Emptiness

Uncle Lewis died of a heart attack in February of 1961. We tried to drive to New Jersey to attend his funeral but were turned back by a heavy snow storm. I’m sure Dad was extremely unhappy about that, but there was nothing he could do. Taking an airplane was not an option for a family struggling to get by.

Mom died of a heart attack in March of 1966. That came as a total shock to me. I’d never been told that she had a bad heart. She died just short of her sixty-sixth birthday. Her death hit me hard and, forty-three years later, it still hurts.

Between Uncle Lewis and Mom, I had a few other aunts and uncles die. I also had a childhood friend killed in a car wreck. Death was not new to me, but Mom was the first person who was so dear to me.

Her funeral turned into a big reunion; that angered me. I grew angrier as people told me they knew exactly how I felt. People deeply grieving don’t want to hear such words.

A lot of years have passed since Mom’s funeral. Come to think of it, so have all my remaining aunts and uncles… and my father. Dad died in 1974. He was eighty-two. Dad’s health was great until the last few months of his life. His health went down rapidly and – as much as I hate the platitudes – his death was a blessing.

Our family was able to go a number of years before we lost any other close members. In the late 1980’s we lost my sister Wilda’s husband, Jude. In the early 1990’s my sister Gert lost her husband, Mac. Those two men were both more than twenty years older than me; they were more like additional fathers than brothers-in-law. Although they had very different personalities and careers, they both served as role models to my brother Lewis and me.

In October 2002, we lost my brother, Seward (known to his friends as Bill). He’s the one who witnessed the atomic bomb test on the Bikini Atoll. He died of cancer and we can’t help believing that the radiation led to his terrible disease. Seward was seventy-four when he died.

Last month, Seward’s twin brother, Somers, passed away. Somers had a myriad of ailments that included Parkinson’s disease, a pulmonary problem resulting from exposure to asbestos, and a bad heart.

While we could pull out that old platitude – ‘His death was a blessing” – for both of the twins, it doesn’t make the void in my life any smaller.

I recently told some friends that losing Somers (known to his friends as Lew) was like losing the last part of a matching set. As long as Somers was alive, it seemed that Seward was there as well.

My brother, Lewis (known to his friends as Doug) wrote a letter to be read at Somers’ funeral. In it, he stated that it was difficult to think of one of the twins without thinking of them both. The family often talked about Seward and Somers. Their friends often talked about Bill and Lew.

The twins never dressed alike, but they often participated in the same events. They both loved sports and attended away games as often as home games. They both belonged to the same bowling leagues and took turns tending bar to supplement their incomes (to help pay for the road trips).

And now they’re both gone.

The twins were sixteen years older than me. In that respect, they were much like Jude and Mac… additional father figures and role models for Lewis and me.

Phil Coulter, the Irish songwriter who wrote the words recited in the video at the beginning of this post, composed a song called “The Old Man”. The words are of a man leaving the funeral of his father. He laments about all the things his father taught him and the wonderful times they had together. His final words…

“God, I miss him… the Old Man.”

God, I miss them… my parents, my brothers-in-law, and the twins.

I’m NOT a Salesman

During my career with IBM, I was occasionally asked to go into sales. As a Systems Engineer and customer education instructor, I had a thorough knowledge of the product line. That is something IBM held in high regard way back when.

My answer was always “No” because of my personality. While I could firmly believe that I knew what was best for a customer, I never felt I was persuasive enough to convince anybody that I was right. Furthermore, being a ‘people person’ I would not be able to convince a customer to spend money on IBM equipment if it meant laying off employees to fit the expense into the budget.

So, here I am – many years later – trying to sell a ‘product’ to the members of my church. While I am convinced it is the best solution to our on-going problem (paying the mortgage), I doubt if I’ll be able to convince people to change their spending habits for the sake of our church.

The product I’ll be ’selling’ to our congregation is called scrip. Very simply, we will sell gift cards to our members. They will pay face value and receive face value. However, we will buy the gift cards at a discount. The savings will go toward our debt reduction.

On the surface, it’s a great way to raise money. If I buy a one hundred dollar gift card for WalMart, I’ll be able to spend one hundred dollars at WalMart, and the church will have a few dollars to apply to the debt.

My bride and I recognize that we’ll have to drastically change our spending habits to take part in the program. Normally, we make all our purchases using credit cards and pay the bills in total at the end of the month. We’re literally using the bank’s money for a month… at no charge.

With the scrip program, we’ll have to pay cash-in-advance for the gift cards. It won’t cost us any more than we normally spend, but we’ll be using our own money instead of the bank’s during the month.

We have only one credit card that pays cash dividends for its use. It doesn’t pay much, but it was better than nothing. Lots of people have cards that reward them with frequent flier miles and other benefits. They’ll have to decide if helping to pay down our church’s debt is worth losing the points. There’s a good possibility that the new credit card legislation will solve this issue for us, but I can understand why people might want to continue with their status quo until the perks disappear.

I’ve done some calculations. If we managed to get one hundred percent participation in the scrip program, we’d net close to a hundred thousand dollars a year to apply to our debt reduction. And no one would be asked to donate any additional money to the church. From that perspective, it’s one of the best products I’ve ever seen.

The challenge remains – can I convince others.

Stay tuned. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Also stay tuned for my take on President Obama’s health care plans. I’ve viewed two videos on the subject. One was put together by a Canadian trying to use humor to demonstrate how terrible Socialized Medicine is. The other was put together by a union to demonstrate how much better the Canadian system is.

I’m sure both have used statistics and facts to fit their arguments. In any case, I’m trying to go beyond what I’m hearing on the Fox News Channel, and the three major networks. I figure the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

One thing that puzzles me… why do unions continue to support the politicians who are causing jobs to be lost? I would think they’d get behind the Libertarians and, like many of us, say that all incumbent professional politicians need to be replaced.

Are the union leaders getting special treatment? Are they betraying their membership for their own gains? It wouldn’t be the first time such things have happened in this country.

Getting Closer

With any luck, we’ll have all the ceramic tiles in place today. Then we can apply the grouting.

By tomorrow, we’ll be able to begin putting everything in place between the counters and wall cabinets. After that, the sealer will be applied and the kitchen will finally be done.

And yet… I have a feeling my bride will find something else that needs to be done.

Well, time to get on our way to church. This afternoon may find us painting the front porch and cutting the grass… in addition to the grouting.

There’s a lot of maintenance work that goes into owning a home, but I’ll gladly take it over apartment living in a heartbeat.

Too Many Projects – Too Little Time

Today began with an 8:00 a.m. meeting at the church. Being the host, I arrived around 7:20 and started the coffee.

That meeting ended near 11:00 a.m. and I arrived home in time to learn that my son is still planning on holding his belated birthday party today. We’ll have to leave here around 4:00 to get there on time.

In the meantime, we are gluing ceramic tiles to thin boards prior to applying the grouting. In the next day or two we’ll glue those pieces to the walls between our kitchen counter-tops and the wall cabinets. Then, we’ll add the sealer.

We’re also painting the front porch and applying wood sealer to our side porch. We sealed the deck a couple of weeks ago.

In the next week or so, I need to contact four musical groups and arrange for them to appear at our Lutherans of Forsyth County picnic scheduled for August 15th.

In my spare time, I will put the finishing touches on my Power Point presentation to encourage our congregation to buy into the scrip program so we can begin chipping away at our mortgage and other debts.

I’m really looking forward to our old fashioned picnic. But I guess that other stuff has to be done as well.

Michael Jackson’s Band Wagon

If you don’t mind, I’d rather toss Michael under the band wagon.

For many of us, yesterday’s bigger loss was the death of Farrah Fawcett who finally lost her three year battle with cancer. Even with her tremendous suffering, Farrah had the courage to put together a documentary of her struggle to demonstrate the importance of not giving up.

And what was Michael Jackson doing during the last three years? I really don’t know and I obviously don’t care. After the repeated accusations of child molestation, the plastic surgeries to make him look more like Liz Taylor, and his many other idiotic actions, I got tired of hearing his name.

In many ways, I feel sorrier for Michael than I do for Farrah. Farrah was battling a physical enemy. Michael’s enemies were mostly in his own mind.

When the Jackson Five first came on the scene in the late 60’s, I was a big fan of the young Michael Jackson. As time progressed and his musical style changed, I lost interest. Perhaps that was my fault for getting old. I quit listening to rock and roll music as it evolved toward what it is today. Somewhere along the line, I switched to country music which, today, is more reminiscent to the rock and roll of my youth. With country music, a story is told and I can understand the lyrics. (That’s how I know a story is told.)

The young Mr. Jackson was very good looking. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his appearance. But then his skin began to get lighter and his nose turned into something you’d expect to see on a Caucasian. In truth, it makes me wonder what his body looked like. How far down his neck did the doctors go when they turned his skin lighter?

Enjoying cookies and milk and sleeping with little boys. I don’t care how much of a Michael Jackson fan you are – that is beyond weird. It makes me wonder what sort of demons shared that body with the fabulous entertainer.

Yes. I called him a fabulous entertainer. While I didn’t care for his music, millions of other folks disagreed with me. They loved his concerts.

During the last American Idol, I thought sure Adam Lambert would win because, of all the other contestants, he was the best entertainer. He seemed to be a natural on the stage… just as Michael Jackson was.

Kris Allen is a very talented young man, but he doesn’t have the stage presence of Adam Lambert. I think Adam lost because most Americans thought sure he was going to win. So, they either didn’t bother to vote, or they voted for Kris to make it close.

I think a similar thing happened when Bill Clinton beat George Bush. Everyone was sure Bush would win, so many voted for Ross Perot… so that Bush wouldn’t win by a landslide.

Oops! I strayed off the original topic. My apologies.

Getting back to Michael, I always hate to see a person die before his or her time, but I can’t help wondering how much Michael’s demons contributed to his demise. In a way, he’s been fighting his own form of cancer for most of his life. Maybe that explains his weird behavior.

Numerous personalities have stated that most of us will long remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news of Michael’s death. Some likened it to the death of Elvis Presley – another performer I didn’t really care for. Some even went so far as to compare it to the death of John F. Kennedy.

Sorry. That takes it too far. Both entertainers were extremely popular with their fan base, but the assassination of a United States President is more than a little different.

I have no idea of what I was doing on the day of Elvis’ death. I couldn’t even tell you the year he died let alone the month and day. Soon I’ll be in the same situation with Michael’s death (as well as Farrah’s), but I’ll never be that way when it comes to JFK.

I was a sophomore at Edinboro State Teachers College on November 22, 1963. I was at my off-campus housing when I heard JFK had been shot. I then walked into town where I got the word that he had died.

Come to think of it, it’s a bit troublesome that our culture puts more emphasis on the lives of entertainers than on politicians. No wonder our government is so screwed up.