About a year ago I joined the only adult Sunday school class that my church offers, which does Bible studies with material provided by our denomination. Most of its members are elderly, but there are a few younger members.
I love these people. They are my elders, people to look up to and respect. They were active, working and raising families, while I was growing up. They have known me and my family for probably 50 years. One of them, in fact, knew my parents when I was a toddler. Their beliefs are generally more traditional than mine, but there is still a lot that I can learn from them.
Some of the ladies take turns leading the class. Evelyn, a small woman with a soft voice, believes firmly that the Bible should guide us in all matters. Once in a class we encountered a situation where the Bible has two conflicting statements and while she acknowledged it, she did not really speak to that conflict. Each member just individually decided what we thought about the issue. I found myself wishing that the conflict – which is real – had been addressed either in Evelyn’s comments or in class discussion.
But, while I don’t always agree with Evelyn, I respect her enormously. She walks her talk. She is into mission – which is good and needed – and every winter, she and her husband tour down south as members of Nomads, a group that does volunteer projects. She works hard in the church, and she speaks up for what she thinks is right, and she and her husband are always ready to help someone who “isn’t like us”. I respect her witness and the way she lives her life.
What do I learn from Evelyn? I see that I need more courage to speak up for what I think is right; it’s especially important to speak out, not just in class discussions or normal conversation, but when silence can result in injustice. Right now I’m just picking my battles.
Cathy, a retired schoolteacher, wears a mop of white hair and walks with a cane. She too is soft-voiced. Her views, like Evelyn’s, are traditional. Cathy’s mind is still quite active, and I greatly enjoy visiting with her.
Cathy has become active in environmental issues, speaking out against long wall coal mining. She makes presentations, she writes letters, she attends meetings, she testifies at places. Cathy is very active in this movement. If you want to stimulate the conversation, just ask her what the latest developments are, and she’s off. The lady is a force of nature on the subject.
I learn from Cathy that life isn’t over at 65. She’s still going strong in her lower 80s, physically and mentally. She puts a lot of work and energy into protesting long wall mining. I’ve been struggling not to think that my life is over, that my best years are behind me. Actually, I’m in good health for my age and should still have time and opportunity before my body and mind start to wear out. Cathy is a fine example of the possibilities we can explore as we age.
The wisdom and example we can find from people like these help me get to church every Sunday, even for the early service, even when I’m not sure I belong there anymore.
Being in this class makes me feel a little like a “junior elder,” if there’s such a thing. These folks are strong examples of how the Christian life can be lived. I’m sure they don’t think of it like that. They’re just living their lives the best way they know how. Now that I am in a group of such strong role models, I feel challenged to new growth. Without trying to compare (which isn’t relevant), I feel challenged to become the kind of role models that they are. I take up this challenge because I admire these ladies and would like to truly be like them. It’s a tribute to them, really, rather than a ploy to get attention. You just make the decision to go for it, and put it away, and go on. So like them, I will try to do what they do. Live my life. The best way I know how.
Showing posts with label Rural Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rural Life. Show all posts
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
How to Have an Argument
A friend and I got into a discussion about global warming recently at church, and I am glad because it helped me to clarify my thinking and, at the same time, demonstrated that we really can have civilized disagreements about these issues.
I don’t remember now how it got started. But I said something supportive about global warming, and that was when he interrupted me.
“Well, we are at polar opposites there because I think global warming is a big, fat lie!” He looked straight into my eyes and added, “Who is really in charge of the temperature of the earth anyway?”
My heart sank, because I sensed his answer would be the theistic God that I no longer believe in, and I wasn’t entirely sure how I could get out of this one without really getting into an argument. Global warming is a safer argument in church than your interpretation of God! (Even if we do each have our own interpretation of God, mine is off the charts in a farm town. Fewer people are more conservative than farmers.) “That’s okay,” I said, “but then how do you explain the melting glaciers? How do you explain the fact that when they talk about the 10 hottest years or summers in the last 100 years of record, around half of them are in the last 15 or 20 years?”
He went on to explain his belief that the earth’s temperature has always fluctuated and it is just doing that now. And “they” will slap the taxes on us to fight global warming when human beings have absolutely no control of global temperature. And all this debating will achieve is to throw a lot of money at the problem without doing anything to solve it. (I can’t deny that is often the way these things turn out!) He thinks that, while the earth may be warming, God is in control and man can’t do anything about it.
So what he really doubts isn’t the warming itself, but the belief that we cause it and can do something about stopping it.
At that point I sensed the beginnings of common beliefs, and I was able to proceed with an open mind. “I will agree that no one really knows what is causing the warming,” I replied, “and I honestly don’t think anybody really knows if we are the cause or not. But I do think we should do whatever we can.”
That was the point of clarification in my thinking. I believe in global warming, and I think we should do what we can to slow it down (I doubt we can stop it entirely). But whether it is a fact or a myth, there is a real issue underlying it.
“I think the real issue is the environment,” I went on.”We are poisoning our water, our soil, and our air. We have to get that cleaned up. We can’t spoil our home; we have nowhere else to go.”
My friend, a farmer, agreed entirely that the environment is the real issue. We spent a few minutes agreeing on various aspects of that, and then went off toward the parlor, and he was saying, “Now, see? We found common things.”
I grinned. “Of course, you’re either a bad American or a bad Christian because you disagree with me. And that is the kind of talk we need to get rid of. People should be able to have civilized disagreements.”
“I agree wholeheartedly!”
That is the way to have an argument. Try to be open-minded, try to have respect for the other (not hard in this case, I think the world of this man and his wife), and find the things that are common. You might even learn something. What I learned is this: While I do believe global warming is a genuine issue, the total environmental picture is the issue I’m really concerned about, and whether the globe is warming or not, whether we can do anything about it or not, we still need to be cleaning up our pollution.
When I saw this friend at choir practice a couple of days later, we got to talking about our conversation on Sunday, and it turned out that we both had given it a lot of thought. We both concluded it was a very positive and constructive discussion.
Now that is a really spiffy way to have an argument!
I don’t remember now how it got started. But I said something supportive about global warming, and that was when he interrupted me.
“Well, we are at polar opposites there because I think global warming is a big, fat lie!” He looked straight into my eyes and added, “Who is really in charge of the temperature of the earth anyway?”
My heart sank, because I sensed his answer would be the theistic God that I no longer believe in, and I wasn’t entirely sure how I could get out of this one without really getting into an argument. Global warming is a safer argument in church than your interpretation of God! (Even if we do each have our own interpretation of God, mine is off the charts in a farm town. Fewer people are more conservative than farmers.) “That’s okay,” I said, “but then how do you explain the melting glaciers? How do you explain the fact that when they talk about the 10 hottest years or summers in the last 100 years of record, around half of them are in the last 15 or 20 years?”
He went on to explain his belief that the earth’s temperature has always fluctuated and it is just doing that now. And “they” will slap the taxes on us to fight global warming when human beings have absolutely no control of global temperature. And all this debating will achieve is to throw a lot of money at the problem without doing anything to solve it. (I can’t deny that is often the way these things turn out!) He thinks that, while the earth may be warming, God is in control and man can’t do anything about it.
So what he really doubts isn’t the warming itself, but the belief that we cause it and can do something about stopping it.
At that point I sensed the beginnings of common beliefs, and I was able to proceed with an open mind. “I will agree that no one really knows what is causing the warming,” I replied, “and I honestly don’t think anybody really knows if we are the cause or not. But I do think we should do whatever we can.”
That was the point of clarification in my thinking. I believe in global warming, and I think we should do what we can to slow it down (I doubt we can stop it entirely). But whether it is a fact or a myth, there is a real issue underlying it.
“I think the real issue is the environment,” I went on.”We are poisoning our water, our soil, and our air. We have to get that cleaned up. We can’t spoil our home; we have nowhere else to go.”
My friend, a farmer, agreed entirely that the environment is the real issue. We spent a few minutes agreeing on various aspects of that, and then went off toward the parlor, and he was saying, “Now, see? We found common things.”
I grinned. “Of course, you’re either a bad American or a bad Christian because you disagree with me. And that is the kind of talk we need to get rid of. People should be able to have civilized disagreements.”
“I agree wholeheartedly!”
That is the way to have an argument. Try to be open-minded, try to have respect for the other (not hard in this case, I think the world of this man and his wife), and find the things that are common. You might even learn something. What I learned is this: While I do believe global warming is a genuine issue, the total environmental picture is the issue I’m really concerned about, and whether the globe is warming or not, whether we can do anything about it or not, we still need to be cleaning up our pollution.
When I saw this friend at choir practice a couple of days later, we got to talking about our conversation on Sunday, and it turned out that we both had given it a lot of thought. We both concluded it was a very positive and constructive discussion.
Now that is a really spiffy way to have an argument!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Slice Of Life: Sunday By the Spoon
Usually my Sundays have a fixed routine. Church and Sunday school in the morning, prayer journaling in the afternoon, followed by cooking the entrée and vegetables for taking to work during the week. It fills my day, involves me in some relatively creative manual work, and allows me a generous amount of time to spend with my Source. It is essential that I keep in close contact with the Source of my life, so this is a commitment. I guard this time so jealously that an act of Congress is required before I skip it, and then only if I can do it some evening during the week.
It took me by surprise, therefore, when I decided recently to vary that routine.
I live in an area that has a small body of water called the Spoon River running through it. It would be totally unknown, in fact, if Edger Lee Masters hadn’t written the Spoon River Anthology. It is a small river, not very wide, not very long, with many small towns and villages on or close to its banks. The first two weekends in October are given over to something called the Scenic Drive, which features the towns along the river, fall foliage colors, craft fairs and food booths of many descriptions.
This year we had a streak of cloudy, rainy, unseasonably chilly weather for the Scenic Drive. There was only one really nice day to go to it, the Sunday of the first weekend in October. It was a perfect fall afternoon, clear blue sky with a few swirls and puffs of white cloud, mild in the sunlight but somewhat cool in the shade. There are always a number of places to decide on, but this year I wanted to go to a village close by me and take a look at the wares that were displayed. It felt at first like a rationalization when I decided to put off the prayer journaling until an evening during the week just so I could go on an outing, but the perfection of the day beckoned me.
When I got to the village, I grabbed a good parking place actually on the riverbank, in the paved area where boaters put their boats into the water. Just across the river was the town. I parked, walked across the bridge, and the first thing I saw was a booth advertising fresh fudge. Right away, I was glad I had come!
I wandered through the small downtown of the village. Well, it is small, but it holds a lot of booths every year. I saw sweaters, sweatshirts, kitchen towels, scarves, hats, jackets, blankets. There were metal things. There were wooden things. There were even fake electric guitars to be used as decorations. I admired home-grown squashes and tomatoes and nuts. My mouth watered as I looked at homemade jams, pies, local grown honey, homemade noodles and breads. Then there was food and drink to enjoy on the spot, lemonade, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, hot dogs, sausages, nachos, tacos, popcorn. I purchased a taco as I wandered, and enjoyed trying to walk and eat at the same time.
And of course there were the people. Short ones, tall ones, stout ones, thin ones. With high voices, with deep voices, with nasal voices, with rich voices. With children. With dogs. Some, like me, wore a sweatshirt. Others had on jackets or sweaters. Several wore T-shirts.
When I finally turned back toward the bridge, my way took me by an entertainer who sang fairly interesting songs and told excessively corny jokes. The jokes were so bad that I really couldn’t help laughing at them. And on my last stop out of town, I dropped by that fudge booth and bought some fudge to take home.
There was one more stop. As I crossed the bridge again I stopped to enjoy the delightful view of the rounded hills, the surrounding farms, the houses and barns, the yellows and browns of ripe crops under the blue sky. I said to myself, “My gosh, this is so beautiful.” And then I realized. I had postponed my prayer journaling for this outing, but I had not neglected my Creator. He was of course in the beauty of the day and the ripening crops and the sunshine and the breeze. He was in the people I had seen, and the fruits of creation included the fruits of our creation, the foods and gadgets on display, for any creative act is generated by His creative energy. We too are the creation, and we too generate fruits of creation. I had spent all this time enjoying the creation with its Creator.
Two hours of prayer journaling wouldn’t have pointed that out to me as vividly as that moment on the bridge. I swung into my car, unwrapped the fudge, took a bite out of it, and headed for home.
It took me by surprise, therefore, when I decided recently to vary that routine.
I live in an area that has a small body of water called the Spoon River running through it. It would be totally unknown, in fact, if Edger Lee Masters hadn’t written the Spoon River Anthology. It is a small river, not very wide, not very long, with many small towns and villages on or close to its banks. The first two weekends in October are given over to something called the Scenic Drive, which features the towns along the river, fall foliage colors, craft fairs and food booths of many descriptions.
This year we had a streak of cloudy, rainy, unseasonably chilly weather for the Scenic Drive. There was only one really nice day to go to it, the Sunday of the first weekend in October. It was a perfect fall afternoon, clear blue sky with a few swirls and puffs of white cloud, mild in the sunlight but somewhat cool in the shade. There are always a number of places to decide on, but this year I wanted to go to a village close by me and take a look at the wares that were displayed. It felt at first like a rationalization when I decided to put off the prayer journaling until an evening during the week just so I could go on an outing, but the perfection of the day beckoned me.
When I got to the village, I grabbed a good parking place actually on the riverbank, in the paved area where boaters put their boats into the water. Just across the river was the town. I parked, walked across the bridge, and the first thing I saw was a booth advertising fresh fudge. Right away, I was glad I had come!
I wandered through the small downtown of the village. Well, it is small, but it holds a lot of booths every year. I saw sweaters, sweatshirts, kitchen towels, scarves, hats, jackets, blankets. There were metal things. There were wooden things. There were even fake electric guitars to be used as decorations. I admired home-grown squashes and tomatoes and nuts. My mouth watered as I looked at homemade jams, pies, local grown honey, homemade noodles and breads. Then there was food and drink to enjoy on the spot, lemonade, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, hot dogs, sausages, nachos, tacos, popcorn. I purchased a taco as I wandered, and enjoyed trying to walk and eat at the same time.
And of course there were the people. Short ones, tall ones, stout ones, thin ones. With high voices, with deep voices, with nasal voices, with rich voices. With children. With dogs. Some, like me, wore a sweatshirt. Others had on jackets or sweaters. Several wore T-shirts.
When I finally turned back toward the bridge, my way took me by an entertainer who sang fairly interesting songs and told excessively corny jokes. The jokes were so bad that I really couldn’t help laughing at them. And on my last stop out of town, I dropped by that fudge booth and bought some fudge to take home.
There was one more stop. As I crossed the bridge again I stopped to enjoy the delightful view of the rounded hills, the surrounding farms, the houses and barns, the yellows and browns of ripe crops under the blue sky. I said to myself, “My gosh, this is so beautiful.” And then I realized. I had postponed my prayer journaling for this outing, but I had not neglected my Creator. He was of course in the beauty of the day and the ripening crops and the sunshine and the breeze. He was in the people I had seen, and the fruits of creation included the fruits of our creation, the foods and gadgets on display, for any creative act is generated by His creative energy. We too are the creation, and we too generate fruits of creation. I had spent all this time enjoying the creation with its Creator.
Two hours of prayer journaling wouldn’t have pointed that out to me as vividly as that moment on the bridge. I swung into my car, unwrapped the fudge, took a bite out of it, and headed for home.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Finding Gold In a Long Commute
Recently I was laid off from the job that I had held for 13 months. It took me some 18 months to find that job, not including a period of waiting after another job didn’t work out. I had felt financially stable, finally, and I was beginning to get some debts paid off. It was a good feeling.
Then the shoe dropped. Shoe, heck. Felt like Paul Bunyan’s heaviest boot!
I was surprised at how quickly I adjusted. Of course there was no job, no income, no certainty about the future. (They said I would be one of the first to be called back, but I can’t wait for six months and it will probably be that long.)
But also there was no getting up at 5:00 a.m., no 100-mile round trip every day on top of 8 hours spent typing, no more driving east at sunrise and west at sunset, no more reading minuscule print off product packaging, no more typing Spanish text…OK. There are things I can like about this. That’s good.
So let me think a little about that 100-mile round trip. I was literally adding 500 miles to my odometer every week. That’s 2,000 miles in one month. It was a lot of wear and tear on my car which, fortunately, was fairly new when I got this job.
Over those 13 months, I had time to watch each season in detail – the crops ripening in the summer heat, farmers harvesting during the autumn as the colors changed, the austere beauty of a winter sunset over a field full of snow, the challenge of driving in sleet and snow storms, and of course the new greening as the world came back to life, and the planting of the new crops.
There was time to think about the seasons, about the Creator of all things, about myself and the growth I felt going on within me. And I have to conclude that it was a remarkable year. Some really odd things happened to me during the year that I put 100 miles on my car every day.
There were several unitive moments – times when the world and life somehow seemed so beautiful that I couldn’t bear it. For instance there was the day last fall as I was driving home, enjoying the perfectly clear deep blue sky, bright sunshine, vivid colors, crops ripe in the fields and farmers working in clouds of dust to harvest them. It was, for several minutes, so beautiful that I wept briefly. There was another moment like that a few weeks ago as I waded through the crowds leaving the park after the Fourth of July band concert and fireworks display. There were others. These two were among the most vivid.
Then there was the boil-water order I found one day last summer when I got home from work. My job was close to a Wal-Mart, and I decided that instead of depending on boiling water I’d buy some bottled water the next day. (There wasn’t any left in town by the time I got home.) So the next day I went into the Wal-Mart, a store I had never been in before, and I had no idea where the beverages were. The usual greeter wasn’t around, and I wondered who could direct me. It was only a few seconds later that a man came steaming past me into the store, pushing a noisy shopping cart full of empty plastic jugs. Supposing that he intended to fill them with water, I followed him and he led me right to my destination. It was the timing of his appearance that made me see the incident as, well, not a coincidence.
And one day I was struggling with low blood sugar, at the end of the work day, and faced driving home at a time when I really wasn’t well. I prayed that somehow I would get home safely. Now I make a habit of driving 55 mph, which is the posted speed limit on the two-lane highways in my state. Everybody who comes up behind me passes me as soon as they get a chance. That day, however, there was a series of drivers who would come up behind me on each leg of my journey home. When one turned off, another would come along in a couple of miles. I was followed all the way into my home town. On a day when I had asked for help, not one of those drivers passed me. Again, I didn’t think that was a coincidence.
You see what I mean? Things that don’t normally happen to me were happening. Maybe it was partly a matter of me being more aware of what went on around me. But that doesn’t explain the afternoon at work when, for just a split second, it seemed that I was standing behind my chair and looking at the back of my head. It was over so quickly that it could have been just a figment of imagination. But I was flooded with emotions and sensations that clearly were not imaginary. It had been a true out-of-body experience. For a tiny fraction of a second I had been something more than I normally am, larger, more confident, stronger, more joyous. It was a true mystical experience. I can prove it…because to this day I can’t really describe those feelings; my description is only a guess. And probably the only truth we know about such experiences is that they are indescribable.
So all that driving was worth it, because it opened me up to new levels of perception and sensitivity. And that is what I need the most, after all. I’m working on this current unemployment situation from the inside out, and I’ll need all the perception and sensitivity I can muster.
Then the shoe dropped. Shoe, heck. Felt like Paul Bunyan’s heaviest boot!
I was surprised at how quickly I adjusted. Of course there was no job, no income, no certainty about the future. (They said I would be one of the first to be called back, but I can’t wait for six months and it will probably be that long.)
But also there was no getting up at 5:00 a.m., no 100-mile round trip every day on top of 8 hours spent typing, no more driving east at sunrise and west at sunset, no more reading minuscule print off product packaging, no more typing Spanish text…OK. There are things I can like about this. That’s good.
So let me think a little about that 100-mile round trip. I was literally adding 500 miles to my odometer every week. That’s 2,000 miles in one month. It was a lot of wear and tear on my car which, fortunately, was fairly new when I got this job.
Over those 13 months, I had time to watch each season in detail – the crops ripening in the summer heat, farmers harvesting during the autumn as the colors changed, the austere beauty of a winter sunset over a field full of snow, the challenge of driving in sleet and snow storms, and of course the new greening as the world came back to life, and the planting of the new crops.
There was time to think about the seasons, about the Creator of all things, about myself and the growth I felt going on within me. And I have to conclude that it was a remarkable year. Some really odd things happened to me during the year that I put 100 miles on my car every day.
There were several unitive moments – times when the world and life somehow seemed so beautiful that I couldn’t bear it. For instance there was the day last fall as I was driving home, enjoying the perfectly clear deep blue sky, bright sunshine, vivid colors, crops ripe in the fields and farmers working in clouds of dust to harvest them. It was, for several minutes, so beautiful that I wept briefly. There was another moment like that a few weeks ago as I waded through the crowds leaving the park after the Fourth of July band concert and fireworks display. There were others. These two were among the most vivid.
Then there was the boil-water order I found one day last summer when I got home from work. My job was close to a Wal-Mart, and I decided that instead of depending on boiling water I’d buy some bottled water the next day. (There wasn’t any left in town by the time I got home.) So the next day I went into the Wal-Mart, a store I had never been in before, and I had no idea where the beverages were. The usual greeter wasn’t around, and I wondered who could direct me. It was only a few seconds later that a man came steaming past me into the store, pushing a noisy shopping cart full of empty plastic jugs. Supposing that he intended to fill them with water, I followed him and he led me right to my destination. It was the timing of his appearance that made me see the incident as, well, not a coincidence.
And one day I was struggling with low blood sugar, at the end of the work day, and faced driving home at a time when I really wasn’t well. I prayed that somehow I would get home safely. Now I make a habit of driving 55 mph, which is the posted speed limit on the two-lane highways in my state. Everybody who comes up behind me passes me as soon as they get a chance. That day, however, there was a series of drivers who would come up behind me on each leg of my journey home. When one turned off, another would come along in a couple of miles. I was followed all the way into my home town. On a day when I had asked for help, not one of those drivers passed me. Again, I didn’t think that was a coincidence.
You see what I mean? Things that don’t normally happen to me were happening. Maybe it was partly a matter of me being more aware of what went on around me. But that doesn’t explain the afternoon at work when, for just a split second, it seemed that I was standing behind my chair and looking at the back of my head. It was over so quickly that it could have been just a figment of imagination. But I was flooded with emotions and sensations that clearly were not imaginary. It had been a true out-of-body experience. For a tiny fraction of a second I had been something more than I normally am, larger, more confident, stronger, more joyous. It was a true mystical experience. I can prove it…because to this day I can’t really describe those feelings; my description is only a guess. And probably the only truth we know about such experiences is that they are indescribable.
So all that driving was worth it, because it opened me up to new levels of perception and sensitivity. And that is what I need the most, after all. I’m working on this current unemployment situation from the inside out, and I’ll need all the perception and sensitivity I can muster.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Stranger In My Home Town? Yikes!
It has taken me a while to realize just how homesick I had become, living in that thar city 800 miles south of here.
The city had its points. Concerts. Universities. Libraries. Sports teams. Museums. Theaters. Oodles of shopping malls.
The city had other points too. Traffic. Pollution. Stress. Other people's dirt. Crime. Shoot, in that one apartment complex I got mugged, had a shipment of checks stolen, had two incidents of vandalism on my car, and my apartment got broken into. Twice! I had friends who didn't want to come and visit me even in the daytime, for crying out loud. Why didn't I move out? I couldn't afford a safer apartment that was as large as what I was renting in that crime center, that's why.
But now here I am, back home again in . . . well, Midwest farm country. I still lock the car every time I leave it, but I probably don't have to. I have lived off supermarket produce so long that it doesn't occur to me to harvest the rhubarb patch in the back yard of this house.
I was driving over to my sister's house last night, and (not for the first time) I thought of how beautiful farm country really is. It isn't exciting, no. It is flat or perhaps "rolling" a little. But last spring I enjoyed the sight of dark brown earth grooved by perfectly straight rows of green plants poking their heads up into the sunlight. And I have spent the entire summer enjoying the colors of the various crops as they grow, the contrasts between dark green beans and lighter green cornstalks with light brown tassles on top.
My sister and I drove together to a nearby town for an ice cream social followed by a band concert. This is archetypal rural life: a summer night with ice cream, cake, and band music in the city park. The band was good, the music had a lot of variety, and I sat there with my sister and had a whopping good time.
And when I got home I would like to say it was a quiet evening, but the night critters were almost deafeningly loud as I went into the house.
Still, I feel like a stranger. I grew up here (well, from the fifth grade on), graduated from high school here. My parents retired and died here. After high school I went to college, started to get work away from here, drifted off, and I eventually wound up in that city. I came back from time to time but I gradually lost contact with most of the people I had known in my youth. But here I am, back home, and a few weeks ago my high school class celebrated its 45th reunion. Forty-five!
After 45 years. I don't know very many people any more. The folks I grew up with, those who stayed here, I don't even recognize when I see them. I don't remember who married whom. And of course there are other people whom I am meeting now for the first time. Most of the people I actually recognize are from my parents' generation, and I enjoy it when they speak of my parents. But they are the only people I feel like I know!
I hadn't expected to feel like a stranger in my home town. There were some things I had expected, but that wasn't one of them. It will pass, though, as I continue to live here and see these folks again and again. There is a 45-year gap between then and now, but we can pick it up again.
The city had its points. Concerts. Universities. Libraries. Sports teams. Museums. Theaters. Oodles of shopping malls.
The city had other points too. Traffic. Pollution. Stress. Other people's dirt. Crime. Shoot, in that one apartment complex I got mugged, had a shipment of checks stolen, had two incidents of vandalism on my car, and my apartment got broken into. Twice! I had friends who didn't want to come and visit me even in the daytime, for crying out loud. Why didn't I move out? I couldn't afford a safer apartment that was as large as what I was renting in that crime center, that's why.
But now here I am, back home again in . . . well, Midwest farm country. I still lock the car every time I leave it, but I probably don't have to. I have lived off supermarket produce so long that it doesn't occur to me to harvest the rhubarb patch in the back yard of this house.
I was driving over to my sister's house last night, and (not for the first time) I thought of how beautiful farm country really is. It isn't exciting, no. It is flat or perhaps "rolling" a little. But last spring I enjoyed the sight of dark brown earth grooved by perfectly straight rows of green plants poking their heads up into the sunlight. And I have spent the entire summer enjoying the colors of the various crops as they grow, the contrasts between dark green beans and lighter green cornstalks with light brown tassles on top.
My sister and I drove together to a nearby town for an ice cream social followed by a band concert. This is archetypal rural life: a summer night with ice cream, cake, and band music in the city park. The band was good, the music had a lot of variety, and I sat there with my sister and had a whopping good time.
And when I got home I would like to say it was a quiet evening, but the night critters were almost deafeningly loud as I went into the house.
Still, I feel like a stranger. I grew up here (well, from the fifth grade on), graduated from high school here. My parents retired and died here. After high school I went to college, started to get work away from here, drifted off, and I eventually wound up in that city. I came back from time to time but I gradually lost contact with most of the people I had known in my youth. But here I am, back home, and a few weeks ago my high school class celebrated its 45th reunion. Forty-five!
After 45 years. I don't know very many people any more. The folks I grew up with, those who stayed here, I don't even recognize when I see them. I don't remember who married whom. And of course there are other people whom I am meeting now for the first time. Most of the people I actually recognize are from my parents' generation, and I enjoy it when they speak of my parents. But they are the only people I feel like I know!
I hadn't expected to feel like a stranger in my home town. There were some things I had expected, but that wasn't one of them. It will pass, though, as I continue to live here and see these folks again and again. There is a 45-year gap between then and now, but we can pick it up again.
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