Hearing

One of my earliest memories: when I was two or three years old, Grandma babysat for me while my parents went to a Dukes of Dixieland concert. It was a bit of a trip for them - Grandma lived in Cedar Rapids and the concert was out of town (Manchester, Iowa? Rochester, Minnesota? I know it was one of the -chesters.) The arrangements for the travel and for the babysitting indicated one thing: My Dad was a serious jazz fan.

Like father like son. I have become a jazz lover also. A different sort of jazz, to be sure; Dad was a Dukes of Dixieland, Al Hirt, Pete Fountain Dixieland jazz guy. I'm a Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, John Coltrane guy whose TV is often on the Music Choice channel for smooth jazz. I'm a smooth fellow, you see.

I love jazz. I love much of classical, although I tend to prefer symphonies and various sonatas and concertos to opera or ballet. Contemporary Christian tends to leave me a bit cold, but you should hear John Michael Talbot singing Psalms. I love U2, Springsteen, Seger, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell. I am a fan of James Taylor (coming to Davenport but - drat! - seats sold out and I couldn't afford them anyway.) I love Dylan - what a lyricist! - and Johnny Cash - what uncompromising honesty! I love the Grateful Dead, who penned maybe the most terrifying passage in the history of music lyrics:

Driving that train

High on cocaine;

Casey Jones you'd better. . .

And later:

He's on the wrong track and he's heading for you.

On the same theme, Neil Young's The Needle and the Damage Done is unforgettable.

I have loved the Stones since my teen years. Jimi Hendrix' genius with the guitar has yet to be matched. The Beatles have enriched my life enormously, both as a band and, afterward, as individuals. I can listen all day to the old crooners, too - Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett. My, oh my, what pipes!

This is about hearing. I think I may be losing mine. When I hired on at the place I work I had to take a hearing test. At that time my hearing loss in one ear was about 80%, but the other ear tested OK. I think now that the result would be different. My favorite word in conversation tends to be, "What?" Since our insurance covers audiology testing but not hearing aids one of our "save up for this" projects is a hearing aid for me.

While I was out driving today I listened to a CD of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, with Itzhak Perlman as the violin soloist. It's a beautiful piece of music. The second movement - the Larghetto - is one of the most beautiful, and saddest, passages ever written. Beethoven's deafness was already setting in by the time the Violin Concerto made its debut. I can't imagine what it would be like to be able to create such beauty, but never hear it.

So this is not "feel sorry for Rick" time. I hate that sort of thing. It is, instead, Rick has been richly blessed time.

Blessed - because I got to hear all of that music.

Blessed, because I have heard the music of my childrens voices.

Blessed, because I got to hear their laughs and their fun times and their arguments.

Blessed, because I got to know my grandkids and hear all of this happening again. "The more things change. . ." Genetics, y'know.

Blessed because I got to be outside on a Midwestern summer evening and hear the wind rustle - the huge variety of insect and bird sounds.

Blessed because I got to be outside on a Midwestern winter night and hear the sound of the wind roar. And when the wind is quiet, blessed to hear the sound of snowflakes hitting the ground.

Blessed to hear God's own music in a thunderstorm.

I'm told that, even in the desert, in that vast dry emptiness, there is something to hear, if you'll just be quiet and listen for it. (Need some help from desert folks on this one.)

Blessed to hear my wife pledge to be my spouse "'til death do us part."

Blessed to hear proclaimed on Easter, "Why seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen."

And blessed because maybe modern technology will allow me to keep right on hearing this wonderful concert.

But, a favor you can do for me, so that you'll know that you, too, are blessed. Step outside. Say nothing. Close your eyes. Just hear. Just listen. And know how blessed you are, how wonderful it all is, and get some small measure of how good God is.

Thanks for hanging out with me. Love your reactions.

St. Valentine's Day and birthdays and other survival stuff

The survivalists think that survival involves building temporary shelters and finding edible leaves and bugs in the woods.

Wrong.

Survival is remembering your wife's birthday. I have no problem with that. I married a woman whose birthday is the day after St. Valentine's Day. This makes the birthday easy to remember, but it has one huge disadvantage. I have two days, back to back, that I had BETTER get right, or I run a serious risk of being dogmeat until our June 21 anniversary. And if I get that wrong. . .eek.

My second issue in this regard: I married a woman who squeezes a penny until Abraham Lincoln cries "Uncle!" As Mike Ditka said of George Halas, she "throws nickels around like they're manhole covers." In that regard we are very different, and God bless her for that. If I find a nickel and a penny in my pocket I wonder what I can buy for those six cents. She lets me have no cash.

So, I gotta get Valentine's Day and her birthday right. With no cash. Well, our next anniversary will be our 36th, so something is going very right. (Makes one wonder how a woman who is 29 years old can have a 36th wedding anniversary, doesn't it?) We tell some folks we're been married that long and they look at us like we're aliens that have just landed. I guess people just don't do that anymore.

Thirty-five years plus. Maybe we're entitled, finally, to have an opinion on what exactly love is. That first glow, that initial bloom, is nice and magical and wonderful. And it disappears. Oh, it comes back periodically, but a marriage can't be built just on that. Many a marriage was broken up because one partner decided that they were having that wonderful glow of novelty with someone else. That bloom can be a dangerous bloom.

Love is work. It isn't easy and wasn't meant to be.

Marriage is commitment, and there are times when the commitment is all you have. Make no mistake, the glow comes back, but it's different. In the meantime, you hang in there - because that's what you committed to do.

So here's what 35 years has been.

Thirty-five years when we both lost sleep over sick kids - when we both have had our turns spending the night at the hospital with those kids.

Thirty-five years when one of us stood by the other while that other was sick or injured. When I has open heart surgery in '92, my wife arrived at the hospital early in the morning of the day of the surgery. She stayed in the waiting room while a procedure that should have taken maybe three hours stretched into four - then five - the wait was interrupted only by the news that "Your husband is sicker than we knew" (OK DOC YOU WANNA TRANSLATE THAT!?!?). She didn't go home until I was moved from the Cardiac Care Unit to my regular room, days later.

When she had surgeries in '76 and in '93, I did likewise.

When I slipped and fell on ice last December, she waityed on me. She did whatever could be done to make me more comfortable  - to help the healing process.

When she fell and broke her wrist, I was there to help with the day-to-day tasks we all take for granted. Showering and getting dressed is easy if you have two good arms. Having only one good arm makes it very difficult. I tried to do my part to make it easier.

Living with me hasn't always been a bowl of cherries. See "Alcoholism - impact on families." But there was this commitment thing, and she stuck through it.

There were times when our kids flirted with trouble, and times when they found it. But, we stuck with each other. There were days when we were upset with each other - but there was that commitment.

Commitment. If that's present, and if that's honored, the glow comes back, now more mature, now built on awareness of what it's all about.

I love you, Cindy. I always will - faithfully, commitedly. Forever and ever - not for as long as it's convenient, but until death us do part.

Happy Valentine's Day, Cindy. And happy 29th birthday again!

Relections from the storm

The kindness of strangers - the unexpected, unobligated, undeserved kindness of people who don't even know you - is beautiful.

We had a snowstorm last week. Like you didn't know that. It was a monster storm. It stretched from Albuquerque to Maine. In my home town, the storm set a record for a snow event: over three days, almost 19" of snow. We tied the record of 16.7" over a 24-hour period, from Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon. This storm did, indeed, live up its hype.

The department of the company for which I work didn't close on Wednesday - we ARE a utility company, after all - but it might as well have. I'm not sure if anyone got there. If they did, I'm not sure why.

This is not to complain about the weather. We're midwesterners. We know that at some point God will sort of flick her finger and let us know that humanity is the master of nothing much. The only thing that we are master of is our reaction to the circumstance and to each other. And, about that "reaction to each other":

On Tuesday night I left work in downtown Davenport at about 4:15. I got to our residence in far northwest Davenport at about 5:30. It's normally about a 20 minute trip. Normally we don't get stuck at the intersection of 9th Street and Division. Normally we don't follow that by getting stuck at Division and Kimberly. On 9th Street we got through by my backing the car up almost a block, getting a running start toward Division, and praying that no one was coming up Division when we got there. Not recommended procedure, I know. At Kimberly and Division we were the recipient of the kindness of strangers. Two fellows got out of a pickup truck behind us and gave us a push that enabled us to get through the drift. They didn't have to do it. They could have gone around us and been on their way. But, they stopped. And helped.

I got to the house at about 5:30. It took until about 6:45 to get from the bottom of our driveway into our parking place. My son-in-law, Joe, showed up with a snowblower. We shoveled and plowed for the hour, in a snowstorm that was dumping an inch or two per hour, in a wind that blew the snow sideways and straight into our faces. (Yes, I am too old for that crap. My back is still advising me of this.) We finally got to the top of the drive - then got stuck in the parking lot.Shortly after a guy drove up in a larger vehicle. He said, "You've been stuck here about an hour?" We hadn't told him that. He then helped us push our car into our parking place. Two more acts of kindness came to us. One was from our neighbor who saw how stuck we were and called a friend who could help. That's how the guy knew we'd been there for an hour. The other was from that friend, who showed up despite having to drive through awful weather to get here. Neither of them had to do what they did. But they did.

Later that night we got to pass some kindness to a stranger. About 9:30 our doorbell rang. Normally at that time of night if our doorbell rings and we're not expecting anyone we're hesitant about answering. I'm not usually all that  hospitable. I'm nice enough away from home (usually!) but at home I may as well have a sign on the front door: "If you're not expected and not invited and not related you're not welcome." We may let you in. I won't pay any attention to you. But on this occasion - in this blizzard - I opened the door. Outside was a young woman - I'm guessing mid-to-late 20s. In the corner of my eye I saw her car in a snowdrift. She only wanted a warm place, away from the elements, to make a call to get help with getting her car out. We gave her the warmest welcome we could. She was distraught. But, for a few minutes we offered warmth and shelter to a stranger who was in some trouble. By the way, how did she determine to ring our doorbell? Our lights were still on.

The next day - Wednesday - I didn't go to work. I didn't even try in the morning. The wind had created a drift about four feet high across the street from us. City plows created a drift about two feet high in front of both exits from our parking lot. Later that day the folks who clear our parking lot had done so. In the process they removed the city's snowdrifts. About 1:00 I tried to go to work. Northwest Boulevard was a sheet of ice. After some sliding and fishtailing at five miles per hour, I turned around - and got stuck again. Again, a stranger pushed me out.

We midwesterners can be, at times, a chilly bunch. Maybe it's not so much that we're chilly, but we place a lot of value on minding our own business. But in a crisis we do come through for each other. At least, in this crisis and in this place and for this family they did. I received help from unexpected quarters, and we passed that on. Our daughter and my wife and I helped neighbors by shoveling more walks than we needed to.

And kudos to the Davenport city crews who, I think, did pretty well considering the severity of the storm that they were digging out from.

Love to hear your reflections, your memeories. . .As always, love ya and thanks for hanging out with me for a few.