Re-mission

My strength is returning more every day.  After several months of sickness and side effects, the thing that’s been eating me alive is full, and can eat no more.  My doctor tells me that I am officially in remission.

Recently, I’ve been planning to head down to Working Bikes in Chicago with a cycling buddy for a day of volunteering.  Their mission is re-mission, only theirs is to re-purpose old bicycles that Americans discard and send them off to third world countries, where bikes are sources of transportation and revenue.  I’ve been working on an old 1986 Cannondale I’m planning to donate, a testimony to the fine work that the bike builders in Bedford, Pennsylvania put into their products.  Most of the bike is intact, but after 25 years, it was time for an overhaul.  Like me, after a few painful procedures that tore it open and removed some grime, it was put back together again, nearly good as new.  Both the old green bike and I are ready to get rolling again.  

At the end of the day, the ‘86 will be carefully set aside for loading into a shipping crate.  Now that its re-mission is complete, I hope it is excited as I am to see where it ends up.  It’s tempting to crawl inside the shipping container as a stowaway to see where it goes, who gets it, and how it performs for the next 25 years; but that’s pretty unrealistic. 

Sometimes it’s more fun to make up a story when you just don’t know where things are headed.  

-sw

Pender

“hey, got a minute?... I can’t get the apple logo off the screen of my iPhone.”
“That’s because its backwards.  It’s okay, Pender...everyone does that.”

I cringe every time I hear that question out of Pender’s mouth.  At 53, his anger arrives in a flash, yet he insists on owning devices that frustrate him.  “Got a minute” is his code for: “I have been stumped by this electronic device; now I feel insecure about my age and stupid that I must ask for help.  In order to maintain my appearance of calm, you must make up an excuse that both exonerates me and places the blame squarely on the software developer.”

This is the guy who volunteered to take a picture for a couple wearing Packers jerseys on Navy Pier so he could toss their camera into Lake Michigan and tell them their team sucked.  He continually points out spelling errors, mocking people who fail to follow the “-end in friend” rule.  Waitresses pour drinks in his lap, and nursing mothers call him a pervert.  Our office cleaning lady forks the evil eye and spits at him; and he is no longer allowed inside the Brookfield Zoo after trying to fight a Kangaroo.  He can’t download an email attachment, is repeatedly confused by the three boxes in the upper right right corner of his screen, and often hits “reply all” with inappropriate comments about other people in his email chains.  He’s a real-life Michael Scott, minus the good intentions.

We shared an office for a few years with six other consultants looking to establish an legitimate mailing address.  Pender’s name was supposedly on the lease, and he appointed himself the de facto office manager for a group who neither needed nor wanted office management.  For a while no one minded, until someone brought in brownies on a random Wednesday.  

If you’re familiar with a gluten-free diet, you know that consuming wheat flour can land a person in the hospital.  But not consuming it can also land a person in the hospital, when the person not consuming it starts throwing insults and punches at the well-intentioned baker.  Pender’s anger led to six stitches above his left eye and a broken Keurig, and no question that he resents both his celiac and feeling excluded from the group.  Several consultants moved out, replaced by three new freelancers who looked puzzled upon receiving my warning to never feed the bear.  

Last week, the other tenants decided not to sign a new lease until they’d made a new arrangement with our property manager.  With all of the interpersonal struggles surrounding Pender, it may be tempting to think he is aware of the problem, but he is not.  He’s the product of a dysfunctional home, was never coached to play well with others, and continually plays the wounded victim role to his advantage.  Yet if you ask him, Pender genuinely believes all the blame can placed at another pair of feet, and that he is always in the clear.

Recently, a cop friend told me that in all the times he’s interviewed people after an accident, he’s never heard a person include themselves in their crash stories.  He hears “the other guy cut me off,” or “she just came out of nowhere,” or “they jumped out right in front of me,” but never hears someone admit their own part in being distracted.  For all the words which could be chosen, the most difficult remain the ones which provide a measure of grace to the other party involved.

The Poison Walnut

Along the edge of my Uncle Bob’s sprawling property stood an incredibly beautiful tree.  It was a Black Walnut, and towered over the shallow spring-fed pond that once watered dairy cows and served as a nautical landing pad for area mallards.  

For the first five years I lived there, I would forget about the tree entirely until the third week of August, when my friend Carl would throw one of its green fruits squarely between my shoulders, leaving a dark stain from its hull on whatever shirt he’d just ruined.  His annual first volley sparked a brief but filthy war for the first two weeks of each school year, usually ending only when his alcoholic father sobered up enough to wonder why his son’s new school clothes were peppered with walnut husks, then peppering him with fisticuffs until Carl promised to stop.

In addition to providing plentiful “kid ammo,” the walnut trees also provided a weird side effect--they produced a soil toxin called Juglone, which prevents all but the most tolerant species from surviving near the parent tree.  Staining a new sweatshirt was one thing, but poisoning the orchard was another--we always had enough sense to keep our skirmishes far from our family orchard.  Once the Juglone broke down in the soil, it stayed there for a long time, working through the soil layers until it broke down.  We’d seen the apple trees near the pond Walnut wither and die, and knew that spreading the rotten fruit further would only poison a larger area.  

After she saw its affecting the soil conditions on the nearest row of Heirloom trees, my Aunt Hester finally got pissed enough to cut it down.  She went at the tree with all five feet of her Filipino fury and my Uncle’s new Stihl chainsaw.  After 10 minutes, she dropped it into the pond, then had one of our hired hands wrap a tractor chain around it and drag it to the edge of the road, where she sold it off and made out pretty well. Very few trees fetch a better dollar for lumber than Walnut.

Quite a few people wondered how I’d react, thinking I would miss the tree that had stood on the property my late parents had turned into Quercitin Farms. Quite a few people were surprised that I turned out glad to see it go.  

There continue to be some great bass in the pond below, and I find it’s easier to cast into their favorite spots without that stupid tree getting in the way each day.  With the money that Hester made selling it off, she bought a pair of new four wheelers, which made getting around the farm both easier and more fun.  More than anything, I’m just glad not to have to smell it anymore, or step over it, or spend time working around it.  Lots of people thought it was a great tree, but they didn’t have to live with it everyday.  

A few fun facts about Juglone toxicity, and an odd social parallel:
Juglone poisons the soil and prevents certain species from thriving or surviving.  Some species are completely unaffected due to their genetic makeup.  Some species survive, but never thrive; still other species don’t flourish until the poison is completely gone.

For years after removing a Black Walnut, toxins in the soil persist, and new plants sensitive to their poison will not fare well.  This exclusionary mechanism allows walnut trees to colonize areas and prevent competition, by stifling other species' ability to breathe, survive, or flourish.

When a poisonous social or business attitude persists, it greatly affects the surrounding “ orchards ” and their culture.  For every strong personality who can survive a toxic environment, there is another who is consumed, unless extraordinary outside measures provide support.

The question remains:  for the organization who finds itself growing a Black Walnut, is it better to clean up their droppings each year to limit their poisonous impact, or is it better to cut the tree down, throw a chain around it, and sell it off for lumber?

Ulysses the Brilliant Jackass

In the ninth grade, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Hester returned to the Philippines for six months to care for Hester’s ailing father, while I stayed at home with the world’s most brilliant jackass.  His name was Ulysses, and he was technically a donkey, but our family always referred to the breed by the other name.  It was just more fun to say.

Equus asinus asinus, aka the burro, Ulysses was a local celebrity around my late parents’ apple farm.  Every fourth grade class took a field trip to Quercetin Farms, and every field trip got hitched to Ulysses hay wagon to visit the “last year trees” which would soon be taken out of production.  Inevitably, a student would ask my father the name of his donkey.   “Ulysses, dear...” my father would answer, “...and he’s a brilliant jackass.”

Each year, another group of Mrs. Anderson’s fourth graders would marvel at him.  Area graduates recalled Ulysses climbing onto the school bus in order to open the emergency exit and walk off onto our loading dock.  My father had trained him to bring up the paper up from the township road, and Ulysses faithfully delivered to the porch in return for an apple slice and a thank you.  He stomped his hoof to answer simple math problems:  “Ulysses, how many bushels are on the table?”  Clop, clop, clop, clop.  “That’s right, four!  Now if I fed you one, how many would be left?”  Clop, clop, clop.  “Right again!”  He’d even been written up in a special feature in the Star Ledger by a visiting North Jersey reporter whose family farm bordered our own.

Aside from a long list of parlor tricks, Ulysses had the innate ability to pick the losing contender from a pair of potential candidates.  The spring Top Gun came out, we all laughed at Val Kilmer’s “Iceman” macho character clicking and baring his teeth at Maverick, and we’d spent the next eight weeks clicking our own teeth together and calling each other a loser.  Along the way, we noticed Ulysses began clicking his own teeth together in fake bite--every time one of us said the word “loser.”  

One afternoon, we asked Ulysses who would lose in a bike race--me or my childhood friend Carl--and Ulysses clicked his teeth at Carl.  20 minutes and a lap around the farm later, the jackass started a winning streak that didn’t end for the next 14 years.

Ulysses started his guessing locally by calling the results of a local mayor’s race, successfully picking a crusty old farmer named Willard as the loser.  He was flawless in picking local football teams, gained notoriety calling the Patriot’s one-and-fifteen losing record in 1990, and correctly picked the losing candidates from Dukakis, Bush Sr. and Dole.  Only in 2000 did his record become flawed, but at least he was in good company.  Most of the country thought Bush Jr. was a loser, too.  

This summer, I spent a few weeks back east at Bob and Hester’s, recovering between treatments and catching up on Bob’s first year of retirement.  We spent a few afternoons on the farm, trading watercolor techniques and marveling at effectiveness of the near invisible hearing aids Bob now wears.  On our last day together, I visited Ulysses, still hanging on around the farm in his golden years.  Old, feeble, and near his final days, his long bristly ears still perked up when he heard my voice, and he clicked his teeth twice at me right off.  

“Hey old timer, I haven’t even asked you my question yet,” I objected, but he only clicked his teeth at me again.  I’d planned on asking him who he’d pick as the loser between me and my cancer, but instead stopped and thought better of it.  Ulysses is, after all, still a jackass.

"Man Quiz"

If you're a man who's been together with your partner for more than two years, you know that the days of trying to impress to “get some” are long gone.  Relationships change as time goes on, and domestic roles evolve with each stage of family life.  But every relationship requires active effort to keep alive, let alone healthy.  When a relationship matures past the bedroom, how do we measure up in the other rooms of the house?  The role we play in every room demonstrates the respect we hold for our mates.  

Fellas, here’s a short quiz for you to take stock of your standing:

1)  If the laundry basket is full, I:

a)  throw more laundry on top of it
b)  bring it to the washing machine and separate lights from darks
c)  what’s a laundry basket?

2)  If the dishwasher needs to be emptied, I:
a)  leave my dirty dishes on the counter
b)  empty it
c)  why would my wife need to be emptied?

3)  If the bed needs to be made, I:
a)  sleep in it anyway
b)  straighted up the sheets and comforter
c)  throw dirty clothes on it because the laundry basket is still full

4)  If the toilet bowl or seat is dirty, I:
a)  go in the yard
b)  grab the cleaning supplies and give it a quick wipe
c)  make it dirtier

5)  If I am hungry and it’s dinner time, I:
a)  order out from my favorite takeout place
b)  cook something edible

c)stand at the refrigerator door and look back and forth between it and my wife, hoping she will take the hint.

If you answered A or C more than twice, question 6 is a follow up:
6)  How’s living with your mother these days?
a)  awesome, I love doing nothing around the house
b)  pretty good, but she looks shorter than I remember her as a kid
c)  not good, she still yells at me for playing video games all day

At 94 years old, it’s unfathomable to my Grandma that a man would (or could) cook dinner.  It was acceptable for a man to construct a room, but certainly not maintain it afterwards--this was the infamous "women's work," and surely no willing man would serve his family by preparing a meal or giving his kids a bath.  The expectations upon a modern man include not only professional competency, as was expected in Grandma's day, but domestic competency.  


Simply put, a man today should not be dependent upon his partner to feed, clothe, and dress him along with the children.

In the midst of full and part-time work schedules, regularly examining our domestic roles can avoid fostering the unspoken resentment seen in many families between partners.  Life is simply too busy to place the onerous of maintaining a house on the shoulders of one partner. Men, we didn't marry our mothers, we didn’t marry a cleaning service, and we didn’t marry a drive through window.  At one point, we found a woman who was worth the effort, and it’s really not that hard to show her we still care.

Shrinking and Growing

Around my neighborhood, there are a few families who are comfortable hanging out and talking openly about God, and even though our views may not be identical, I look forward to the times when we can chill together and be honest about our thoughts and experiences. I’m continually seeking to grow in my faith, but find that the opportunities often come in the form of gathering with friends who don’t attend a traditional church...and I’m growing a little jealous of them with each passing day.

Each Sunday, we gather, talk about things that only we understand, then go away and gather again the following week. We collect an offering, watch as personalities occasionally collide, and put on our best faces as we rush out the door to the next great thing. In the face of programs and meetings about more programs, am I really living as Christ intended?

Every Thursday, my family attends a small group study with several other friends. We share a meal together, we catch up on each other’s lives, pray for one another, and study Bible passages to determine how they apply to our lives. We were the offshoot of a much larger group, and set out on our own to make room for newcomers and convene in a more manageable size, but our little group is shrinking.

As my interest in Sunday’s corporate gathering shrinks, my convictions regarding Thursday’s small groups are strengthened. It is in this more intimate setting where relationships mature and understanding is reached. As my friend’s Aunt Hester says, “too many cooks and you end up getting lost in the pot.”

If you’ve read this far, there’s a chance you’ve thought about your role in the world, and asked why you’re here in this time and place. “Why are we here?” ranks among the oldest and most disputed of debates, and it’s a question I love exploring, especially when it’s with someone who moves beyond academics into tangibly demonstrating their love for people hurting or in need.

I sat down at a table this past Sunday with a couple I’d never met, and after a few moments of introduction, was incredibly encouraged by the way strangers with a common faith can immediately develop a bond. Decades apart in age but seated only a few feet away, we both recognized that the question “why are we here?” has a continually evolving tangible answer, as we first take stock of where we are, then find opportunities to serve those who are “here” with us.

Rikki the Pet Towel

Growing up in a tiny Filipino village without most of the things I take for granted, my Aunt Hester was so poor that a family pet was a luxury way beyond her means.  She told me, “ ‘Hester, too many mouths to feed!’ were my grandmother’s words, when I asked about keeping a housepet.”  So she let the subject drop outwardly, but inwardly began to breathe life into the inanimate objects around her.


“A doll would just get stolen, and we could not afford one anyway, so I snatched a finely embroidered tea towel from my grandmother’s bureau, and was delighted when he introduced himself as Rikki.  I would play with him each day, tuck him back into the bureau each night, then fetch him again the following morning, not knowing that my Lola always knew and allowed me to do so.  As if I could sneak something by my Lola!  It was many years later that I learned Rikki was a wedding gift from her own Grandmother, which she patiently watched her little granddaughter tie into doll shapes, drag through the mud, and tuck in with love each night.  As it became more ruined in her eyes, it became more precious in mine. ”


Age, personality, and proximity kept my mother and Uncle Bob from ever being close.  Dad optimistically took this as a challenge, and when Bob and Hester moved back to the states on furlough, Dad was quick to volunteer his time updating their parsonage and allowing Bob to take a rest and take in a few Steely Dan shows.  Dad said he loved the idea of serving someone who served so many, and hoped it would be a springboard toward closeness in the life of his wife and brother-in-law.


During the summer of ‘82, Dad renovated their kitchen, tearing out a wall, tiling the floor, and building the breakfast bar that I would spend hours at for years later.  Toward the end of construction, he spotted Rikki sitting on one of the new countertops and made a mental note--with an updated kitchen, who wanted ratty old rags laying around?


He finished grouting the backsplash on a Friday night, with just a few minutes to toss the last of the construction debris into the backyard burn can before my mother arrived with pizza and cold beer to toast a job well done.  Dad’s optimism had been working, as Mom and Uncle Bob had spent more time together in the previous month than they had in the past 10 years.


That stopped after Mom brought in a gift basket for the new kitchen, filled with cooking gadgets, hand soaps, and a selection of new dish towels matched to the kitchen.  “We noticed the old one was pretty worn, so I picked up some new ones at Penny’s...hopefully the color’s all right; if not, I can always exchange them...”


That was all I remember before Hester turned and screamed, as she saw my father casually toss Rikki into the burn can and head back toward the house.  Rikki never stood a chance, and Dad never stood inside the new kitchen, or inside Hester’s good graces, again.  Swearing at them, she chased my confused parents off the porch and back into Mom’s little Subaru before Dad could unload the beer, and Mom and Dad stayed up late drinking Rolling Rock after trying to patch things up on the phone with Uncle Bob.

When my parents took their fateful doses of tainted Tylenol the next morning to ease their aching heads, it was Hester who was first to arrive when I called in a panic, it was Hester who followed the ambulance to the hospital, and it was Hester who informally adopted me throughout the duration of my childhood.  For me, the sins of the father were not passed down to the son.


Even so, it was years before she let me dry the dishes in the new kitchen, and even longer before I could light the burn pit without first counting the towels.