.

Fortunately, the weeks of freedom that followed were filled with baseball, riding horses, and exploring the woods and fields near our home. Those days come to mind while planning the next three weeks of board preparation. But it's different now, since I'm the one insisting on time before the computer, hoping the pile of review books almost brushing the ceiling doesn't come crashing down on my head.

It also helps not having my friends knocking at the door, wondering if I've gotten a new outfielder's mitt or a list of chores to perform that my father left for me, considerately, before driving to work. Knowing all my work will permit me to begin rotations in August is payment enough, but there's still the memory of summer days with cool mornings and warm nights, that come trickling into consciousness, reminding me that June is here, at last.

The Bear's Daughter

"I wonder if Leonard Cohen has this much trouble tuning his guitar?" I asked wryly, to the delight of my date and the couple sitting next to her. We were attending a concert by Judy Collins in Denver and she was having the hardest time getting her guitar in tune while introducing a song by Leonard Cohen, the title of which I forgot long ago. My date, however, I've never forgotten.

She was an older woman -- a high school senior, I was a junior -- and the daughter of one of my instructors. They were Pakistani and she had the most beautiful black hair and dark eyes. I thought a gentleman refrained from kissing the girl on a first date back then -- she did, we didn't, nor did she ever go out with me again. Oops.

It's not that I wasn't interested, because I was, but I think I was a little ahead of my time. See, I wanted to generate curiosity and imagined her leaning back against the door as I drove away, wondering what it would have been like, the magic moment our lips met and the stars all sighed in unison. If a guy follows the advice of the various love advisers on the web and in print, we're supposed to keep women guessing. Uh-huh.

The shy "Would you like to come in?" followed by a tantalizing "My father goes to bed early" as she dimmed the lights, a few years later would have had her in my arms at light speed. Back then, however, I stood my ground. A man has to have his convictions, by golly, even he does live to regret it.

I consoled myself after receiving her curt, "No thanks, not on your life," response to my request for a second date a week or so later, by reminding myself it probably wouldn't have worked out. I liked her father, he was a good teacher -- he was also big. Very big. Much bigger than I was. Besides, even if a bear hibernates, he has to wake up sometime and with my luck, just as I was reaching for his daughter, he'd have decided it was spring.

Breathing Room

"What are you doing, Beggar?" asked my mother .

"Nothing," I replied.

"What's 'nothing?'"

"Nothing special."

"Well, if it's not special, why are you doing it?"

"Because there's nothing else to do."

Samuel Becket, the playwright, must have been a fly on the wall during that conversation, because he wrote, "nothing is more real than nothing." A. A. Milne, too -- it sounds like something Christopher Robin would say. To me, it meant simply, "I'm playing by myself, I'm happy; please, don't insist we stop and analyze it." How a kid like that turned out to be an extrovert, beats me, but he did.

At some point, even the most lively writing collaborations turn into late nights at the computer, all alone. At least they do for me. I've mentioned before how Lynn Smith and I burnt up the phone lines and closed down the restaurants putting our book together. But when it came to unscrambling the notes and wedding words with ideas, it was solitary work.

Interestingly, I don't think writing is necessarily introverted. I "hear" these words as they appear on the screen. In courses on rapid reading, one of the skills a person learns is how to see the lines without hearing them at the same time. Reading a novel, you naturally want to become part of the story, but plowing through a tome like Kaplan and Kaplan's two volume Textbook of Psychiatry, you want to get to the point.

I suppose it's like the difference between singers and entertainers. A singer focuses on interpreting the song; an entertainer is trying to capture an audience and bring them into the experience as participants. I can't write without conceiving of someone reading and listening to these words, spoken their own voice, just as I hear them in mine. This not imagination; I don't daydream you into flesh and blood. More akin to conversation than a letter, writing is delayed dialogue and the space between what I'm doing at this very moment and you're doing when you read this, is called breathing room.

My Horse and His Boy

 
The following is a piece I've dabbled with, off and on, for several years. It borrows from my own youth and yet, it is still a work of fiction. The horse, however, and our relationship was very real. I hope you enjoy this tidbit and will leave a comment or two.


Psychiatry hadn't so much as crossed my mind at 13, but I suppose its seeds were there. I discovered quickly that my freshman year in high school wasn't going to be much fun. I made few friends, and despite my efforts to fit in, felt like an outsider. I realize now I was an outsider and for good reason. My classmates were the children of professional parents -- many were faculty at the university nearby -- and had grown up in the insular society that wealth and intermarriage create.

My parents owned a small farm and I grew up in the shadow of the Indian Peaks, a range of mountains that rises 13,000 feet above the plains of Eastern Colorado. From my upstairs bedroom window I could see the morning sun strike above the snow line, transforming them into flames of fire in the western sky. My earliest memories are images, really, of fields of snow with horses crowded together to stay warm, icicles hanging from the porch roof, and the sunrise on the mountains.

It was a different world from the one of my classmates, and while I won't say it was a better one, still, it was mine. Having a world of your own is important at 13. For me, returning home from school meant a long walk down the dirt road that passed in front of our house. It was nearly a mile from the bus stop on state highway 119, and in the fall, the huge cottonwoods that lined the fields shed their leaves, transforming the lane into a river of gold. When I came within sight of our pasture, I'd stop and whistle to my horse, Dandy, and his head would rise from the grass in response to a signal that was ours alone.

Sometimes I'd cheat the distance to the house by slipping between the fence rails and crossing through the field, eying Dandy as he trotted to meet me. The difficulty I had making friends at school stands in sharp contrast to the ease in which my horse and I shared such a simple, unpretentious intimacy. In the few years we had been together he knew me better than I knew myself, and at the same time, knowing him enabled me to know myself. He was my best friend and I was his boy.

There is great solace to be found in a relationship that places no demands on you to be or do in a manner foreign to yourself. There is a freedom in it, too, that allows you to give according to your capacity, only to find your capacity increasing with the giving.

As I look back on it, that's the way it seemed to be between Dandy and me. I felt there was an understanding between us that didn't need language for expression. On warm summer days I'd climb onto his back, and without saddle or bridle, nudge him with my knees toward a smallish elm tree that grew against the north fence line of the pasture. There, in the shade, I'd strip leaves from low-hanging branches and hold them by my knee while Dandy twisted his head round to gently nab them from me.

We'd do this for hours, him growing fat on elm leaves, me growing fat on love. Whenever I would approach anything approaching bliss in my later life, the memory of those summer days would surface, as if to remind me how I ever learned to recognize bliss at all.

(Creative Commons image by garryknight via Flickr; Text copyright 2014 by Patrick W. Conway, all rights reserved)

Living in a Big Universe

It's the sense of irreversibility that brings despair. What has been said can't be taken back, what has been done can't be undone. There's no going back, only looking back as words and deeds, tossed like rocks into the stream running behind my house, ripple away with the current. Reason whispers, let them go, and we wish we could, but we can't. There's neither reason nor rhyme to regret.

I thought I was done with Lindsey Jacobellis yesterday but there's something about her experience that hangs on. It's the idea that she could have done things differently four years ago, and her spontaneous move to grab the board was to blame for her poor landing. Well, what if it wasn't? What if her landing would have gone awry no matter what she did? I don't recall anyone asking these questions.

Am I saying she was destined to slide out of bounds momentarily? Trust me, I'm not that foolish. But I am suggesting that sometimes we search for explanations when there are none to be found. What happens, happens, and there may not be any satisfying way of saying it doesn't have to. Among the billions of conceivably possible events, determining which will occur may truly be out of our hands.

We can take turns with our conscience, blaming and criticizing ourselves for failing to anticipate, failing to know. Yet there are only so many places we can be and it's not everywhere at the same time. Even when all the signs are in our favor, the universe is a pretty big place. Learning to live with a mistake entails accepting we can't control nearly as much as we like telling ourselves we can. We prepare to the best of our abilities and then take our chances.

It generates a feeling of vulnerability, knowing there is much that lies outside our influence, but if we allow it, it can create a feeling of serenity as well. We don't have to predict every outcome. I think regret gains much of its power when we forget we can only act within the boundaries of our knowledge and capability at any given point in time. If you think about it, it's probably good that we can't take back some things because many of us would get so caught up in trying to redo them perfectly, that we'd never move on to what's next. And then we'd really have something to regret.


(Creative Commons Image by Xanetia via Flickr)

The Fisher King: The Nature of the Problem

When The Fisher King is mentioned, most people think you're referring to the 1991 film starring Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges. Williams portrays a delusional derelict, tormented by the memory of his wife's death and Bridges is a former disc jockey struggling with guilt over a terrible mistake. Together, they work toward healing. The fairy tale, however, taks us in a different direction, albeit to the same goal. It is a powerful tale of masculine growth, wounding, and the attainment of maturity.

Once upon a time, there was a young prince riding about, doing deeds of knight errantry. One day he stumbled across a camp in the woods where a fire was burning with salmon on a spit. Seeing no one around, he was hungry, the salmon smelled wonderful, so he reached for a piece. It was so hot, it burnt his fingers and he dropped it. Putting his fingers in his mouth, as anyone might do, he got a taste of the salmon. This wounded him so badly that he was in agony the rest of his life, up to his final three days. Eventually, he became king of the realm, but his suffering was so great that he could not govern and the kingdom languished. The only time his pain became bearable was when he went fishing, so that's how he spent his days, fishing in a boat in the castle moat. Hence, the name, Fisher King.

In some way, the young prince was stricken at the point of his masculinity. Other versions of the story have him wounded by an arrow in the testicle or injured in the thigh when the campers return. In any case, his ability to be generative was affected and the wound left him feeling cold throughout the remainder of his life. The German version describes him as too ill to live and yet, unable to die. The King's wound represents impairment in his feeling function. 

Feeling is what gives life meaning, joy, and creates a sense of purpose and fulfillment. When feeling is wounded, it is as though the flavor has gone out of life and no amount of achievement, material success, or extravagance will restore it. Furthermore, a man's "kingdom," i.e. his family, job performance, and overall well-being suffer along with him. His wife may describe him as emotionally unavailable, his children complain dad is never home. Although this kind of wounding affects men at any age, it shows up most often from the mid-30s onwards.

Recent reports suggest men are more satisfied in mid-life than ever before. This makes sense from the perspective that we're generally established in a career, the kids are either in or soon will be in college, and we have new possibilities ahead of us. However, men I know and have known -- doctors, attorneys, corporate officers, teachers, ministers, and blue collar workers -- all admit, when the news media has gone home and we're being completely honest, to an inner sense of emptiness despite all they possess. There just doesn't seem to be enough doing to fill up what's missing. They know they have opportunities or feel they should, and they're mystified over the fact that attaining the American Dream has left them wondering, "Is this all there is?"

We'll get to the cure tomorrow; for now, we have to address symptoms. Just as for the young king, fishing is our treatment of choice, speaking metaphorically. Whatever puts a man in touch with his inner self will do. It may be writing, music, running, or walking the dog. It doesn't matter what form it takes as long as it permits a man to get a feeling for what's going on under the surface of all his activity.

For some men, awareness of the interior self is more accessible by noticing how their bodies feel. It may be a tightness in the gut, persistent muscle aches, disrupted sleep, loss of sex drive, or an ongoing sense that something isn't right. What the mind can't express, the body will. However we approach it, healing the feeling function begins with the knowledge that something is wrong and gain that insight by paying attention to ourselves. Men can be resistant: at times it takes a crisis to get us off the dime, but once we're listening, there's hope.



(Creative Commons image by Jeff Kubina via Flickr)

Finding the Right Woman When Your &%$! Stinks

A few years ago, a friend of mine and I were talking about how to recognize the right woman when or if she came along. It was one of those late evenings when we were sufficiently weary to be brutally honest and honestly, we were at a loss. Then I remembered a piece of advice I'd heard from a fellow minister-graduate student, "Beg, you need to find a woman who loves you when your &%$! stinks." Simple, unarguable, and to the point.

But is that all there is to it? Being loved despite your blemishes? Predictably, I don't think so and I've turned to women I admire for help. I haven't asked for comments as much as I've observed the ways they cope under stress, how they act around men they care for, and listened to them speak candidly. I've particularly noted how they've treated me and how that felt. This is what I think I've discovered.

For men, the experience of &%$! stinking is related to feeling exposed and vulnerable, though most of the time we're not remotely aware of it. At times like these, loving means taking us seriously, especially if you're the only one who does. When you listen to and reflect on what we have to say while all others have "changed channels," that's really quite something. It tells us we genuinely matter to you.

When you're courageous enough to stand with us, knowing our self-esteem is on the line, and you place yours alongside it, that's absolutely incredible. Not all women can do this, sadly, nor all men. It takes a very special person to take a risk with another when the outcome is uncertain. It requires confidence and a solid, secure sense of self. It tells us we're more important to you than what others may think of you.

Being believed in is huge. We may not always seem like the most insightful of beasts, but generally guys can tell when faith is insincere. If the encouragement we receive is superficial or doesn't cost anything to give, we may not say anything, but we know it. On the other hand, I have a very good friend who used to remind me of her certainty I'd get into medical school. The tone of her voice had the effect of erasing any possibility of doubt. Your faith tells us we won't disappoint you.
If we were having that same late night conversation now, I'd say the right woman is one who believes in and respects you. She has confidence in herself and doesn't need to sacrifice you to reinforce it. She is stable under fire, and possesses depth and integrity. None of this is about age, by the way, because some of the women who've been my role models are much younger than me. I hate to use the word maturity, though it does apply. More appropriate is the word, character. If she's has that, well, what else does she need?

(Note to the reader: tomorrow's post will address the "right man")

Reversing the Timeline

Fatherhood is complicated. I don't if women find it that way, but as a man, I do. I'm sure this is partly because I think about it more than when I was younger. Back then, my father was living, I was busy with graduate school, and there didn't seem to be a reason or need to conceptualize it. I think I took it for granted in some ways. Maybe that stems from being young and having dad around to explain everything.

What I've come to realize is how difficult that must have been for him. Samuel Osherson has suggested it's possible to be feel more comfortable alienated from the father of one's childhood than making real peace with the father of one's adulthood. The reason being, making peace on this level involves becoming intimately acquainted and that doesn't happen without effort. We have to empathize with our fathers and recognize what we share with them is our humanity.

I suppose being inclined to reflect on what my own life is about, I find myself reflecting about my father's, and particularly his later years. In a lot of ways I think he grew into the father he wished he'd been when I was a child. I thought he did a good job, but he felt he could have been better, more sensitive, less preoccupied, more available, more the person he'd become as an older man. The things I didn't know.

I suppose we all grow into parenthood, though truthfully, I sometimes think reversing the timeline wouldn't be a bad idea so that parenting is something we do when we're old enough to be really good at it. I say that because it takes our own growing up to help someone else accomplish the same task. Then again, we're all in process and there's something to be said for that, too. In the meantime, I'll just drop my thoughts in the Cosmic Suggestion Box and we'll see what comes of them.


(GNU Free Distribution Licensed image via Wikipedia)

When There's No Excuse

Did I ever tell you? I lost my driver's license in high school. I can imagine someone prodding me in the ribs and asking straight faced, "Don't you know you're supposed to keep track of these things?" I wished that had been the case, believe me, but it wasn't. Teenage drivers don't have a lot of leeway where the accumulation of points is concerned and I maximized mine without much trouble.

Like Jessica Rabbit, I really wasn't trying to be bad, though unlike her, I couldn't appeal to the obvious, "I'm just drawn that way." I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time doing precisely what I very well knew I shouldn't have been. Both occasions involved peer pressure and both presented ample opportunity to act differently. There really was no excuse.

My father, as you might expect, "hit the ceiling" each time, but when I received notice of a hearing to suspend my license, he did something I've always appreciated. He went along with me. Some might suggest facing the music alone would be a not-soon-forgotten lesson, but my father didn't see it that way. He said having to walk for six months or a year would give me more than enough time to think about the consequences of my actions; there was no need to "rub it in."

It was one of those formative experiences that you wish you hadn't needed but later on, you're grateful for. I learned I could survive the disapproval of my friends, something that has helped immensely since. More importantly, however, I learned about forgiveness. On the way home following the hearing, my father was genuinely kind. However much my inability to run errands for him would pose an inconvenience, he let it go. All that concerned him was how I felt.

Because of his willingness to forgive and move on, I was eventually able to look at the situation with a great deal less self-blame. I was foolish, yes. I'd failed to trust my own judgment and be assertive. That didn't mean there was something wrong with me or that spending the next nine months (as it turned out) beating myself up was going to make me a better person. In other words, he taught me it was all right to forgive myself, a lesson I try to pass along whenever I have the chance. It's one of those things he did, showing me what it means to be a father, when I didn't even know it.


(Creative Commons image of Jessica Rabbit figurine (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) by San Diego Shooter via Flickr)