walking with ghosts

I haven't blogged for a long time, I know. My fingers have failed me. A Thanksgiving accident resulted in 13 stitches in my right index finger and now, almost a month later, I'm still wearing a sleeve on it and it's full of fluid. Alas, for me.

Walking the old Farmington Canal with my dog has me walking with ghosts.

They are Arlene, Gary, Tim, Jack, Shirley and Jennifer. We walk by 6 benches each day and each is a memorial to one of the ones above. So, as we walk, we walk with them.

Each bench has a plaque to the person it is a memorial for and the inscriptions go from the sublime to the banal to bad theology.

Arlene was a Lion Club member and her bench was given by the Lions and acknowledges her commitment to the club. Fine enough.

Gary was a Chief of Police and probably lots of people contributed to his memorial bench. It quotes the great song by saying, "he helped a lot of people but the good they die young". He wasn't Abraham, Martin or John, but he was, for all I've heard, a good man who dropped dead of a heart attack in his early 50's.

Tim was only 20 or so and his bench reminds those who pass that he was 'an angel to us all'. And, for all I know, he was.

Jack's bench is next and I can't even remember what it says about him: something about a good son, father, husband friend. I just imagine that was true.

Shirley's is my favorite. It must have been given by her friends--she was an older woman and undoubtedly walked the canal with friends because it says, at the end, "she still walks with us...." Lovely, I think.

Jennifer's is the last on our walk. She was just short of 11 when she dies. This is the 'bad theology' bench though I think of her and hold her in my heart most of all. Such a tragic age to die. No longer a child and not even an adolescent. Jennifer walks with me, holding my hand once in a while, skipping ahead, running full speed for a bit, staring at the ducks and wishing she had something to feed them.

Her plaque says, I remember every word, "God broke our heart to show us He only takes the best."

Christ on a bike, follow that theology to it's conclusion and try to face the morning....!

The good die young is bad enough, since it isn't true. But living with a God that takes 'the best' and breaks our heart....I can't abide it.

Which is why I want to walk with Jennifer most of all....to let her know that I think her death was tragic, unspeakable, awful, unfair and that God didn't take her to break her parents' hearts, she just died, tragically, unfairly and God loved her, not because God 'took her' but because she lived. And that God's heart broke that she died before she could grow up and learn and grow and fuck up and grow from that and be who she might have been....had children, been a grandmother, voted, had a drink, changed the world, mourned and gloried....Stuff like that.

The Puli seems to see these people as we pass. He stops at every bench and sniffs them, but never pees on them. Just checking in on Arlene, Gary, Tim, Jack, Shirley and Jennifer as we walk with them.

toc tpig

That's what "touch typing" looks like when your right index finger is in a splint. The letters you can't touch type are j, u, y, h, m and n. And I realize that someone who has touch typed for over 40 years, like me, doesn't know where the keys are located--my fingers know, but my brain doesn't. And you left hand doesn't function well if you are hunting and pecking the right hand's letters....

Well, back to the beginning--just starting to put the food out yesterday for Mimi, Tim, our friends Hanne and John and us, when I grabbed a knob to open a drawer and get a spoon to fold in the pumpkin seeds into the cranberry and clementine sauce I made when the knob, which was made of glass, shattered and cut a huge gash in my finger. When half a dozen band aids and about 2 feet of gauze wouldn't staunch the bleeding, the consensus was that John and Mimi would take me to the ER while Tim and Bern put stuff in a warm oven and Hanne fretted about my finger.

This could be an ad for Midstate Hospital in Meriden. Everyone in the ER was full of holiday warmth and good cheer. I had about 7 helpful, charming medical staff work with me while engaging John and Mimi in banter. Mimi took pictures with her phone and emailed them to Tim throughout the whole bloody process.

About an hour, lots of cleaning, Xrays to look for glass and 13 stitches later we were on our way home. I think Mimi emailed Tim a picture of the parking lot to let the folks at home know we were on our way. Food was ready and all were hungry and it was a great meal--you know how stuff sometimes tastes better the next day? Even a couple of hours seemed to add pleasure.

The problem is I have a splint to keep me from bumping the finger (a smart thing for someone as clumsy as me) and I'm reminded about every 20 seconds of how completely 'right handed' I am....it's not just to7cy t6pigg that's difficult, most every thing is....

Happy Thanksgiving....

Norman makes 5

Norman was in his late 50's when I was in my early 30's--maybe he was already 60.

We used to play a lot of tennis. I was much younger and more athletic and he beat me like a drum.

Once he asked me how I missed easy shots but got lots of difficult shots.

I told him, and it was true--not only in my tennis playing but in my life--"first, you have to be out of position most of them time. Then you learn to get those shots...."

Norman died this morning. In the past few months Reed and Kay and Bill and Susan have died. I preached at all there memorial services. Someone has to find who's doing this and stop them!

Norman was a gentle, humorous, lovely, urbane, sophisticated man. Mostly things I'm not (except for the humorous part). He was a member of St. Paul's in New Haven when I was the Rector there. He supported me beyond what was deserved. I loved him greatly.

A month or more ago, we went to his 90th birthday party. Jeanne, his long time companion was there and most of his family. He'd been through a bad--no, horrible--heath situation and came out on the other side.

It was quick and merciful, as he would have wanted, his dying, I mean.

I'm just tired of people dying. There must be a better way. It just pisses me off. Big time.

Only nasty rotten people should die. Dear ones like these five should go on and on.

When People Die, a friend of mine once wrote for a mutual friend who did die, It's like a bird flying into a window on a chill day....

Just that awful. Just that bad.

Hold on to the ones you love who live on....Hold on tight....

is uniformity too much to ask for?

Credit card gizmos is what comes up most often for me.

Would it be too much to ask that they all be alike? Sometimes I slide my card and feel like I'm lost in the Sahara Desert. I have no idea what to do. I have to ask the clerk for help.

I know I'm getting older and feeble minded, but it would be simpler if all credit card swipe machines were alike. Is that too much to ask?

There's not enough uniformity--and this is from a left-wing nut (normally a supporter of freedom and diversity and the human option to be different)--in our culture.

I went looking for a new pair of sneakers the other day. I went to two stores and there were simply too many choices. I froze up and couldn't do anything but pick up weird looking shoes and stare at them. I really need a new pair of shoes for walking on the canal and at the Y. But I am overwhelmed by the selection. I don't want that many choices. I just don't.

Same thing applies to dental floss. Have you noticed lately that the choices in dental floss have become overwhelming? I went to CVS, Rite Aid and Stop and Shop and in all three cases, I simply couldn't choose between dozens of options. I want one tape dental floss and one string like dental floss. I don't care if they are flavored or not.

Back to shoes--there should be like three styles of loafers, four styles of sneakers, five styles of dress shoes and three styles of winter shoes. That would be enough, thank you, and wouldn't make me crazy and unable to buy shoes. I have a pair of winter shoes I got from Harriet's father after he died, a pair of loafers that must be ten years old and I hate (bought, doubtlessly because I had too many choices, two pairs of sneakers--both worn out and irreplaceable because I have too many choices, a pair of Berkenstock sandals that are like the last three pairs I've had (each lasting a couple of years) and a pair of 'dress' Crocks--black, no holes. Unless things get more uniform and simple, I'm stuck with that footware.

Couldn't things get simple and uniform? Am I just crazy?....don't answer that....

ok, so t his is a rant....

I am, by admission, a National Public Radio junkie. I love NPR. I want my NPR.

One of the things I love about NPR is all the stuff they do about science. Amazing stuff. My mind boggles, my heart races, I am confounded and inspired. Even a confirmed Humanities nerd like me is fascinated by, enhanced by, challenged and hooked by Science.

The constant refrain of all the Physicists, Earth Scientists, Chemists and even more esoteric segments of science and math I encounter on NPR is this: The US has to begin competing again in Science and Math.

My quandary is simple: how do we propose to do that when all the candidates for one of major party's nomination for President are still embroiled in denying evolution and global warming. How can that party--which can, by the way, block any legislation whatsoever--help us regain our leadership in Science and Math? How can anything happen when one of the major parties has wrapped themselves in a 19th century anti-intellectualism? Or, make that 14th century....Never has the time been riper for burning scientists at the stake since then....

And, until we allow teachers to 'teach' rather than 'test', how can we even imagine a turn-around in the steady drop among nations of the world of the US's standing in Science and Math?

Tell me that?

And if you disagree with me I'll probably just yell at you....

Sad news

Bob Ruthman, 92, died yesterday. Probably no one but his family and friends would have known that if it weren't for the fact that he was Andy Rooney's college roommate at Colgate in the '30's and Andy's life long friend.

He died at Andy's memorial service.

I know that is sad news, but I can't help thinking that by now Andy Rooney must have an office and a desk in the Kingdom of God and must be doing commentaries for the Heavenly Host.

I can just see him now, behind his desk, looking into the camera.

"Don't you just hate it when someone dies at your funeral?" He would say.

"Don't you think there are a few things left that are 'just for you'? Shouldn't that be true?"

Then he'd hold up his death certificate and say, "dying is a private thing. No one should horn in on your death by dying at your memorial service.

"Besides Bob and I shared a lot of things. It just doesn't seem right we'd have to share death as well. Bob deserved to die in a way that didn't get all over the internet. Thank God, and I mean that literally, we don't have internet here...."

Good-bye, Andy, I will sorely miss thee and the irony you brought to my world. And good-bye, Bob as well. Sorry you couldn't have a more private departure from this lovely sod.

Unfair

Poor Herman Cain, everyone's on his for alleged sexual abuse.

Heck, one of the women admitted that Cain asked, after he stuck his hand up her skirt and she objected, "You want a job don't you?"

Herman's was just trying to put Americans back to work....

Cut him some slack.

And my man, Mitt Romney. Everyone complains he has come down on both sides of every issue.

Heck, he's just proof that there is a parallel universe and he's stuck in this one.

Then there's Rick and Michele--ah, hell they're so down in the polls it isn't even fun to make fun of them.


****
My friend told me this joke.

Job is calling out to God about all the things he's had to endure though he's really done nothing to deserve the punishment.

"Oh God," Job says, "why me?"

"I don't know Job," God replies, "there's just something about you that pisses me off...."