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Bullet Works

Bullet Works

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As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.  As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.  While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:1-5)

 

If you know me, you know I am big fan of horse racing. In the world of horse racing when you talk about works, it is referring to the training runs, the workouts the horse performs typically in the mornings.  For instance, the trainer may have the horse “work” four furlongs (a half mile) to keep the horse in good condition in between races.  These works are typically timed and published for handicappers.  A bullet work occurs when a horse runs the fastest work of all the horses training that particular morning.

Bullet works are good works.

 

Afleet Alex like all other thoroughbreds born in 2002, as far as the racing world is concerned, turned three years old on January 1, 2005.  After winning a couple of Grade One stakes races as a two year old,  he went on to win the Arkansas Derby and qualify to be eligible for the Kentucky Derby.

In the traffic of the Kentucky Derby Afleet Alex finished third.  Two weeks later in the Preakness Stakes, Afleet Alex, stumbled at the top of the stretch and nearly dropped to his knees with his nose almost going into the dirt, but miraculously he recovered.  Jeremy Rose, the jockey, had no idea how he was able to remain on the horse.  He did, and not only did they manage to recover, but they also went on to win the Preakness Stakes by almost 5 lengths.

Three weeks later Afleet Alex would win the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown by exploding in the final turn and winning by seven lengths.

Three of the children of the ownership syndicate of Afleet Alex were named Alex or Alexandria which is   how the son of Northern Afleet and grandson of Afleet earned the Alex portion of his name.

 

Alexandra “Alex” Scott was born in January of 1996.  Shortly before her first birthday Alex was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a type of childhood cancer.   In the year 2000 after her fourth birthday, she received a stem cell transplant and told her mother if she if she got out of the hospital, she wanted to have a lemonade stand.  She wanted to give the money she earned to the doctors to “help other kids, like they helped me.”

Later that year she held her first lemonade stand and raised $2000.

Despite her battle with cancer Alex and her family would continue to hold lemonade stands to raise money to fight childhood cancer.  As news spread about the little girl with neuroblastoma who was dedicating her frail life to raising money to help other sick children like her, more lemonade stands popped up with the proceeds going to Alex’s cause.

The owners of Afleet Alex had become aware of the efforts of young Alex and her lemonade stand by reading an article in a local newspaper one day.  They felt some connection between their Alex and the little girl working to help fight cancer and they began to donate a portion of Afleet Alex’s winnings to Alex’s Lemonade Stand.  At first the donations were anonymous but as Afleet Alex became more successful a partnership was established and little Alex’s cause was shared with the world.

In August of 2004 Alex passed away at the age of eight years old. Up to the time of her death, her charity had raised more than one million dollars.

But even after her death, Alex’s parents continued the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation  Through their association with the owner’s of Afleet Alex they were invited to set up Alex’s Lemonade Stand at the 2005 Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont thus exposing the foundation to world.

 

After winning the Belmont it was determined that Afleet Alex had a leg injury that would end his racing career and he was retired to Gainseway Farm in Lexington, Kentucky.

When Afleet Alex stumbled and jockey Jeremy Rose surely should have been thrown from that horse, he would say “An angel kept me safe.”  That angel in his mind was little Alex.

Alexandra Scott was very special, and to many so was Afleet Alex.

One of the owners tells a story of a visit to Gainseway Farm where she found two women openly weeping while standing in front of Afleet Alex.  They were sisters and one of the sisters had recently been diagnosed with cancer.  They had driven all the way from Maine to see this horse.  The owner explained that the sister with cancer truly believed that if she could just touch the horse, she would be cured.

 

We don’t know why Alex Scott developed the cancer that took her life after just eight short years.  But as the scripture above explains it wasn’t because she sinned, or her parents sinned.  With her cancer Alex recognized the need to help other sick kids and the doctors working to find a cure.  She answered her call to perform good works.  As a team, the two Alex’s raised a lot of money to help to find cures for pediatric cancers. You might say the works of God were displayed in the efforts and generosity of the pairing of Alexandra Scott and her family with the owners of this horse and Afleet Alex himself though surely, he didn’t understand how much his work mattered in the cause.  But others, like the sister who thought touching him might cure her cancer, understood how special he was.

I have read that Methodists believe “Faith is necessary to salvation unconditionally. Good works are necessary only conditionally, that is if there is time and opportunity.”  We might find some comfort in that since we don’t always have the time or the opportunity to serve at certain stages of our lives, yet our faith remains strong.

For Alexandra night came sooner than expected, but she made the best of her opportunity.

“As long as it is day, we must do the works of Him…”

And they did.

You might even call them bullet works.

 

 

To find out more about Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation or to donate here is a link.

 

Afleet Alex
Photo of me and my son in law Namaan in the Paddock at Gulfstream Park with other owners of Iron Works this past Sunday.

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 Works.  If you would like to keep up with the posts from others click on this link in the postscript.

Standing In the Son

Standing In the Son

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I can only imagine
What my eyes would see
When Your face is before me
I can only imagine

(from the song “I Can Only Imagine” by Mercy Me)


Exodus 34 verse 29 tells us that “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.”

Moses went up the mountain, and when he came down, his face was radiant.

Dazzling, you might say.

Moses had spoken to God.

 

Many years later Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. This story is told in Matthew 17:

“There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

4 Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

6 When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” 8 When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

Jesus’ face “shone like the sun.”

His clothes became “as white as the light.”

“A bright cloud covered them” and then God spoke.

Once again dazzling.

 

Me?

I can’t even imagine, witnessing all this.

And Peter didn’t show fear until he heard God speak.

I think I would have been halfway down the mountain seeing Moses and Elijah appear.

But Peter was ready to set up tents!

 

Hearing God speak.

Seeing Jesus transfigured before them.

Seeing Moses and Elijah appearing with Jesus.

We can only imagine.

 

Our image of God is through Jesus.

Our images of Jesus are shaped and formed by the imaginations of others long before us.

However the way we picture or imagine Jesus to look, we can speak to him daily through prayer.

So talk to God.

Pray.

And when you speak to God in this way, let your face shine like the sun.

Be radiant, lit up, dazzling.

As you give up to God those burdens that may be dimming the brightness in your life.

And give thanks for the blessings.

 

 

And imagine yourself “Standing in the Son.”

So get up.

And don’t be afraid.

 

I can only imagine
When that day comes
And I find myself
Standing in the Son

(From “I Can Only Imagine” by Mercy Me)

 

Postscript:

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

 

 

Butch and A Couple of Chrissies

Butch and A Couple of Chrissies

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Five years ago today, my good friend Joe passed away. I wrote a couple of essays about Joe at the time. One was called “Hey Butch…Get Me a Beer.”  Joe’s grandfather used to say that.  Joe’s family-given nickname was “Butch.”

My daughter Alexa called me one evening recently.

Christian had just come in and pointed out to her, “you don’t have a nickname for me like Ethan,” (Ethan is often called Ethie).

And so, Alexa explained to Christian how my brother Carl was called “Chrissie” because there were two Carls in the family.

My father’s name is Carl, so when my parents wanted to call my brother Carl, in order to avoid confusion, they began calling him “Chris” right out of the gate. My brother Carl was called Chris or Chrissie by our family members and most others who knew him as a kid, all his life.

And when Alexa finished explaining how her Uncle Carl got the nickname Chrissie to Christian, he pondered that and as he left the room he declared that he too would also like to be called “Chrissie.”

A good choice of a nickname in my opinion, but some big shoes to fill.

 

I always wanted to have a nickname growing up.

I thought having a nickname would be cool.

There were a couple of older girls who lived on the end of my street who, when I was young,  called me “Curtie.”

But that really wasn’t what I was going for.

I wanted something way cooler like Dusty, or Kid, or Tex, or Chick maybe.

No, “Curtie” wasn’t going to cut it. But that is pretty common, right?  You add the “ie” sound to a name and you get Joey, Matty, Patty, or even Chrissie.

Or maybe it’s a modification of your last name.  Like if your last name is Knepper, they might call you “Knep”.   Or maybe it’s Natale and they call you “Nat.” I think all of us in my family got called “Chris” at some time or other as an abbreviation for Christiansen.  But since my brother’s family-given nickname was Chris that had the potential to cause some confusion. We couldn’t all be called “Chris.”

My dad has a cool nickname.  His nickname is Mo.  I asked him once how it is he got the nickname Mo but at the time he couldn’t remember.  He once told me in the Boy Scouts they called him “One Chop Mo” because he could cut through a branch with an axe with one swing.  Maybe the fact that my grandfather’s name was Carl as well had something to do with him being called Mo.

 

There were motorcycle gang nicknames like “Nails” and “Dirt.”

And organized crime has some cool ones too like “Joe Bananas,” “Scareface,” “Bugsy,” or “Ice Pick Willie.”

How about the Top Gun nicknames?  “Maverick,” “Ice Man,” “Goose,” and “Hangman.”

And we can’t forget the Jersey Shore music scene nicknames like “Mad Dog,” “The Boss,” “The Big Man,” or “Miami Steve.”

Nope, no “Curties” in that bunch.

Then of course there are those nicknames that were bestowed on kids by other kids. As kids, we thought them to be harmless. Looking back maybe they weren’t always so.

Maybe they were in fact, mean.

Those would be nicknames like “Babbles” for a friend who stuttered, “Oafy Tom” for a friend who was larger and clumsier, or “Rabbit” for a friend who might have had some distinct facial characteristics.

I guess it’s true that not all nicknames are cool.

 

I never did get my cool nickname, though for a time back when I was still in Jersey I was being called “Little Mo” by some.   And my good friend Joe or “Butch” modified that a bit, he called me “Moses.”  He would always draw out the Mo part.

Maybe if I had stayed in Jersey something might have stuck.

Some years ago Savannah started calling me Spunky.  That kind of stuck with the kids anyway.

And I suppose Curt is a nickname for Curtis, so I guess I had one all along.

I am still just happy it wasn’t “Curtie.”

 

I am sure Christian will live up to his new nickname should he choose to keep it.

Maybe we will have a couple of Chrissies in the family.

And it was nice to remember my friend Butch on this day and my brother too.

It’s hard to believe it has been this many years already.

When we were kids, thankfully the hot summers seemed to go on forever, but of course, they didn’t.

Now whole years fly by like they are just passing seasons.

And though the prayer below reminds us “it is in dying that we are born to eternal life,”

still, I miss them both.

Postscript:

I was Googling a little while writing this and I found the website of The Mob Museum in Las Vegas.  On the Mob Museum website you can answer a number of questions and based on your responses they will generate a mob nickname for you. I did it a couple of times.

One time it came back Curtis “Trigger” Christiansen.

That one sounded too much like a horse.

But then another time it generated Curtis “The Gun” Christiansen.

Now we’re getting closer!

“The Gun”

Funambulism

Funambulism

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I have written before about my “word of the day” that comes in my email every day.  One day last week the word was Funambulism.

Okay so I admit I had no idea what this word meant, but it looked like a really fun word.

Right?

Fun…ambulism.

So, I knew what “fun” was…I mean I do, I can be fun sometimes.

And then I looked up “ambulism,” and learned that meant “a disorder involving walking.”

Ah okay, I thought, having trouble walking after having too much fun, that makes sense to me.

Fun-ambulism.

Even I may have funambulated once or twice before in my life.

 

But then, to my disappointment, I got deeper into my email and learned the word wasn’t funambulism at all, it was funambulism pronounced fyoo-NAM-byə-lizm.

And this funambulism meant “the art of walking on a tightrope.”

 

Back in November, I was repairing a picnic table the kids used on the playground at the church by replacing the top and benches with pressure-treated wood after the original plastic parts had broken.

During the process of attaching one of the boards, I hit my left thumb with my hammer just below the thumbnail.

Even though I was at church, I reacted pretty much as you might expect anyone who has hit their left thumb with a hammer to react.

Only I asked for forgiveness after.

Anyway, I finished the table and after the pain went away, I forgot about the incident with my thumb and the hammer.

Until one day, as my thumbnail began to grow, the blood blistery kind of thing that shows up under your nail after you hit it with a hammer began to take shape.

Sitting at the bar of the Hard Rock Café at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor on New Year’s Day as we ate dinner while preparing to go watch the Steelers versus the Ravens game at M & T Bank Stadium, I realized I had something very unusual looking on my thumb.

“Kim,” I said,  “look at my thumb…who does that look like to you?

“Oh my gosh,” she said, “Donald Trump!  You have Donald Trump on your thumb!”

I did.

I had a caricature of Donald Trump, blood blistered tattooed on my thumbnail!

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

But I realized that to share this remarkable occurrence, was kind of like funambulism!

Because let’s face it, there are a lot of people out there I am sure, and some might even be reading this, that would probably like to tell me where to stick that thumb with the Donald Trump image on it!

But I would have to decline because that’s not nice and I need that thumb, and in fact, that might cause some of that ambulism I was discussing earlier since it would be hard to walk like that.

And the sad thing is, trying to write something that mentions Donald Trump, or anything political, or anything that might mention the differences we might have with one another really is kind of like funambulism.

It is like the art of walking a tightrope.

And that’s too bad.

 

 

Here is the table
Happy New Year

Happy New Year

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Though the holidays were officially over, with the weekend coming and a couple more loved ones still to visit, she dipped into a Harris Teeter to pick up a few things.  She took her place in line at the self-checkout behind an older woman who was already scanning her groceries.  With the help of a young clerk the old woman carefully took her items out of her handbasket and slid them over the scanner and into her bag.

She watched as the old lady, barely skin and bones and looking disheveled in a tassel cap, an old sweater, and baggy sweatpants continued slowly processing her groceries.

Three tomatoes, not even in a bag and all on one stem, half a loaf of bread, lunch meat, and a half gallon of ice cream.  When the total approached twenty-five dollars, the old woman told the young clerk “tell me when I get to thirty dollars.”

Soon after, the clerk put the lunch meat aside because it was going to put her over her thirty-dollar limit.

The woman in line observing all this thought back to a time when she was younger and a struggling single mom of a couple of young kids.  She would take her calculator with her when she would go grocery shopping to stay within her budget.

“Ma’am, can I just pay for your groceries?” she asked the old woman.

Hearing the offer and turning towards the voice, a bit surprised she replied “Would you? I am 90 years old, and things are getting harder.”

“Ma’am I am blessed, and I would like to help you,” and with all the old women’s groceries now scanned and in the bags, she swiped her card and paid the bill.

After checking out her own items and leaving the store, she looked for the old woman, but she was gone.

 

Yesterday was January 10th.

I have come to realize January 10th is the real New Year’s Day in my house.

It’s not always obvious, you can’t always feel it, and sometimes for short periods maybe even you forget it exists.  It seems to surface when you least expect it and sadly and sometimes inexcusably, it might even go unnoticed.

And it’s particularly ugly and insidious starting sometime before Thanksgiving and ending in early January where it lives deep in your expectations of joy and happiness, and the inner peace we search for in the story of the birth of a child, then in the anticipation of the new beginnings and opportunities of a new year.

And as hard as you try to deny its effects, no amount of wine or eggnog, happy or sentimental seasonal movie binging, or decorations and holiday celebrations are going to keep that thing under wraps.

It’s called grief.

And it doesn’t matter how many awesome sons-in-law, grandchildren, or kids you are blessed with, there is still always going to be one missing.

And sometimes even a bonehead husband and father like me who should know better doesn’t always read the signs at the right times or know when it’s time to take a step back; because sometimes it takes me until January 10th to realize that was the reason that the joy schedules didn’t always match up, that the attempt at the special moment fell flat, and mentioning that Santa Claus had come didn’t quite have the impact expected.

 

On Monday, January 9, on what would have been Donny’s 36th birthday, Kim put up a nice post on her Facebook page remembering Donny.  She received many nice comments, many of those coming from others who had also lost children.

I have read them all, several times really.

Comments like “Thinking of you Kim.  Donny was one of a kind.  Much love to you and your family.”

Donny was one of a kind.

And like the good person who helped the old lady in the Harris Teeter that day by paying for her groceries, Donny was a good person too.

And though situations like this always bring to mind the old adage “why do bad things happen to good people,” the truth is, bad things can happen to anyone.

But there really are good people we know or have known, in our lives.

And that brings to mind another old adage and just goes to show you, sometimes…

The apple doesn’t always fall far from the tree.

 

 

Postscript:

I have referenced this before and Kim mentioned it in her Facebook post, these words were sent to us twenty years ago and remain displayed in our kitchen:

“no matter how tough life gets, if you can see the shore of heaven, and draw strength from Christ, you’ll make it”.

On January 10th we made a nice dinner, poured some champagne in our year 2000 anniversary flutes, and toasted Happy New Year.

Let the new year now begin.

Happy New Year!

The Christmas Letter 2022

The Christmas Letter 2022

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Seriously…

Me?

Cranky?

I’m cranky?

I was told that by one of my daughters recently.

She told me I needed to start writing more about my family and grandkids maybe, and less about the cranky old guy stuff I have been writing about.

I won’t tell you which daughter told me I was cranky because I don’t want to throw one of them under the bus because I am a dad who is cool like that.

But I am sure it’s okay if I tell you she lives in Florida.

 

It’s December 6th and I am home alone again.

Kim is attending the Laurel View Village Christmas party with her mom in Pennsylvania.

Home alone, that sounds kind of Christmassy right?

Because again this year, I decided I wasn’t going to write a Christmas letter.

Once again, I didn’t feel like it.

Too cranky I guess.

But since I am home alone, what the heck, maybe it will help.

 

Kim and I watched Christmas movies over this past weekend; It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the one from the year 2000 with Jim Cary as the Grinch.

I never liked that one.  I would always get to the scene early on in the movie with the sorting of the mail and presents at the Whoville Post Office and then I would shut it off.  It was just too much overstimulation.

But this past weekend Kim and I watched the whole thing.

And I still didn’t like it.

But this movie has that song.

The Where Are You Christmas? song.

That song always gets to me, in fact, I featured some of the lyrics in my 2018 Christmas “letter” that was never sent but just posted online, another Christmas we struggled with.

So while Kim went upstairs to bed, I watched the credits and listened to Faith Hill sing that song once again. And as it always does, even though I like it, it made me a little sad, bringing back memories from Christmas 2000, our first Christmas married and as a blended family and those that would follow; the events that changed our family, how we have changed, how our Christmases have changed, and how I have changed.

But that is life, things change, and every year is different, as it should be. Traditions are nice, but there are new ones that need to be made too.

And in fact, already this year we made some holiday change ups and did some things differently.

The weekend before Thanksgiving we had an early Thanksgiving get-together with Savannah, Leon, Cameron, Hayley, and Malcolm. That was nice, we did a very non-traditional Thanksgiving meal with charcuterie, meatballs, Italian sausage and green peppers, baked ziti, and some other stuff.  The photo on the card is from that day.

Then on Thanksgiving Day Kim and I flew to Florida to have Thanksgiving dinner with Alexa, Namaan, Christian, Ethan, and some extended Florida family and had the more traditional turkey and fixings.  Friday morning we all packed in the car and picked out a nice live Christmas tree and added some more decorations to the outside of the house.   Then we built a gingerbread house that the kids decorated.  So we were able to have Thanksgiving and jam some Christmas in there too with the kids.

We had a nice long weekend. It’s kind of fun Christmas tree shopping in shorts and sandals.

But for Christmas this year, unlike last year, we won’t have any of the kids and grandkids together.

And as I sit here thinking about it, I suppose that is my problem.  That is why this year it’s tough to get in the spirit.

And though each year in this letter, I try to corner the market on holiday self-pity, I realize in the end I need to count my blessings and recognize that we are not unlike most families.  Families change, some are called home, and we can’t keep our kids young forever. And sometimes we have to share the grandkids, or the nieces and nephews and as much as we would like to keep all of our traditions, there are those times we have to let some go or make new ones.

I heard a crazy story about a guy who started a movement where he writes and advocates for human extinction saying children are so damaging to the planet, the only answer is to let the human race die out by not having any more children.

Wow…talk about a Grinch.

Can you imagine not having any children around… especially at Christmas?

I am dealing with that issue right now.

It’s sad, he doesn’t know what it’s like to have kids.

He doesn’t have any daughters.

But on the other hand, he doesn’t have any daughters to tell him that he is cranky and what he should and shouldn’t write about.

Nor does he have daughters who tell him how much they love him.

I feel bad for that guy.

I hope he has a Merry Christmas.

 

But now it is getting late and though sometimes I find it difficult to sleep when I am home alone, I must not give in to the temptation to stay up, I must go to bed.

And I am reminded of another song from another movie we watched over the weekend, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas and Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep).

When I’m worried and I can’t sleep

I count my blessings instead of sheep

And I fall asleep counting my blessings…

 

Counting my blessings.

Well, there you have it, I think it did help a little.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Kim and me.  We hope you and your families have a blessed Christmas too.

 

Postscript:

Okay so it’s now closer to Christmas, and to make my daughter Alexa happy, in more traditional Christmas letter fashion, in case anyone is interested, here is a report on all my “Little Blessings”:

Savannah and Leon are doing great, living in their “new” house in a nice friendly neighborhood in Leesburg.  Leon is still teaching at Open Arms, a private Christian school and Savannah working for a surgical practice in Dulles called Surgical Specialists of Northern Virginia.

Cameron is awesome, twelve years old, and in the seventh grade.  He is now as tall as me, and his voice is really lowwwwww.  That’s kind of hard to get used to.  He is actively developing his basketball skills and in spite of his almost teenage status, he still pays attention to his Mimi and Pop Pop.

Hayley and Malcolm also are enjoying life in their “new” house in Leesburg, very close to Savannah and Leon. They have been busy doing some renovations and keeping up with the yard.  I keep telling Malcolm I know a guy when he is ready.  Hayley is in her 15th year teaching at Broad Run High School and Malcolm is an IT Project Manager for government websites.

Alexa and Namaan are still in Hollywood Florida where life at home is like being in Disney World.  Alexa still lawyering for GEICO and Namaan investigating claims for State Farm, they both mostly work on personal injury claims and investigations.

Ethan and Christian are growing up, Ethan is five and in Kindergarten and Christian is seven and in the second grade.  Christian plays baseball in a coach pitch league and is taking art classes.  Ethan is earning his stripes and belts in karate.

Kim and I are doing fine and managing to keep busy.  Kim is in her 29th year at Lincare and enjoys the relationships she has built over all those years.  I am enjoying my semi-retirement continuing to work part-time at the Sterling United Methodist Church and managing purchasing (auctions) and sales (Ebay) for Kim’s Vintage Cool Stuff while waiting patiently for Malcolm to hire me to cut his grass.

We spend as much time as we can with Kim’s mom in Pennsylvania and my mother and father on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  Faye is doing great at Laurel View Village in Davidsville. Lady, my mother, is like the energizer bunny and is practically on the staff of the Mallard Bay Nursing and Rehab in Cambridge as she helps to take care of my dad, who all things considered, is doing okay too.

So as you can see we are blessed with daughters and great sons-in-law, grandchildren, parents, and Donny in our hearts.

And as that song that gets to me says “If there is love in your heart and your mind, you will feel like Christmas all the time.”

 

Maybe so…

 

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Luke 2:10 

PPS:

I am not going to send too many cards and letters out in the mail this year.  I am going to keep it to folks who I think may not otherwise see it, mostly older folks like my sister who may not be active “online.”  So please feel free to share.

Christmas 2000 our first family Christmas card, complete with my name spelled incorrectly

 

Faye and her good friend Nancy at the LVV Christmas Party

 

On a warm November day, Lady and Pop out for a “walk” in his new wheels.

 

Me and Cam

 

Me, Ethan, and Christian

 

Ethan

 

Putting up the Florida Christmas tree

 

Cam is now way taller than Mimi

 

Happy Thanksgiving charcuterie from Broad Run Boards

 

Our Little Chickens Winery has been busy this fall producing a sangria called Hurricane Sangr-IAN, a pinot grigio named “Pee? No!”, a California Mixed Blacks simply called Red, and a happy holidays Merlot.

 

Nobody liked the tree I picked out

 

“Merry Christmas”
The Greatest Generations

The Greatest Generations

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Tom Brokaw, the well-known NBC news anchor is credited with coining the phrase The Greatest Generation in his book titled “The Greatest Generation.”

Generally defined as those born in the early 1900s to mid to late 1920s, this is the generation that experienced life during the Great Depression, and fought in World War II or worked in the industries that supported the war effort.

The generation that followed the Greatest Generation were those born late 1920s to 1945 and are referred to as the Silent Generation.

And of course, the children of those two generations make up the group commonly referred to as the Baby Boomers, those born between 1946 to the early 1960s.

If you are my age, your parents are most likely to be of the Greatest Generation or the Silent Generation. Their efforts to establish and build their families following what they experienced in the Depression, World War II, and the Korean War set the stage for our country today.

My dad straddled the Greatest Generation and the Silent Generation having been born in 1929.

 

Today is Veteran’s Day and I was happy to have had the opportunity to visit with my dad.

He was wearing his Korean War Veteran hat.

 

My dad once told me “I had a lot of fun in the Army.”

I have told the story before about the time my dad tried to get into the action of World War II by going up to New York City when he heard the British Merchant Marine was taking on sailors his age.  That turned out not to be true so he and his friend returned home to Oceanport.

And how instead, his World War II service was to participate in a program called the Crop Corps working on farms that grew food for the armed services.

My dad finally did get into the action when he was drafted into the Army during the Korean War. He was first stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey, so there were times my mother and my grandparents would visit him at Fort Dix. This was before he and my mother were married.

Trained to be a radio operator, after his first assignment at Fort Dix, he wanted to learn how to operate landing craft and was planning to be transferred to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland for his next assignment.

Unfortunately, he got the flu and didn’t make that transfer.

Once he recuperated, he was transferred to Fort Drum in upstate New York. At Fort Drum, he participated in war games.  His instructor was an ex-tank commander and my dad was assigned to drive the commander’s car.

He enjoyed that.

He seemed to have a knack for getting sick in the service and while at Fort Drum suffered a bad case of tonsillitis.

It was during his time at Fort Drum that he took leave to go home and marry my mother.

As fate would have it, he was never deployed to combat in Korea. He thought maybe his blindness in his one eye might have made him not combat worthy. My dad was basically blind in one eye from birth (which probably should have kept him out of the Army to begin with).

So after Fort Drum and getting married, he was reassigned to the coastal defenses of New York City in Brooklyn and Staten Island; and Connecticut and Rhode Island with an anti-aircraft battalion.  According to my dad, they were big guns, 120 mm, and though they were assisted by a computer, a human had to” match the needle” he said. This assignment, though it was stateside, was considered combat duty.

He told me they would have target practice by having a pilot pull a target behind an airplane for them to shoot at.

“Man, I used to feel sorry for those guys,” my dad once said.

Though I never asked him, I often thought that hopefully my dad wasn’t the guy “lining up the needle.”

They named their gun “Marilyn Monroe” and had it painted on both sides. Just the name in letters though, no images of Marilyn.

From his station in the New York City boroughs, he would go to Sandy Hook in New Jersey to pick up shells and to Cape Cod in Massachusetts to practice with the guns.

He told another story of the Ford Club Coupe he had fixed up and installed a new rear end. One night he fell asleep and wrecked it while traveling with his army buddy Frankie, who was knocked out of the car. My dad had a shotgun in the back seat and as a result they were both put in jail. When finally released they had to hitchhike back to camp in Rhode Island.

He liked his experiences in the Army.

As he said, he had “a lot of fun in the Army.”

 

The facility where my dad now lives had a program today to recognize their veterans.   There were about a dozen residents who were recognized with certificates of appreciation, and their names and service branches were announced.  They served cake and juice.  You could pick out many of the residents who were veterans by the hats they wore embroidered with the name of the conflict or the service unit they were assigned to like Airborne or Naval Aviator.

I spoke with the “Captain” which is what my mom calls him, the Naval Aviator whose mission at the Nursing Facility is to visit his neighbor’s rooms on a daily basis in his power wheelchair delivering lollypops as a gesture of kindness.  He told me in the war his mission was to fly “dive bombers” off of aircraft carriers in the Pacific conflict of World War II and logged many missions.

 

Our once proud members of the Greatest Generation and the Silent Generation who did everything they could to get into the fight and defend our freedoms are still proud, but their members are dwindling.  Many are in facilities, like my father.  Many are in wheelchairs, like my father.  Some can still proudly tell their stories like “the Captain,” but some like my father, can’t.

And then there are still some, like my daughters Hayley and Alexa’s “Papa Jack” who served in the Army during World War II in Europe and just turned 100 years old in September, that are still driving and enjoying activities like the race track.

We should be proud of them, what they endured and what they did for us.

We should be proud also of those of the other generations who responded to our wars and conflicts, and our defense like Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq,  Afghanistan, and the many others less discussed.

We should be proud of all of our veterans.

Yet I hope that when the Greatest Generation is gone, and the Silent Generation is gone, someone other than their children remembers.

Remembers who they were and what they did.

Enduring the hardest of times and loving their country so much that they couldn’t wait to get into the fight to protect our freedoms, then return to build a better life for their families and their future.

 

So thanks to all our veterans for your willingness to serve.

And thanks Pop for all that, and for the better life part too.

 

Jack and my son-in-law Namaan enjoying Veterans Day at Gulfstream Park today
My dad in the Army with his mom and dad

 

What’s At Stake Is the Democracy Stupid!

What’s At Stake Is the Democracy Stupid!

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For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.  But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work …

 

2 Timothy 4:3-5

 

Mary (not her real name) tells the story of her 70-year-old mom, a retired schoolteacher, who just went back to work out of necessity.

Joe (also not his real name), is an African American man who understands Mary’s story. He and his wife were retired but are also now back working because they need to.

The conversations of average Americans in a waiting room of a doctor’s office.

Conversations, in this case, telling the stories of Americans who have worked hard all their lives to earn the ability to take a pause in their later years and relax, now finding it necessary to return to work.

 

I heard a good sermon recently.

It was about the importance of sound doctrine.

Teachings that agree with the Bible.

Something that is not so popular anymore.

The preacher went on to say that sound doctrine is important because it promotes health and holiness and in fact could be considered a matter of life and death.

That good works are the mark of sound doctrine and that actions we believe are good make the world a better place.

Sound doctrine gives us the ability to determine truth from falsehood.

 

The preacher spoke about the devaluation of prayer.

When people stop praying, we suffer.  The world suffers.

Because to some degree, humans have relied on prayer to maintain their mental status.

A world without prayer is bleak, and leads to stress, and possibly destructive behaviors.

When we are experiencing stress, prayer gives us that all-important ability to pause, and allow God’s perspective to determine what we do from there.

Because human thriving is declining.

And we need to pray about it.

 

I don’t like to write about politics, frankly, I am not qualified.  But that never stops other people from talking or writing about it.

But never the less, in my case I think I will write about prayer instead, which I also may not be qualified to write about, but I will anyway.

 

There is an election coming up fairly soon.

An election where nothing short of our democracy itself is at stake.

I listened to the President’s speech the other evening.

Though I thought it was a bit bizarre, it certainly would have played well in any time slot on MSNBC.

I have been listening to MSNBC lately.

It was kind of a tired topic, given all the other piles of doo-doo we are up to our necks in right now; more about Trump, more about January 6th, and more about how election integrity will threaten our democracy.

And how the rest of us dumbasses aren’t getting it.

Democracy is what is at stake stupid!

 

Democracy.

 

A government by the people…

 

The rule of the majority…

 

A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections…

A political unit that has a democratic government…

The common people especially when constituting the source of political authority…

The absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges…

The word democracy most often refers to a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting…

 

A democratic system of government is a form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodic free elections…

 

I don’t know about where you folks live, but I am pretty sure I live in a democracy, and in a few days that will be proven because a democracy is  “a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting.”

 

And unless you are going to allow yourself to be led by the nose into believing something otherwise, our democracy is not at stake.

In fact, I think that those who would tell us that our democracy is at stake might be the ones putting our democracy at stake.  It sounds to me like they might be encouraging a one-party system of rule, they might be the ones attempting to seize control, trying to restrict our rights, arrest anyone who disagrees, and control the narrative.

 

I may be a dumbass, but I am not stupid.

And neither are you.

And we may have a generation or two without the life experiences or the knowledge of history to the extent to be able to discern what is right or wrong, good or evil, and not beyond the limits of our rights as Americans.

We have had civil unrest before in this country.  January 6th was a mob that included some right-wing nut cases and bad actors doing what Abbie Hoffman would explain as seizing an opportunity.  But I would bet the majority of those people were simply regular folks armed with nothing more than their cell phones, with their worst intentions grabbing a selfie to post on social media later that evening.

“The attempted coup that almost threatened our democracy” was neither an attempted coup nor a threat to our democracy.  Yet there are a lot of people in very influential roles that would try to have us believe that, or worse, have us believe that they believe that.

President Biden mentioned the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi and made the parallel between that unfortunate incident and the events of January 6 as a further example of a threat to our democracy.

 

I don’t know, I don’t really think that guy represented the sentiments of the average American.  In fact, he is not even an American, he is a Canadian.  A guy who once lived in a storage unit and was “consumed by darkness.”  Mental illness at least in this man’s case, does not threaten our democracy.

Our country has experienced Presidential assassinations like John Kennedy; Presidential candidates assassinated like Robert Kennedy; attempted assassinations like Ronald Reagan; and prominent  Civil Rights activists like Martin Luther King assassinated.  None of these events threatened our democracy, they may have in fact strengthened our resolve.

But you might be expected to think otherwise.

And then there was guy on MSNBC the other day who questioned the “fact whether we will be a democracy in the future, whether our children will be arrested and conceivably killed.” This was proposed by MSNBC commentator Michael Beschloss.

Scary stuff.

All made up to scare us into lining up the right way.

 

But I am supposed to be writing about prayer.

About taking a pause.

About doing good works that make the world a better place to live.

About remembering the words of 2 Timothy:

And you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work …

About the wisdom of the message that if your ears itch, don’t just surround yourself with those that will tell you what you want to hear.

Take some chances, do the work.  If you don’t find your sound doctrine in the Bible, maybe you will find it somewhere else, from someone you know and respect, your parents maybe.

And if you do find your sound doctrine in MSNBC, maybe try listening to Foxnews.

Or if it’s Foxnews, maybe try listening to MSNBC.

And before you vote, take a pause.

Pray about it, or meditate on it, or do whatever it takes to make you thrive and be less stressed.

Then vote for whatever you think is the common sense thing to do for you, your family, and your country.

Because we are a government by the people.

We are a democracy, and in a democracy, we the people, shouldn’t feel threatened.

 

 

Postscript:

This afternoon, feeling empowered and patriotic, I did my due diligence, I paused, I prayed, and I voted.  No one offered me a bottle of water or a glass of wine, and though I was disappointed, I understood, that could be interpreted as coercion.  They verified I was who I was, and where I lived by me showing my driver’s license and handed me a ballot.

The photo above was taken from a post in April 2020 around the fourth week of our covid shutdown. A reminder of different times indeed.

Another Beautiful October Day

Another Beautiful October Day

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Bittersweet.

That is how I view it.

Though it was a beautiful morning, the fog lay eerily on the calm river surface.  A sign that the now cold night air is clashing with the still warmer waters of this tiny finger of the Chesapeake Bay. But in the developing bright sunshine of this late October day, it doesn’t take long for the mist to clear.

Activity on the water this time of the year is slow to materialize.  The crabbers are gone, the trotlines and crab pots, now replaced by a lone work boat dropping eel pots instead.

The purple martins, one of the early messengers of the approaching spring, are also gone, having already made their migration south to winter in Brazil. The three purple martin houses now sitting atop their high poles vacant in the wind.

Optimistically I baited the crab pots and threw them in for one last attempt to hold on to the summer and enjoy its flavors.  But only two crabs were interested in my chicken necks on this day.

Hardly the crab feast I had hoped for.

I let them go.

Stealing some words from Bowie, I realized I couldn’t trace time, but I could be sure that time would change me.

There is no fighting that.

Giving in,  I lowered the martin houses to protect them from the cold winds to come.

I brought in the crab pots.

Removing the traces and putting an end to another season.

 

 

Winter will soon be upon us.

The sunset, which at the peak of the summer would be straight up the river, now has shifted to the left as it begins its descent earlier than I would like.

The shorter days invite the darkness in sooner than I am ready and I pack up my fishing gear after catching one small perch to put the finishing touches on my day and probably my fishing year.

It was another beautiful October day.

In contrast to the gloom looming in my winter fears, the flowers I planted sometime around Mother’s Day, still stand tall and exhibit their bright colors, awaiting the frost soon to come.

Who knows what the next six months will bring?

Until then I will keep warm and wait for the day when the first martin returns.

And I will pray that in that six months, time doesn’t change me too much.

And I will be allowed to write about another beautiful day, in another season, in another year, in time.

 

The morning fog
Reminders of the spring remain
The Wall of Sound

The Wall of Sound

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I whistle a lot.

And sometimes I sing or hum instead of whistling, but mostly I whistle.

My wife tells me she can always locate me in a store or antique shop by hearing me whistle.

At my work, the joke is similar.  If you want to know where Curt is just listen,  you will hear him.

But the truth is you are only hearing the whistle.

What is actually going on in my head is completely different.

There is a large production occurring in my head.

Like Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound.”

There might be a horn section jumping in, an awesome guitar riff busting through, or the drums banging it out.

It’s hard to whistle the drum accompaniment.

And the vocals are amazing if I must say so myself.

All in my head.

Only I know what is really going on.

Only I can say what is really going on in my head.

You can only hear the whistle.

 

I read somewhere that Monday, October 10 is World Mental Health Day.  A day “to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world and to mobilize efforts in support of mental health,” according to the World Health Association.

I guess mental health has a stigma that ironically further feeds the issue of mental health.

And if you think about it, you don’t have to think too hard to find the insidious ways it creeps into all of our lives to some degree.  But you may not always characterize it as a mental health problem.

But it is.

And it is all around us

It is called life.

And I am not suggesting to minimize the seriousness of those who would be clinically diagnosed with mental health issues, I just think we have a more prevalent problem than we might care to admit.

 

It might be a teenager you know struggling with family issues, or bullying, or self-esteem.

Or someone you know wrestling with an addiction or a substance abuse problem.

Maybe it’s a relationship going bad or a marriage that is breaking apart.

It could be someone you know experiencing physical abuse in a relationship, and too scared to get out.

Maybe it’s a person suffering from the grief of losing a child or a grandchild.

Or a sibling.

Or a parent.

It could be someone suffering from the anxiety associated with PTSD caused by witnessing a horrible experience that no one else could ever really understand.

It might be watching someone go through the effects of aging or experiencing that yourself, or an illness maybe.

Maybe it’s a person experiencing job stress or instability.

Or financial burdens.

Maybe you just lived through a hurricane.

Or it might even be a person who whistles, even on days when he doesn’t really feel like whistling.

 

The World Health Organization says that “about one in eight people in the world live with a mental disorder.”

I would venture to say that maybe seven of those eight people are dealing with something that is causing stress, anxiety, depression, or sadness.

We don’t know for sure.

We don’t know what is really going on inside their heads.

Because we can only hear the whistle.

 

But it’s not anyone’s fault really.

Like my “wall of sound,” you couldn’t have known about that until just now.

You wouldn’t have learned about the grand production going on in my head if I hadn’t just written it down.

And shared it.

 

Sharing is sometimes hard.

So maybe fostering an environment that is more conducive to sharing is a good idea.

Listening deeper, if that is possible.

Encouraging writing instead of talking, because sometimes it is easier to express the hard things in written words.

Embracing your faith.

I couldn’t imagine going through some of my life’s events without my faith.

Knowing we are loved.

And loved unconditionally.

 

And sometimes, it even helps to whistle.

 

My brother Carl, with three of his grandsons.