A CARNATION CORSAGE

THERE IS A WORTHWHILENESS TO SPECIAL MOMENTS. I didn’t really see it at the time. We seldom do.

Last Saturday, we had a long-awaited memorial for my mom. She passed in December; COVID. In these days I’ve been thinking about her. One of my memories is her propensity and priority of making special moments for others. It was a clear theme in the stories her grandchildren told about her at the memorial. Many others would have stories to tell. I want to tell this one.

A tradition among churches during my first coming-of-age was something called The Annual Sweetheart Banquet, usually around Valentine’s Day. I experienced numerous ASBs, among various denominations. The format was pretty much the same except when it came to the program. Some churches allowed and encourgaged dancing. I know this because I was a drummer in a group that played gigs like ASBs, Teen Towns, Mixers, etc. There was no dancing though at baptist ASBs. Usually, there was a speaker, maybe a friend of the pastor or maybe the pastor himself, who would tell corny jokes like: What did Winnie The Pooh and John The Baptist have in common? Same middle name.

There would be a dinner prepared and served by the ladies of the church—usually ham, scalloped potatoes, green beans, Jello with something suspended in it like carrot slivers, and cake. At each placesetting there would be a little cup with candy hearts and another with mixed nuts. There were a lot of red construction paper hearts glued to white paper doilies. Maybe the church pianist would play “dinner music” on the somewhat tuned piano in the fellowship hall; a piano that normally only played tunes like “Onward Christian Soldiers,” but on this night might play, “I Left My Heart In San Francisco.”

Teens (as we were known then) would dress up and maybe pair up with a “date”. This is where my mom focused and excelled. She seemed to think it vital that everyone have a date whether they wanted one or not. There wasn’t much to the whole date thing except for having the moment memorialized in a photo of the happy couple standing beneath a heart-shaped arch.

Arranging dates was so important to my mom that I can remember her pimping me out as an escort for dateless young ladies to their own ASB; maybe she was the daughter of a friend or a girl from the school where mom worked. Mom would choreograph the whole thing. She would make ready my wardrobe: a starched shirt, slacks, shined penny loafers, my madras sportscoat and a skinny black tie. In the refrigerator next to the eggs was a clear plastic box containing a carnation corsage for me to give the young lady.

This was before Don McLean juxstaposed the young naivete of an innocent carnation moment against the hard realities of life in his lyric from “American Pie”:

I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died

I wasn’t a broncin’ buck and didn’t have a pickup truck. Fact is, being pre-16, mom would drive me to pick up the date. I would walk to the door wondering if the girl was also getting money to buy a new Beatles’s album for doing this. Clearly my mom was the most excited about these contrived encounters. She wasn’t hoping for a spark that might lead to something bigger. She just wanted a couple of young people to feel special for a moment—the kind that comes from dressing up, sweaty palms, maybe a new friend, a photograph and a memory.

And who knows, maybe it brought back a sweet thought for her of a skinny young soldier from Louisiana, asking a cheerleader from Okmulgee, Oklahoma for a couples skate.

FAIR QUESTION

Definition of nerd
: an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits —Merriam-Webster.

“Pops, are you a nerd?” queried Nora, Pops’ six-year old grandgirl.

I laughed and thought about it—wondering what her idea of “nerd” is. Surely there is some confirmation bias at work here. Then I realized that even having a thought like that confirmed it: if not a nerd, surely I have some tendencies. Although, as the kids say these days, I don’t identify as a nerd. Even here at 70, I still like to think I have a certain cool.

Nora herself is one cool kitten, one of those kinds of people whom you don’t want thinking you’re a nerd.

I’ve already admitted to being curious about her confirmation bias (The tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories. —Oxford Languages), so I dug in:

“What do you mean by ‘nerd’ Nora?” I asked.

Her intellectual sister Harper stepped in, “Oh, she saw a picture of Daddy (my offspring) when he was young. He had big glasses and buck teeth and she thinks he was a nerd.”

So, she’s wondering if I carry a nerd gene? Maybe she’s concerned that she too might someday manifest nerdiness?

I’m no soothsayer, but I don’t see that on her horizon.

Making my case for non-nerdness, I explained to her that I did play in the band (but at least I was a drummer). I am an introvert, but I like people; on a case-by-case basis. I do love to read and given the choice of going to Chuck-E-Cheese or a bookstore, I’ll choose the bookstore every time. (Of course, given a choice I would choose most any place over Chuck’s.) (I realize that Chuck’s might be a source of employment for the young that might tend to score high on the nerd scale. So, good for you Chuck E.) I do wear glasses. I do love the Big Bang Theory, but I haven’t been in a comic book store in years and I have no clue or curiosity about quantum chromodynamics.

By this time her inquisitive interests moved on, but I was left wandering why I didn’t want my grandgirl to think I was a nerd. Probably has something to do with my own confirmation biases which are much more ingrained in me that her’s are in her.

And after all, doesn’t it take a bit of grandfatherly nerdiness to help a grandgirl tether her iPad to another connected device so she can secure enough coins to restore life to some imaginary app dweller?

Hey, maybe that’s what she was asking all along! She wasn’t so much worried about an embarrassing potential flaw in her old Pops— just wondering if I had the tech skills to solve her 21st century quandary.

EMILY, JOHN & NOBODY

MAYBE I WAS WRONG. Someone said THE search is for significance, and it made sense at the time, so I concurred and set out on the journey.

Now? I’m not sure that’s correct, it’s certainly not necessarily real. Or, maybe it’s the picture of “significance” that’s fuzzy. How do you know if you’ve reached it? What does it look like? Is it fleeting? Are we falsely equating significance with fame or renown?

For today, for me, the worthwhile search seems to be for “belonging”, at least that’s my opinion. Maybe I’m wrong. I’m thinking that our significance comes from being in community, in family; being loved and cared for and cared about, and in caring for others—belonging. Even if your only membership is in the club for Nobodies: membership two.

#260
By Emily Dickinson

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

[Note: click this for in interesting article on Ms. Dickinson’s poem.]

I’m a big fan of Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”—not an expert, just a fan. It has helped me make sense of life for many years. Here’s a refresher:

First there is the need for Safety and Security.

Secondly, once we feel safe and secure we can take a risk or two, put ourselves out there and seek to Belong somewhere—meeting the need to Belong.

Next, Esteem needs. Taking a few more risks in hopes that someone will say, “Way to go! I’m so glad you are who you are.”

Finally for Maslow there is seeking to meet the need he calls Self-Actualization. My understanding is that at this point we can look at our lives and say something like, “I was born for this.” It’s where we sense a calling; where our gifts and passions converge.

Significance can be found all along that journey. Feeling safe and secure, for example, can be hugely significant especially for the abused and marginalized.

I’ve always thought of Maslow’s hierarchy as something like a mountain where you move upward step by step, stage by stage until you reach the summit (one that not everyone reaches). Now as a Medicare card-carrying Senior Adult, it seems to me that as we age we move back down the mountain.

I don’t mean to brag at all when I say that I reached self-actualization. I found my life’s calling and was able to spend my best years caring and nurturing young faith pilgrims, young artists, young soul searchers, hopefully providing safe and secure environments for them, offering them a meaningful place of belonging, affirming and encouraging them, and creating a path to help them discover themselves and move toward actualization.

As I wrapped up that work in a planned, formal sense, I found myself appreciating those sentiments that said, “Hey you’re old, but you’re still my friend, you’re still Pops.” You know—Esteem level stuff.

And also Belonging level stuff. Clearly this is more important than ever: family, friends, and my buddies I meet with every week at The Quarantine Tavern. We need those people who still love us and want us when we become “men of a certain age.”

Do we ever return to that place in life where our greatest need is Safety and Security? Definitely. As I watched my Mom and Dad pass, there came a moment where that was all they needed. Mom especially. Ultimately, we could not offer her safety from COVID, or from a final loneliness. I have no doubt though that until her last breath she knew she belonged. And I know that in her next breath after that last one in her physical body she heard the words, “WELL DONE!” How’s that for the ulitmate dose of Esteem?!

You’ve got to be careful with things that have stages and steps. It’s easy to get the idea that life can be compartmentalized, that it all happens in an orderly, structured way. It doesn’t.

Making too much of categories and formulas can become a self-fulling prophecy. For example I know that I am an INTP in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. If I’m not careful I can become paralyzed in my own thinking and isolation.

Remember John Lennon’s song “Nowhere Man” recorded by The Beatles:

He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

It’s kind of like that if I’m not careful.

I like this advice from Albert Einstein:

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

Yikes this is turning into a crazy stream of consciousness. Let me abruptly wrap up with this from “Nowhere Man”.

He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man, can you see me at all
Nowhere man don't worry
Take your time, don't hurry
Leave it all 'til somebody else
Lends you a hand

Or; in the words of Barbara Striesand,

“People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”

[Note: click this for an interesting look at the song Nowhere Man]

[One More Note: click this for an arrangement of John’s song by one of my favorite duets The MonaLisa Twins.]

ANOTHER SEASON

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

How long can we make this request? Is this an all-you-can-eat, daily-serving-at-a-time kind of thing?

Should; at some point our prayer be, “Lord you have given me daily bread every single day for so many days now. However, if you offer today’s portion I will take it, as a gift, without presumption.”

image “borrowed” from Molly Harris who also made the cool bread bag

Doug, my friend, mentor and sage, says that as we age we fall into the “medical vortex” of endless doctor’s appointments, tests, procedures, and on and on.

The band “Blood Sweat & Tears” had a song called “Spinning Wheel”. A snippet of the lyrics:

Drop all your troubles by the riverside
Catch a painted pony on the spinnin' wheel ride

They weren’t writing about the medical vortex. But at the ages they are now, surely they could see the relevance.

I mention this idea, because it is now my reality—one I don’t do well with. Some senior citizens seem to revel in the medical abyss, their lives happily dictated by their appointments and stuff.

I’m one of those who feels like every doctor delights in pulling on a pair of rubber gloves and poking, prodding or probing something, then writing a prescription with a never-ending list of side effects. Speaking of which, I always mute the every-growing abundance of prescription drug ads on TV. As a matter of fact, if I were the TV czar I would prohibit all medical related ads along with any ad where GMC has hoards of people carrying their pickup trucks tailgate up a hill.

Yesterday, I had one of those procedures. It was scheduled for a year ago, but COVID prompted hospitals to shut down “elective” surgeries and procedures. So, I’ve had a year to fret and stew about this one. Going in I knew there was “cause for concern” from an earlier screening test.

So, in these past few days I’ve worried and wondered—can you ask for daily bread again today and tomorrow and the next day? I mean, I know I can, but it’s just that I’ve been given so much. I’ve lived 70 abundant years, more than anyone deserves. Can I ask for a few more? Can I ask for another day, another serving of daily bread so to speak, when I’ve been given so much?

Last night, after a long nap to sleep off the anesthesia from the procedure, we watched the last few episodes of “Anne With An E” on Netflix. (Should I be admitting how much I enjoyed this series?) There were three seasons and I wanted more. I guess we always do. I wanted to see Anne and Gilbert married and having grandkids. I wanted to see more; more of my kids and grandkids living their lives. I wanted to take My Amazing-Missus on the road trips I have promised her which we’ve planned for years, which were stolen from us by COVID, ice storms, snow storms, etc.

But see. There I go. Wanting more. Another season.

We lived through the Siberian Blast. Our heat was on. Our pipes didn’t freeze. We didn’t have to boil our water. But I wanted more.

Somewhere near us lives a person with a Cadillac Escalade. It has a vanity tag that says, “BLESSED”. I assume they are referring to their Escalade. I wonder if there was room for more letters on their tag, would they go on to say: “This is enough. BUT, I would also like to have the daily bread (aka next year’s model).”

By the way. The procedure went fine. Everything is good. I get another season. I’m grateful and blessed. But, I will be grateful for tomorrow’s bread too. And if it’s not too much to ask: could we make it a biscut with gravy?