In this ever changing world we live in, it’s nice to know that there are a few things you can count on. Things that are consistent. Things that are there every single time.

When you heat up some Chef Boy Ar Dee Spaghetti and Meatballs, there are always six meatballs. Never seven, never five. Six…just the right amount. I have been eating this stuff since I was a kid. Six, every single time. That’s consistency. That’s something you can count on!

Here is another. Hershey’s Chocolate Bar with Almonds.  The whole almonds are distributed in the chocolate in just such a way that there is an almond in every bite. Consistency! You can count on a Hershey’s Chocolate Bar with Almonds.

One more. Another Hershey product. Hershey Kisses! Ever see one without the paper flag? Yeah, me neither. You can count on the paper flag. You can also count on those paper flags ending up on the floor. But who cares…they are on the floor consistently!

I like consistency. I like knowing that when I turn my car key in the morning, my car will start. I like knowing that my Dunkin’ Hazelnut Swirl Iced Coffee will be delicious. I like knowing my Social Security benefit will be deposited in my checking account the fourth Wednesday of every month!

Most of you know that I am a Licensed Professional Counselor. From that perspective, I see a lot of problems in peoples’ lives that are caused by inconsistency and not being able to count on something, or someone. Kids’ whose parents are divorcing should be able to count on their parents putting their needs first. Doesn’t always happen!  Husbands and wives should be able to count on fidelity from their spouse. That also doesn’t happen… a lot!  I see clients who were let down by their friends, their families, and their workplaces.

I guess you can see why I like consistency and being able to count on things. It makes life more predictable and manageable. That doesn’t mean I don’t like spontaneity and adventure in small doses.  For example, right now I am thinking about taking a little adventure to the Weis up the road. I may fight the rain and traffic to get myself a Hershey Bar with Almonds. I know there will be an almond in every bite!

 

I did the math. Today is my 22,355th day on Earth.  22,355, wow! There is a Moody Blues song called 22,000 Days.  It’s about the time we have here in this life. I beat that number. Woohoo!  How many more to go? Lots and lots I hope.

875 full moons! How many were covered by clouds?  22,355 sun rises! How many did I sleep through?

1260 days of elementary school. 360 days of junior high. 720 days at Slatington High School!

Three days watching my children be born.  330 days watching my child die. I don’t know how many weddings and funerals I have attended? A lot…of both.  Many first days on the job. One less last day on the job.

Almost three billion heartbeats, so far.  A half a billion breaths.  About thirty 5ks and one marathon. Those made my heart beat harder and my lungs breathe faster!

So, what is the point of all these numbers? I love trivia! All these facts and figures are hardly trivial, though. They are a record of my life.  A life I wish I could live for another 22,355 days!

We get a lot of days, probably more than you, or I, imagined.  Can we expect to live each day fully? Of course not, that’s crazy talk! But can we make sure we live more days fully that emptily. Let’s hope so!

I’ll close this post with a quote from Mary Oliver: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”.

 

 

My apologies to Aretha Franklin for using her great song as a blog post title. But respect is on my mind today.  Today I had to take Emma to school. We were a little early, so we sat in my car for a few minutes in front of Parkland High School.  I was looking around, such a beautiful school, and noticed the American flag hanging limp in the pouring rain.  I said to Emma that the flag is not supposed to be out in the rain. She said “Dad, nobody cares about those rules anymore.”

And, she’s right. There is so much that nobody cares about anymore. Like manners, and humility, and a good work ethic. A disclaimer: I am not the  most patriotic man in town. I am here because I was born to two Americans. Personally, I didn’t really care that I saw our flag in the rain.  When I hear people say God Bless America, I think…shouldn’t we be asking God to bless the whole world? But, that’s me.

You know who was very patriotic? My 8th grade reading teacher, Homer Moyer. In fact, I think I learned about flags in the rain from him. He was very big on respect for the flag. Back then I probably thought that Mr. Moyer is a little over the top.  But, in hindsight, he was very perceptive. Perhaps he knew where things were headed. Looking back, I admire the things he tried to teach us about having respect, not just for the flag, but for ourselves and our appearance and our character.  He taught me the joy of reading and about the influence we each have on societal norms.  Thank you, Mr. Moyer.

So where do we go from here?  The title of this post is R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  If our nation is in a downward spiral regarding this topic, is it too late to change?  I hope not. This is one of those things that start with each of us. If everyone of us starts to be more respectful, maybe we can start a wave of optimism that moves us forward. Maybe we could change the national anthem to Aretha’s signature song.  Well…maybe not.

I try not to get political in my blog posts. I hope that this didn’t cross a line. If it did, I apologize.  See! Wasn’t that me being respectful!

It is raining outside and will be all day. Let me end this post with a rain inspired Beatles lyric. “And the fireman rushes in, from the pouring rain. Very strange.”. See you next time when I reveal how long I have been on Earth!

 

 

Remember back in the day, when you took a Chemistry test and thought to yourself, I did horribly? (That would be every Chemistry test for me.) But then between classes you talk to your friends and find out they didn’t think they did very well either.  Whew! You knew there was some possibility that the Standard Normal Curve (the Bell Curve) might bail you out.  The theory goes that every test should have a few As and a few Fs, a few more Bs and Ds, and most people would get Cs.  Back then teachers would use this a lot. Based on what I hear about my daughter’s school experience, it is never used. I could be wrong.  So if my daughter gets a 68 on a Chemistry test, that’s a D. There is no chance that the bell curve will turn her D into a C.  Sucks to be her!

Ok. So they don’t use the Standard Normal Curve in school anymore. I still use it in my work.  I often will explain the concept to an anxiety client to normalize their feelings. On one side of the curve is the very few people who don’t stress about anything. On the other side is the very few people who won’t even leave their home because of anxiety. Then I explain that all of us, even them, fall somewhere in the Great Middle. Being careful not to minimize their own experience, it makes them feel closer to normal and gives them a fresh perspective on their life.  This works for other issues as well. Depression, Grief. Even someone going through a divorce is most likely not having the worst divorce in the history of mankind.  They, also, are in the Great Middle. The great middle of the Bell Curve.

I thought of this concept, again, while recovering from my recent colon resection. Instead of wallowing in self pity (ok, I did a little of that), I remembered that there are cancer patients and accident victims that have it a lot worse than I do.  And sure, there are some people who never have a sick day in their lives. But, I am in the Great Middle, as are most of us.  Not a bad place to be!

Look at your life through the lens of the Standard Normal Curve. You have a few days that are absolutely spectacular. Those would be your graduation days, your wedding day, your birth of a child days, and your retirement day. You also have a few days that are absolutely disastrous. Those would be the days when you lose a loved one, find out that you are seriously ill, or even the days when the love of your life says she doesn’t want to see you anymore.  But most of our life is spent in the Great Middle.  Most of are days are just fine, neither spectacular nor disastrous.  I think we need to spend more time appreciating the normal days. I am hoping you agree and join me in the Great Middle. It’s a wonderful place to be!!

 

As you all know by now, Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash yesterday.  I am not going to presume to be an authority on Kobe. I am neither a big NBA fan nor even much of a basketball fan.  I do know something about death though, unfortunately. All of us, of course, have known death in our lives. Looking back at my life, I have had an unusual number of times to grieve.

I’m reminded of a controversial issue when I worked for Crime Victims Council.  We did grief counseling for the families of homicide victims.  The argument, in our field, was  that a sudden death is so much worse than the death of someone who who dies a slow death, like from cancer.  As someone who watched my daughter die, over the course of eleven months, I usually argued the other side.  A slow death is worse because you have to look that person in the eye every single day, until they are gone.

How about this idea?  All death sucks…for the survivors.

Kobe’s death was a shocker. It reminded me of three other deaths of celebrities that meant something in my life. John Lennon and Tim Russert were two sudden deaths. If you don’t remember who Tim Russert was, he was an NBC politcial analyst and host of Meet the Press. His death from a rare heart condition made me watch my diet for…..oh about a week.  John Lennon was a Beatle, and so much more. The long slow death was Muhammad Ali. An idol of mine since the mid-sixties, he represented youth and health and change and humor and passion. Watching his slow decline was very difficult. Again, all death sucks…for the survivors.

A friend told me the most difficult thing for her about Kobe’s death was the fact that he had to know that he and his daughter were going to die and he could do nothing to help her.  Sudden death.  Even though my death was not imminent in 1989, I had to watch my daughter die and be unable to do anything to help her. A slower death.

Let’s end this depressing topic on a more positive note. Let’s all take something from Kobe’s life. Let’s try to live with passion. Let’s try to help others. Let’s try to be the best person we can be.  Let’s live for today, because nothing past today is guaranteed.

 

 

 

I know they still make them, because I googled it. And they look pretty much the same today as they did in 1960.  The Pitch Back allowed a kid to spend hours, by him or herself, catching grounders, line drives, and fly balls. Basically it was a taut net on a metal frame. What you got back after you threw the ball at the net depended on the angle of the frame.  It was a lot of fun for me in my backyard at 16 Dowell Street, in Slatington.

What made it even more fun was that I had actual Major League baseballs to play with! My dad was a door to door salesman. He worked with a guy named Ted Lopat who was a professional baseball umpire. When baseball was in the off season, Ted would work with my dad selling the services of Jewel Tea Company to the bored housewives of eastern Pennsylvania.  Every few weeks my dad would bring home a bag of balls given to him by Umpire Ted.

It’s good that I had so many baseballs to play with because, in my Dowell Street backyard, back in the corner, there was this enormous rose bush. It had to be fifty years old.  Well, I wasn’t the greatest shortstop in Pitch Back history. I missed many balls that were captured by the angry, greedy rose bush. It would be really painful to try to retrieve the ball from the clutches of Rosie and her thorns!  Luckily, during the off season, there was always another bag of balls to come.

I mentioned googling Pitch Back. I also googled Ted Lopat. I am usually pretty good with names, but I just wanted to make sure.   I was right on the name. Poor Ted died in 2010 in Tacoma, Washington. I wonder how he ended up there. Peoples’ lives are fascinating.

I doubt that the rose bush still exists. That would be remarkable. Whoever took it down, must have been surprised to see so many baseballs inside!

 

 

 

That title?  It’s a Beatles song. One of their more obscure songs, if there is such a thing.  You are probably wondering why this peace loving Buddhist would be connecting happiness and a warm gun!  Basically, I like to try to find a catchy title that may draw you in. I hope it has. But, in spite of my liberal leanings and my spirituality, I do have some happy memories of warm guns. Let me explain.

As you know, I grew up in Slatington, a community of 4000 in mostly rural northern Lehigh County.  Being that it was a rural area, hunting and guns were fairly common.  During deer season, it wasn’t uncommon to see a dead buck or doe strapped to the hood or trunk of a car.  Do you know why, to this day, kids still have off on the Monday after Thanksgiving? It started because that was always the start of deer season and most kids would skip school and head to the woods and fields.

I own no guns now, nor do I plan to. But I have owned five guns in my distant past. I say distant because I don’t think I have used a gun since graduation from high school.  My views on guns have changed, obviously, but this is not a political blog.

My first gun was a bb gun. Yes, a Daisy, of course.  I think I got it for Christmas when I was about ten.  My friends and I would use it to shoot tin cans and bottles. We would also use it to shoot at sparrows, never ever hitting one. The best thing about my bb gun was that it got me out in the woods a lot, a love of mine to this day.

My second gun was a 22. Now we are talking higher power than bb pellets. You could kill someone with a 22. Don’t worry. I never have!  But I did shoot pigeons and groundhogs and those bottles and cans I missed with my bb gun.

Turning twelve meant official hunting. Yes, a license and everything!  Back then there were no safety courses. It was expected that your father would teach you that stuff.  My dad did. It still amazes me to this day that my dad was a hunter.  He wasn’t stereotypical. That’s for certain.  He was a Mennonite raised, Allentown Business School educated, nerdy, non-macho, door to door salesman!  But he and my brothers and an uncle and a cousin would go small game hunting. My guns for that were shotguns. A 20 gauge and a 410 gauge.  I remember the first time shooting the 20 gauge. My shoulder hurt for a week. And a 20 gauge is one of the less powerful shotguns.  So, with my shotguns, my family shot rabbits and pheasants, doves and squirrels. And yes, we ate them too.

My last gun was a deer rifle. A 30.06.  It was used, of course, to shoot deer. I am extremely happy to report that I never shot a deer, nor ever even saw one while hunting. I don’t know if I could have actually pulled the trigger if I had seen one.  Such beautiful animals. I think that was what led me to quit hunting when I graduated. I didn’t like killing animals. I know, this hypocrite still likes a good steak!

So I have no animosity toward hunters nor hunting culture.  It wasn’t for me.  But isn’t that what growing up is all about? Testing the values your parents taught you and seeing what sticks and what falls to the wayside. I am happy that guns and hunting taught me about the wonderful outdoors.

As an aside, you may want to listen to the Beatles song with the same title as my post. It’s a really good song with one of the greatest, long held, high notes in rock history. Thank you, John Lennon.

I am home recovering from surgery. Thanks for all the well wishes.

 

 

 

 

 

Remember the game Operation? That’s the one where you use a pair of tweezers to remove comical body parts from the body of Cavity Sam. For example, if you bump the cavity, while removing butterflies from his stomach, a buzzer goes off and Sam’s nose lights up!  On Thursday, I am going to be Cavity Sam.

This Thursday, I am having a colon resection to remove part of my colon that has nasty diverticulae causing problems.  I’ll be in the hospital for three to five days. I am hoping that my biggest issue is the pure boredom of being stuck in the hospital. I’ve had surgeries before so I am only a little nervous. Okay, a little more nervous each day.  At least this time they are not removing an entire body part, just a part of one!  And, at least, there is no sign of everyone’s dreaded fear, cancer!

So I’ve been thinking about body parts I no longer have. My appendix was the first to go, when I was nine. Do I miss it? Not in the slightest! Next was my gall bladder. Do I miss that? Even less. About a decade ago I lost my prostate. Do I miss that? You betcha!! Haha.

So I have been getting by without these things and I guess I will get by without part of my colon.  It could always be worse, right?  So I am hoping that, on Thursday, I will hear no buzzers and my nose will not light up!

 

Her name was Ana Maria Marin Borja.  My ex-wife and I hosted her in our home back in 1990-1991. She was an exchange student from Mexico. She arrived at our home about a month into the school year. The family that she was living with didn’t feel that it was working out. We decided to ignore that red flag and invite her into our home.

It was a good decision. Her first question of us was “what chores do you want me to do?”. Apparently the family before us intended to use her more as a maid than as a welcomed guest.  We had a good talk about expectations, which didn’t include back breaking work. We simply wanted to continue to live our quiet life while learning more about Mexican life while we would provide her with a view of a middle class American life.

She fit in immediately. She had a wonderful sense of humor and there were nights that the three of us would end up laughing until we were crying. Ana came from the Mexican upper class. I’m not sure if they were wealthy, but they sure had more money than I ever did.  She and her family lived in the capital of the State of Mexico, Toluca. We visited there a few years after she returned home. They had a maid.  She, because of where we lived, had to enroll at Allen High School. That she didn’t like.

Language was not a problem as she spoke fluent English.  The biggest cultural “conflicts” came around time and conversation. We went one time to visit my daughter’s grave. She expected that we would be spending the afternoon there and having a picnic. That was what she was used to.  Also, if we would go out to eat, which we would often do, she would expect to sit in the restaurant for hours, after the meal was complete, to converse. Even if it was McDonald’s.

She called us Mom and Dad and it was difficult to see her leave as the school year ended.  The house was much quieter after she left.  But we did visit her at her home a few years later. Toluca was about the size of Allentown and a very lovely city.  Her mother took us into Mexico City for dinner and shopping. It was a modern metropolis and, at the time, it was the largest city in the world. It was wonderful.

Ana and I are still Facebook friends. She is now married and in her mid-forties.  I follow the growth of her one daughter, who is an excellent figure skater.

I’m not quite sure what sparked me to write about her today.  Maybe it’s because of all the hatred in the world. This one small act of hosting an exchange student was our little act of peace.  We all need to know each other better and respect each other more.  Just because someone is different does not mean they are less than us.

For my readers who have considered hosting an exchange student. I say go for it! Just expect to spend more time than usual in your favorite restaurant.

 

 

 

I know it wasn’t the Rose Bowl or even the Bluebonnet Bowl (whatever happened to that one).  We, certainly,  never would have made it into the current NCAA Bowl Championship playoff. But wow did we have fun.

Some background. I come from a fairly large family. I had three older brothers and an older sister. They, and I, added fifteen to the next generation. That generation got married and added children of their own.  As a big family, we got together for the major holidays. One of those holidays was New Years Day.  There was food! There were games! There was football!! The George Bowl!

Think of the Kennedys and their famous touch football games. Now think of a less wealthy and less good looking version. That was us.

That holiday was always spent at my brother Gary’s Walnutport home. The venue added to the allure of our touch football game.  His back yard was our field. It was long like a football stadium rectangle. So far so good. It was on a fairly steep slant. Not so good.  After a few years of playing you knew to never position yourself at the bottom of the slant. No one wants to start a pass pattern running uphill!

We played no matter the weather. I remember games played in pouring rain. I remember playing during a snow storm. I remember playing when the field was mostly ice. Those bad weather games helped me perform better because it had the tendency to slow everyone down! I even had a football nickname. I was known as the Little Blind Boy. I was called that because of my glasses that turned dark in the sun.  I guess that was before lens changing glasses were common.

The George Bowl was played for at least a decade. I think my oldest living brother, Jim, was the first to drop out and not play at all. Soon after that my next oldest brother, Gary, started playing quarterback for both sides, to avoid having to run.  Soon we all got older and fatter and lazier and the George Bowl came to an end. But those memories remain, especially on New Years Day. Good times. Good times.

I hope you all have your own New Years Day traditions and that you continue them as long as you can.  Those traditions, and family, are what life is all about. Happy 2020 everyone!!!!