Affinity

Affinity

While recently reading a magazine I ran across an article about migrating some of your banking business, or perhaps all of it, to a credit union, and how wise that movement might be. The article explained how you'd probably get a better return on your money and how the rates for loans through a credit union were lower than you might get at a bank. It went on to say how easy it was to join a credit union these days as the affinity clause that was necessary for a credit union to exist was generally stated so broadly that it could easily include a lot of people. And how each credit union had different affinity requirements. Some required you to be an employee of a certain company – or in the family of an employee of that company – or a former employee. For others you had to have been a sailor or family of a former sailor. Or an airman. Or a marine. Or... Many different requirements for membership but all fairly broad and fairly inclusive. The article went on to stress the point that there were many credit unions out there, pretty much one for anyone interested in them and that they would fit almost anyone's lifestyle.

That concept of affinity was demonstrated this weekend, at least to me, by two reunions which I attended.

On Saturday evening I attended my 45^th high school class reunion. Going to your high school class reunion is, for a lot of people, a very stressful occurrence. People worry about all kind of things prior to attending and fret over what their former classmates might think of them. They worry about their weight. They agonize over how prestigious (or not) their jobs are or had been. They fuss over how many divorces and remarriages they've been through and how many ex's are still out there. Some men are abashed by their loss of hair. It's amazing the amount of things people worry about. And, to be quite honest, I used to fret a bit about some of them in years past too. But I don't do it any more. Or at least not much. I've reached an age where those concerns just don't mean much any more. My hair isn't going to go back to it's dark brown state by itself nor is the balding spot at the top of my head going to fill in magically. I'm not going to lose a bunch of weight just in anticipation of seeing old classmates. My work history is pretty much a done deal at this time – a number of my classmates are already retired.

I'm just not worrying much about it anymore. So I decided to just go and enjoy myself. Just as I am.

And what do you know?

Almost all the rest of my class did the same! The rich classmates and the poor classmates and all of us that occupied the ground in between looked... well... we all looked pretty normal. I don't believe I saw any expensive suits that evening. And the women didn't seem, at least to my eyes, to be wearing any high-fashion ensembles. And let's face it. We're all at that “certain age” now and most of us in that bracket aren't trying to impress anyone anyhow. There's a whole lot of “been there – done that – got the tee shirt” mentality. What I did notice there were people who wore nice but comfortable clothes and were more interested in renewing old friendships and catching up on what everyone was doing.

And I realized that, no matter what road each of us had traveled, how diverse each of us were in our lives, we were all a member of the affinity group called “Class of '65”. And yes, to be honest, some of my class had taken very different paths in their lives than others. Some had become important people, politically, financially, even on the world stage, doing work that you might have possibly heard about in the news. Others heard a calling and chose the clergy and had a flock to care for. Still others did quite well in businesses large and small and had become the local aristocracy. Or at least what passes for it in these parts. Probably a larger majority had remained close to home and had manned the clerical, technical and manufacturing businesses and had made comfortable livings. Lots of us had raised kids, served on boards and committees, volunteered in a myriad ways and performed various civic tasks, large and small, acknowledged and not.

Some of us had gotten into trouble. Most not.

And an alarming number of us had passed on.

But no matter how far we had gone or how grand we had become, we were all, for all time, the “Class of '65”. We all held that link. That bond. That anchor to the past.

And most of us held that affinity in fond regard.

The theme of affinity continued that weekend as my wife and I attended her family reunion on Sunday afternoon. My wife's mother was ninth out of 14 children, so their reunions are generally very well attended. The original 14 are about half gone now and the ones remaining are getting up in their years, so it's not surprising that a lot of them don't make it to the reunion. But their children and the next generation are quite plentiful and a lot of them do show up. Along with their spouses, their boyfriends/girlfriends, and so on. There were probably 70-80 people who attended this year's edition.

I always like to attend her family's reunions. It seems that all the women who bring dishes to the gathering really know how to cook, and that know-how shows in the scrumptious offerings that end up on the serving tables.

Good eats and lots of familiar faces. I'm such a sucker for good food!

Family. Probably the seminal iteration of all affinities. Whether it's the nuclear family – mom, dad and the kids, the extended family including the uncles and aunts, nieces, nephews and cousins, or the super-extended modern family which also includes the 2^nd, 3^rd or more marriage spouses, intendeds, companions, friends and all the other variations of relationships. It's all the affinity called family.

I looked around the room at all my wife's relatives and marveled to myself on the diversity of their lives. How very different we all were from each other. Even a lot of our last names were different by reason of marriage. But through us all ran the common thread of what we all liked to refer to as “the original 14”. That nuclear family, raised on a farm and tempered through the crucible of the great depression was the cornerstone and lynchpin through which all of us in the room were connected.

Our affinity through family.

It was a weekend for reflections on connections. A weekend for laughing, for touching, for hugging and for possibly shedding a tear or two.

It was a weekend for appreciating our friends and our family, our histories, our yesterdays and our tomorrows.

For enjoying the affinities that touch our lives.

Almost Summer, 2010

Almost Summer, 2010

I like to play a little game with myself and wait until the last possible moment to install the two window air conditioners in our old house. Wait until the warm weather forces me to stick 'em in the windows. See how long I can go before I gotta do it. It's a bit of a bother to install them, too, one down in the living room and the other in our bedroom, as they're heavy and I need some help from my son with the big one downstairs. I'd have put central air in this century house, but the way it's built made that option unrealistic and way, way too expensive. So we put in window units in the summer and take 'em out in the fall.

The last possible moment arrived last weekend, my little game ended and I finally had to acquiesce and install my window air conditioners. I was feeling smug that I'd gone this far into Ohio's hot weather before I had to do it, using the window and ceiling fans to keep us cool, but it was getting to the point where some extra cooling was becoming necessary. Necessary for two reasons, actually. First, it was getting warm, even for me, and staying that way into the late evenings when we were going to bed, making sleep more difficult. Second, the wife was giving me “the eye”, telling me non-verbally to cut out the procrastination and my little game and put the doggone a/c's in the windows for goodness sakes.

So they're in now and our bedroom is much cooler. In fact, almost too cool. The wife likes it best to sleep at night when the air temperature has descended through cool and nippy and is beginning to approach frigid. At least it feels that way to this hot-blooded participant. As my partner Patrick and I say at work when the office temperature is too low: “cold enough to hang meat.” Yep, that just about describes it. So I just snuggle a little deeper under the blanket and make sure my ears and nose are covered up to prevent possible frostbite.

Well, at least it feels that way to me!

***

Got a chuckle while I was working out at the gym the other day.

My wife purchases our gym membership through payroll deductions where she works. Our membership at a gym here in our hometown was coming up for renewal and she had the choice of three gyms for the upcoming year. One was the gym we had belonged to for the past couple of years. One was a health facility attached to the local hospital and was way out of our price range. The third was a place we had belonged to before our present gym and it was a few dollars cheaper per month. For that reason and a few others we decided to switch. The “new” gym has new ownership and has done some revamping of the equipment in the gym. It looks nice and has a good assortment of machines for most exercise regimens.

So, since I work evenings, I've been going to this gym for the past couple of weeks during the day. It's quiet then as there are few members working out at that time of day. There is a television on one wall of the exercise room and it seemed to be eternally tuned to a country/western music channel. Now don't get me wrong. I don't want to be critical of a particular genre of music, but I've never really been a big fan of c/w music. Not even close. I'm fond of bluegrass – lots of banjos and guitars, but most “cowboy” music (as I call it) leaves me cold.

However...

I was pounding away on the treadmill the other day and noticed that the c/w station was again on. I wasn't paying too much attention to it. I had my mp3 player plugged into my ears and was rocking along with some classic rock and roll when I happened to glance up at the tv. Shania Twain was gyrating and dancing on the screen to one of her songs along with a half-dozen other great looking ladies. It was very pleasing to the eyes. At the same moment, Dire Straits was rocking along on the mp3 player with “Money for Nothing”.

I watched the video.

I listened to the rock.

I was at once amazed at how well the video was matching the rock in my earphones! There were those country chicks dancing away to the sounds of Dire Straits! I started grinning and the steps and minutes and miles on the treadmill just melted away while I enjoyed the rock music and eyed the videos on the TV. I'd discovered the secret to watching c/w videos. Just plug some great old rock 'n roll into your ears and groove away!

***

My wife and I are into the final countdown before our first cruising vacation. If my numbers are correct, we have 23 days before our big ship pulls away from the Tampa docks and lumbers off south toward Cozumel, Mexico. To say we can't wait would undoubtedly be an understatement. I've been talking to the few folks where I work who've “been there, done that” and have been wringing their memories for their experiences on their cruises. All things look good. I've printed out our packing list and we're finishing purchasing the final “this and that” that we may need “on the boat”. Of course we'll forget something. But that's the fun of it, isn't it?

Won't be long now and it'll be time to pull out the luggage and start filling them up.

***

Patrick, my partner at work, and I were talking a couple months ago about our favorite comedians. We found out that we were both big fans of a man named John Pinnette. We'd heard routines of his in the past and considered them very funny. We decided to check on-line to see if he might be appearing somewhere nearby and found out that he was headlining at Pickwick and Frolic in Cleveland. So we purchased tickets to go see him. After asking around, there ended up being six of us going up to see him: Patrick and his wife Rhonda, my old friend Chuck and his wife Pam and my wife Judy and I who went.

We met at Fat Fish Blue restaurant in downtown Cleveland last Friday and had dinner before going over to the comedy club. This restaurant specializes in Cajun/Creole cuisine and was a favorite of my wife and I as we'd eaten there in the past when going up to the big city and watching the Cleveland Indians play. The six of us enjoyed our dinners and drinks, then wandered over to the comedy club about two blocks away.

John Pinnette was, as we had expected, very good. We all got our share of chuckles, guffaws and belly laughs as he recounted this and that from his apparently hilarious life. He is an extremely gifted funnyman and I'd recommend him to almost anyone. I was surprised at how clean he works compared to some of his fellow stand-up comedians.

It was definitely a night to remember.

***

So, in case you hadn't noticed, summer officially begins in six days.

Let the fun begin!

Late Spring Ruminations

Late Spring Ruminations

Today was a warm one. Mid-80's or thereabouts. Warm enough to make you believe summer is approaching, if not already here. Late May.

About time, I guess.

I've mowed our lawn 3 or 4 times already, the quick-growing grasses of springtime, along with ten to twelve kinds of weeds common to my lawn, succumbing to the whirling blade of my power mower. It's nice to see trimmed green around the house again instead of the grays, browns and dirty whites of not that many months ago. Not to mention the cold.

It pleases the eye as well as the soul.

Across the street we're experiencing a resurrection of sorts and not just the normal springtime rebirth. Or you might even say a Phoenix is arising from the rubble. We've lived our home for over 30 years now and, for all that time, the residences in the neighborhood have remained mostly the same. There have been some remodelings and some repaintings and maybe some small additions tacked on here and there. And a lot of shuffling of owners. But the basic edifices have remained the same.

An interesting feature of my neighborhood is that one of the homes across the street, an older one, has been a half-way house for a dozen or more years. I'm not positive as to what was half-way about it. Perhaps it contained criminals who were learning how to adjust to life “outside” prison/jail walls and were doing so in my neighborhood. Perhaps it was men from mental institutions going through the same adjustment. I don't think we really knew the exact source of the men who lived over there. All we knew was that they were all men and they all were in some sort of transition. And all we were sure of was that they were good neighbors, as odd as that sounds. They were quiet and peaceful, they handed out candy on trick-or-treat night during Halloween, their lawn and hedges were trimmed properly and they caused no trouble to any of the neighbors. If you didn't know the circumstances, you'd never know that house contained “half-way” people.

Good neighbors.

Sometime last year the house became vacant. We noticed that fact when the curtains disappeared and the blank windows faced the street. Not much later a crew came and pulled all the siding off the house exposing the old clapboard and beams. We assumed that they were going to remodel the old place and we kept an eye over there. We assumed the half-way men had either graduated into full-time civilian life or had been transferred to another domicile.

The house sat that way quite a while, its exposed walls and blank windows seeming to cry out for help until some months ago when a demolition crew arrived and tore the house down. It was in some ways sad seeing it transition from a full 2 and a half story house to a rubble pile and then to an empty hole in the ground. That took approximately a week.

The empty hole sat there a month or two until a crew arrived last month and began laying block in the hole, building a basement for a new house. Day after day and week after week we've been watching this new house rise from the ground across the street. We've since learned it's a Habitat for Humanity house, the organization that provides housing for lower income families that are willing to invest “sweat equity” in building their new homes. HH started in 1976 and has built over 350,000 homes around the world providing more than 1.75 million people with safe, decent, affordable housing. You may remember Jimmy Carter in the television ads about HH homes swinging his hammer, pounding in nails and helping build them.

The house is really starting to look good now. They've finished the roofing shingles and have recently installed the siding for the house. We've also seen lots of people involved in putting it up. I'd guess that some of the helpers belong to the family that are going to be our new neighbors.

It's taken a while to get it up. I believe that most of the labor has been donated and volunteered. I do know that a lot of the materials and supplies have been donated. There's a sign to that effect in front of the house. I also know that there has been a LOT of hammering and sawing going on over there for the past few weeks. Looks as if it won't be long until it's finished.

It's going to look nice, too, and it'll be pleasant to see an end to the construction noise.

Although a remodeling of the old house would have been, to my mind, preferable, there was obviously something wrong with the structure that necessitated it's demolition. Asbestos? Foundation deterioration? Something else? In any event it is nice to see another home being erected in our old neighborhood instead of an empty lot being left as is. Empty lots always remind me of a bad tooth being extracted and a replacement implant or bridge not installed. An unwanted vacancy.

And when the work is finished and the new neighbors arrive, I hope they are as comfortable and happy in our neighborhood as we've been the past 3 decades or so.

* * *

Had a bit of a scare recently. Let me tell you about it:

A few weeks ago I'd been feeling a bit “poorly”. A little of this and a little of that. Aches, pains and maybe a bit of a shortness of breath here and there. Some stomach grumbles and nausea. It wasn't real bad but it was off-and-on annoying. I thought it might even be some bad ham I had eaten. I had a doctor's appointment scheduled previous to my recent problems and, while I was there, I mentioned that I was a bit under the weather. He zeroed in on one of my complaints and said, “Shortness of breath, eh?”

And scheduled me for a nuclear stress test.

He did this not only because of my age (I guess) and my recent problems, but because of my family history of heart disease. My whole family's had cardiac conditions. My mother passed away at 52 from a heart attack. My brother passed at age 42 the same way. My father had quintuple bypass surgery a decade before he passed away and my youngest brother suffered a heart attack a few years ago and presently wears a pacemaker/defibrillator.

So I've been living under a genetic Sword of Damocles most of my life.

I've had stress tests before but not for some years. This time the idea of the stress test creeped me out immensely. My symptoms increased dramatically after the doc scheduled the test and the stomach nausea jumped in intensity until I thought I would be sick almost daily. My old nemesis Anxiety had me in it's clutches and was shaking me like a dog shakes a rat.

I was miserable.

All too soon the day of the test arrived. Once again I read the prep sheet about what I had to do before arriving for the test. Line 2 said “no food for at least 4 hours before arriving”. So that's what I did. I woke up, cleaned up, took my morning meds and headed over to the hospital. No food.

The test went about as well as I figured. I was feeling miserable, hungry, anxious, sick to my stomach, my heartbeat was fluttery and I was unable to walk on the treadmill as far or as fast as I probably should have. Plus the diabetes meds I took that morning without any food had brought my sugar quite low and added low sugar jitters to the whole mix. The cardiologist in attendance made several remarks that sounded negative to me after the test. Especially when he said, “I guess it wasn't bad ham, was it?”

I went home feeling even worse. I was sure that the next call from the doctor would be to schedule me for a heart catheterization and stent insertion if necessary. With my family history? I figured I was the next thing to a goner.

I called the my doctor's office the next day and inquired about the results of the test. The nurse replied that it was much too early for the results and that they would call when they came in.

I suffered some more.

I work second shift and, about a half-hour before I was to leave for work, the phone rang. It was my doctor's office.

A cold sweat formed on my forehead and the phone trembled in my hand as I shakily listened to the voice.

The nurse said, “The doctor has gone over your test results and wanted you to know that he saw no problems. He said you were quite out of shape, though, and needed to really work on that.”

And, just like that, my symptoms disappeared. The nausea. The fluttery heart. The this-and-that which was troubling me so much. All gone.

I went to work feeling like, as they say, a million dollars. I had beaten the genetic claymore mine that had been aimed at me since birth.

At least so far...

Since that great news I've rededicated myself to losing weight and being much more physically active. I've lost some weight since then and my glucose numbers are down dramatically. And I'm feeling better. A lot of pluses. Of course I'm not counting the muscle aches and pains from activity after lots of non-activity.

I really feel I was given a second chance.

My wife says I'm over dramatizing. And she's probably right. But I'm still glad and thankful for the good news recently and am happy to be able to start working on my health again more proactively.

Because one day the news won't be so positive and my prognosis won't be quite so good.

But not this day.

Not yet.

And for that I'm thankful.

Two Koans

Two Koans

Koan number one:

The Sound of One Hand.

The master of Kennin temple was Mokurai, Silent Thunder. He had a little protege named Toyo who was only twelve years old. Toyo saw the older disciples visit the master's room each morning and evening to receive instruction in sanzen or personal guidance in which they were given koans to stop mind-wandering.

Toyo wished to do sanzen also.

“Wait a while,” said Mokurai. “You are too young.”

But the child insisted, so the teacher finally consented.

In the evening little Toyo went at the proper time to the threshold of Mokurai's sanzen room. He struck the gong to announce his presence, bowed respectfully three times outside the door, and went to sit before the master in respectful silence.

“You can hear the sound of two hands when they clap together,” said Mokurai. “Now show me the sound of one hand.”

Toyo bowed and went to his room to consider this problem. From the window he could hear the music of the geishas. “Ah, I have it!” imagined Toyo.

The next evening, when his teacher asked him to illustrate the sound of one hand, Toyo began to play the music of the geishas.

“No, no,” said Mokurai. “That will never do. That is not the sound of one hand. You've not got it at all.”

Thinking that such music might interrupt, Toyo moved his abode to a quiet place. He meditated again. “What can the sound of one hand be?” He happened to hear some water dripping. “I have it,” imagined Toyo.

When he next appeared before his teacher, Toyo imitated dripping water.

“What is that?” asked Mokurai. “That is the sound of dripping water, but not the sound of one hand. Try again.”

In vain Toyo meditated to hear the sound of one hand. He heard the sighing of the wind. But the sound was rejected.

He heard the cry of an owl. This also was refused.

The sound of one hand was not the locusts.

For more than ten times Toyo visited Mokurai with different sounds. All were wrong. For almost a year he pondered what the sound of one hand might be.

At last little Toyo entered true meditation and transcended all sounds. “I could collect no more,” he explained later, “so I reached the soundless sound.”

Toyo had realized the sound of one hand.

Koan number two:

A Cup of Tea.

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

Koans are, if you didn't know before, an important aspect of Zen Buddhism. Zen promotes a very different way of understanding and dealing with ordinary reality. One of the more baffling aspects of Zen to the Western mind is the practice of Koans. Koans are teaching tools used to break down the barriers to enlightenment. They are a method of training the mind in order to achieve the state of Satori. Satori is also a difficult concept to explain in a few words. It is essentially the goal of all Zen meditation and can be compared to the term enlightenment or insight into the nature of reality. These two concepts, Koan exercise and Satori are the central aspects of Zen.

A Koan, when literally translated, means “public document”. It refers to a statement made by a Master to a student of Zen or a discussion or dialogue between the Master and the student. The purpose is to open the mind and perception to the truth. Koans are questions or riddles designed as instruments by the Zen Master to aid the student in finding the truth behind the everyday images of reality.

How do they work?

Koans are not rational questions with final linear conclusions. They are designed to open the mind that has been closed by habitual responses to the world and reality.

To explain: Our perception of the world is clouded by, first, the habitual responses that we are taught by society and secondly, by the habit forming creation of our own selves or ego's. In our everyday lives we develop ideas about reality and possibilities that our peers verify. We accept these “laws” as immutable on the basis of their habitual occurrence and certification by society. For example, scientific authority states that there is a law of gravity and that time is linear and proceeds from one second to the next. These “truths” are bolstered by schools, society and our peers until they become unquestionable fact. Changing them becomes almost impossible within the framework of conventional society.

The purpose of Zen Koans is to upset or dislocate the mind from these habitual ideas of reality and open the mind to the other possibilities and, eventually, to Satori or knowledge of reality.

The Koan works at various levels and on various stages of the student's progress in understanding Zen. At its most elementary stage the Zen Koan is intended to question what the student takes for commonplace reality and to question that which is seen to be logically impossible.

It is designed to open the initiated mind to possibilities beyond the rational. Zen master Dogen said that in order to perceive reality we must “drop mind and body”. The Koan forces the student to face this type of thinking.

In trying to answer the Koan, the student will come to a mental “precipice”, as it were, where all methods and procedures of accepted thinking no longer function. The purpose of the Koan is to shove the pupil over the precipice into an area of experience that is completely new. To critique ordinary reality and to force the mind into other areas of understanding. That is the spiritual reality that the Zen master is attempting to guide the student towards.

When you're given your first koan your mind cries out, “This is nonsense. It is meaningless.”

But when you really start to think about it and meditate on it for a substantial amount of time, you begin to get glimmers and shadows of what the master might be trying to lead you to, to get a vague feeling of the direction you must travel. And, like young Toyo, you might find the sound of one hand. Or, like the professor, you might begin to realize what has to be dropped or discarded before an understanding of what you're after can be achieved or realized.

To gain some insight to this process, I'd like for you to do the following.

Take your favorite teacup from your cupboard and set it on the table. Sit down in a chair in front of the cup and examine it closely. Note its color, its shape, its solidity. Now close your eyes and keep them closed. Imagine you have just brewed a cup of your favorite tea, whether that be a delicate green tea or a robust black pekoe. You've just poured that brewed tea into the cup and sat it on the table. You recall the process of preparing the tea, how you either opened up a tea bag and steeped your boiling water onto it or how you measured out the precise amount of leaf tea into your steeping ball and have let it sit in the teapot until it was ready to drink, then you poured it into the cup. You've sugared and lemoned your tea (or not) as you usually do. The tea now sits on the table in front of you, steam rising from it and the odor of tea is perfuming the air. You are thirsty for the tea and it now sits before you.

You reach out and touch the teacup. You feel it's contours, its smoothness or roughness. You feel the warmth of the tea within the cup and the weight of the liquid in the cup. You feel the weight of the tea shift within the cup as you raise it toward your face. When the cup is raised in front of you, you bend your nose slightly toward the cup and smell the warm tea odors rising from the surface of the tea, the scent both invigorating and familiar. Your face can actually feel the steam arising from the cup, bathing your face with fragrant aroma. You raise the cup to your lips and take a small sip of the tea.

Did you smell anything? Did you taste anything? Did you feel anything, even a little bit?

Do it again tomorrow. And again the day after. And again. And again.

One day you will be able to drink tea from an empty cup.

And on that day you will take your first baby-steps on your journey to Satori.

Heavy Thoughts

Heavy Thoughts

Have you ever noticed that when you are starting to do something or, even when you're contemplating doing something, roadblocks seem to magically appear in front of you? The path that seemed smooth and self-evident when you first started contemplating it suddenly has developed bumps and trenches. The small details suddenly growing large teeth and claws.

For example:

I am overweight. Plump. Husky. Plus-sized. Big-boned. Suffer from “Dunlap's Disease, where my belly done laps over my belt. Fat, to use the vernacular. My wife prefers to use the word “heavy”, but I think that's too gentle. Am I way, way overweight? I don't think so. There are lots of folks around me that are bigger. Heavier. Fatter. But yes, I could benefit from losing 50 pounds or thereabouts. As could, sadly, a large percentage of my brother and sister Americans.

It goes on easy. The weight, you know. The extra piece of pie after supper last night. The fast-food meal you ate because you were tired of your own cooking. The candy bar you bought from the machine at work because... who knows why? The chocolate candy jones you seem to have developed.

You know what I'm talking about.

So the fact that I should lose some weight is beginning to set heavily on my mind from time to time and I end up telling myself that I should do something about it. And the fact that my wife is on a Weight Watchers program, has been for over a year now and is actually losing weight, only acts as more of a goad to me. A constant reminder of what I should do.

As an aside, congratulations to my steadfast wife for her earnestness in attempting to be “less than what she was”. Having your accomplishments set before me daily surely must eventually seep into my hulking male consciousness as a “good thing”, a goal to be attained.

So I think about what I must do to lose weight. Sadly, thinking about it and doing it are very different. Thinking is easy. Doing is hard. The cold facts are these: You must either take in less or exercise more. Think about it. That's all there is. All boiled down in one sentence. Intake less or exercise more.

I just saved you a fortune on diet books. You may thank me when you can.

Now, on to the roadblocks that litter this road to weight-loss bliss.

My life is filled with enticements and temptations almost everywhere. (Let's focus on the dietary ones for the moment, OK?) They whisper to me daily, calling my name with scents of chocolate, the aroma of frying meat and onions and the succulent perfumes of a thousand savory scents. They kiss my olfactory nerves with smells of freshly baked bread, pies and cakes, fruit jams and jellies, cinnamon pastries at the malls and a million kinds of freshly-baked cookies. They entice me constantly with the proximity of their availability and the reasonableness of their costs. And they spear into my eyes and hammer into my ears from every venue of advertising, from the TV and radio to the omnipresence of the Golden Arches on, what seems like, every street corner.

Have you ever thought about how many holidays and occasions in our lives which have food as their lynchpin? Think about it. Most of them do. Go through the calendar.

New Years. Dinners and buffets, drinking and parties, snack tables and appetizers.

Valentine's Day. Candy. Lots and lots of candy. Dinners out with your spouse.

St. Patrick's Day. Drink-em-ups and beer. Corned beef and cabbage.

Girl Scout Cookie Time. Cookies. ALL KINDS of cookies!

Easter. Candy and chocolate. Family dinners.

Memorial Day. Barbecues and family get togethers.

The fair. All that yummy FAIR FOOD.

Independence Day. Picnics and more barbecues. Drinking.

Labor Day. More picnics and cookouts.

Halloween. Candy. Parties.

Thanksgiving. The granddaddy of food holidays. Groaning dinner tables and belts being unbuckled to allow more gorging.

Christmas. Holiday feasts.

Then think about all the other chances throughout the year to eat something “extra” such as birthdays, anniversaries, reunions, visits from relatives and friends, vacations, “Date” nights, movies, candy bowls on desks at work, buffets, ice cream or strawberry socials, fairs and carnivals,

And lets not forget the “Food Network” on our televisions where they talk about and show food 24 hours a day. Their chefs are now celebrities and their names are known to millions. Rachael Ray. Ina Garten. Paula Deen. Bobbie Flay. Giada. Cat. Emeril. Mario. Tyler. And they're all about FOOD.

Then there's the “deals” you see and hear about that seem to be everywhere. I have a fistful of 2-for-1 coupons from McDonald's sitting on my coffee table at home right this minute. (Coffee table – another food reference!) I don't even particularly care for McDonald's, but... Two for one! What a deal! How can I say no?

And have you noticed how MANY commercials on TV are for food? They're unescapeable.

But trying to eat less is VERY different than trying to quit smoking or quit taking drugs. To do those things you have to QUIT doing them. Quitting meaning stopping. NEVER doing them again. But with food, you CAN'T quit. You just have to eat less. It's MUCH, MUCH harder than quitting. As an ex-smoker I speak from experience on the difficulties of quitting any kind of drug. But just easing off? Tough!

Lord, give me strength.

On the other side of the coin, exercising more isn't just a piece of cake either. (Notice the food idiom. You just can't escape them. )

My situation is even more aggravating than having a successful Weight Watcher for a wife. Her brother, my brother-in-law, used to be a body-builder and now owns a couple of gyms. He IS Mr. Exercise! You look in your dictionary under healthy muscular super good-looking dude and there's his picture! Yikes! I even stopped by his gym last weekend and asked for some tips on how to strengthen my back, which has been giving me some grief recently. I even kissed his ring hoping that some of his physical charisma might be magically bestowed upon me. I figured: strengthen my back = exercise more = lose weight. Simple, eh? So I followed through on some of his exercises today when I was at the gym. Felt OK when I left there. But now at ten o'clock? My back is presently barking at me like a rabid pit bull. Sure, I guess it's just muscles that haven't been used with any real regularity sounding off. But they REALLY hurt now. When I get out of my chair I walk like a 90-year-old man. And feel like it!

None of this is easy, my friends. None of it. Of course, nobody said life was easy.

But it is proving to be interesting.

Oh, I forgot. We're going on a cruise in a couple months. Food opportunities 24/7. You don't even have to get out of bed. Just call room service and food will appear at your cabin door. Wonderful, wonderful cruise food.

Lord, lord, lord will the blessings never end?

This I Believe

This I Believe

As I was watching the news recently, shaking my head over the way things are nowadays and stifling an urge to scream at the television, I was strongly reminded of the character Howard Beale in the motion picture “Network” and how he so succinctly stated as he stood before the TV camera, soaking wet and with madness in his eyes, and shouted, “I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more!” Howard Beale was suffering from depression and insanity, but his message was delivered loud and clear.

Remembering that great performance, I think it would benefit us, during this time in our nation's history, to again revisit those famous words:

Please repeat after me...

“I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more!”

And what exactly am I mad as hell about?

I'm angry about the yawning division between the two major political parties in America. I'm angry and mad as hell about the impossibility of the left to see the viewpoint of the right and of the right to see any aspects of goodness from the viewpoint of the left.

I'm angry about the rants, the rabble rousing and the petty viciousness of some of the so-called media when they accuse the “other” side of everything from criminal behavior clear through to satanically-inspired acts. And I absolutely hate the brain-dead followers of these bile-spouters who parrot those words and further the hate.

And I'm DAMN mad about those folks who say I'm not a good American, or even just inferring it, because of the particular viewpoint I endorse at a certain point in time. Just because I'm a proponent of viewpoint “A” doesn't mean I'm not a good American or that I can't see the possible good portions of viewpoint “B”. Or just because you are opposed to that viewpoint vehemently also doesn't make you a bad citizen. Could you possibly see, at least a little bit, where I'm coming from? If so, I'd be happy to listen to your viewpoint and to examine its positive aspects.

It's called compromise, folks, and it's been the backbone of this country for over two centuries. Believe it or not.

I earned my stripes as a good American years ago when I gave up four years of my life and served my country in the military. Along with thousands of other men and women over the years. Other people proved their membership in the “good American” club by volunteering at the local level – coaching little league, knocking on doors to collect donations for a charity, serving in poorly paid positions in local government, donating their time and money to worthwhile causes. Others volunteered their time serving positions in the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, becoming a Big Brother or Big Sister, officiating in Special Olympics, working as school crossing guards, delivering meals to shut-ins, driving people to the polls on election day.

And let's not forget performing their civic duty by voting their consciences on election day.

All these activities demonstrate a person's affirmation of the American ethic. All these pursuits help make us Americans.

Good Americans.

But adhering to inflexible positions by our politicians, even when examining the opponent's viewpoint would likely illuminate more positive aspects for solutions, is ludicrous and dangerous. I find it extremely hard to believe that the adage “it's my way or the highway” is beneficial in any regard. In my eyes that's not American behavior.

I believe that almost all people who go into politics originally do so wanting to do good. They want to make things better. They want to “right the wrongs” and make their community, state or nation the best that it can possibly be. Unfortunately, I feel some who started with this commitment are corrupted by the temptations that seem to surround our elected officials. But the majority, perhaps the vast majority of the ones that still serve, are still trying to do their best. Still trying to steer the ship of state into beneficial waters. Some of them under terrible pressures to do otherwise.

I applaud their courage and their convictions whether I agree with their particular solution to a problem or not.

Perhaps I'm more of an optimist than I ought to be. Perhaps I'm also a very naïve man.

I recall a piece of writing I read a long time ago by one of my favorite authors, Robert Heinlein. It was entitled “This I Believe” and was delivered to a radio audience in 1952 during an interview by Edward R. Murrow. I'd like to believe that the precepts stated in it are still alive and well in this year 2010, well over a half-century later. I'd surely like to believe that.

I'd like for you to also read those words that I fervently believe are still true.

“This I Believe” by Robert A. Heinlein

"I am not going to talk about religious beliefs, but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them."

"I believe in my neighbors."

"I know their faults and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults. Take Father Michael down our road a piece --I'm not of his creed, but I know the goodness and charity and lovingkindness that shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike; if I'm in trouble, I'll go to him. My next-door neighbor is a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat. No fee -- no prospect of a fee. I believe in Doc."

"I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town say, 'I'm hungry,' and you will be fed. Our town is no exception; I've found the same ready charity everywhere. For the one who says, 'To heck with you -- I got mine,' there are a hundred, a thousand, who will say, 'Sure, pal, sit down.'

"I know that, despite all warnings against hitchhikers, I can step to the highway, thumb for a ride and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, 'Climb in, Mac. How how far you going?'

"I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime, yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest decent kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up, business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries --but it is a force stronger than crime."

"I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses...in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land."

"I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones."

"I believe that almost all politicians are honest. For every bribed alderman there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true, we would never have gotten past the thirteen colonies."

"I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River."

"I believe in -- I am proud to belong to -- the United States. Despite shortcomings, from lynchings to bad faith in high places, our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history."

"And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black, red, brown --in the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability....and goodness.....of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth, that we always make it just by the skin of our teeth --but that we will always make it....survive....endure. I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes, will endure --will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets, to the stars, and beyond, carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage --and his noble essential decency."

"This I believe with all my heart."

I think Heinlein expressed, with words vastly better than anything I could conjure, exactly what I'm thinking.

In any event, just keep in mind the fact that a pendulum swings both ways. When it reaches the apex of its swing to the left (or to the right), it always returns to the center.

And the center is where most of us live.

Inspiration

Inspiration

I'm not a big admirer of spontaneity. I'd consider it foreign to my way of thinking to jump in a car and head somewhere without knowing, at least somewhat, where I was heading, why I was going there, how long I would be there and what I would do when I arrived. I'm not a fan of surprises and I hate not having a plan. I don't know if this is a failing of mine or whether I'm in the majority in this view. I only know that I get the shudders when I contemplate setting forth on a task or journey with no planning beforehand.

I know people who are proponents of the alternative viewpoint. A young lady where I work is of that persuasion. She actually likes unpreparedness, going off half-cocked, heading out with no clear destination. And she seems to thrive on that mind set.

I applaud her choices and am quick to acknowledge that her way of doing things might be acceptable under some circumstances – maybe even, dare I say it, fun? But I surely would not want to do it her way very often, if at all.

Another friend once told me that I was, perhaps, the most unspontaneous person they had ever known. When I thought about it, I had to agree. I wasn't ashamed of it. I wasn't even put off by their judgment on my way of doing things. It was like saying a ball was round. Or the sea is salty. Of course it is and of course I am.

Which leads me, after meandering around a bit, to the topic of this blog.

I like to have goals in front of me. Something to look forward to – something to aspire toward. Whether those goals are as simple as a dental appointment next month or as complicated as the day I plan to retire. I like to see that goal sitting on my horizon and I like to see my path leading toward that prize. One of the goals I've always enjoyed placing in my path, planning for and then moving toward is our yearly quest for a vacation destination. My wife and I like to start throwing out possibilities to each other late in the previous year. The beach? The mountains? Canada? Dixie? The big city? Visit with distant relatives or friends? To go back to a place we're familiar with or to seek out a new place? There are generally lots of ideas floating back and forth between us during that time period. After discussing this and that we usually select a destination early in the year in which we plan to take the vacation and start drawing a bead on it. Well, at least I do. I don't think my wife is as fanatical about planning as I am. In fact I'm sure she isn't.

But this year we were a bit at loose ends. All the possibilities we were discussing were leaving me cold. No I didn't want to do this. No I was not particularly sold on that. And I definitely didn't want to do that other thing. And it was getting late. At least late to my viewpoint. Some destinations require making plans many months in advance and it was already mid-February.

What to do? What to do?

About that time several things began to coalesce around us that eventually lead to our final decision as to our vacation this year. I heard a friend from work talking about the vacation she'd taken last year. Another friend at my workplace had just returned from his winter vacation, the type of trip very similar to the first friend's. And my brother-in-law mentioned about his going on a trip very similar to the two friends at work.

The vacation they had all taken was a cruise.

And they had ALL had GREAT times.

When I floated the idea to my wife that maybe we might want to consider taking a short cruise – just to “test the water”, I could see her eyes light up. We'd talked about doing just that thing a number of years ago. We'd even talked to a travel agent who specialized in cruises. But we'd chickened out for a number of reasons then and hadn't revisited the idea since. I don't even remember our reasons for not going then.

But now?

I dove onto the Internet and began making queries. Where do cruises go? How long should we go for? Which cruise line? How much will it cost? How do we get to whatever port of departure we need to get to? How much will that cost? What do you do on a cruise? And what do you do at your destination?

And so on and so forth.

I talked to my brother-in-law about cruising, as he'd been on eleven of them and was, therefore, as much an expert as I'd need. He gave me many excellent tips. I talked to the people I worked with and asked innumerable questions concerning their trips. I talked to my wife as to what her thoughts were. I went back to the computer and began narrowing down choices. Finally, after considering a number of factors, we decided on our cruise.

We're heading out of Tampa early in July. We're sailing on the Carnival Inspiration on a four-day cruise to Cozumel, Mexico and back.

The length was about right for first-time cruisers, I thought. Enough time to get immersed in shipboard life and enough time at the destination to see and feel a bit of a foreign country. To have some fun in the sun and to enjoy ourselves in a new venture. But not too long in case we hated it. Or if we got seasick. Or a coronovirus.

We've decided to fly down a day early to ensure we don't “miss the boat”. I've already booked the motel we'll stay at that evening before.

We've applied for our passports and are patiently awaiting their arrival.

And I'm busily and happily making plans and plans and more plans. I've read dozens and dozens of reviews written by cruisers who've taken that exact cruise recently in the same boat and soaked up their thoughts on the good stuff and the bad stuff. (It's all mostly good.) I've read blogs by cruise directors. I've eyeballed Google Earth for our ship's course, what Tampa looks like and how far our motel is from the airport and the ship's departure dock. I've read many reviews of Cozumel – where to buy souvenirs and what kind, where to dine, where to enjoy a beach, where to have a drink, what to expect for weather and many other things. I've watched videos shot by vacationers on the same boat we're booked on and in the same kind of cabin we've reserved. And of their excursions at Cozumel. I even told my wife I could probably find my way around the cabin and ship blind-folded as I'd seen so many videos about it.

It ought to be fun. No. It WILL be fun! I'm very, very confident.

Why?

'Cause I've made my plans! I've checked everything out I possibly can and am relaxed that we're prepared and we'll be fine.

Cruising the Caribbean! Visiting Mexico! New friends! Fabulous food! Fun in the sun!

120 days and counting.

I CAN'T WAIT!