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More Mookie Please

More Mookie Please

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Mookie.

Is there a better name for a baseball player?

I don’t think so.

If you are even a casual Mets fan like me, you remember the 1980s and Mookie Wilson, and of course the 1986 Mets World Series. Mookie Wilson is said to have gotten his nickname by the way he pronounced milk as a young child. Come to think of it, I may have also had a kid who asked for “more mook please.”

Kim and I arrived at my mother’s around 7 pm last Friday evening, and my mom was all excited to watch the Dodgers in the first game of the World Series.

I thought this was odd behavior for my mother, but then, thinking maybe there was a Manhattan involved, I just rolled with it.

“My grandmother was a huge Dodger fan, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and I want to watch the game,” she explained.

Great, I thought, this was kind of a welcome diversion, a break from Fox News and the Hallmark Channel.  A break from the stress of the upcoming election, with all the fascist talk, the threats to democracy, swing states, blue walls, and fake news.

Yeah, it turns out Great Grandma Flora was a big Brooklyn Dodgers fan.  I had never met Flora.  My mother, however, was very close to her grandmother.

And, I wasn’t too familiar with the Brooklyn Dodgers either because not too long after I was born, in 1957, both the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants decided “California’s the place you otta be,” so they loaded up and moved west to Los Angeles and San Fransisco respectively.

This left the New York Yankees as the only team in New York until 1962 when Mookie Wilson’s Mets were established as one of baseball’s first expansion teams.

 

Now sitting and watching the game with my mother, I was happy to find out the Dodgers had a “Mookie” too!

Mookie Betts.

We watched all the way to 10th inning when the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman made history by hitting the first game ending grand slam in World Series history.

Game One…Dodgers 6, Yankees 3.

 

Baseball used to be America’s sport.

As a kid I would walk down my street Willow Court in Oceanport, NJ, past the house my family called “the big house” then owned by my grandmother but also the house where Flora once lived; making my way down to Park’s Drugstore to buy the bubble gum pack with the baseball cards inside.  It never occurred to me that the Roger Maris or Mickey Mantle card I had attached to my bike with a clothespin might be worth some big money someday.  Nope, for me, it had much more immediate value clicking between the spokes of my rear bicycle wheel.

 

 Saturday evening we were invited to a neighbor’s for a Halloween dinner party, so we got back to the TV and the game a little late.  Kim went to bed, but my mother and I watched the second game till the end.

Game two…Dodgers 4, Yankees 2.

 

I never played baseball growing up, though we had Little League and Babe Ruth teams in Oceanport, I wasn’t very athletic.  I played catch in the yard with my brother and friends and street baseball on summer evenings with the neighborhood kids.  Since we lived on a dead end, we didn’t have to vacate the “field” too often by neighbors coming home from work.

The best baseball experience I can boast of is playing Cub Scout softball.

I wasn’t very good at softball either, but, I did manage some brief notoriety when I was playing catch on the sideline behind the bench one game with another teammate and managed to knock out another one of my Cub Scout teammates when the ball I threw didn’t quite reach the intended but instead found its way to another kids head.  I remember he was talking to someone and went down, came right back up resumed the conversation, and then went down again.

Monday night, I am back home but even without my mother, feeling like I had to watch the Dodgers.  The problem was the Steelers were playing on Monday night football, so up and down the stairs I went, as I  tried to watch both games.  After the Steelers’ 26-18 win over the New York football Giants, I watched the rest of the Dodgers game three, now playing in New York.  And though I didn’t see the whole game I did see Mookie Betts hit a base hit that allowed for the third run of the third game.

Game Three…Dodgers 4, Yankees 2, again.

 

I remember the time I watched my friend Bob Woolley who unlike me was a very good athlete, on one of those Little League or Babe Ruth teams, throw a very exaggerated “change-up” pitch that effectively struck the batter out but also engrained in me an understanding of what a “change up” pitch was forever.

I remember the mid-sixties, and especially the 1968 World Series St. Louis Cardinals with my two favorite players of that series Lou Brock and Curt Flood stealing bases.  They were fun to watch and along with pitcher Bob Gibson, they won the series.

And who could forget the ’69 Miracle Mets and the ‘73 Mets who weren’t as lucky.

 

Tuesday Kim and I had something scheduled, and by the time we got home and I turned the game on, it was clear the Yankees offense had awoken.  They added five runs in the eighth inning to the six they had already, and as a result, I got to bed a little earlier.

Game four…Yankees 11, Dodgers only 4.

 

My last experience that involved a bat, ball, and glove was a short stint on the Oceanport Hook & Ladder Fireman’s softball team.  I was the pitcher and after almost being taken out by a line drive, I walked off the mound and retired at the young age of 20 never to return to the diamond again.

 

Game five looked at first, to be a repeat of game four.  Down by five runs, the Dodgers came back to tie the score in the fifth, only to be bested by one run in the sixth. With the score now 6 to 5 Yankees, the Dodgers would add two more in the eighth inning.  Going into the ninth,  the Dodgers couldn’t add any more runs, now with the Yankees at bat, they called in Walker Buehler in relief.  Walker had started game three and would have started game seven had it gone that far, but with no more relievers left in the bullpen; he got the call.

Dodgers7, Yankees 6…the Dodgers are the World Series champs of 2024.

 

So that was that.

Great Grandma Flora’s team, once the Dodgers from Brooklyn, now LA, beat their once cross-town rivals, the New York Yankees.

My mom was happy, imagining her grandmother waving her flag (or pennant maybe) in celebration.

That’s awesome!

But now what do we do?

What are we going to do without a game six or seven?

We need a couple more days of Mookie, I don’t wanna go back to the election…

Ma, more mook, please.

More Mookie!

Because I, who had a better average at knocking out my teammates than I had knocking the ball out of the park, wanted just a couple more days of baseball.

Oh well, at least I had the experience of watching a couple of baseball games with my mother, creating a memory I never would have imagined happening in the first place, but also one that I may not have had the opportunity to repeat.

 

And besides, there are plenty of distractions I can find that will last me until Tuesday.  This weekend is the Breeder’s Cup, the World Series of horse racing, at Del Mar Racecourse in San Diego.  Though there have been Mookie horses in the past, like Bet on Mookie, Mr. Mookie, MVP Mookie, and Miracle Mookie; I couldn’t find any Mookies running this weekend.

And of course, I always have football that will take me through to Monday Night.

Then on Election Day, I can follow the play-by-play well into the wee hours of Wednesday morning if I decide to.

Or I can drink my Mookie and go to bed.

But before I go to bed I will pray for fairness and integrity in our election process, and, that the days that follow be calm, peaceful, and healing.

Amen?

Amen.

 

Postscript:  The photo above is Mookie Wilson in the 1986 World Series.  Mets baserunner Mookie Wilson slides into third base as Wade Boggs can only watch.

ID 69007491
© Gerald T. Coli
Lou Brock and Bob Gibson in this photo. Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
Goodbye Columbus

Goodbye Columbus

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On Columbus Day in Asbury Park New Jersey in the 1960’s, the city would host a ceremony where a person dressed and portraying the character of Christopher Columbus, along with a couple of attendants dressed in their period garb, would brave the ocean’s waves and come ashore ceremoniously “discovering America” right there on the beach in Asbury Park.

The two Boy Scout troops in my hometown of Oceanport at the time had a native American dance team that I participated in called the Lakota’s.  We would wear native American costumes and perform native American dances like the snake dance and the Hopi hoop dance.

On at least one Columbus Day, and I think maybe two, I and the other members of our Lakota tribe were there to greet Columbus as he landed in Asbury, we performed our dances to entertain the public and get our picture in the Asbury Park Press.

When I was growing up, we learned all about the explorers of the New World in grammar school (that would be elementary school in case you didn’t grow up in Jersey). DeSoto, Magellan, Hudson, de Leon, Pizarro, Cabot, to name a few, we learned all about them.  We had to write “reports” and present our explorers to the rest of the class.  Their place in history was quite important at the time. It was still cool to celebrate explorers.

And of course, the most famous of the explorers, the Italian Christopher Columbus, was widely touted as the person who “discovered America” on October 12, 1492, by landing on an island he called San Salvador.  And as a result, thanks to Italian Americans and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937, we picked up another holiday called Columbus Day to be celebrated on October 12, now of course it is recognized on the second Monday of October.

In October of 2021, President Biden signed a proclamation naming the second Monday of the month Indigenous People’s Day, in direct conflict with Columbus Day.

It was no longer cool to celebrate Columbus’ discovery because it opened the new world to other European explorers and ultimately colonization which would lead to warring and diseases that would have a devasting impact on the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

My DNA indicates I am 75% Scandinavian and mostly Norwegian and since my people didn’t make it to America until the early 1900’s I don’t feel too much guilt with the mistreatment of America’s indigenous people directly.  My people were Vikings, they were “raping and pillaging” other Europeans, of which, I suppose I must share some accountability for ancestrally.

And speaking of Scandinavians the truth is Columbus was not the first European to reach the Americas, the Norwegian Leif Erickson is credited with doing that about 500 years earlier; and the first European settlement Vinland, thought to be located on modern-day Newfoundland,  was established by Vikings probably coming from nearby Greenland or Iceland.

The world has lots of sad stories in its documented and undocumented history.  It seems that sadly, conquering and colonization were built into our human nature.  The Bible and our world history books are full of stories of civilizations at war, conquering, enslaving, and exiling. I suppose we are all to blame, even our indigenous people.  And, sadly, it continues still to this day, as we are made aware of listening to the news every day.

 

I spent Columbus Day, or Indigenous People’s Day,  this year on the Eastern Shore making a quick visit to see my mother.  Since the guy who cuts the grass was slacking a little that week, I got the lawn tractor out and knocked that off.  With the tide clock indicating high tide in about an hour, though it was mid-October, I got a fishing pole out of the shed and threw the line out.  I had some pretty good bites but only managed to catch a small spot, which I returned to the water to catch again another day.  Though I don’t like the fall because I know it means winter is coming,  October on the Eastern Shore has become one of my favorite months.  I stood on the pier looking out over the waters and coastlines once traveled by another explorer four hundred years ago, Captain John Smith who explored the Chesapeake Bay and who knows, maybe even anchored his shallop in the protected waters of Fishing Creek while he traded with the natives on Deep Point Road.

In 1970 American writer Dee Brown published a book titled Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West.  I read that book at some point in the early 70’s and though I can’t say I remember the details of the book now 50 years later, I do remember that I cried finishing the last chapter.

I guess I must have felt some guilt after all.

 

Postscript:

Today October 19 is the anniversary of the day Kim’s dad Royal lost his battle with cancer four years ago.  October 15 was the anniversary of the day my dear friend Tawanda lost hers in 2011.  I have written in the past about both, Royal in The Steinster and Tawanda in The Beauty of an October Day. I am confident they are both resting peacefully.

The photo above is of the Lakota’s though not in costume probably circa 1968.  I couldn’t find the photo of us in costume. That’s me front and center.  The photo below of Christopher Columbus landing on the beach is not one of our group.  I couldn’t find that photo either.  This one is from the book Images of America, Monmouth Council Boy Scouts.

Fishing Creek
Early October sunset
That’s What You Get

That’s What You Get

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That’s what you get for lovin’ me
That’s what you get for lovin’ me
Everything you had is gone, as you can see
That’s what you get for lovin’ me

(from For Lovin’ Me written by Gordon Lightfoot)

 

My grandmother Eleanora worked at the Dan Electro factory in Neptune, New Jersey when I was young.  As a result, at very young ages, my brother Carl, my sister Pat, and I all received transistor radios for Christmas.  And maybe Gary did too and I just wasn’t paying attention by that time.   I think I got my first radio when I was five or six so maybe 1961 or 1962.

My wife hates music from the 1960s.  She says it causes her great anxiety.  Sometimes I will turn on the Sirius XM 60’s station in the car, it makes her crazy.

Me, on the other hand, I love it, it puts me in my happy place.

If I ever wanted to make my wife crazier than I have already made her, I could lock her in a room and play Surfin’ Bird by the Trashmen over and over.

That would surely trigger some anxiety.

But I wouldn’t do that.

That would be mean.

That would be abusive.

 

The lyrics from the song above are from the 60’s.  They are from the 1965 song “For Lovin’ Me” sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary and written by Gordon Lightfoot.

I heard this song a couple of weeks ago while listening to the 60’s channel on Sirius XM.

It has been haunting me ever since, causing me anxiety, causing me to lose sleep even.

I listened to it a few more times, then I read the lyrics.

I interpreted it as narcissistic.

I researched the meaning of the lyrics, toxic masculinity was proposed.

I researched toxic masculinity.

It brought me back to narcissism.

 

I know of a father who once had to endure listening to an audio recording of his daughter being beaten by her husband:

“Don’t hit me in the face,” he heard his daughter pleading desperately.

She was not pleading to not be beaten, she knew that was going to happen, that wasn’t an option.

She, having no doubt been through this before, was specifically pleading not to be hit in the face.

And this was real stuff, not television, not Law and Order,  not Chicago PD.

 

If you are a father of daughters like I am, can you imagine?

Can you imagine hearing your daughter getting beat up by some jerk?

Probably not, and we definitely couldn’t imagine what this young woman had to endure.

But as a father what would you do?

Would you cry?

Would you want to treat violence with violence?

Would you want to put your Christian values to the test?

Would you feel helpless?

 

I have read that it is hard to intervene in these situations, intervening can often make things worse.

You just have to love them, and be there when the time comes, to be ready to help when the decision to escape is finally made.

And be supportive.

I guess sometimes, what you get for loving someone,  is not always what you expect to get.

Sometimes relationships come with mental abuse, and sometimes physical abuse, sometimes worse.

And sometimes even though everything you had was gone; money, credit, self-esteem, confidence, and dreams maybe,  you were lucky enough to still have your life.

Lucky enough to escape.

Lucky enough to be able to build a new life once again.

Make some new dreams.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

A good reminder for us dads and moms too, to pay attention to our daughters, and our sons, because sons can be victims too.

 

I guess I am learning that not all songs from the 60’s put me in my happy place.

Now if you want to experience some of Kim’s anxiety, watch this video of Surfin’ Bird.  And you have to watch it until the end.

So don’t you shed a tear for me
I ain’t the love you thought I’d be
I’ve got a hundred more like you…
I’ll have a thousand ‘fore I’m through

(from For Lovin’ Me by Gordon Lightfoot)

And that, is a scary reality.

Ophelia Anxiety

Ophelia Anxiety

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Boards on the window, mail by the door
What would anybody leave so quickly for?
Ophelia
Where have you gone?

(from “Ophelia”)

 

“Ophelia” is a song written by Robbie Robertson, a member of The Band.  “Ophelia” was first released by the band called The Band on their 1975 album Northern Lights-Southern Cross.

If you are a fan of The Band, you know that Robbie Robertson passed away this past August 9, another sad loss.    If you grew into your teens in the late sixties and early 70’s, then music performed by The Band no doubt made up a part of the musical score of your growing up.  Whether it was the iconic Music From Big Pink in 1968 or the self-titled brown album, Stage Fright, or Cahoots or whichever, music by The Band was no doubt playing somewhere in your background.

 

But of course, this week we weren’t focused on an old tune by The Band named “Ophelia,” it was tropical storm Ophelia that got our attention in the Delmarva area, though the verse above seemed somewhat fitting for an impending storm.

 

I was still in bed Friday morning when Kim and I got the message via Messenger, a warning from my grandson Christian.

Christian is our family Hurricane Tracker.

I hadn’t planned on going anywhere this past weekend, and I hadn’t heard of any impending weather event.

But thanks to Christian I was made aware of a tropical storm named Ophelia heading towards the Chesapeake Bay.

I immediately went to the Woolford, Maryland weather forecast on the internet and read Woolford was smack in the middle of the Tropical Storm Warning.

Kim and I began to discuss our options as I pondered what to do.

Was there some unwritten rule that said you couldn’t let your almost 90-year-old mother fend for herself in a Tropical Storm?

I thought about the time I helped my dad put plywood over the windows on the river side of the house before a threatening hurricane came up the bay some years ago.

Then I remembered my dad paddling around the neighborhood when the water came up after Hurricane Isabel.

I envisioned the tide up over the bulkhead, the aluminum rowboat floating and banging up against the tree in the 70 mile an hour winds, and my 89-year-old mother out in knee deep water, her ninety-five-pound body getting knocked around in the white caps as she tried to secure the boat before it floated away…

Yeah, okay, so needless to say,  I got to packing.

 

So, after dinner on Friday evening after traffic died down but before the worst of storm arrived in our area, I headed out to the eastern shore to batten down the hatches and erase the image from my mind of my mother fending for herself in the floods, the wind, and the rain.

 

I have been in kind of a funk lately.

Summer is winding down, impending darkness in the coming weeks.

I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but it is not uncommon for me as the summer ends to get like this.  But then I heard of a theory worth serious consideration.

The Vice President of the United States introduced the threat of Climate Anxiety.

Yes, Climate Anxiety.

And according to the VP, it’s causing people to not want to have children and not want to buy houses.

Oh, my goodness, I thought.

That’s me!

That must be what I am suffering from.

I too don’t want to have any more children, but I actually attributed that to Daughter Anxiety but, maybe that is not so.

And I don’t want to buy any new houses either.

Yes, Climate Anxiety, I am sure that is the cause of my recent funk.

 

But, I digress.

So early Saturday morning I secured the four kayaks, the deck furniture, and the aluminum boat.  I took down the Steelers flag flying on the flagpole on the dock because the rope was fraying, and it was taking a serious beating. I didn’t want to lose it.

 

And then my mother and I settled in for whatever Ophelia was to deliver.

We watched the river.

We watched the wind intensity and direction in the trees and the flag.

We watched the weather on CNN.

We watched the Hallmark Channel.

We watched Fox News.

(That’s how I learned I had climate anxiety.)

And in the end, compared to other storms that visited in the past,

Ophelia was a yawner.

 

Ashes of laughter, the ghost is clear
Why do the best things always disappear
Like Ophelia
Please darken my door

(from “Ophelia”)

 

And I should say thankfully Ophelia was a yawner, because no one wants what could have been.

So, Sunday morning, three hours before high tide, with the water already over the dock, but comfortable that it wouldn’t get much worse, I dipped out and went back home.

I got to spend some time with my mother and was now able to substitute my daughter anxiety with the real culprit, climate anxiety.

Life was good again.

 

And speaking of daughter anxiety, I read this morning that yesterday was National Daughters Day.

Sorry guys, I missed another one.

But you know, I love you more than meatballs.

 

Postscript:

The happy photo of me and my little chickens above was taken many years ago, before they got together and traumatized me.

 

This is Christian’s Atlantic Ocean Hurricane tracking map (he has the Pacific too)
Sunday morning, three hours until high tide
Daughter anxiety

 

Ethan’s Guernica

Ethan’s Guernica

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On this day in 1981 Picasso’s Guernica, his anti-war mural, was returned to Spain after forty years of hanging in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.  Picasso had requested the painting not be returned to Spain until Spain restored democratic liberties in the country.

The subject of the mural was the brutal bombing of the town of Guernica in 1937, by the Nazi Luftwaffe, who were allies of Fransisco Franco’s right-wing Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso was commissioned to paint the mural showing the horrors of war to be exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition in 1939.

 

Today is also Grandparent’s Day.

We didn’t have a Grandparent’s Day when I was a kid.  According to the internet, Grandparent’s Day was made official in 1978 as the first Sunday after Labor Day by then President Jimmy Carter.

I think relationships with my grandparents when I was young were a bit more formal than today. In fact, in my family, when we referred to them we always used their last name as in Grandma Rosch or Grandpa Christiansen.

All of my four grandparents lived in Oceanport, the town I grew up in.

I have written about my father’s parents, my Norwegian grandparents Sophie and Carl before.

My grandparents on my mother’s side (Rosch) lived right across the street.  Technically their address was Main Street but the back lots of their property were on Willow Court, the street I grew up on, and right across from my house.  My grandfather William H. Rosch however died in August of 1960 at the age of 75 when I was just four years old.

But I have nice memories growing up to adulthood with my three grandparents.

 

Kim and I are grandparents too now.

We have three grandsons, Cameron, Christian, and Ethan.  I have written about them many times as well. But maybe not so much about Ethan.

 

Ethan is six.

He is very headstrong and determined but gets a little frustrated at times.

Recently at school, he and his classmates were assigned the task of drawing a self-portrait.

Ethan also happens to be very good at drawing, a talent that seems to run in my family, my grandfather Carl was an oil painter, my father worked with pastels, and my siblings are talented artistically as well.

However, Ethan apparently didn’t approve of being assigned the task of drawing a self-portrait.

As a result, he took on the brutality and the horror of being asked to do such a thing in a very Picassoesque way.

So, as all the other kids in the class drew their images as you might expect them to, Ethan created his Guernica, expressing his raw feelings on the matter.

And as his proud grandfather, I thought it was brilliant.

Happy Grandparents Day!

The class self portraits, Ethan’s is top right
Isn’t he cute? He had his first baseball game this weekend.
Ethan’s Guernica
Picasso’s Guernica
Ethan, Cameron, and Christian
This is the End

This is the End

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“This the end, my only friend, the end…”

“The End.”

Jim Morrison wrote that song by The Doors.

I often find myself singing that line when I feel I am nearing the end of something.  A good vacation, a good bottle of wine maybe, or as it was this week, the end of another summer.

A post popped up on my Facebook feed on Labor Day that was the top thirty songs of the week of September 4, 1970.  The week of September 4, 1970, was significant to me because it was the week that I started high school.  My first days at Shore Regional High School in West Long Branch, New Jersey.

Labor Day in 1970 was September 7.  My first day of high school would have been September 8 since schools at that time always remained closed until after Labor Day.

Hard to believe that was fifty-three years ago.

Back then we only got new clothes twice a year, at the start of school and at Christmas.  And it didn’t matter how silly those bell bottoms looked as you went through your growth spurt, you had to wait it out.

I was fortunate (I guess) to have finished most of my growing early.  I weighed 110 pounds when I started high school and 120 pounds when I graduated.

I also got a haircut to go along with those new school clothes and a new beaded necklace.

And that would be another end for me, the end of haircuts, well at least for the next four years. I didn’t get another haircut until sometime after I graduated high school.

The number one song that week of my first day of high school was “Spill the Wine” by Eric Burdon & War.

 

The photo above was taken by a neighbor on the last Sunday evening of the last unofficial weekend of summer, Labor Day weekend.

The end.

The unofficial end of summer.

I was fighting it a bit, trying to squeeze in some last-minute fishing as the sun went down. Kim and I were leaving early the next day to beat the holiday traffic so this was it for me.  And just before the bait ran out, in the darkness, I snagged a keeper.

It was a good weekend, we ate crabs with friends, did some kayaking, rode our bikes to Taylor’s Island, and found a new place called Palm Beach Willies to take a break from cycling.

And I got to fish a little.

 

So, with the end of some things, there are often new beginnings.  In September of 1970 the anticipation of high school, meeting new friends, learning new things, and experiencing growing up outside of my familiar boundaries was high.  And I guess, since it was the early 1970’s, so was I at times.

Now fifty-three years later, the unofficial end of summer doesn’t have that same level of anticipation of something new and never experienced.  Those familiar boundaries are back, but this time they don’t feel so confining,  more comforting really. And who knows what new and unanticipated life change might be waiting in the next season.

I haven’t written anything to share since the end of June when my dad died.

This is the first time I have felt motivated to write.

So hopefully maybe that is the end of that.

 

The week of September 4, 1970, the number three song on the list was kind of a silly song in my opinion, a song by Mungo Jerry called “In the Summertime:”

When the weather’s fine we go fishing or go swimming in the sea

We’re always happy, life’s for living

Yeah that’s our philosophy

 

Life’s for living, we go fishing, we’re always happy?

Maybe it wasn’t so silly after all.

 

And, this, is the end.

 

Postscript:

After all those years of singing that line from The End, I decided to visit the lyrics for the entire song and Lord have mercy, I wouldn’t recommend doing that.

 

Kayaking on Fishing Creek
The Carpenter

The Carpenter

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I am a carpenter, hear my hammer ring,

I am a man who can do almost anything.

I am a craftsman, I work with tools to refine,

And the pleasure and satisfaction derived, only I can define.

I built my family to last with the hope it would never end,

I built my home with the love and help of my family and friends.

Along the way with a hammer and a nail I did mend,

And those things that fell apart I tried to put back together again.

And though I am aging, I am still not afraid,

I can look back on what I crafted knowing they will stay.

I built my sons and my daughter with the love of my wife,

I helped build my children’s children with stories from my life.

And my life will go on every time you look at them,

Because when you see something of mine you will remember me when.

And still, I am aging but you can’t make me afraid,

I am proud of what I built and those I have made.

I am a carpenter, and someday they will say,

He was a carpenter, and we loved him that way.

 

Carl Edwin “Moe” Christiansen

The Strongest Kid in Oceanport

April 11, 1929 – June 15, 2023

A Conversation in Never Land

A Conversation in Never Land

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Never mind.

Never mind?

Yeah, never mind.

Never mind what?

Never mind what it is that you think I never said.

I never said there was something that I thought you never said.

You know I would never not tell you that.

I don’t know that you would never not tell me that, because I don’t know what it is that you never said.

You know, you never say that to me either.

Okay, well I am truly sorry that I never say that to you, but I promise I will never do it again.

Aha.  What did you do now? It’s probably something I could never imagine.

I don’t know what it is  you could never imagine, and I don’t know what it is you never said, because you never told me.

Well I just can’t believe that we are even having this conversation and I never want to speak about it again.

Well, that goes double for me too because I never want to speak about again either, never, ever, ever.

Well, I never!

Well, I never what?  Never what?

Oh, never mind.

Never mind?

Yeah, never mind.

Okay then, never mind.

 

I love you.

I love you too.

Pork Roll

Pork Roll

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I kissed him on his forehead to say goodbye as I typically do, but this time, in his wheelchair, he raised his left arm and tried to reach around my back like he was attempting to hug me. I was surprised. I got closer to allow his arm to rest on my back and I put my face against his as he pulled me in. We stayed in that position for a while. It was comforting, it had been a long time.

Thanks, Dad, I really needed that.

 

Needs.

We all have them.

We all need them fulfilled.

Jesus once said, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone…”

My mother would probably finish that statement by saying, “yeah how about I make a pork roll, egg, and cheese to put on that bread.”

That’s one way I suppose.

 

We might think our needs are all different, but they are probably surprisingly similar, never the less, they are ours.

And they change from year to year, month to month, and even day to day.

 

The truth is we are born into this world needy.

As infants and children, unable to take care of ourselves, we rely on others for even our most basic needs.

Feeding, housing, safety, learning, emotional support, and development, are provided to us by our mother, our father, or sometimes another family member or other loving person. They are our lifelines.

Let’s face it, even Jesus needed his Eema and his earthly Abba.

 

Then the day comes when we have children of our own and we become their lifeline.

And we begin to better understand what our parents did for us.

How much effort it took, how much time, and how much money.

How much joy it provided.

And as our kids grew and got more independent, we saw their needs change, but our needs changed too.

We still had those basic requirements needed in order to live, but as we aged life got more complicated.

And sometimes, as it might be with an aging parent, unable to care for him or herself, the parent becomes like the child again.

As a result of my father’s inability to care for himself, as his age advanced and his disease progressed, the decision had to be made to place him in a facility where he could be taken care of safely. My mom, not able to physically manage him at home, now spends each day with him at the nursing home providing those things the staff may not be able to. Things like conversation, memories, games for stimulation and thought, and of course, love. The rest of us, challenged by geography and the continued need to provide for ourselves, do the best we can.

The last few visits I had had with my father, I left feeling greatly depressed. My visits were met with silence, eyes that wouldn’t open, the inability to make any connection. On one visit in fact he was even trying to hit me with his fists, which I attributed to him acting out a dream, something not uncommon with my dad’s condition. Though I didn’t take it personally, it was another missed opportunity, and yeah, I guess I did take it a little personally.

Last weekend, however, he was different. His eyes were wide open though his sight is still limited. He was participating in conversation, smiling and laughing at things I said, and laughing at himself at times for things he said.

And he initiated that hug.

It was awesome.

I needed a weekend like that with him and, I am guessing, he felt like he had a similar need.

However fleeting the event or the moment may have been, or prove to be in the future, I was grateful.

We all have the need to feel loved, no matter how old we get.

 

Jesus said, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone…”

But there is more, the scripture goes on to say “… but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

 

You see Ma? Not everything can be fixed by pork roll, even when you are from New Jersey.

It’s the word of God that fulfills our needs.

That’s what keeps us living and loving.

 

But sometimes a little hug doesn’t hurt either.

 

On Saturday I was trying to get him to look at old photos on my laptop. The next thing I knew he had his face planted in the side of my face. I asked him what he was doing and he said, ” I looking at your face.” Fair enough.

 

Postscript:

On the six Tuesdays during the period of Lent, I am participating in a daily writing that we are doing at my church, Sterling United Methodist Church.  The daily themes are based on one word each day and some associated scripture.  Today’s word is Needs .  If you would like to keep up with the posts from others click on this link in the postscript.

Love Lost and Love Found

Love Lost and Love Found

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I remember the first time I met Pastor Jim Snow.  Kim and I were just starting to go out together and she brought me to a Sterling United Methodist Church picnic at Claude Moore Park in Sterling. As a kid, in my experience attending Sunday School at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in West Long Branch New Jersey, pastors always wore long black robes, collars, and were a bit intimidating.  Jim on the other hand had a mustache, was wearing jeans, a flannel shirt and a driver’s hat and he was cracking jokes.  And best of all, I was able to call him “Jim”!

Kim had two requirements of me if I wanted to get to know her better, she wanted to be courted and I had to go to church.

I was prepared to do whatever it took.

The first time I attended church at Sterling UMC, I remember we sat about four rows back from the front on the center aisle on the left side. I think I wanted to sit on the end in case I had a panic attack. I don’t think that at the time I had attended church as a worshipper in thirty years. Hayley and Alexa were raised in the synagogue so I had spent some time in temple.  But church, only for weddings and funerals.

I remember looking up at the ceiling and hoping the roof didn’t cave in.  But when it was over, also I remember feeling good, like I had been lost, but now I was found.

I was supposed to be in this place.

We would continue to go to church as our relationship developed and I would continue to push my comfort levels as I got reintroduced.

I had never in my life taken communion and my hand would shake as I took the cup and raised it to my lips.

In April of 2000 Kim and I stood at the rail with our hands on Donny and Savannah as they were confirmed.

And thankfully, I met the requirements imposed on me as a suitor and our courtship worked out, because we had it all arranged for Jim Snow to marry Kim and I on the first day of July that year.  But Jim’s cancer had other plans and he passed away that spring.  Instead, we were married by Lee Crosby on his first official day as a pastor.  And with Alexa, Hayley, Donny, and Savannah beside us, we stood in front of the cross and were married.

We  continued to go to church and I continued to get reacquainted with being a Christian.

For a brief period, because we wanted Donny and Savannah to be active in Youth Group, we started attending Herndon UMC because the kids had school friends in that group.  But whenever I could, if for some reason I found myself alone on a Sunday morning, I would dip back into Sterling UMC and sit in the back row. It felt more like home.

I had never been baptized so in January of 2002 I requested of our pastor at the time, Alan Reifsnyder to join the church and be baptized on the next available date.  On January 27, 2002 in front of my family, except for Donny who was away that weekend, but including my parents and my new church family, I was baptized at the age of forty five.

In June of that year we met the new pastor Ralph Goodman and his family, who would be starting on the first day of July.  Donny was really excited because Ralph had two very pretty daughters.

Not too long after that, on July 23, 2002 Kim and I would stand at the rail again and place our hands on Donny, this time for the last time. A tragic accident had taken Donny’s life on Friday, July 19th.  On that Tuesday we celebrated Donny’s life and gave his spirit up to God.  The church overflowed with people that day.  Even the Sterling Volunteer Fire Department came because mysteriously the fire alarm went off in the middle of the service.

Ralph Goodman, in his first month on the job, walked that walk with Kim and I, and with the Herndon community that surrounded Donny.  He joined the impromptu gatherings of grieving kids, walked the neighborhood, spent time at “the rock” at Herndon High School.  For that we will be forever grateful. I cried on his last day preaching at Sterling UMC.

A life event like that couldn’t be survived without friends, family, church family, and most important, God and faith.  To this day however I struggle to attend funerals at the church and generally find myself staying as busy in the background as I can, and fighting back tears whenever I hear “Amazing Grace.”

But with Jesus and Kim’s faith as our rock we kept moving, becoming more active in church.

My level of comfort was greatly tested when Kim and Savannah signed up to participate in a week long mission trip to Jamaica and Savannah dropped out at the last minute.

“Curt will go” Kim said.

“But Kim, I don’t want to go on a mission trip” I pleaded.

But all she would say is “Then you need to pray about.”

So, I did.

But my prayers weren’t answered.  I found myself in Jamaica that summer.

And in the end, it was a life changing experience.

And we even went back the following year.

 

Our church life continued.  We would share our Jamaica experiences with Pastor Randy Duncan and his wife Robin and get to know them better.  Randy came to Sterling after Ralph left and remained for eleven years, the years Kim and I were most active in the church.

I would have another “first” at the rail when we took Cameron up for Communion for the first time.  He took the bread, but when offered the cup he said politely “no thank you, I don’t like grape juice.” The server told him “that’s okay, you don’t have to drink it.”  But after some hesitation he did anyway, and when we returned to our pew in the back, he asked Kim and I if he could say another prayer. Then he had us bow our heads and fold our hands and Cameron prayed “Dear God, thank you for bringing me back to church, Amen.”

I cried that day too.

On Easter Sunday April 16, 2017, I was a proud dad whose family practically filled the whole pew.  Savannah and Cameron were there.  Hayley and her new family with her husband and two stepchildren were with us too.  Pastor Steve Vineyard delivered the sermon called “Who Will Roll Away the Stone,” the stone representing the heavy weight keeping us from facing all those tough things we had going on in our lives. A month or so later I would get a phone call from Hayley asking for my assistance to help her get out of the physically and emotionally abusive marriage she was in.  Hayley attributed the courage she needed to make that decision to Pastor Steve’s sermon that Easter Sunday.  “Who Will Roll Away the Stone” may have saved Hayley’s life.

In October of 2021 our entire family would return to the rail once again and witness the wedding of Savannah and Leon performed by Pastor Linda Monroe.

Kim and I have been less active the last few years.  The Pandemic, trying to care for aging parents in different states, the challenges sometimes of working and worshipping in the same place.

 

But I was blessed to have been given a second chance in life to find love in this church.

The love of a new marriage.

The love of a new blended family.

The love realized in the experiences of my kids, the joyful ones and the sad ones, and learning love overcomes the sad ones.

The love of a church family I had never experienced.

And most importantly, the Love of God.

 

For me, Love was lost, but then I found it again.

I was lost, and somehow, I was found.

Because God’s Love and God’s Grace,

Are Amazing.

 

 

 

 

Postscript:

On the six Tuesdays during the period of Lent, I am participating in a daily writing that we are doing at my church, Sterling United Methodist Church.  The daily themes are based on one word each day and some associated scripture.  Today’s word is Love.  If you would like to keep up with the posts from others click on this link in the postscript.