Want to Know Your Dad Better? Ask Him Questions.

Final resting place for my father's ashes.

A FATHER'S DAY REFLECTION
 
My father's passing 20 years ago is still very fresh in my mind. A Father's Day NYTimes article brought these memories to mind.

The call came at three in the morning. Calls at three a.m. are seldom packed with good news. My mom wanted each of us, the four sons, to know that dad was in the Bradenton Hospital and was dying. Miraculously, three of us arrived at the Tampa Airport within a half hour of one another, having flown in from three different airports.

As I remember it (memory is always subject to being a little unreliable) Dad's heart had gone into a-fib, quivering at 300 beats per minute. Though we'd been told he was unconscious, when we arrived, he was actually awake, though intubated and couldn't talk initially. 

Robert, my youngest brother, was there for the first few days but had to leave on Friday. On Saturday my brother Ron had a cold, and because Dad was vulnerable, Ron didn't come to the hospital that day. So it was Mom and I, taking turns being with Dad who at this point was quite exhausted. 

I'd bought a Mad magazine that morning, in part because of a very early connection with my father. Mapletown, a suburb of Cleveland, was having a sidewalk sale and we'd all gone together to see what bargans we could find. Dad bought me my first bike, for $20, and we also got a whole box of back issues of Mad magazines for a dollar. 

That Saturday in Bradenton Dad was weary, sometimes awake and sometimes sleeping, my mind grappling with things to say when he was half alert. At one point he initiated a conversation about the time he and Mom visited Susie and I in Mexico.

In the early summer of 1981 my parents visited us when we were working at an orphanage south of Monterrey. On one occasion the four of us took an afternoon to visit Horsetail Falls nearby. Dad and I went for a walk to explore a trail that ran along a creek below the falls. I was a little ahead him. I jumped off a wall of rocks down to the creek bed and continued along the path when I heard a loud thump and a groan. Where Dad jumped down, the path was slippery below. His feet slid forward out from under him and he slammed to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. As I leaned over him, he regained his breath and I helped him to his feet. He was in pain, rubbing his lower back, but no broken bones. He mentioned that a rock must have been sticking out of the ground which struck his lower back muscles, producing a deep muscle bruise.

25 years later, at the Bradenton Hospital, Dad said that the place where that rock bruised him still hurt.

I loved my dad, but in retrospect I wish I'd seen the following article from the New York Times before that day. There are a lot of questions I wish I'd asked. I'm sharing this with the hope that you'll take advantage of the opportunity to get to know your own dad better while you can. When he's on the "other side" it's too late. This goes for your mom, too. 

Want to Know Your Dad Better? Ask Him These 25 Questions.
This Father’s Day, open up a new channel of communication.

Follow this link and copy all the questions that may be useful for you:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/06/18/well/family/fathers-day-questions.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20260622&instance_id=177573&nl=from-the-times&regi_id=123953394&segment_id=221885&user_id=c5de7e4b28d36066d31878b87617b3c2

Friday Musings: A Curated Collection from the Quote Vault

In a world of rapid change and enduring questions, here are some quotes to roll around in your mind when you take a break from your screens. From Subroto Roy’s vision of a flourishing society, to voices as varied as Hannah Arendt, Martin Luther King Jr., Edward Snowden, and Graham Greene, quotes that illuminate the human condition dealing with justice and bureaucracy, creativity and resilience, perception and courage. 

I personally enjoy mashups of unrelated observations because the unplanned juxtapositions can give birth to new and unexpected ideas. 

* * * 

"A flourishing society would be one which grows along the three planes of science, religion and art under conditions of freedom."
—Subroto Roy

"There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle."

—Rober Alden

"Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation."

—Graham Greene

"More is more. Less is a bore."
—Robert Venturi

"Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret."

—Marlene Dietrich

"Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that the horses may not be stolen."
-- The Marquis of Halifax

"Bureaucracies are far better at removing fingerprints from snafus than dusting for them."
—Mark Thompson

“The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.”

—Hannah Arendt

 

"Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us."  

—Stendhal journal entry (10 December 1801)

"Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was."
--Dag Hammarskjold  

"Nothing is more common than the wish to be remarkable."

—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

"When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are ruled by criminals."

—Edward Snowden

“Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”

-–John Wooden

"I lived on books. Books taught me how to think."

--Sy Hersh

"A short saying often contains much wisdom."

—Sophocles

“Recommend virtue to your children, that alone—not wealth—can give happiness.”
— Ludwig van Beethoven

"A hot dog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz."
—Humphrey Bogart

"A day of bad writing is always better than a day of no writing."

--Don Roff

“If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t run, then walk, if you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” 

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

——————

Darkness and Light

Yesterday I began a new short story in response to a disturbing event that occurred this past week. A couple tentative titles await the completion of this tale: "An Ethical Adjustment" or "The Cupboards Were Bare." 

In the meantime, his morning I woke thinking about a different theme that has been wriggling around in my brain: Darkness and Light.

Darkness is one of those simple words that opens into deeper territory the longer you sit with it. At the most basic level, darkness is just the absence of light. When no photons reach your eyes, your brain has nothing to interpret, and you perceive black. In that sense, darkness isn’t a “thing” at all—it’s what we experience when something else is missing.

But we rarely use the word that way in ordinary life. We talk about darkness as if it has weight and presence. A room can feel dark even when there’s a lamp on. A story can turn dark without the sun setting. A mood can turn dark when we allow a dark thought to make its home in our thoughts. What’s happening there is psychological: darkness becomes a shorthand for uncertainty, danger, or the unknown. Our minds fill in what we cannot see, often with fear, and we all know how fear combined with unrestrained imagination can really twist our heads. (A couple of comical stories come to mind here about runaway paranoia that fortunately had a happy ending. Maybe you have such a memory.)

There’s also a moral dimension. Across cultures, darkness has been linked with ignorance, secrecy, or wrongdoing—“things done in the dark.” Not because darkness itself is evil, but because it conceals. When actions are hidden, accountability disappears. This is why a "free press" is an essential plank in our U.S. Constitution. (See: A Free Press Is Fundamental to Free Nation)

Darkness has another dimension as well. Seeds germinate in darkness underground. Sleep restores the body in the dark. The night sky reveals stars you’ll never see at noon. And I've never met anyone who's seen the breathtaking, shimmering wonder of Northern Lights during the day either. In short, darkness is not always a bad thing.   

By way of contrast light is the counterpart to darkness—but it’s more than just its opposite. At the physical level, light is energy. If I've got my physics right, it travels as electromagnetic waves—tiny packets called photons—moving incredibly fast (an amazing 186,000 miles per second). It’s what allows us to see: objects don’t “have” color on their own; they reflect light into our eyes, and our brains interpret those reflections as shapes, colors, and motion.

It's a strange thought to consider that without light the world is still there but it's hidden.

Light also conveys information. It reveals distance, texture, movement. It lets you recognize a face, read this blog, notice danger, or find your way home. When you look at yourself in a mirror, you see nothing until the lights are turned on. In that sense, light is not just illumination—it’s understanding made visible.

That’s why we use the word metaphorically so often. We speak of “shedding light” on a problem, of a “lightbulb moment,” of someone being “in the dark.” Light becomes a symbol for clarity, truth, awareness. Where light enters, confusion tends to retreat.

But like darkness, light isn’t always gentle. It can expose things we’d rather not see. It can be harsh, even blinding. A floodlight reveals, but it can also overwhelm.

So light is both physical and symbolic. Physically, it’s the energy that makes sight possible. Mentally, it’s the process of making sense of what’s there. Spiritually or morally, it often stands for truth, insight, or revelation.

It's this last dimension that I find especially profound when I consider what Jesus once said: "I am the light of the world." This is a statement with so many layers I can't begin to express it. 

My first thought pertains to the opening lines of the Book of Genesis, and God's first words, "Let there be light."

Here's the context: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

What Jesus said, though, has an even more startling suggestion. "I AM the light of the world." This phrase “I AM” comes from one of the most striking moments in the Old Testament, when God speaks to Moses from the burning bush in Book of Exodus (Exodus 3:14). Moses asks for God’s name, something concrete he can tell the Israelites. The answer he receives is most unusual: “I AM WHO I AM.”

Pursuing those ideas can be a long diversion, so I will simply call it another seed for your mind farm. How seeds germinate is a whole other post, and when they do they reach for the sun.

"Let there be light!"

Legacy Thoughts

The desire to leave something of ourselves to bear witness that we once were here, that our actions had significance beyond our own time, that's legacy. Leaving a legacy helps us feel our lives mattered.

For those who are religious or spiritually inclined, leaving a legacy may be tied to values of stewardship, duty, or faith, living in accordance with our divine purpose. If we don't live it ourselves, how else can we believe that our values will be passed on?

For those who have gathered earthly goods, what value do they have at the end? Parents naturally want to provide for their children, but this (legacy thinking) also extends to shaping the kind of world future generations will inherit. You can't take it with you. Legacy is a way to teach and guide, even after one's death. 

Don't wait till autumn leaves begin to fall. 

A Christmas Day Reflection

Christmas offers us an opportunity to reflect on many universal themes: the birth of hope, the quest for salvation from a meaningless existence, a pathway out of our self-absorption to learn anew the meaning of love.

A child was born this day whom the prophet Isaiah wrote would be called the Prince of Peace. A somewhat remarkable "title" in a world so broken by conflict.

This child would one day teach us how to pray, beginning with the words "Our Father..."

"OUR." Not just "my" Father, but Our Father, a father for us all... each of us siblings in an amazing, diverse family that extends from ancient times to whatever lies ahead, made in God's image... creators, makers, lovers, helpers, persons. 

In 2022, let's be done with hate. Let mercy rule our hearts. Let's turn the page and make a renewed commitment to becoming our better selves.

Related Links

For Unto Us A Child Is Born (from Handel's Messiah)

O Henry's Famous Christmas Tale: The Gift of the Magi

The Day Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Heard The Bells

Flashback Friday: When Amazing Becomes A Yawn

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN NOVEMBER 2009

Is amazement now boring? This was a thought I had the other evening as I was looking at a series of paintings by a Los Angeles artist at a site called Art-Walk. Her work, and the paintings of several others, had a quality that was mind-blowing as we used to say. The pieces revealed talent and that felicitous ethereal quality of “how did she do that.”

As one surf's the web one soon discovers that there is not just one or two amazing things going on, but gazillions. With relatively little effort you can become impaled by so many varieties of astonishing wonder that one's mind is benumbed by it all. What's going on here?

I'm reminded of the special effects in the most recent King Kong film. They were truly spectacular. The brontosaurus run down the path and later the fight between Kong and the tyrannosauruses... they were wow-level sequences, but my emotions became disengaged during these particular scenes. As they went on and on and on they actually became tiresome. "Just get on with the story," I wanted to say.

And maybe that's the issue with all this spectacle which we see in every direction. It makes for fascinating distractions but, sooner or later, to become meaningful it has to intersect with the story of our lives somehow.

Some people who enjoy and collect art do so not simply because they like a piece but because they like the artist whom they have gotten to know a little but through his or her work. The artist is a person and through his or her work connects to persons. The artist has a story, and the pictures have stories behind them as well. The why, the how, and even the when and where are all part of it.

One thing about art, as well as the natural beauty of the galaxies and the creation -- whether Bryce Canyon or a California coastline -- is that it invites engagement. And maybe it is in this engagement, by slowing down and opening up to it, that we appreciate its deeper beauty, and the greater depths of the artist as well.

In short, when amazing becomes a yawn, it may say more about us than about the amazing. Maybe we would enjoy it more if we'd not try to gorge ourselves on it but to slow down and savor it in more bite-sized morsels. 

And maybe, if we weren't always in search of the next "most amazing thing" we just might find ourselves waking up to how amazing the simplest things really are. Life this morning's sunrise. Like the blooming of a flower. Or the fluttering wings of a hummingbird.

Photos by Gary Firstenberg

Watching the River Flow--Dylan Wrestles With His Complicated Inner Self

"All rivers run into the sea, and yet the sea is not full." ~Eccles. 1:7

Here's a place I like to go to watch the river flow. 

Some of the great books that I've read featuring rivers include Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Nobel Prize-winning author V.S.Naipaul's A Bend in the River, Thomas Wolfe's Of Time and the River, Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. This past year I began an interesting book called River of Doubt about Teddy Roosevelt's journey up the Amazon. Hollywood films featuring rivers include Deliverance, The African Queen, Apocalypse Now and The Man from Snowy River, among a host of others.

At one time rivers were the primary means of transportation. Before the infrastructure of highways and byways, of rails and roads, the rivers were our transportation routes, hence all the major cities that we find along bodies of water. In Herman Hesse's novella Siddhartha, the river is a symbol. As he encountered the river in various stages of his life, its wisdom was revealed to him as it reflected his soul.

By this river I want to stay, thought Siddhartha... Tenderly, he looked into the rushing water, into the transparent green, into the crystal lines of its drawing, so rich in secrets. Bright pearls he saw rising from the deep, quiet bubbles of air floating on the reflecting surface, the blue of the sky being depicted in it. With a thousand eyes, the river looked at him, with green ones, with white ones, with crystal ones, with sky-blue ones.

I think I associate this song with Siddhartha because I was reading Herman Hesse around that time of my life when this song, and then the album, came out. But Bob Dylan's "Watching the River Flow" is a different kind of contemplation.  Recorded in March 1971 it was released as a single after which it appeared on his Greatest Hits, Volume II. It's a more energized song than the one he wrote with Roger McGuinn for Easy Rider. "The river flows, flows to the sea, wherever that river goes I want to be." (I used to play a harmonica lick with that when I was in college. It was very relaxing.)

The power in "Watching the River Flow" comes from the inner conflict that sits at the core of this story. It appears to be an autobiographical sketch that correlates with theologian Paul Tillich's intimate autobiographical sketch On the Boundary. In it Tillich explores the various polarities of his life and how they influenced him in different ways, between city and country, between social classes, between reality and imagination, between theory and practice, etc.

At the beginning of the song the narrator's been all night at an all-night cafe, "walking to and fro." This to and fro is the first clue of his inner restlessness, his life on the boundary between competing desires, two competing selves. There's a universality in this image as we all must learn to manage the polarities in our lives.

I love the matter-of-fact storytelling, similar to "I went to see the gypsy...saw him in a big hotel, he smiled when he saw me coming..." --just telling what happened, simple things, yet so much more. And in that song to he's been up all night so as to see the sun coming up "on a little Minnesota town."

As dawn is breaking, he here heads to a bank of sand by the riverside to mull things and watch the river flow.

What’s the matter with me
I don’t have much to say
Daylight sneakin’ through the window
And I’m still in this all-night café
Walkin’ to and fro beneath the moon
Out to where the trucks are rollin’ slow
To sit down on this bank of sand
And watch the river flow

This is a person very different from Siddhartha. Dylan is youth, Siddhartha full of years. Dylan is restless, Siddhartha inwardly at peace.

Wish I was back in the city
Instead of this old bank of sand
With the sun beating down over the chimney tops
And the one I love so close at hand
If I had wings and I could fly
I know where I would go
But right now I’ll just sit here so contentedly
And watch the river flow

The real Dylan was raising a family at this time. He had some little ones to look after, a father role to play. He states he'll sit here contentedly, sharing this quiet life with the one he loves. And yet... As he notices people in disagreements, it might be that he notices this external feature because he has his own disagreements within himself.

People disagreeing on all just about everything, yeah
Makes you stop and all wonder why
Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street
Who just couldn’t help but cry
Oh, this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow

We live in a world today where there's more verbal conflict than ever. It might be best for all of us to get off social media and read more books, or sit on riverbanks.

People disagreeing everywhere you look
Makes you wanna stop and read a book
Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street
That was really shook
But this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow

Watch the river flow
Watchin’ the river flow
Watchin’ the river flow
But I’ll sit down on this bank of sand
And watch the river flow

Copyright © 1971 by Big Sky Music; renewed 1999 by Big Sky Music

He began by asking, "What's the matter with me?" This is interesting because his accusation is turned inward. He's not saying, "Why are you so screwed up?" He's not finger-pointing. (He's not finger-painting either, but I'm curious if he'd paint his masterpiece with brushes or some other tool.)

He ends by taking a seat at the riverside. There's something refreshing and healing about rivers and water. They can be dangerous, too, when they rage and overrun their banks. But rivers, like people, have their rhythms.

Dylan has played this song 500 times live. Here is a YouTube video that has the first two of these live performances from 1978, courtesy someone who calls himself Mr. Tambourine Man. This is not a high-end production, but it's historical value can be underscored.

* * * *

Love the energy Joe Cocker delivers in his version of the song.

Rivers are cited more than three dozen times in Dylan's songs. His Hibbing home wasn't that far from the headwaters of the Mississippi and a rare triple watershed. Every river begins somewhere.

You can find insights from Robert Shelton, Greil Marcus, Clint Heylin, Christopher Ricks and others here on Wikipedia.

For a nice closure here, let's borrow these lines from Oscar Hammersteiin.

Ol' man river,
Dat ol' man river
He mus' know sumpin'
But don't say nuthin',
He jes' keeps rollin'
He keeps on rollin' along. 

* * * *

This week is Duluth Dylan Fest, a virtual event this year due to the literal disruption caused by the pandemic. For the first time you can participate from anywhere without being here. For the schedule of event, culminating Sunday on Bob's 79th birthday, visit Duluth Dylan Fest Goes Virtual

Flashback Friday: A New Thought About Tomorrow, That I Had in the Past

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 2016

I had a new thought this weekend. It flowed out of a quote that went something like this: "The future is the past unfrozen."

As I reflected on this notion, however, I couldn't help but think about the behavior of water in its different states. The idea that our past is frozen made sense to me, and I thought about how water freezes below a specific temperature. But once it is unfrozen it can also be altered yet again when you boil it or heat it above 212 degrees F. It becomes an invisible gas at that point.

It's interesting that time therefore has three phases: past, present and future. Likewise water has three phases: solid, liquid and gas.

What we see when we apply this notion to time is that all of time is a unity, but it is experienced in different forms. 

Try as we might, we can't alter the past. Our achievements and mistakes leave a permanent record. They are frozen in time. Our present, on the other hand, is fluid. This fluid present is where we live and experience life. The future is invisible. It is so unformed it cannot be seen, like unpolluted air.

If the whole of time is one unit, then this would explain how God can be described as being the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and be both simultaneously. Some people see a fatalism inherent in God knowing the end from the beginning, but the paradox is this: the present is ever fluid until it is past. Because the present is fluid, anything is possible. It's up to us to decide "what next." Our decisions today will determine what will be frozen in time tomorrow.

* * * *
Is it true that what will be will be? What will be is up to us. Is the future inevitable? Yes, but only after it has been frozen in the past.

Related Links
The Future Remains Unwrit 

The Andy Warhol Museum: Reflections of the Contemporary American Soul

This week I visited the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. It would be fairly easy to make a case that Warhol was one of the the most important artists of the 20th century. He's certainly one of the most well-known, in the company of Picasso, Dali and Duchamp. Like Picasso and Dali, he was prolific. Like Duchamp, he was ground-breaking.

And like each of these other three, he is not easily understood.

Nearly everyone can recite Warhol's observation about "15 minutes of fame." Here are a handful of quotes that reveal a little about this master of illusions, whose real self seems to have been hidden in plain sight.

* * * *

"A lot of people thought it was me everyone at the 'Factory' was hanging around, that I was some kind of big attraction that everyone came to see, but that's absolutely backward: it was me who was hanging around everyone else. I just paid the rent, and the crowds came simply because the door was open. People weren't particularly interested in seeing me; they were interested in seeing each other. They came to see who came."
--Andy Warhol

Dennis Hopper

* * * *

"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
--Andy Warhol

Brillo Boxes and Campbell's Soup Cans. 

* * * *

"Business art is the step that comes after Art. I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. After I did the thing called 'art' or whatever it's called, I went into business art. I wanted to be an Art Businessman or a Business Artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. During the hippies era people put down the idea of business – they'd say 'Money is bad', and 'Working is bad', but making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art."
--Andy Warhol

"They always say that time changes things, 

but you actually have to change them yourself."

--Andy Warhol

Meantime, art goes on all around you.
Often, in ways you take for granted.

Those Pesky Dead Flies in the Perfume (When Success and Shame Go Hand-In-Hand)

“Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain.” — Bob Dylan

The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes has so many thought-provoking verses. One of my favorites is Ecclesiastes 10:1 which goes like this:

“As a dead fly gives perfume a bad smell,
 So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.”

The longer one lives, the more opportunities one gets to experience this seemingly universal conundrum. Why is it that so many of our heroic or gratifying experiences get marred by a dead fly in the ointment? Here is a stroy from my life, by way of illustration.

A Hero, Sort Of

When I was a kid, playing baseball was something I lived for. It seems like we played every day while I was growing up, whiffle ball, baseball, Little League, Pony League and sandlot, stickball in the streets. I went out for baseball in high school playing on the Freshman team, Jr. Varsity and eventually got a Varsity letter in my Junior year.

Mr. Dennison, our JV coach, seemed to like my hustle and my sophomore year I started the first game at shortstop, but struck out twice against a kid with a mean curve ball. There were other infielders and Mr. Dennison left me on the bench the second game. He was looking us over, getting a feel for how we'd perform in game situations.

In the third game I also started on the bench, which is not where you really want to be. The opposing pitcher was a hefty fireballer but he was also a bit wild, and in the late innings, after a strong base hit and an error he walked the bases loaded. Coach D. came over and said, “Think you can hit this kid?”

I said, “No problem,” and I believed it.

I loosened up and planted myself in the batter’s box waiting for the pitch. He fired it chest high down the middle and I smashed it over three hundred feet down the left field line, foul. Strike one.

There was a big sign out in left field that had the numeral 300 in black letters on white background. As the ball flew past that I knew exactly what it meant. Now I knew I could get around on him. I used a 33" bat and loved the sound it made when you connected, and that one connected. After checking the bases he started his motion and once again fired the ball in like a cannon.

I once read an article about Henry Aaron that noted how quick his wrists were, so I did special exercises that one of our coaches showed us in order to strengthen our wrists and improve their quickness. And when I swung the bat, once again it struck the ball with force and sent it flying out over the left fielders head past the 300 foot marker, again just foul.

Roger Maris, who broke Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a season, was a left-handed hitter who played in the original Yankee Stadium where the right field fence curled in to 297 feet. Many of his homers were no further than I was hitting them that day. So now it’s bases loaded, the count two strikes. I told myself to hold back just a tad, determined to keep it in play. We were down by two runs and it seemed important to come through so I could earn my spot as a starter.

The pitch was, of course, another speedball, since that was the pitch he relied on. I remember it being a little high, but I was on it. Crack! You could tell by the sound it was a goner, this time flying out to right center field between and beyond the outfielders. The first run already scored before I reached first. As I rounded second I could see an outfielder had retrieved the ball. I was tearing toward third and the kid coaching raised his hands signaling me… to what? Was that a signal to slide or to stop?

I executed a beautiful slide, but was a foot short of third. Somehow I thought the ball was already on its way so I tried to stretch my foot, but I was still short. In point of fact, I had enough time to stand up, knock the dirt off my uniform and take a step onto the bag, but thinking the ball was incoming I just kept stretching.

Finally the ball arrived, the third baseman tagged me out, and when I got up to go get my glove — it was the third out — the whole team was laughing. To everyone watching it was hilarious. Or rather, hilariously stupid, depending on your point of view.

I did earn my spot as a starter, and by the end of the season had the fewest strikeouts on the team, second best batting average and a lot of good memories. That ridiculous moment trying to stretch my leg a foot was like a dead fly in the ointment though. It’s impossible to think of that game-winning drive without recalling the silly way it ended. There’s something humiliating about such public stupidity.

Which brings to mind the time I jumped out of a moving car thinking I would impress a lass I had a crush on. Alas.

Efficiency’s Downside

No question one of the hallmarks of progress is the efficiency it offers. Plumbing is a far more efficient system for delivering water to the house than walking out to pump it from a well. The efficiencies of mass production enable us to acquire more goods at affordable prices than when pins and parcels were made one at a time.

The Internet has created countless additional efficiencies. Easy access to information was the first I noticed, eliminating the need to wait for the library to open to call one’s local reference librarian, a phone number I had at one time kept memorized. With the advent of social media it has become remarkably easy to interact with and develop friendships with new people from all over the world.

But many of these efficiencies have a downside as well. A few examples are in order.

Cars can help us get from place to place quicker and more efficiently than walking, biking or public transportation. But travel by car nearly eliminates all interaction with others that we might encounter by the alternative means of transportation. When walking we see the world around us in far greater detail. And in both walking and biking we leave a far smaller "carbon footprint" than any internal combustion engine. And as for buses, subways and trains, I still have many memories of insights gained through first hand encounters with others whom I would never have met any other way. I learned a few shocking things as well from the things high school students were talking about on the bus as I rode to work.

Another example... In the realm of sales, many techniques have been developed based on psychology and science so that the salesperson improves his close ratio or success rate. Unfortunately, as consumers get more educated they are increasingly aware of these wiles. The net result is that after a while we become unable to discern whether people are being honest or if we're just being manipulated into a decision. For example, I frequently have a hard time trying to decide what to order in a restaurant. If I ask the waiter or waitress about a dish, they so often say, "That's my favorite thing on the menu!" that I have begun to wonder if they were trained to say that. It's making me insecure about asking servers for advice any more.

In the arts and crafts realm, the people making money locally are the one's who efficiently "crank it out." The market for work that is painstakingly detailed and personal hardly provides a living wage. So our world is a bit poorer because the ornate carvings in furniture are gone, the architectural craftsmanship is neglected because we can't afford to pay craftsmen what they're worth to do such things.

And now, to Facebook. Whereas it is a marvel how many fascinating people we can meet today via social media, there are downsides. Initially, many pundits criticized the Internet because of the damage it would do to language. It waits to be seen whether this is a legitimate fear or not. What concerns me more is what it is doing to friendship. Someone once said, and I paraphrase, "If a man is worth knowing, he is worth knowing well." But how well can we get to know people when we now know so many?

Everything happens so fast. We have more relationships than we can manage, and we end up interacting with them so superficially because who has time to invest in so many lives. But yes, the communication is very efficient. We can reach so many so very quickly, follow what they are doing, see their pictures and briefly share in their experiences. It's all quite amazing. But... at what price?

Speed is what we've embraced. Fast food, fast commutes, fast news and information. Maybe this is why God introduced the Sabbath, a day set aside for rest and reflection. A day to catch our breath, because it truly is an amazing world and if we didn't stop to reflect now and then we just might make ourselves dizzy trying to embrace it all.

Reflections on the Sixties

One reason a show like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with Robin Leach was popular was undoubtedly because the audiences were neither rich nor famous themselves. Leach, the host, also had an interesting accent, which did not hurt the ratings either. In other words, people like watching, or reading about, experiences different from one's own.

This might be why war books like my father-in-law's memoirs And There Shall Be Wars have such appeal. Even within the context of the war two veterans will have differing experiences, and perspectives.

So it is that the Sixties was an experience which we all experienced, yet all experienced differently. As veterans of the Sixties, we had some shared experiences, but being in such a range of spaces and places, there is much which may be uniquely our own and occasionally, as those are shared, we gain additional illumination as regards our own experience. These diverse shared experiences not only help us connect to others, but also assist in our own self-understanding.

Christella, who has recently made contributions to this blog, started blogging this summer to share memories from her seven decades of life experience. Her writing is rich with life and you might wish to bookmark it for future returns. This week she has been sharing some of her memories of the Sixties at her own site which she has called Meandering Moody Memories. It's worth a visit if you have some time and is what prompted me to grab this off my original website to post here today.

In 1993 I wrote an essay called "Reflections on the Sixties" for a book that someone was trying to assemble for publication. AOL was just emerging and everyone there was thrilled by the power of connecting with so many others. I remember one AOL virtual community that had a former member of the Sixties band Strawberry Alarm Clock in it.

Several years passed and I was contacted again by this fellow who had me sign something that gave him permission to publish what I'd written, but I never learned what became of the project or whether it ultimately found a publisher.

Reflection on the Sixties

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

"At other times it feels like being mildly concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me."

These are the words with which C.S. Lewis opens A Grief Observed, his personal reflections on the loss of his wife Joy Davidson. Can it be that our nation itself received this same concussive blow on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963?

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I find it interesting that C. S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley and John F. Kennedy all died on the same day in 1963. The deaths of Lewis and Huxley, whose personal lives were more remote from most of us, were eclipsed by the dramatic assassination of our president... and the subsequent events surrounding his passing.

There have been few more powerful events in our personal histories. Television brought this president into our homes like none before him. His PR-created persona made him out to be more than a man. He was a mythological god. He rode a white horse. He was a knight in shining armor. With the vitality of Youth, he provided a euphoric hope that seemed necessary after two world wars, a major depression and the brooding tensions of the Cold War.

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I was in sixth grade that day, Stafford School, Maple Heights, Ohio. There was an announcement over the loudspeaker that we were all to go to the auditorium for an assembly. This was the same room where we assembled to see men from NASA demonstrate how a rocket would within the next ten years carry men to the moon.

As we shuffled along toward the nearly filled assembly room, I was distracted by a janitor who was stepping in from outside. I remember the grey November sky. And the janitor's tears, the janitor standing there, cap in hand, tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks, looking back toward the flag he had just lowered to half mast.

I don't remember the assembly, or much of anything else. Only the image of that janitor weeping.

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Few people knew it then, but that day was a portent of difficult times ahead for America. Medger Evers, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Kent State, My Lai -- the decade, stained with blood, left a generation of parents concussed and children confused.

Wrote Lewis in A Grief Observed, "I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in."

And when Nielsson sang: "Everybody's talkin' at me, I can't hear a word they're saying"... did we not find a resonance in our hearts because we, too, were grieving? What was it we had lost? What is it we were looking for? What was Joe Buck looking for? What did Joe Buck find?
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I believe it was Gurdjieff who compared life experiences to the food we take into our stomachs. Eventually the food is digested, but it takes time, and some foods longer than others. Likewise, our experiences take time to digest before they are assimilated to nourish or poison us.

Even though more than 25 years have passed, sometimes we still don't know what to say about what we saw and heard and felt. We are still processing our experiences. While some of the experiences were uniquely ours, many were shared. For this reason it is my conviction that when we have gained a measure of understanding, we have a responsibility to share the light we have received. In this way, our pain becomes redemptive, a healing influence in an otherwise broken world.

copyright 1993 ed newman