Due Date

 

One of my favorite super powers - and I’ll admit it is low grade - is my ability to eat almost expired food. As the dad in the house, one of my jobs is to eat potentially dangerous calories. If some turkey has hidden too long in the back of the fridge, for example, or if some fruit has headed south, I will sometimes eat it. I hate to throw away food, and for some reason I don’t get sick. I guess my stomach is just coated with some amazing healing juice or something.

It’s my gift.

Over the years I’ve also been able to hone an almost uncanny ability to tell time. Like some mutant freak, I can look at a clock and predict how long it will take to go somewhere. No one else in my family has inherited this skill, unfortunately, so left to their own devices we are often late. This is why I’m glad we’re not the Von Trapps, as there’s no way we would have made it across the Alps before the Nazis caught us and made us sing more.

 Perhaps my most impressive gift, however, is my willingness to offer unsolicited advice. As many of you are painfully aware, I have been an uncertified life coach for much longer than necessary, and, since this is an election year, my mailbag is brimming with questions.

So, without further silliness, let’s dig in and dig out! (Trademark)

Question One: I’ve been driving the same car for years now without any trouble, but some folks suggest I replace the tires with four new ones. Tires aren’t cheap, though, and I hardly drive more than seven miles a day. Any suggestions?

Answer One: Well, I’m no mechanic, but I do know that tires are an important part of your vehicle and should be inflated at all times. I would recommend replacing them sooner than later. After all, your car is a major purchase and safety should be at the forefront of your decision making.

Question Two: Some of the exterior door frames around my house are starting to weather, but they’re for doors I rarely use. Besides that, I can’t fix them myself, and I’m afraid if I call a professional they’ll laugh at me. Any advice?

Answer Two: Again, I’m no carpenter, but without frames the doors will probably fall down. Frames will cost money to fix, of course, but your home is a major investment and it’s best to fix problems as soon as you can.

Question Three: To improve outdated school buildings and promote student safety, my county has once again put the “1 Percent Sales Tax” issue on the ballot, but I’m really struggling to decide how to vote. From an ideological standpoint, I feel any tax increase is a bad idea, and I don’t currently have kids who attend a public school. However, I’ve also spent some time in the older schools as a volunteer, and they really do need some updates. What’s your take on this?

Answer: Great question! Your vote will absolutely make a difference, and, as both a parent and school teacher, I do have some advice to offer, which is this - You should absolutely vote “yes” for this proposal.

Before discussing the details, however, we need to take a step back and realize this is not an ideological issue. We don’t bicker back and forth about the political ramifications of automotive repair, so why would we do so when it comes to an investment as important as our children?

Our public schools need updates. Our students need resources that we, the public, have a responsibility to provide, whether we have family members enrolled or not. Our schools represent us as a community. Our schools attract (or repel) both long-term business investors and the weekend guest, and this proposal offers a simple, straightforward way to help local districts achieve that mission without an additional burden on homeowners.

Besides that, most surrounding communities have already taken advantage of this balanced source of revenue because it’s a rational way to finance their school buildings. Anytime we shop in Mattoon or Champaign, for example, we are already supporting those students with an identical tax. I’ve had the privilege of teaching Effingham County students for close to twenty-seven years, and I assure you that our young people are just as worthy of our investment.

In closing, this solution offers the adults in the community a simple way to answer one of their most important questions: “What is the best way to finance our school buildings?” Voting “Yes” for this proposal is not only a gift to our students who attend public schools, it’s a long-term investment in the community they call home.

Our Adventure Out West Last Summer, Part Three

 

“POP!”

The truck, already oversized for the highway, crossed the center line and smashed into our rearview mirror. Only inches had separated us from a head on collision, so once the shock wore off we were relieved the sudden impact wasn’t much worse. We crawled a few more miles up to Logan Pass, found a spot to park in the crowded lot, and then examined the damage.

            Again.

            The mirror was shattered but still usable. Since we were driving a borrowed vehicle, however, I thought about relaying the information back home but then decided against it. After all, we still had thousands of miles to travel; might as well just report it all at once. Fortunately, the day quickly turned better.

 A long walk up through a mountain meadow is good for the nerves. Mountain goats and rams watched us without interest for much of our journey up the boardwalk. After a mile the boardwalk ended and became a moderate trail, and we followed other hikers all the way to a lookout framing Hidden Lake shining in the distance. Although this was the end of our hike, we could see other tired folks slowly crawling along the edge of the water miles away like happy little beetles.

The journey back down was slow but more pleasant once we made it back to the boardwalk. By this time some of the wildlife - a bored, stern-looking ram - had ambled onto the path, munching on flowers and blocking our way. Although some tourists took the opportunity to take close-ups, we took a much wider berth.

When we made it back down to the parking lot, however, we saw even more rams trip-tropping around, scavenging on the remains of human picnics. Unsurprisingly, the beasts were also marching toward our truck. After a few quiet moments we watched in horror as they disappeared, squeezing between our truck and another vehicle, their horns broad and heavy.

“There’s no way they’re getting through that without scratching the paint.” JaLana muttered.

“I know.”

Eventually the mob left the parking lot and we scampered down to check out the damage. Somehow, though, they’d done it! The rams had squeezed between our vehicles without scratching the paint. (Or, at least, without scratching our paint. I didn’t take pains to examine the other vehicle, taking my wins where I could find them.)

The sun was beginning to set, though, so we began the crawl back down from Logan’s Pass. Although the path winds back and forth, the general direction of the road travels west, so we added a blinding sunset to our list of potential dangers. Once we made it to the bottom, we all sighed. The kids in two vehicles - sisters and brothers separated - put on a science-fiction radio drama with the CBs.

Because of the slow-going over the graveled roadway, it was nearly 10 P.M. by the time we made it back to the cabin. No matter. Dirk grilled cheeseburgers out on the deck, fully aware that while on vacation, kitchen hours are relative.

 

            The next morning, Wednesday, August 2nd, we left the cabin and drove along the southern edge of the park, east and then north up toward the St. Mary entrance. We enjoyed a pit stop at the Glacier Park Lodge, a rustic hotel built by the Great Northern Railway in the first decades of the 20th century, then once again entered the park itself. Soon we arrived at St.Mary Village, a bustling hive of hotels, campgrounds, restaurants and shops. We strolled through the chalet-style lodge before finding a suitably moderate hike for the afternoon.

            This trek offered us easy access to a lake for swimming. Water also meant the possibility of running into a moose, however, which I didn’t consider a selling point. After fifteen or so minutes of strolling through the woods, we took a detour to the water to let the kids cool off. Another thirty minutes down the trail led us to a series of small cataracts safe for careful wading.

A couple dozen hikers rested near the water - standing or sitting, stepping and trying not to slip. We let the kids climb as far as they could where they found a cold pool a few feet deep. A woman screamed when a snake swam past her feet. We kept an eye out for the creature but it had wisely escaped downstream. After nearly an hour of pause, we returned to the trail, heading back.

Things went fine for a while, but then Annaka, tired from the heat and walking, slipped and bloodied her ankle. Like an actress on cue, however, a woman met us on the trail with an assortment of first aid options. We cleaned Annaka’s wound while the forest nurse talked to her in soothing tones. The older kids wanted to swim again in the lake, but we needed to get Annaka back to civilization. The adolescents stayed with Dirk and Laurie while JaLana and I began the long walk back to the car, Annaka on my shoulders, whimpering and singing a warning to any potential bears.

Most of the week had been unseasonably warm, and so adding her fifty-some pounds to my shoulders while trudging through the bumpy woods wasn’t easy. We took water breaks every ten or so minutes until we finally found our way back to the parking lot.

Victory!

I opened the trunk of the van and started prepping her food while Jalana took her to the restroom. Once she was fed, JaLana and I found some cold drinks in the nearby gift shop. Soon the rest of our entourage happily walked out of the woods, eager for ice cream and a place to sit.

Once we were all hydrated and toweled off, we found our way out of the park and began the long journey back home. Because of the construction (and my skittishness about climbing up Logan’s Pass again and potentially smashing into yet another vehicle) we decided the best way to get back to the cabin was to backtrack through the Black Feet Indian Reservation. Here we found out why Montana is often called “Big Sky Country;” the horizon crept along with us, miles in the distance.

Once we made it back to the cabin, Dirk again fired up the grill (this time fajitas) while the kids played bags on the porch followed by another intense match of Texas Hold’em.

On our final full day at the cabin, Thursday, August 3rd, most of the crew got up early to again visit the little village of Apgar tucked into the southern edge of Lake McDonald. After breakfast we all loaded up once more and headed back into the park, this time to relax near the same river wading spot we’d enjoyed earlier in the week. We picnicked at Lake MacDonald, giving the kids some more time to swim in the frigid water before returning to the cabin for the afternoon.

Because we were leaving the next day, I stayed behind to clean out the back of the truck while the rest of the group went souvenir shopping down the road.

Hours later, our last morning in Montana began in the dark. Although we weren’t on a schedule we still hoped to make it well into North Dakota before nightfall. The Bohnoffs had the cabin for one more evening and then would be heading down the road for a couple nights in nearby Kalispell, so while they prepared for one more day in Glacier, we bustled around trying to get packed and moving.

The sun was barely up when we said our goodbyes and crept down the gravel road to the highway. A few moments later found us zipping down Route 2, moving east. We were hardly a few miles, however, before JaLana asked, “Did you get Annaka’s bread?”

I had not.

A quick call to the Bohnoffs indicated they were still at the cabin, so we hustled back to retrieve our precious bread. After a few more sheepish “good byes,” we again made our way to the highway. As we climbed the short hill leading us back to the highway we noticed the sun had swept away the morning fog and in its place stood a man.

“Oh my goodness, I think he’s hurt!”

A few yards off the road, an elderly man in full motorcycle gear - helmet, boots, leather pants and jacket - barely stood upright with his arms raised in distress, his terrified dog shivering nearby.

 

To Be Concluded…

"...of all possible worlds"

 

As an uncertified life coach and certified school teacher, the summer months give me a little more time to read through my never-ending mailbag of uncertified life-coaching questions. We focus this season, however, on one simple query sent to us from a long-time reader from Inland County, Illinois.

The reader writes, “Good morning! Recently a person I don’t know and will likely never meet said something I found very offensive. What should I do about this?”

That’s a good question, not necessarily because it’s actually a good question, but because it’s so common. Nowadays it seems every time we turn around someone who has no vested interest in our lives is saying or doing something so outlandish we cannot help but get on Facebook and tell everyone about it. In fact, because of the consistency of this issue, I’ve developed a three-question strategy for dealing with the constant barrage of irritating nonsense.

The first and perhaps most important question you should ask yourself is, “Was the message intended for me?” Because the truth is, if the message was not directed at you, it might be better if you just mind your own business. Getting angry every time someone says something you don’t agree with doesn’t make the message go away, it just makes you harder to live with.

            However, if you do insist on making it your business, ask yourself this next question:  “Did I actually process and understand the message in its entirety, taking into consideration all of the context surrounding the speaker, message and, once again, intended audience?”

Oftentimes what makes us angry is not the message itself but the so-called analysis of the message by one of our ideological thugs I mean commentators. In case you haven’t noticed, we live in a culture dedicated to selling us stuff we don’t need. This is done most effectively if we are sad or angry and especially if we are sad and angry at each other, and so everything that happens or is even said gets immediately filtered through an ideological prism. If you are at peace with yourself and your neighbor, you’re less likely to spend money.

Therefore, if you are going to invest time and emotional energy into being upset, at the very least you need to process the whole message, not just the most dramatic bits and pieces that would make anyone angry. After all, even a Dr. Seuss' book can be unsettling if taken out of context.

 Speaking of books, the final question we need to ask before committing ourselves to being offended is, “How’s my own garden growing?”

This question is inspired by Voltaire’s Candide, the Enlightenment-era satire that tells the story of a young man and his tutor Pangloss, who travel the “best of all possible worlds,” bumping into one travesty after another, most notably the horrific Lisbon earthquake of 1755.  At the end of all his travels, Candide comes to the understanding that perhaps the best course of action in a world where trouble seems imminent is for him to simply cultivate his own farm.

Thus, the story ends with the title character working the earth as an antidote to “boredom, vice and poverty,” and goodness knows growing our own food is a great way to tend to our own health and make the world a little better if we have enough to share. (Which you will if you grow zucchini.) Your “garden” doesn’t have to be an actual garden, though. Your garden might simply be your calling. What have you been put on this earth to do by your creator?

Voltaire was a deist, though, but the message is basically the same even if your theology (or lack thereof) requires you to replace an involved creator with nature itself. For example, nature has made eagles to fly, snakes to crawl, and cheetahs to run. We, as humans, are part of nature, and we each have gifts and experiences, abilities and passions, that make us suitable for certain tasks.

 But we are not all suited for the same tasks, however, and we certainly aren’t suited for all of them. Just as a fish would look absurd trying to climb a tree, we make ourselves look foolish when we  become upset by words spoken by people who wouldn’t skim the words in our obituary. 

This doesn’t mean we become cold and indifferent to all of the injustices in the world, of course, but it does mean we should ask ourselves the very serious question “What can I do, today, where I am, to make the world a better place? How is my own garden growing, and how can I cultivate it even more?”

After all, as another clever person explained centuries before Voltaire, it’s silly of us to get offended by the speck of wood in our neighbor’s eyes while ignoring the plank stuck in our own. 

Getting Lost

 

Sunday afternoons often meant meandering.

My family would eat lunch after church - perhaps at home or down at Grandma’s, sometimes at Long John Silvers in Vandalia and in later years, Pizza Hut - and then if the weather was nice I would try to get lost. I would hop on dad’s Big Red ATV three-wheeler and go. I would zip down to the gravel pit, snake across dry creek beds, wrestle through overgrown trails in the woods. I would need to keep an eye on the sky, of course -  where the sun was, where the clouds were - and I would need to be home in time for supper and then youth group.

I was fourteen, perhaps, and the freedom they gifted me with back then boggles my mind today.

Because nowadays, I require my own adolescent children to get permission to ride their bikes even a mile down to the TREC trail, and they need to ride together, never by themselves, lest they get abducted by one of the dozens of crime syndicates roaming through my imagination. According to Johnathon Haidt, however, the author of “The Anxious Generation,” these good intentions may have unintended consequences.

 In summary, Haidt suggests that the current mental health crisis plaguing many of our young people is influenced by a set of closely related and relatively new phenomena: way too much screen time at a way too young age, and the lack of unstructured outdoor activities that this screen time has replaced. For some kids, childhood itself - which used to be punctuated with playing outdoors with other children - is being rewired in an effort to keep them safe. The sad irony is that in an effort to shield our kids from supposed dangers (the vast majority of America is as safe now as it’s ever been) we’ve exacerbated the very real dangers of anxiety and depression. As his book suggests, many parents overprotect their kids in the real world while under-protecting them in the virtual one.

Decades before this virtual world existed, however, and even before my parents allowed me to ride the ATV by myself,  I played in the woods with my brother, cousins, and friends. We would build forts and climb trees, practice karate and throw rocks. Sometimes I would explore just by myself, and although the chances of getting mauled by an animal or starving to death was almost zero, occasionally I would get so far away from familiar territory that I felt lost, if only momentarily.

Strangely enough, these brief episodes of panic turned victorious once I found my way back home. Solving such an existential problem was thrilling, and although it clearly didn’t segue into a career as a trail guide, it did add to the self reliance I would need to someday function as a reasonably coherent adult. One of Haidt's main points is that many of our young people no longer get those opportunities to “get lost” and find their way back home, whether figuratively or in real life. He suggests that our kids’ mental health is directly influenced by how self-reliant they are (or at least how self-reliant they see themselves as.)

Not all kids have woods to walk in, though, and Honda hasn’t made a Big Red three-wheeler since 1987. The world really is different - at least for most of us - and who's to blame is not important.

What is important is that we stop blaming the kids.

Because kids aren’t different. Kids are kids. If they don’t have the gadget they’ll play with toys; if they don’t have toys they’ll go make them out of toilet paper. Many parents - and I often include myself in this statement - have decided that boredom itself is a disease to avoid, and thus we’ve gone to incredibly great and perhaps disastrous lengths to keep our kids “occupied.” The gadget becomes the pacifier, and we call their silence parenting.

A few years after becoming a parent myself, I asked my dad how he was OK with me heading out in the woods, often alone - walking, exploring, getting lost. His answer was typically straightforward:

“I figured if you got lost you’d find your way back; you’d have to eventually.”

He was right. I did.

Learning self-reliance doesn’t require walking into the woods and coming back three hours later, though. For little kids, it might be as simple as walking to the mailbox to deliver a letter. For older children, it might mean walking into the grocery store with the debit card and a list, making supper, cleaning up, and then enjoying the satisfaction that comes from feeding your family.

Less appealing, though, it also might mean allowing our kids to struggle in school, to sit on the bench, and to get their hearts broken without swooping in to save the day. It’s hard to stomach, but they’ll have to figure it out eventually.

Sometimes, it’s just our job to be there when they get home.

Sneakers

 

My kids have started snarking on my inevitable decline.

“You’re starting to look old.”

“Yeah, your hair is getting thin.”

“Get a wig.”

I agree with them, of course, but I also remind them getting older is simply what happens to people when they don’t die.

“It’s either this face or a casket; what do you want from me?”
            I also remind them age is relative. Granted, I am post-youth, but I can still play catch with them, right? I can still help them build a snowman, and, most importantly during this season of our lives, I still have the dexterity needed to drive them around. And around.

And around.

Despite their verbal abuse, however, I wasn’t feeling old at all until my teenage daughter informed me, without a hint of compromise, that she absolutely was wearing the white sneakers with pink stripes or she wasn’t even dressing up at all.

             Standing in the kitchen just minutes before we needed to leave for school, this scene was supposed to have been a moment I’d imagined for years. Our darling daughter--our firstborn; our princess--would go to school and smile brightly for her very first Academic Hall of Fame picture. She would be wearing a lovely red dress with, apparently, matching tennis shoes?

            “Uh…no.”

            This was about as far as the conversation went, however. She stormed out of the room to finish her hair. Meanwhile, I finished my breakfast and wisely decided to shut up. We drove to school - in silence - then she marched into the building to join dozens of other young ladies wearing dresses and, yes, fashionable sneakers.

            She was right, I was wrong, and I was once again taught a lesson I thought I’d already learned: some battles aren’t worth fighting; sometimes you just have to let things go.

That evening after making peace we all gathered in the living room and enjoyed what had once been a weekly tradition - Friday Night Movie Night. As the kids have gotten older it’s become more of a challenge to find movies that appeal to all three of them, but Pixar’s “Up” still fits the bill. If you’re not familiar with the film I would recommend watching it as soon as you can, but in the meantime just know that the movie centers on a curmudgeonly old man unwilling to let go of his past. Carl - voiced perfectly by the late Ed Asner - floats all the way to South America to fulfill a promise made as children between he and his recently-deceased wife.

This errand takes a series of foolish turns, however, and Carl finally realizes the right thing to do is forget his plans to settle near Paradise Falls and instead rescue the tagalong boy who desperately needs his help. Because his home - and mode of transportation - is being lifted by thousands of helium balloons, however, the only way he can do that is by literally letting go of his past. Thus, old furniture, knick-knacks, and heirlooms taking up space are unceremoniously tossed out of his house. Unhindered by the burden, Carl is able to rise up and save the day.

It’s a clever climax, but the moment also offers up an immediately profound message: sometimes we need to toss what’s behind us to help those in front.

The writer of Hebrews offers his readers a similar message. After drawing on the faith’s heroes for inspiration in chapter eleven, he begins chapter twelve by imploring his audience “to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” In order to live out their divinely sanctioned destiny, the Hebrews in question - and, by extension, all of us - needed to take a hard look at their bad behavior and rise above it.

It’s often a daily exercise, though, this tossing out of “furniture,” especially when the needs of those in front of us are changing so quickly. My teenage daughter, for example, certainly didn’t need fashion advice from me of all people. She needed breakfast and a quick hug to get her ready for a day that was already going to be stressful. For that morning - for a few more mornings, at least - she needed a ride to school with some fun music or a silly dad joke, not a cold shoulder burdened with enough foolish pride to crack open the floorboards.

            Regardless, most afternoons nowadays she drives us wherever it is we need to go. She has her white slip now and is often eager to flex her increasing independence. Soon she’ll be driving to school on her own - with or without the sneakers - and before I blink, I suppose, she’ll just be driving away.

            And that probably will make me feel old.

Over the Edge

 

The flat-Earther finally convinced me. By sharing pictures of six frying pans posing as planets, he had proved to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was spending too much time on the Internet.

“I have no budget, yet I convinced you these were newly discovered planets.” He explained to the set of skeptics being interviewed on his podcast. “What makes you think NASA, with its billions, hasn’t been tricking us for decades?”

I’m paraphrasing now, but that was the gist of his message. I sighed and scrolled a few more moments, then I put down my phone and walked away. I glanced at the clock. Another five minutes of my life…gone.

Or, maybe it was the young lady who asked the question, in all seriousness, “Can we journey through the ocean to Mars?” Or perhaps it was one of the dozens of folks who suggested we are living in a computer simulation, or that reptilian space aliens have been shape-shifting the gears of global power for decades.

Regardless, they’d found me. After more than a dozen years of posting and scrolling on Facebook, the algorithm had finally led me to the absolute edge of reason. There I was, standing in my kitchen on a Saturday afternoon, listening to a grown man try to convince me – without a hint of irony -  Earth is flat.

Before continuing, I want to emphasize this is not a column designed to refute the flat earth theory, because if you are taking the time to read an actual newspaper column, more than likely you already know Earth is, well, you know, NOT flat, which is an empirical reality thoughtful humans have understood for thousands of years. I merely use such an example to illustrate the potentially dangerous place we have arrived in world history, and that’s because the end of what we might call “flat-earth reasoning” leads us to a set of very dangerous edges.

Primarily, flat-Earth reasoning suggests “the only evidence I can trust is my own evidence; that which I think I’ve seen with my own eyes and that which validates my own preconceptions,” and secondly, “no one who disagrees with me can be trusted;  all the ‘experts’ and leaders and scientists throughout the history of humanity have been in nefarious cahoots, and now it is time to rise up and wallow in our new age of Internet-fueled enlightenment.”

Speaking of human history, last summer I took my son to watch what we have been told is the final Indiana Jones adventure. We liked it in general and I am very appreciative of Mr. Ford for giving me this chance to share the theater experience with him. (My son, not the actor.) However, one particular line seemed out of place. During a conversation where he’s alluding to the many supernatural surprises that show up toward the end of his movies, Dr. Jones comments, “It’s not so much what you believe, it's how hard you believe it.”

This sounds like a strange thing to say in general, but it sounds particularly suspect (and a bit out of character) coming from a scientist who has spent most of his life searching for knowledge while often punching history’s most infamous “hard believing” zealots-- the Nazis--in the face.

 Perhaps the dialogue worked from a narrative standpoint, but even that is debatable.

Regardless, his comment does seem suited to our contemporary zeitgeist, unfortunately, because our world really is full of folks who believe things very hard that often have very little basis in objective reality.  Granted,  an allegiance to Nazism or any other racist ideology is hardly on par with the silly belief our globe is flat. Those are two very different trains of thought going to two very different places. However, I would suggest that both trains leave from the same station.

It’s the same station where folks buy tickets to watch aliens build the pyramids, where school shootings are a hoax, and where now even a performer whose entire career has been punctuated with very public romances is doing something nefarious by watching her boyfriend play football. It’s an increasingly crowded place, but there always seems to be room for just one more remarkable idea, and despite the very curved shape of the planet, all of these trains of thought eventually fall right off the edge.