Malaise and other History Lessons

It is a pleasant fall night, the sky deep and an unseasonably warm moist wind streaming from the south.  I'm coming down around the big bend in US highway 63 through the limestone road cuts onto the Missouri River bottom under the darkening brows of the overhanging bluffs. I cannot see the autumnal blaze of the maples and oaks, but I know the hues of a Missouri fall still remain on the hillsides.  It is one of my favorite stretches of road; my trusty vehicle swoops out of the forests onto the plain.  As I have done since I was a child, I look for the glow of our glorious state dome floating above the spans of the Missouri river bridges; it has always been a beacon for the home stretch of a journey.

Wasn't always that way.  Back in a previous period of anxiety, of turmoil, chaos, and upheaval in the Mideast, of insecurity, doubt, and apprehension in the United States, the Missouri State Capitol and other public buildings went dark as part of a campaign to conserve energy championed by none other than the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter.

The late '70s and particularly the year 1979 is back in the public spotlight this fall. The events of 1979 seemed far less dated and more topical to Blake and me than the dark rimmed plastic eyeglasses and long hair of the characters in 'Argo'.  We remember the first Nightline (with Ted Koppel) the news show born of the Iranian hostage crisis and a harbinger of the all news, all the time cable networks yet to come.  We watched from our living room in Tarkio in the house we bought after Ann was born in the summer of '80.  But we saw Jimmy Carter give his 'crisis of confidence' speech in the tiny little house in the bottom in 1979, with the image flickering on the screen as the rooftop antenna swayed in the unremitting wind.  The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan; the Iranians burned our flags; inflation measured 11 percent while unemployment was stuck at 7.5 percent.  The ugly word 'stagflation', coined during Nixon's presidency, reappeared in the papers.  We were a young family watching our savings wither under banana republic type inflation; we decided to buy that house in Tarkio because we couldn't foresee a time when land prices and interest rates would be affordable for folks like us.

I can't tell you I remember every detail like it was yesterday.  But I do recall, and quite vividly, the general despondency of Americans that year, the feeling of disconnect, impotency, frustration and even anger with our situation domestically and overseas. Despite effort, exhortation, and example, the economy tilted into an energy 'crisis'.  What do I remember from 1979?  I remember being told to 'make do with less', that solving our energy problems amounted to the 'moral equivalent of war'.  For instance, from the 1979 'crisis of confidence' speech: 

I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.

I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.

The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.

When efforts to rescue the hostages left images of burning helicopters imprinted on our television screens, it only served to emphasize the inadequacy of all things American.  The piece' de resistance' of this spiral was the black comedy skit filmed from afar of our President beating off a 'killer rabbit' swimming toward him on a Georgia lake.  Was it any wonder we felt infected by 'malaise'?

I heard a podcast today with a segment focused on 'bad' presidents.  Herbert Hoover and Woodrow Wilson were held up as examples: one because of protectionism and his inability to keep the people's faith during the darkest days of the Depression even as he threw program after program into the fray, the other because he refused to admit his idealistic schemes and plans based on crystallized academic theorizing simply didn't work with real people representing real national interests. The people simply wouldn't behave as he believed they ought.  

We voted in that election in 1980; Blake and I stayed up way past our bedtime watching the results after the girls were tucked in their beds.  Perhaps polling has improved, or all that media is gathering more data; all I know is that we were not alone in our astonishment at the results of that election.  It wasn't just that Mr. Reagan won; it was the toppling of seemingly safe incumbents in the Senate from sea to shining sea.  It was the out and out upsetting of the apple cart as America looked into the dark tunnel of malaise and shrinking and making do and said, Thanks but no thanks.

Jimmy Carter spoke these words in his Inaugural speech:
"We have learned that more is not necessarily better, that even our great nation has its recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems."[2]

And on January 20, 1981 Ronald Reagan used this text:
"We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes just don't know where to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroes across a counter--and they are on both sides of that counter. There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity. They are individuals and families whose taxes support the Government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet but deep. Their values sustain our national life.
I have used the words "they" and "their" in speaking of these heroes. I could say "you" and "your" because I am addressing the heroes of whom I speak--you, the citizens of this blessed land. Your dreams, your hopes, your goals are going to be the dreams, the hopes, and the goals of this administration, so help me God.

Can we solve the problems confronting us? Well, the answer is an unequivocal and emphatic "yes." To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world's strongest economy."

Let the Little Children Come

Home is more than three dimensions; time is of its essence.

We carry it with us as memory.

 Our corner of the Midwest is beautiful for those who can appreciate a landscape of subtle textures and harmonious hue, if one can overlook the periodic weather tantrums and months of Andrew Wyeth gray.
But never more so than after frost has sharpened the treeline, leaving branches bare and muffling the greening pastures with scarlet.

The church with the big white roof on the edge of town is home to my family.  The sanctuary has covered us during weddings, baptisms, Live Nativities, near sublime cantatas and near chaotic Vacation Bible schools. As behooves a gathering place for fallen man, it is forgiving of rambunctiousness, crayons in the pews, an occasional sucker, and other vagaries in behavior by those our Savior specifically welcomed in Matthew 19:14. " Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

The little children will be coming out of the woodwork on Sunday when parents, grandparents and other generous sorts open their trunks and hand out treats.  We'll fill the sanctuary with songs and silliness when the same sugar stoked kids practice the upcoming Christmas program.  And, before the afternoon is over, the church will empty into its backyard, where kids and helpers will carve letters into plump orange pumpkins, then march them out to the front yard, where they will be assembled into a coherent verse and brightly illuminated for all passers by.

I feel particularly rooted when I leave church, whether its after a service or taking the trash out to the dumpster after a pancake feed.  The vista from the parking lot is a microcosm of our lovely country.  Just behind the church is a cow pasture, the inhabitants of which have provided diversion and entertainment for little people ever since our church replaced the stained glass windows with clear glass.  Beyond the pasture is Tarkio Home Cemetery where family, friends, and forebears rest and we remember.  The bin site and elevator of what I still want to call Tarkio Pelleting is as close to a manmade skyline as we can muster on this rural prairie, but the rolling loess rises gently off the Tarkio River bottom east of town.  

This is the same vista we saw the stormy November day of Blake's grandmother's funeral and the boisterous April day Lee and Ryan married....the cows, the cemetery, the elevator below and the fields beyond.  In a couple of weeks, I'll look over that view after Aaron is baptized Sunday morning.

But today, there won't be time.  Today we'll carve pumpkins and corral kids and hand out treats. As silence falls again on the parking lot, the pumpkins will beam out a message straight from the little children Jesus loves.

Risen with Healing in His Wings

When you can't fix it......


Be silent, sit back and wait for prayer to come.


Give God a chance to show His mercy.


Meditate on James 1:2-4....Trials and Temptations
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Arm your faith with perseverance, trusting that God will not let you alone, will not send you down an unmarked trail without provision, without guidance, without map.

Daniel 3:16-18
New International Version (NIV)
16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us[a] from Your Majesty’s hand. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

If everything were easy, if every request were granted, if every wish were fulfilled, if every endeavor succeeded, we would not be grateful.  We would accept happiness as our due and not as grace granted and unearned.  Real thankfulness is achieved through what we name as adversity and God calls testing of our faith.

"We don't appreciate how good we have it" is not a truism, it is an inseparable part of being human. Like Mt. McKinley, our true happiness is glimpsed but briefly if we are separated from our Guide.

Close your eyes and wait for God's answer.

Matthew 11:28-30
New International Version (NIV)
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

'Lean on me, When you're not strong, I'll take your hand, I'll help you carry on.' says the song.  Says our Lord.  We cannot succeed on our own; we cannot bear even our own burdens, much less those of our loved ones.  We are dishonest and misguided if we believe we can.  We are strongest when we lean on our Brother's stick or arm or shoulder....we can only be a lifeline if He holds the rope.


'For Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.

Malachi 4:2
'"But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.

One Fine Day.....or The Game is Worth the Candle

"Maybe move out of the city, find some quiet little town

Where you can sit out on your back porch step

And watch the sun go down....

Call it chance baby, call it fate

Either one is cause to celebrate

And the question now is why would you wait

Don't be late for your life"

Mary Chapin Carpenter

 Some people dream about streets paved with gold
Only to find a yellow brick road
We know the way that story goes...Matraca Berg

 

Out here on the edge love dares us to try

 Baby, some people fall but some people fly

And baby, love has no fear leap

And a net will appear....Matraca Berg

Yeah ladies love outlaws like babies love a bunch of stray dogs

Ladies touch babies like a banker touches gold....

Waylon Jennings

 You say it's your birthday

It's my birthday too--yeah

They say it's your birthday

We're gonna have a good time

I'm glad it's your birthday

Happy birthday to you.

The Beatles

Psalm 127: 3-5

Children are a heritage from the Lord,

    offspring a reward from him.

4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior

    are children born in one’s youth.

5 Blessed is the man

    whose quiver is full of them.

Westward, HOooooooo

The season long blast furnace that is summer 2012 reminds me of how marvelous it was in years past to escape from our blistered yard, weedy garden, and empty cow lot for points far away.  

"GO WEST, YOUNG MAN, GO WEST" was an expression first used by John Babsone Lane Soule in the Terre Haute Express in 1851. It appealed to Horace Greeley, who rephrased it slightly in an editorial in the New York Tribune on 13 July 1865: "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country."

In the '80s, (20th century vintage) the Hurst family took these words to heart and set our sights on the sunset.  We were growing too.  By the time we loaded two coolers, two suitcases, three duffle bags, two backpacks, a tote of hardbacks and travel guides, two grocery sacks of bread, chips and cereal, a Tupperware container of chocolate chip cookies, a camera bag with 10 rolls of film, towels, pillows, one sleeping bag at least....am I forgetting anything else?  Well, by the time the Econoline backed out onto 150th and spun the first gravel on its westward trek, it was full to the gunwales and testing the springs on its back end.  Ben would be nearly out of earshot on the back bench seat while his older sisters expressed their seniority by occupying the captain's chairs amidships.  Blake and I had our Casey's go cups full of home brew, a plastic bag of cassette tapes behind the console and a stack of paperbacks and travel books just behind the front seat where we could easily retrieve them...that is, until the entire leaning tower capsized around the first sharp curve or first sudden stop.  

But we had miles to go before we slept, 430 of them on I-80 across Nebraska.  Like the pioneers we followed the waters of the Platte as it wallows its way across the state.  Where does the West begin?  Cozad, Nebraska gives the imaginary line co-star billing just under its name over the myriad steel ribbons  that have connected the concrete skyscrapers across the state since 1868. A visit to these western Nebraska towns with their wide and dusty streets is a reminder that the 100th meridian is also the dividing line between humid and arid for dryland agriculture.  West of Cozad and its ilk, less than twenty inches of rain is all that can be expected.  In this drought year of 2012 I have an intimate affinity with the consequences of white hot burning skies for days on end.  As dust from hundreds of hooves and wheels choked the noses and scratched the eyes of the pioneers, its no wonder they bypassed the lands of Nebraska and took their chances over the mountains. 






Our prairie schooner was nearly as self contained as the Conestogas.  We kept our eyes peeled for the relief of shade and water for picnic lunches and room to stretch and run. The long ribbon of I80 provided respite at sun bleached rest areas where we honed our skills and imaginations attempting to identify the slabs and curls of metal labeled as public 'art'.  Fort Kearney offered a compound, a trail to a wooden bridge over the Platte, a soddie hut, and shady tables near gurgling irrigation ditches. 

But the West can hardly begin where corn rows still border the highways.  No, the Ford Econoline entered the West somewhere past Buffalo Bill Cody's iconic Scout's Rest, shrine to the Wild West Show and its creative genius.  Somehow, between the rising plains and the lowering skies, between the pinnacle of Chimney Rock and the Wyoming line, as the traffic thinned on the highways and human habitations hugged the life lines of cottonwoods, the view from our twentieth century conveyance merged seamlessly with the dust clouds of history becoming one with the Oregon Trail.

The pioneers probably didn't think they had it easy trudging the hundreds of miles alongside the Platte.  But the barriers of Windlass Hill and Scott's Bluff were harbingers of the hard work to come.  If a landmark bears your name in the West, you can assume you came to a bad end. Scott's Bluff is named for mountain man Hiram Scott, whose bones were discovered when spring arrived at the foot of the bluffs. No good mountain man deceases without a legend and Mr. Scott showed a lot of life after his death. In one version, a sickly or injured Scott was left behind by comrades on the north side of the Platte.  The next spring, his bones were found near the Bluffs...on the opposite side of the river.  Later tales have the ailing mountain man surviving a winter trek of sixty miles before succumbing at the foot of the Bluffs, and, finally,one recounting makes the pathetic Mr. Scott drag himself over a hundred miles to reach his resting place at the foot of his namesake outcropping.  


Nothing so arduous or ghastly for the Hursts, but we have our own history with this outpost of western Nebraska.  Way back in the dirty '30s, my grandfather, a civil engineer and bridge builder, worked on the road and tunnel to the top of Scotts Bluff; part of the federal works programs of the Depression years.  This piece of pavement was the first concrete road in the state of Nebraska, by some accounts.  I have a mental picture of my grandmother traveling by train out west....has someone told me this, or is it just a product of my imagination?  Visions aside, my mom was born in Scotts Bluff back in 1933 and lived there until she was three.  They came back east in 1936, a year that has been much on our minds in 2012.

The Oregon Trail sites come hard and fast right across the Wyoming line. Near Guernsey, Wyoming, the thousands of wagon wheels wore ruts two to six feet deep in the soft sandstone and emigrants incised their names and dates on the Register Cliff, the easternmost example of pioneer graffiti.  One hundred eighty miles, or maybe nine days away, was Independence Rock, a humpbacked granite outcropping in a part of Wyoming that even today feels isolated. The Hurst family arrived at the landmark one cool mountain morning, cruising silently through the valley of the Sweetwater past the Rattlesnake Mountains, the Antelope Hills, and miles of the Pathfinder Ranch. As pioneer children undoubtedly did, our kids clambered over the rough granite and searched for historic inscriptions.  Alas, granite is considerably harder to carve than sandstone; the pioneers wrote on the Rock with paint, wagon tar, or a concoction of buffalo grease, black powder and glue and little remains of their notations.  With their eyes on posterity, the Mormons stationed a carver at the rock to carve travelers' names for a fee. We were content to record our presence with photographs. 

Our western odyssey that year eventually crossed South Pass itself and wound  its way through the Rockies to the most iconic of all Western landscapes, Yellowstone National Park.  Making our way along the boardwalk to Old Faithful, we not only notched our pistols with a landmark memory but paid homage to all those travelers, whether Pullman car sightseers or travel and bone weary emigrants who had passed over the rails and trails for a hundred and more years before us.  Unless you make your way across this magnificent nation, unless you take the time to read the historic markers, walk the trails, stop at the waysides without plumbing, and take the time to visit the local museums in the windblown small towns, you cannot begin to comprehend the leaps of faith and foolishness our predecessors made  in traversing the forbidding distances and terrain of the western US. There is still empty space out there, not just the breath taking wilderness of the high country, but the formidable physical and spiritual barriers of weather, horizon, aridity and loneliness.  

Can we instill an appreciation or sense of wonder in a one week vacation?  Can we pursue our past across the country and hope to catch even an inkling of the people of that time and country?  Can we plant a passion for our nation's history and our ongoing responsibility in it?

A tall order, but we Americans have seldom backed down from the big picture.

Westward HHHOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo.!

Food, Glorious Food!

Just picture a great big steak --

Fried, roasted or stewed.

Oh, food,

Wonderful food,

Marvelous food,

Glorious food.

Food, Glorious Food...from Oliver!

'Please, sir, I want some more'.

Ya want grass roots?  Ya want righteous indignation? Ya want claw marks down your face and the chance to be prey?  Just step up to a mom and tell her you know what's best for her kid.  I double dog dare ya.

But that's in essence what the First Lady of the United States of America and the Department of Agriculture have taken on with the guidelines now in place for the school lunch program.  Sure, they have good intentions: the same type of patronizing paternalistic impulse that used to be called "Victorian".  If Charles Dickens were to take on the school lunch fracas, he would surely set the Administration officials at the head of the dining hall in  the famous scene in his novel Oliver Twist.  The young boys in the work house are fed naught but "three thin meals of gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays."  They are so ravenous from near starvation that one boy finally hints he may eat his bunkmate.  After this declaration, the boys draw lots and Oliver is elected.  I remember the scene from the 1968 movie clearly: young Oliver walks timidly, solemnly to the portly, no, corpulent master, holds up his empty bowl in his two hands and asks,

'Please, sir, I want some more.'

This is a common enough request for parents and grandparents of school age children.  My kids would hardly drop their backpacks by the door before rummaging for sandwich fixings in the fridge, or pouring a big glass of milk, or scanning the countertop for telltale signs of cookies.  Breakfast was early for country kids with chores to do and a bus to catch; even though I knew by reputation and my own experience that the cooks at tiny Westboro prepared delectable lunches, I wasn't surprised by a desire for stopgap measures between lunch and supper.

But this situation is different. My grandson, who sometimes has to be pried from bed, has taken to setting his own alarm so he can make a peanut butter sandwich to take to school.  Anecdotal evidence abounds on the pages of Facebook and conversations between moms whenever they chance to meet.  Disclaimers from beleaguered cooks and school administrators lay the blame at the doorstep of the Department of Agriculture; 'if we don't comply, we lose funding!' is the reply to all those parents of all those would be Olivers.

Let's remember a few basic tenets.  First of all, school lunches were devised by government way back in Harry Truman's administration as a response to the large number of young men rejected for WWII service due to diet related health problems.  Over the years, school lunches , breakfasts, and milk service have been expanded to ensure public school children had adequate food and satisfactory nutrition.  The underlying assumption is that most parents take care that their kids have enough to eat and try their best to feed them healthful meals.  But some kids don't get enough; school breakfasts and lunches should fill the gap for these kids and fulfill their energy needs so they can learn .

But now the school lunch program wears a badge and carries a billy club.  ''Thou shalt only consume these calories from these sources and no more!", is the commandment carved above the cafeteria doors.  Forget about the bigger than life sized sports figures and celebrities sporting fake frothy milk mustaches pasted on the wall(Got Milk?): while we baby boomers bolted three cartons a day, today's kids get one cup max.  

Yes, kids need to eat healthy; but today's fixation with obesity will not be solved by curtailing the cafeteria plate.  Whether 5 or 15, active children will not overeat on school lunch fare.  After all, the folks behind the counter are not serving up potato chips and ho-hos.  Kids don't require that much variety; I ate a summer sausage and Swiss cheese sandwich every day of my elementary school career despite the varied offerings of the Orland Park school cafeterias. Kids are not even that picky about quality; after all, cafeteria food is mass produced, not hand crafted, not like Mama makes.  It is more akin to the Three Bears: too hot, too cold, too hard or too soft.  Pretending that school kids will go on  a hunger strike without artisan herb loaves, hand pressed cheeses, and hand patted tortillas is folly.  The kids I know often refuse their crust,and prefer their cheese smooth, shiny and wrapped individually in plastic.

No, what kids do notice is quantity. Let us remember that the boys at the parish house did not reject their gruel, as thin, tasteless, colorless, and unappetizing as it was.  No, they braved punishment and flouted the system just to have enough: 

'Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!'

"There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.

'For MORE!' said Mr. Limbkins. 'Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?'"

Allotment?  Is that really what school lunches are all about?  Are cafeterias in school houses all across our country now to resemble the poor houses of Victorian England to their young patrons, even while the lawgivers and administrators who make the rules envision a cornucopia of fresh greens, whole grains and tiny 2 oz. portions of meat or meat substitute? Opinion makers lobby for free range poultry and unchained pork....but growing kids get only so much and no more, even though the foods ladled out have to run a gauntlet of regulation.

"The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; "

 

'Someone has been tasting my porridge and has eaten it every bit!'

We Build...and Rebuild That

No number of compliments, accolades, reorders, contracts, ooohs, aaaahs,  or verbal pats on the back can compensate for one nasty phone call, one irritated email, or one dissatisfied client.  A won/loss record of .600 sends your team to the World Series; batting .400 lands a player in the Hall of Fame.  Its a rare year indeed when the team coming out of the Final Four has run the table.  But....in business, as we all learn eventually, statistics like these make for lonely days and nail biting nights. 

'Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail may stop the postmen from their appointed rounds', but neither are they excuses for flowers that are too little, too big, bloomed out or not colorful enough.  Selling service, personality, expertise, or creativity is all for naught if the so called factors out of your control take over and change the equation.  Dealing with Mother Nature is a fickle and frightening enterprise.

So...you cover all the bases you can.  You double down on...or up...as the case may be, on numbers.  Perhaps ten percent overage is enough, but let's be safe as long as there's still a margin to be had.  After all, a deer might run through, followed by all the canines on the farm.  A straight line wind might play grim reaper and windrow a hundred pots against their neighbors.  These occurrences are not hypotheticals; they are data points on the graph of experience.

There isn't a safety net in this small business. 'Don't look back.  Something might be gaining on you,' is the admonishment of Satchel Paige.  With the admission of imperfection comes the wedge of vulnerability.  Someone, somewhere, is growing, and selling, and trying their darnedest to make a living too.  Maybe someday it will be easy and we can all get lazy and fat and dumb and happy.  

Or maybe not.  More likely, we will continue to scrape and worry and use all the means at our disposal to grow row upon row of mums as perfect as soap bubbles but durable as basketballs. We'll sweat in the summer and chill in the rain.  We'll admire our handiwork marching four by four in the slanting golden light of autumn.  

Yes, indeedy.  We have the cuts and scars and pulled muscles to prove we built that.   Not only that, but we'll pick up the pieces and build it all again if we need to.