A little shop talk

I'm sorry that I don't have the July 27, Aug 4 and Aug 11 columns posted. For whatever reason, I didn't transfer those files from the PRESS computers to home or to school. If/When I get a chance, I will try to scan them in and then upload them.

Meanwhile, I just want you to watch and see what kind of changes I make this fall. I'm going to try to cut the length of my columns by half. That's just good discipline as a writer. Hopefully it will be eaisier and funner for you to read and it will force me to make my points more clearly.

As much as I like the look and feel of this blog, I'm trying to learn as much as I can about web-design and digital graphics- so I'll probably be tweaking the format a little too. If I can figure out how BLOGGER lets users upload things, that is. I notice that they're adding more tools and features, so it shouldn't be too tough.

I still believe in talking about what others don't. The cycle I try to follow is Funny, Faith, Politics- I've heard the most positive feedback about the funny ones, especially when I write about my kids. I love writing those, but I just can't help myself- writing is a way to vent and hopefully a way to provoke readers to think and talk about thing that maybe they hadn't before. So, expect the religion and politics too- but probably not mus sex, sorry.

Samaritan Walking

“And I loved deeper,
And I spoke sweeter,
And I gave forgiveness I've been denying,
And he said someday I hope you get the chance,
To live like you were dyin'”
~Tim McGraw

I was starting to feel a little bit sorry for myself. We’ve been swamped here at the paper. I’ve made a few mistakes, like leaving out names or getting names wrong. Then I felt guilty for taking three days off from work to take a class in Sioux City while they were so swamped with Charter Oak Achievement Days and the Monona County Fair. Then I felt guilty about not spending enough time with my family this summer.

Then I met someone who reminded me that we shouldn’t wallow in how hard life can seem, instead we should keep busy living it, better yet, we should celebrate it.

I was driving home from class Thursday night, feeling sorry for myself because the air in my truck doesn’t work when I saw this tall, lone walker along the highway between Charter Oak and Ute. I wondered about offering him a ride, but we were headed in opposite directions. Besides he had a huge backpack, perhaps he didn’t even want or need a ride, perhaps he wasn’t hitchhiking, maybe he was some kind of camper.

So I missed my chance to be a good Samaritan and just went home.
I saw him again the next day on my drive in to Mapleton to work. I thought it was odd, the same tall figure with a long walking staff and a yellow shirt, this time walking toward Mapleton. Both times he smiled and waved at me.

This time I was in a hurry, I wanted to get into work to get a head start on the Achievement Days edition. Ten pages of kids and livestock. I was bound and determined to get as much done on it as I could- it was the least I could do after having been gone all week. Again, I passed him by.

Once there I realized that I’d left a cable at home so I couldn’t transfer any photos from my digital camera to the computer. I’d have to go all the way home to get it or we wouldn’t have pictures of the pen-of three swine winners. I had to run home.

There he was again, a little further. The morning was hotter and more humid. It finally occurred to me that maybe there was a story here. Maybe this was one of those people who walks cross-country to raise money for some good cause. His yellow shirt did remind me of Tour De France champion Lance Armstrong’s “Live Strong” campaign. Worst case scenario, he might be an eccentric traveler with an interesting story to tell.

I thought I should slow down and take his picture, then maybe offer him some help, a ride or at least ask him his story. Alas, when I reached for my camera, I realized that I’d left it on my desk at the office in Mapleton. Strike three, I proved that I’m no good Samaritan.

On the way back to work with my cable I didn’t see him again. Vanished like some tall wizard in a fable where the protagonist is given three chances to make a wise choice but fails.

Fortunately for me, this twenty-something sage had a cell phone and wanted some publicity.
Eric Latham was walking across the country for cancer research. Eric believes that almost everyone’s lives have been touched by cancer.

Sure enough. My grandmother died when I was ten or eleven. I’m not even sure what she really died of, because I really only knew her from the week or two our family spent every other summer back in Michigan where she lived. But what I learned later is that she lived with tumors in her her brain for decades.

When I was in seventh grade I had two classmates with cancer, out of a class of maybe only thirty kids. Mike Miller’s tumor was the size of a football when they removed it. Jon Fladhammer had to have his thigh amputated. Instead of removing his whole leg surgeons re-attached his lower leg backwards, so that his heel would function as a knee when he was fitted with a prosthesis. Neither of those guys lived to graduate from high school, but let me tell you, each of them milked life for everything they could during the time they had left. Jon in particular spent his few years telling people about incredible God’s love for them and how precious life is.

Of course this summer has been a difficult one for Lyon Publishing, home of the Schleswig Leader, COU NEWSpaper, and Mapleton PRESS.

In June we lost Jackie Pester, NEWSpaper reporter for almost thirty years. She had only known that she had lung cancer since April of this year. Our Publisher, Mike Lyon is recovering from back surgery to help him with complications brought on by his long time battle with the disease. Meanwhile our main reporter and webmaster, Bonnie Schroeder, of Schleswig has had scare after scare with her father going in and out of the hospital as part of his battle with cancer.

After eight years, she’s leaving us to work at the Hoffmann Agency office in Schleswig so that she can be closer and more available for her parents. I’ve only worked here two summers, and not in a row, but she’s one of the most beautiful people I know, and I’ve come to think of her as a sister.

I feel like I missed another opportunity with Eric Latham, because I failed to ask him about his faith. You know how you’re not supposed to talk with people about sex, politics, or religion. But Eric is so full of joy and enthusiasm, it’s hard to believe how much time he spends talking to cancer patients. You’d expect someone who’s seen so much suffering and heard so many tragic stories to become depressed or jaded. Just the opposite is true of Eric. Surely this kid knows something that the rest of us overlook. Surely he believes that death is only the beginning for the people he gets to know, the people who’s names he has memorized religiously.

After 93 days of trudging along through the summer sun with a 70 lb pack on his back, you’d think he’d feel sorry for himself. You think he’d get lonely. But I have a feeling that he isn’t walking alone. Now I don’t know because I failed to ask him, I even failed to think about it until I sat down to write this column, but I bet he has someone to talk to the whole time he’s walking. I bet when he gets tired it’s not just the thought of the cancer patients he knows that gives him strength. I bet his strength is renewed like the Eagle’s (Isaiah 40:31).

If I’m wrong, I hope he’ll forgive me for assuming that this is so, I don’t want to force God on anybody. But since what Eric is doing is helping so many people, I pray that the Lord will walk with him anyway. Eric, the tall, lone stranger walking along the highway is himself a good Samaritan and an example for all of us.

Road-trippin’ out

“Daa-a-ad, are we THERE yet??!!”

Ah, if only I had a nickel every time I had that, I’d have my kids’ college tuition paid for. I’m sure that my Dad heard it enough too. What’s the old saying about “get-backs?”

I got home from a school meeting in Dunlap Thursday afternoon and hopped into the van- already expertly packed by my German wife- and we headed off for Minneapolis.

Ellen, our three year old, evidently recognizes Denison because it wasn’t until Westside, Arcadia, Vail and Carrol that she started asking, “Is this Minnie APPLE’s us?”

I think we made it to Glidden before we all needed potty breaks and the baby needed a bottle. Me, I desperately needed caffeine. In stead of taking a “No-Doze,” I bought a can of Starbuck’s Double-Shot Expresso. That did the trick, I was good for the rest of the trip.

Probably the nicest, and yet hardest part of the whole vacation was the Mason City/Clear Lake exit. We decided to try Culver’s Custard & Butter Burgers for supper. Pricey for fast food, but trust me, when you have kids under 10, you get tired of McDonald’s after the millionth time you eat there.

It was the nicest part of the trip because we it wasn’t busy, it wasn’t hot, muggy or buggy, it was dusk, and we sat outside. They had fun 50’s and 60’s music playing on their speakers that Gracie and Ellie danced to and if you’ve never had a frozen custard, you really ought to take a break soft-serve ice cream and frozen yogurt and give it a try. Mmmmm.

It was the worst part of the trip because all three children, ages 6 months to 6 years had bathroom emergencies. Somehow we survived and pressed on.

It was a good thing we all used the bathroom there, because there were absolutely no rest areas open in the entire state of Minnesota.

We found out when we got home that this was due to their state government shut down, brought on by a budget fight between the governor and legislature. Stupid politics.

If you’ve ever been on a 6 hour drive with three children, ages 6 months to 6 years, you know that Interstate rest areas with clean working bathrooms is not a luxury, it is an inalienable right given by our Creator that ought to be constitutionally protected from state political meddling.

Somehow, we got into town without getting lost- much. We preregistered at our hotel on the internet. What a 21st century convenience, right? We even pulled up a route map on the computer straight to the hotel’s front door. Only when we got there, it wasn’t there.

The Ramada Inn was supposed to be right there on 24th between the Airport and the Mall of America. We must have driven between 23rd and 25th half a dozen times. The only hotel where the Ramada was supposed to be was the Thunderbird Inn and Resort.

Stupid internet.

Bleary-eyed and exhausted, we decided to pull in to the T-Bird and ask to use their phone to call the Ramada. We did so with some disdain, after all Thunderbird wine is the wino’s brand- surely this was a dive frequented by airline personnel and riff-raff.

Lo and behold, it was the Ramada-Thunderbird Inn and resort at which we were booked. At least our room was on the first floor and close. The 1960’s vintage Southwestern campy-kitsch motif actually made me feel a little bit at home (remember I grew up in Phoenix in the ‘70’s).

(See the photo of the 40 foot brave who greets you)

Red carpet, rusty red arrowhead wallpaper, fredrick Remington paintings of cowboys and Indians were everywhere.

At 11:30 pm there was no time to soak in the nostalgically cheesy decor. It was time to get the kids tucked into bed. Dream on.

Eventually, after a bath, a debate over who was sleeping where, and plenty of jumping on the beds, we settled down for a short night’s sleep.

The next morning we were to meet our friends at the Minnesota Zoo at 11 am.

So our whole family was starving. We left the hotel an hour early- just in case we got lost. But it took less than 15 minutes to get to the zoo, so I doubled back, because we saw a sign for a McDonald’s.

We pulled off at the McDonald’s exit and saw another sign that promised that the “Golden Arches” was just another mile in from the freeway.

Our stomachs were growling. The girls were begging, “Are we THERE yet???!!”

At long last, the sign, the tall yellow M on top of a pole meant that our appetites would soon be satisfied. Only there was another sign, it said “we’re rebuilding to better serve you.”

Beneath the sign was a big, brown, hole. Dirt and a back hoe where there was supposed to be plastic and egg McMuffins. Stupid McDonald’s (again).

We reluctantly decided to head for the zoo early, destined to over pay for zoo food- if they even served any before noon. We settled in for a $3 cup of coffee and a $2 Rice Crispy bar that we split four ways and waited for our friends. They were 45 minutes late.

The Minnesota Zoo does have a great dolphin show, but basically we ran from there to guess what, the goats and farm animals (how exotic!).

And of course time in the pool at the T-Bird Inn and time in THE mall. Somehow we got home by 3:55 pm in time for our cousin’s wedding at 4. We snuck in the back and were all seated in the balcony by 4:05.

I've always admired Georgia O'Keefe's painting.
This summer I've been trying to capture flowers with my camera the way she did with her brush. She said something along the lines of- "no body ever stops to look at flowers, well by God I'm gonna make them look at 'em"

Unfortunately, none of my friends or family are all that impressed, they don't understand why I don't take pictures of people.

Click HERE to see more
Mallory

Dedicated to Freedom and Equality

Just this past Monday we all enjoyed the red white and blue, the picnics and parades, the patriotic music and of course fireworks.

One of the best things about the 4th is that you get to here the Gettysburg Address recited. I must have read these words hundreds of times, yet they never fail to make tears well up in my eyes and my throat clench up.

Nov. 19, 1863, the incredibly unpopular and decidedly divisive Abraham Lincoln traveled to a town in Pennsylvania to participate in the dedication ceremony of a new cemetery.
This is what Lincoln said:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Liberty is another word for freedom, it means having the right to make choices, to make decisions that effect your life. The Declaration of Independence stated that ALL men were created equal. Of course, to Congress at the time, that probably meant male, white, registered as church members, who owned their own land.

The point that Lincoln was trying to make was that black, African-Americans, including slaves were equal too and entitled to the same liberties as the rest of us. I contend that every human being is endowed by our creator with the same certain inalienable rights, not just men, not just Americans, but all of us were meant to be free.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

Remember, at Lincoln’s time the U.S. was less than a 100 years old, the rest of the world was keeping their eye on us- we were an experiment in democracy and since we’d fallen into civil war, it looked like the experiment was about to fail. Just think about how people today watched the elections in Lebanon, Iraq, and most recently in Iran.

We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who died here that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have hallowed it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

To say something is Holy, consecrated, or sacred simply means to set it aside for God’s use, to dedicate it for His special purposes, if you will.

It didn’t matter if the President of the United States or all the important dignitaries you could drag out conducted any kind of a ceremony at all. What made that place special was the blood of all the servicemen that was spilled there. Their deaths and sacrifice made that plot of ground forever important and unique. Lincoln pointed out that the people who didn’t die there had something else that they needed to be doing:

It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion-

We too, should constantly be re-dedicating ourselves to what those veterans were dedicated to. This is why it’s so important to support our troops, even when, like me, you don’t support the politicians and their misguided policies.

Sure, there’s been wars we shouldn’t have gotten into. Maybe some of them were motivated by interests that weren’t as well examined or scrutinized as they should have been.

Since America IS her people, and people are fundamentally flawed and sinful, America has made, does make, and is bound to make mistakes. But as long as American soldiers served to protect freedom and fought to establish and maintain justice, no American soldier ever died in vain.

Lincoln urges us from 1863 to be dedicated to preserving liberty and promoting equality. When we fail to, then it’s like letting them die in vain.

Each of us can do this in our own way. For some, it is by serving in the armed forces, for others it is by standing up and speaking out. We do it by exercising our liberties and by treating each other fairly and justly, as equal human beings, worthy of dignity and compassion. We do it by volunteering and participating in our communities.

Perhaps the simplest, easiest and most important way each of us does it, is when we vote.

that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Once someone asked the age-old philosophical question, “why are we here?” And someone else answered, with both sarcasm and wisdom; “God put us here for each other.”

229 years later, (142 since the Gettysburg Address) this experiment in democracy still struggles, but it’s endured. So, let’s be dedicated to the motto on Iowa’s state flag, let’s prize our liberties and maintain our rights, otherwise what is there worth fighting for?

Progressive

"Look up, not down-
Look out, not in-
Look forward, not backward-
and lend a hand."
~Teddy Roosevelt, 1912