HANDS, LIPS & THE DEVIL

MY MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER was a fount of wisdom and warnings: Play with fire and you’ll wet the bed. Hike in the woods and you’ll get a chigger on your wigger. And, one I heard often: Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Each of her warnings was uttered with the authority of divine edict, or certainly, scriptural backing.

I’ve done a bit of Bible reading over my life and can’t remember a reference to bed-wetting, chiggers or wiggers (unless you count all that circumcision stuff). The line about idle hands didn’t appear in any version of the Bible until 1971, The Living Bible version, published that year, intrepreted Proverbs 16:27 as, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece.” My grandmother was proclaiming this truth long before 1971.

I bring this up for a couple of reasons. #1) On that loose lips part, you should read what I wrote and was going to post before I chose to write this! #2) Apparently that idle-hands thing took root. I try to keep my hands busy so the devil’s workshop remains closed.

This also serves to meet the warning of my mentor and guide through the aging process who said that every old guy needs a hobby in retirement; or else. Retirement is at hand, so I’m trying to find ways to keep mine busy doing something besides running the TV remote and writing stuff that will get me in trouble. I’ve also discovered that if I don’t keep my hands busy, sometimes My Amazing Missus will find ways for me to get them busy.

I don’t play golf. I would play tennis but I think I’m too good to play with the old geezers. I don’t like yardwork, or sawdust. I like flyfishing but I live in central Oklahoma. The only trout you’ll find around here are in the freezer at the grocery store. I play my drums, but how much of that can we all stand?

So, I’m trying my hands at leatherwork. I did a bit of that back in the 60s and really enjoyed it. So why wouldn’t it work in my 60s.

Recently I made a leather case for a bottle of essential oil. It turned out well so I’ve made a few more.

My latest project was a bit more challenging. I decide to make a bag for My Amazing Missus. When I started on the project I thought, if this goes well I might make a few more and see if I could sell them to help support my hobby. The bag is done. Based on the work/time/materials, I think I’ll price them at $14,329.00 (including shipping). In other words: I don’t plan to make another one.

I don’t know what I’ll do with all the stuff I’m making but at least my hands are busy; some of the time.

Coaster set and holder

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FOR TODAY

TODAY IT SEEMS ESPECIALLY CRUEL. I’m not much of a socializer. It’s not that I’m shy or too sophisticated for small talk, or uninterested in the lives of others—well maybe a little. Let’s just say that when it comes to the social distancing part of quarantine, I’m okay. Except! When it comes to our kids and GrandKids; and Mom, especially today.

On May 12, we sang Happy Birthday to Malachi on a Zoom call. It broke my heart. I’m grateful for Zoom and FaceTime and for kids who are doing what they can to help us stay in “touch” with the GKs. But this is hard. Sunday, was Karlee’s piano recital. I’ve never missed one; until now. Oh, we watched on YouTube and it was wonderful, but different.

Today though it seems especially cruel. Today would have been Mom and Dad’s 74th wedding anniversary. This will be her first one without him. It will be her first one without anyone from her family being physically there with her. She is in assisted-living with strict lockdown. It is as it should be for now, but hard nonetheless.

I’ve thought about how it might be different for her if Dad were still here. Their life was pretty well suited to a quarantine type existence. They started each morning the same. Dad would be up first, his coffee made, waiting for her to start their daily readings. His eyes failed him years ago so reading was impossible, but he had mom. They would start with their daily devotional book and move on to the daily newspaper, page A1 headlines first and then the sports page (a routine she follows to this day, although the sports page is not what it once was). They would have been fine as long as Gunsmoke, M*A*S*H, and Jeopardy were on. The turmoil of quarantine would have hit once the scheduled St. Louis Cardinals’ game didn’t begin.

For a lot of 90-somethings you could have played any old Cardinals game from the past. They wouldn’t have known that Ozzie retired years ago. But Dad did. Mom served as a sort of play-by-play announcer for him. She knew all the players. She probably wouldn’t pronounce their names correctly but she knew them. Dad could see enough that he could tell the Cardinals players apart. I don’t know if he recognized their silouette, their batter’s box routine, their pitching motion?

But the Cardinal’s aren’t playing for now. Mom has a wonderful team of care-givers where she lives. For now, for today that will be enough for her. She is resilient. She has her books, her eyesight and GrandKids who love her. As she says, quoting her own mother, “This too shall pass.”

But for today; it seems especially cruel.

O WORDS, WHERE ARE YOU

IT’S LIKE MY WORDS ARE QUARANTINED TOO. For days now I’ve written nothing in a journal. I’ve tried. I’ve doodled some. I want to write something, something profound that some day someone will find and say, “Look, here’s a journal from The Quarantine of 2020! Wait, all it says, page after page is, ‘the same as yesterday.’”

Numerous times I’ve sat, fingers hovering just above the keyboard, quivering, waiting for the brain to send a message to those fingers to type something. There should be plenty to say. There’s certainly time to say it. But, the words don’t come. And when they don’t, this kind of stuff gets published on a blog.

In my conceited opinion, there isn’t much good TV programming being created these days. There is no original Law & Order, no Seinfeld, no Parks & Recreation, no King of Queens, no Big Bang Theory… So I watch reruns. Actually I’m watching very little TV. YouTube, Yes; TV no. But when I do, it’s reruns. Recently I watched an episode of Frasier. (Where is a show like that when we need it?) In this episode, Frasier was going to be out for a time from his radio gig. So they were going to air the best of Dr. Frasier Crane for his listeners.

Then it hit me. I’ve been writing this blog sporadically like five years now. That’s pretty long in blog years. Surely there is some “best of” stuff I could re-air. Fortunately the blog utility I use offers all kinds of analytics including “Most popular posts”.

The most popular ever was a post about selling our first Airstream, Bambi. That post was listed on a highly-trafficed website so it’s popularity is skewed somewhat. So, we’ll eliminate it. Other than that one, here are the top three. You can click on the title to see the post if your self-quaranteed and bored out of your mind. I noticed these are from 2017, 2015, and 2016 respectively. Apparently the oldies are the goldies.

CHECKING THE BOXES

THE PEACOCK VOW

LOVE STORIES

So, there you have a few reruns you can check out. In the meantime, so I have something thought-provoking to share here and also to write in my journal, and while my own words fail me, I’m using the words of others.

Here are a few quotes for our time in the Big Q.

“If you are solitary be not idle.”

— Samuel Johnson

“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre

“I have let myself go and am less strict with myself.”

— Leo Tolstoy

I had written these quotes down on a scrap of paper and I don’t remember the source. It was probably The New York Times, The New Yorker or The Atlantic, or Fox News, but probably not.

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AT THE RISK OF BEING HER

“That’s not good.”

I was sitting in the right seat of a small twin-engine plane, next to the pilot. We were on our way to Portland, Oregon and had stopped for fuel in Boise, Idaho. As we took off I saw from the air the ugly blue artificial turf on the football field of Boise State University. I remember thinking, “I’m so glad God didn’t make the grass blue, and where did that whole musical genre called Bluegrass get that name?”

I also noticed the ominous dark clouds looming directly in front of us. Then a voice on the radio from a tower somewhere tracking our flight said, “I will be losing you for a while.” And then asked for some kind of information. My good friend, the pilot, said something about two souls being on board. TWO SOULS! SOULS?! I don’t like that sound of that! And then he gave the guy the phone numbers of our next of kin.

Within a few minutes, my good friend, the very good pilot said, “That’s not good.” “What?! What’s not good” flew the words from my paniked soul. I’m not sure if I said that out loud or not. “We’re picking up some ice on the wings. I’m going to take us higher hoping the air will be cold enough the ice won’t stick. Our plane isn’t pressurized and we have no oxygen on board. Keep an eye on your fingernails and let me know if they start to turn blue. We’re going to be flying pretty high.”

The strategy didn’t work. I asked, “Why not fly lower, in warmer air.?”

“The Rockie mountains are below us.” Oh yes, there’s that.

Could we turn around and go back? We would still be flying through the ice-filled clouds, just the opposite direction.

I became stuck in the moment; in that quagmire of limited understanding, of blindness, of panic.

That happens to us doesn’t it, sometimes. You know. When all we can do is wash our hands a lot, watch the Law & Order marathon and wonder what will happen if I get to the end of Netflix and Amazon Prime. Am I the only one wondering if a diet of vienna sausages and ramen noodles will impact my cholestoral levels? Is it wrong to look at the toliet paper supply in our house and remind Jesus of the loaves and fishes story?

“When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

Hold on for a minute. NO, I am not comparing our current state with the one that defined Viktor Frankl’s life. Not in the least. I am merely sharing a truthful quote as a bit of perspective for myself.

Back to the icy airplane. Obviously we made it through that storm. Just as I was in the midst of promising God I would go be a missionary in a bluegrass commune or something, a voice on the radio cracked through the thin air of the cockpit saying we were on his radar, we were beyond the Rockies, and could descend to warmer air. Oh the relief when that ice begin to break off of our wings!

How had my good friend the really good pilot managed to keep from freaking out like his passenger was? He had been there before. He know it was just a matter of minutes before we crossed over the mountains and could descend from icy air and sheer panic.

Sometimes the uncertainty can be a bit paralyzing right? Unfortunatley the virus spread has been devastating for many and many more will be impacted. But maybe we can change the situation a little bit. Stay home if you can. Wash your hands. Pray hard and unselfishly.

Maybe we can change ourselves in the midst of all of this. When it passes let’s all go out to eat, a lot, to help our favorite places bounce back. Let’s be more grateful. Let’s remember this so we don’t take community for granted. I don’t know when, but at some point we will clear the mountains and descend to warmer air.

Is the movie “Pollyanna” on that new Disney+ thing?