Arm yourself simply.
Hold some basic facts. Forewarned,
against fresh nonsense.
Praemonitus, praemunitus in the latin or at least close to the forewarned is forearmed.
Get your facts.
Learn from the facts.
Beware the fresh nonsense.
Don’t forget that when the Good Witch of the North told the Wicked Witch of the West to “Be off, before somebody drops a house on you.”
The Wicked Witch of the West … looks up.
Name an iron man?
Heaven looks graciously down
Freedom still calls him
This country used to celebrate the birthday of George Washington.
Along came Mr. Lincoln and it seemed only fair to give him a day a well. At least in Illinois.
Somewhere along the line, as General Washington and Mr. Lincoln moved further away in the rear view mirror, it seemed unfair that the other President’s would be held to such a standard and the day morphed into President’s Day though there is some confusion.
There is more confusion over the day itself.
The February 11th vs. February 22nd story but not to get into that today.
Carl Sandburg wrote of The General;
“The name of an iron man goes over the world.
It takes a long time to forget an iron man.“
I have been to his home.
I have been to the top o hisf monument.
I have been to his grave.
I have been to the place where he might have been buried in the US Capitol Building.
I have seen the interesting interpretation of him by Horatio Greenough that caused much discussion in 1840 and today.
As a side note, Greenough also sculpted a group of figures for the East Front of the US Captiol.
The sculpture depicted a Danial Boone type grabbing a Native American warrior about to tomahawk chop a settler woman and her baby.
The sculpture was titled, “The Rescue” and can been seen in photographs of the Lincoln Inaugeration.
The statue was removed during the 1958 renovation of the US Capitol and never returned.
There are reports that while moving it in storage, the Smithsonian dropped it.
To return the General.
I agree with Sandburg.
It takes along time to forget an iron man.
The more I read and the more I study the man, more the myth of the man falls away.
It all seems true.
When you match up The General against the other guys who have held office, I am telling you, The General deserves his day.
To even think to compare him to other Presidents is just dumb.
The current President came to mind as I thought about The General.
Maybe it was too much to expect anyone to match up the guy who has a 555 foot monument outside your bedroom window.
To give the current President a break, I turned from The General as President and as General to Washington the boy.
I turned to the story of George Washington and the Cherry tree.
I got as far as the line, “Father I cannot tell a lie.”
‘Tis Washington’s health–fill a bumper all round,
For he is our glory and pride.
Our arms shall in battle with conquest be crown’d
Whilst virtue and he’s on our side.
‘Tis Washington’s health–loud cannons should roar,
And trumpets the truth should proclaim:
There cannot be found, search all the world o’er,
His equal in virtue and fame.
‘Tis Washington’s health–our hero to bless,
May heaven look graciously down:
Oh! Long may he live, our hearts to possess,
And freedom still call him her own.
WASHINGTON MONUMENT BY NIGHT by Carl Sandburg
The stone goes straight.
A lean swimmer dives into night sky,
Into half-moon mist.
Two trees are coal black.
This is a great white ghost between.
It is cool to look at,
Strong men, strong women, come here.
Eight years is a long time
To be fighting all the time.
The republic is a dream.
Nothing happens unless first a dream.
The wind bit hard at Valley Forge one Christmas.
Soldiers tied rags on their feet.
Red footprints wrote on the snow . . .
. . . and stone shoots into stars here
. . . into half-moon mist tonight.
Tongues wrangled dark at a man.
He buttoned his overcoat and stood alone.
In a snowstorm, red hollyberries, thoughts, he stood alone.
Women said: He is lonely
. . . fighting . . . fighting . . . eight years . . .
The name of an iron man goes over the world.
It takes a long time to forget an iron man.
forget, remember
full drawers, empty folders
remember, forget
What makes a memory?
What do I forget to remember?
What do I remember to forget?
What is it in a memory that lasts a lifetime makes it a memory to last a lifetime?
Sometimes I can remember the general folder heading but the files are blank.
Science tells me that it isn’t so much the memory but what is going on around me.
Am I engaged in something that blocks out all other sensations so that whatever I am doing gets the full attention of my brain.
A moment, so to speak, where time stops.
An example given in the science books is riding on a roller coaster.
The event so over all envelopes or overwhelms all your senses that the memory is written into your subconscious with a sharpie.
I don’t know about roller coasters.
I don’t like them so I avoid them.
I will say that the two times I rode one are INDEED written indelibly into my memory.
I was talked into riding the Splendid Splinter by my then high school age kids.
Who wants to tell their highschoolers they are scared.
I had already ridden on the whirlpool or tilt a whirl or whatever it was called with Jack and D’asia (age 10 and 9, that ride that curled and twisted upside down.
I was so harnessed into my seat I felt secure enough.
Though the little kid sitting next to me tapped my arm and said, “Mister, it is more fun with your eyes open.”
It was on the Splendid Splinter that I discovered a latent fear of heights and came within an eyeblink of a full blown anxiety / panic attack.
What else makes a memory for a lifetime?
What else in my experience took over all my senses?
I will tell you.
When I was 16 I was at the beach with my family.
Some of sister Lisa’s friends were there as well.
I was standing at the bottom of some stairs when Lisa’s friend Leslie came walking up.
Lisa was 2 years older than and so was Leslie.
At that age, a grand canyon of differnece.
She was wearing a one piece swim suit that can be described as, well, brief.
She was drop dead out of this world.
Girls who looked like that did not inhabit my world.
I waited each year for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition and here next to me, someone had walked off the page of the magazine.
I said a quick prayer, “Lord, help me help help me be cool.”
I caught her eye.
She stopped.
“Nice suit,” I blurted out.
She fixed me what I later came to know as the Berg stare and rolled her eyes.
She walked past and up the stairs and I watched her all the way.
In the control room of my brain all the guys in white lab coats who were in control my voice were screaming, ” I didn’t do it, or, “Not me!”
Nice suit?
Nice suit?
NICE SUIT!
OH COME ON!.
I have to say that I did notice that as Leslie went up the stairs, there was a little more swish and sway to her walk.
But still, geeee whiz.
Nice suit?
Oh brother.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
I couldn’t beleive it.
She was all legs and curves and tan and I needed the crayola crayons labeled DORK and NERD to draw me at that point.
All I wanted to say was something to catch her attention.
Something that might stick in HER memory.
Just a little bit of cool.
I spent the rest of the day hiding under a beach towel.
But that moment was engraved into my memory.
I thought of it often.
I still do.
Fast forward 14 years.
Over those 14 years Leslie and I ran into each other with common friends and church youth groups.
But as friends, little bit more than acquaintances.
Then one day we happened to meet (a story for another time) and I got all my nerve and I asked her out.
She said yes.
I had a date with this same Leslie Berg.
I arrived on time to pick her up.
She invited me in.
I brought flowers.
Actions speak louder than words and I did not trust myself to speak.
She looked, well, gorgeous.
Flat out glittering.
Captivating!
I was captivated!
I managed to say, “You look fabulous.”
She smiled and said “thank you, ” and turned get her coat.”
As she turned, she said over her shoulder, “nice suit?”
Puzzle of Puzzles
Puzzled and Puzzled until
my puzzler was sore
Some one went out and bought 10 jigsaw puzzles.
All the boxes were opened and the pieces were dumped into one large tub and mixed and shaken into a real mess.
I was given the 10 box covers and all the pieces were dumped on me and I was told to fix the mess.
What do I next?
Where to start?
Someone might sort out all the pieces. Can’t do anything until there is some semblance of order to this mess.
Someone might say study all the covers and select the cover photo that looks the easiest and most identifialbe and start looking for those pieces.
I did not say that the cover photo that is the most identifiable is the easiest puzzle because one of the puzzles is titled FINANCES. You can see all these pieces because each and everyone is black. Easy to get all these pieces together in one pile. Near impossible to assemble the puzzle.
Someone might say, just dig in and start putting pieces together. Look for the edges and at least get the frame of each puzzle can be assembled.
Where to start.
Where to find the energy to start.
Where to find the energy to WANT to start.
Easier to find reasons to not start than to dig in.
I looked at the puzzle of puzzles and I puzzled and puzzed until my puzzler was sore.
I was sore as well.
Not much was getting done.
In the new book, War and Peace: FDR’s Final Odyssey: D-Day to Yalta, 1943–1945, I ran across a story told by General Eisenhower the other day, quoting Mr. Churchill.
I had never heard this quote before and according to the footnote, the author Nigel Hamilton, credits it to an Draft Memoir in the Eisenhower Library.
Ike wrote about Churchill: “When “fired up about a strategic project, logistics did not exist for him,” Eisenhower reflected, “the combat troops just floated forward over and around obstacles—nothing was difficult.
Once I charged him with this habit, saying, ‘Prime Minister, when you want to do something you dismiss logistics with a wave of your hand,’” but when disliking a proposal, he would list so many “‘logistic difficulties’” he would “effectively discourage any unwary listener.”
The Prime Minister “looked at me with a twinkle in his eye,” Eisenhower remembered, replying candidly: “‘It does make a difference whether your heart is in a project, doesn’t it?'”
It does make a difference whether your heart is in a project, doesn’t it?
That’s pretty good.
My heart is IN this project.
I can do this.
I can sort out this mess.
I WILL sort out this mess.
Now get in here and help me.
You go for the black pieces while I work on edges.
I leave tomorrow
how will I get there today
I want to break free
A benefit of a long commute is time to think.
It’s my thoughtful spot I guess.
In The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne writes, “Halfway between Pooh’s house and Piglet’s house was a Thoughtful Spot where they met sometimes when they had decided to go and see each other, and as it was warm and out of the wind they would sit down there for a little and wonder what they would do now that they had seen each other. One day when they had decided not to do anything, Pooh made up a verse about it, so that everybody should know what the place was for.”
This warm and sunny Spot
Belongs to Pooh.
And here he wonders what
He’s going to do.
On another rainy morning, I merged onto the the freeway, got in my line and switched to auto pilot and began to think.
Think, think, think.
I had been talking with my wife that this was shaping up as the summer of the big change.
Lots of new things are coming from new babies to new places to live and lots in between.
Most of what might happen depends on what will happen first.
And when.
My list of things to think about in my thoughtful spot got longer and longer and more involved until I felt like I had gone into a revolving door and came out earlier than I had gone in.
Or was it later?
I can’t leave until tomorrow.
But I have to be there today.
I went back into the revolving door again and again and kept coming out at places I didn’t want to be.
Or at least wasn’t ready to be.
Traffic came to a sudden slow down and I came off auto pilot and back to this world.
Songs had been playing on from my iPhone in the background.
The next song’s intro starting playing.
I recognized the tune and a smile came across my face and my heart lifted out of the mud.
I turned up the volume.
Freddie Mercury sang, “I WANT TO BE FREE.”
For a few minutes, I was.
Not for the first time and not for the last, I want to be free.
Me, Freddie and most everybody.
I got to laugh.
And I got to laugh at myself.
I got out of the revolving door and entered another door.
And drove on through the rain to work.
No Haiku For You 