Running Off at the Keyboard

A Few Desultory Thoughts

1. Thoughts On Writing
After one of my blogs someone complimented me and said, "I wish I could write like that."  My first reaction was, "You can. Anyone can." But then I got to thinking: if that's true, why are so many people such dreadful writers? Why can't they put subject and predicate together and make a simple English sentence? There are many answers to this conundrum:

     (a) Good writing takes time, and a lot of folks don't have (or take) the time to write, proofread and re-write, over and over. I'm convinced there's no such thing as good writing ... only good re-writing.

     (b) Good writing takes practice and experience. Most of us don't like to practice things, so we don't gain the experience. 

     (c) Good writing takes discipline and willpower, both of which seem to be in short supply. 

     (d) Good writing takes caring. Some people simply don't care to write more than short notes or send text messages to their BFF.

     (e) Finally, good writing requires clear thinking. Muddled writing usually comes from muddled thinking.

Nathaniel Hawthorne once said, "Easy reading is damn hard writing." He was right.

2. Thoughts from Eliza P. Doolittle
 

Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words!
I get words all day through, first from him, now from you.
Is that all you blighters can do?

3. Thoughts On Hurricanes

Five years ago Katrina hit Florida then moved on to the Gulf Coast. We all know what she did to Alabama, Mississippi, and especially New Orleans. In 2004 Charley, Frances, and Jeanne hit Central Florida and I felt the full brunt of each of them. Two years ago Gustav came through Baton Rouge and I felt Mother Nature's fury again.

I am so glad I don't have to worry about hurricanes this year!

4. Thoughts On Bucket Lists

I got my Georgia driver's license today (only about 5 months late). I checked it off my "to-do list." Then a brief thought chain reminded me of my bucket list and the fact that I've also checked off a few things from that list in recent years: 

     -drove the Pacific Coast Highway from SF to Seattle
     -went skydiving and hot-air ballooning

     -rode in a glider
     -flew in a helicopter (twice)

     -saw the Last Supper in Milan and David in Florence

     -had cappuccino in the Piazza San Marco, Venice
     -saw what's left of the Berlin wall
     -started working at something I truly love doing

But there are other things I want to do:

     -visit the two states I've never seen (No. Dak. and Alaska)
     -go to Russia and China
     -write a novel
     -finish War and Peace (I'm nearly done at the moment)

 

There are lots more, but the point is that bucket lists are fun. Just don't think that when you check off the last item it's time to go. The list is never-ending.

5. Thoughts On Entrepreneurship

My son Scott has some clever friends who've done well in business. A couple of them were the founders of PayPal, for example, and two others have come up with an iPad case. [It's called a "DODOcase" and if you're interested it can be seen at http://www.dodocase.com/.] 

I don't have an iPad, but if I did I'd get one of these cases 'cause they look pretty cool. (And, by the way, promotional considerations have not been paid for this endorsement.)

Anyway, the point of this is that I admire people who have innovative minds and entrepreneurial spirits. I'm not inclined that way, unfortunately, but perhaps I should add to my bucket list an item that says: "invent something that people actually buy." (Or at least: "partner with someone who does." LOL)

6. And Finally...

Back to point #1, the idea that writing takes time and effort. I actually whipped this blog out pretty quickly ... it only took about two hours and 15 minutes. :-)

Write on!

I Am A Web

I saw something in the paper about Simon and Garfunkel recently. I don't remember a thing it said. All I remember is that the words to "I Am A Rock" came back to me and wouldn't leave:

     I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
     It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
     I am a rock.
     I am an island.
     ...
     And a rock feels no pain;
     And an island never cries.

These lyrics started me to thinking about all the people we encounter in the course of a lifetime. Some are passersby on the street or strangers in an elevator--people we will never know and will never see again. Others are people who, like our parents, were just always there; people we never didn't know.

Take my friend Dan, for example. His parents and mine were close friends in Terre Haute. We are the same age. We went to elementary and secondary schools together. We lived about 50 yards apart in college. I've never not known Dan, and if I were to see him today we'd pick up again as if it had only been yesterday. He's not famous, but he's important ... to me.

We all have "Dans" in our lives, and we all have met some famous people too. I used to work for a Congressman, shook hands with a pope, was on a first-name basis with a guy who is now the Cardinal Archbishop of Detroit. I was host to Maya Angelou at a convention for two days. I had Sen. Richard Lugar speak at my fraternity when he was mayor of Indianapolis. (I saw him on an airplane a few years ago and we chatted briefly; he still remembers me and that day 40+ years ago.)

These things don't make me important; everyone has brushes with fame. My older son Scott has worked with Fmr. Sec. of State Warren Christopher and Chief Justice John Roberts, younger son Steve with Meryl Streep and Steven Sondheim. Shown in time-lapse, anyone's life would reveal some celebrities stroboscopically. But most of the people in the film would be just regular folk--neighbors, people at work, golfing buddies, the mailman.

If we could plot all our connections--the anonymous, the regulars, and the illuminati--what a complex web it would be. Imagine the thousands of points on that graph. There would be thick, solid lines to family and good friends and bold font for the most dear. Perhaps we would use dotted lines for the departed and bold italic for famous people (whose names we'd put in red if we actually got to know them a bit).

But most of all there would be thin lines to tens of thousands of question marks for the passersby and the strangers in elevators: ordinary people of all sizes, colors, and religions who are just HERE with us in this time and place. They're constants, part of our rock, living on our island, in this organism called life.

Some Photos from the Memorial Service

The "Crown" at Sunrise

A Symbol of Dad's Musical Talent

First Annual JRS, Jr. Memorial "Fun Run"

Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown

I haven't blogged for a while, so allow me to play catch-up.

We just returned from Daytona Beach, site of the memorial services for my father. He and Mom lived there for 27 years, and he wanted to be remembered in that special place. So one morning, just as Rosy Fingered Dawn etched her name across the sky, a handful of us, remembering the "dust to dust" story in Genesis, waded knee-deep into the waves and committed his ashes to the sea.

As my brother-in-law, Rev. Kris Hayden, said in his seaside homily, "The rhythm of the waves and the changing tides are metaphors for our lives. We are born, we live, we die, and life begins again beyond earthly existence. John has become part of our lives in new ways. He is with us through memory and the ongoing consequences of his love for us. The constant breeze at this seashore connects us to this spiritual experience."

Just then, as the sky brightened, a few sun pillars radiated from the horizon and a red-orange crown marked the time of Dad's passage beyond our ken.

Later that day we gathered at the church Mom and Dad had attended, and Kris presided over a special "Celebration of Life" service. More than sixty friends and family came from all over the country: from Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, California, Washington State, and of course Florida. Dad's beloved sister Elaine and my cousin Carol were there in spirit, and they called us minutes before the service to send their love from Lake George. Cousins Barbara and Steve Smith came to represent their mother in person and to read her remembrance of her "little brother." There too were condo neighbors, country club golfing buddies, and one of Dad's life-long friends from their days together in high school: Webster Groves, MO, class of 1934! The condo maintenance man (with whom Dad worked on many projects over the years) said afterward that he wouldn't have missed it for anything, so great was his fondness for my father.

During the service I was sitting in the front pew, so I wasn't aware that while Dad's violin teacher played Glazounow's Meditation, two of his great granddaughters danced quietly in the aisle. They repeated their performance later when the family (some 30 of us) gathered for a private dinner at the hotel. After dinner we recalled some of the historic events that occurred during Dad's long life: the Russian Revolution, the "Roaring Twenties," the Great Depression, World War II, Korea, the Cold War, the turbulent sixties, man on the moon, resignation of a president, impeachment of another, election of the first person of color to that office. We remembered also the advances that were made in the field of medicine: the discovery of penicillin, victory over polio, organ transplants, coronary bypass surgery, artificial joints, MRIs and CAT scans, deciphering the human genome, and many more.

And we talked of the many roles my father occupied at various times in his life: flight surgeon, accomplished violinist, choir member, Rotary Club president, golfer, tennis player, pilot, hunter, farmer, builder, wood-worker, quick wit, and physician to generations of Indiana families. He was even, briefly in the 60s, a TV talk-show host!

In addition to it all -- and herein lies the reason for the Shakespearean headline above -- since my grandfather's death Dad reigned as the "patriarch" of our clan. When I mentioned this at the dinner somebody immediately pointed out that the title now devolves upon me. I tried to pass it off to cousin Steve or my Uncle Fred, both of whom are older and wiser than I, but as they are Smiths and not Showalters, the attempt to abdicate was denied.

The responsibilities are many, the shoes too big to fill. The crown is heavy and fits but awkwardly. I am not worthy, yet I will try.

Stuart