The Ornament

By G. E. Shuman

Only weeks ago we climbed the stairs,

To the attic, behind the old door.

And went to the corner, where ʽChristmasʼ is kept,

In boxes stacked high on the floor.

We brought the stack down to the living room,

Two flights from its cold storage spot.

And opened it up, just like every year,

Quite amazed at all weʼd forgot.

The boxes held ornaments, bound for the tree,

And garlands and wreath bows and wire.

Most things quite familiar from years of use,

Like the stockings we hang by the fire.

We opened up memories, box after box,

But some things I could barely recall.

Did we use these lights on the tree last year,

Or the archways in the hall?

And then, there it was, as it always is,

One more thing I forgot to remember.

It waited so patiently, most of a year,

To be shown just the weeks of December.

The small ornament, I admire so much,

And display on the mantle each year;

A ceramic love story, proclaimed without words,

With a meaning quite beautifully clear.

For there Santa kneels, in most worshipful prayer,

By the tiniest manger of hay.

His gaze toward the infant lying there,

On that very first Christmas Day.

Not a sign of a bow, or a gift, or a sleigh,

Not a reindeer at all to be seen.

Just St. Nick, with his furry hat tossed to the ground,

In a show of what this day should mean.

When Christmas has passed, weʼll just go get the stack,

to pack up the ribbons and lights.

And Santa will wait, to remind us next year,

Jesus came on that most holy night.

We are all Collectors

By G. E. Shuman

          I am not much of a ‘collector’ of things. I do have a small front room in our home that displays several items from my family’s past. My grandfather’s Victrola is there, along with a few other antiques, books, and photos from many years ago. Other than that, I think of myself as a minimalist and look at the accumulation of ‘things’ as just so much clutter. I would rather see a mantle or a shelf displaying a few precious possessions to one that is filled with unrelated ‘stuff’, most of which provide only vague memories of how it was even obtained.

          I have written here in the past about the proliferation of those wonderful storage units that have sprouted across our town and our state and fumed about the idea that they are filled with the things people bought at Stuffmart last year. Truthfully, and I admit it here, although I don’t agree with having too many possessions, what other people do is really none of my business.  

          Speaking of others, my dear wife is a collector. Although she has toned things down a bit lately, she is uncomfortable getting rid of anything that she has collected, whether she remembers where it came from or not. It is said that opposites attract and in this area she and I must attract strongly. Still, as with those many storage unit renters, she has a right to her things, if they are what she wants.

          Actually, and this is the reason for this column, I have come to believe that, in some ways, we are all collectors. (An aside: I used to know a pastor who said he got his best sermon ideas from the sayings on Lipton tea bag tags. I get some of my column ideas, including this one, from quotes from books or videos.) Some of us collect souvenirs, baseball cards, photos, or coins. Others, like me, collect bumper sticker sayings, funny t-shirts quotes, and poems.  Here is the quote from an old TV show, that prompted these thoughts today. “We fill the spaces we live in with memories.”  To me, those memories make us who we are.

Kitchen Trash

By G. E. Shuman

            Around my house, I’m the one who takes out the garbage. It’s just always been that way. At one time I tried to get that to be one of my kids’ jobs, but somehow it never got done on time or when it got full or something else happened that made me give up on the kids’ chore idea. Ever since I have just done it when it needs to be done.

            Some time ago, (I guess everything happened ‘some’ time ago.) I found myself with the pleasant job, (sarcasm) of actually having to paw through one of those big black bags of trash after I had already put it in the outdoor trash can. I don’t remember the reason I was there under the carport with my head nearly in that bag, but there I was. One of us had evidently lost something… car keys, I think, and ‘someone’ had to look for it. For some reason, at our house, when we get a new car it becomes my wife’s; when some really gross job must be done, it’s always mine. Go figure. It’s somehow probably related to why I’m the one who takes out the trash, too.

            As I said, for whatever reason, and for whatever I was looking for, I was under the carport with my garden gloves, carefully removing the trash from that bag, piece by piece, and placing it into the open end of another one. As I did so I became more and more disgusted, and nauseated, especially, and I remember this part well… I never found whatever it was that I was supposed to find.

            Later that day, after I had recovered from the sights and smells of the trash, I began to think a bit differently about that awful experience. I had already told several people about how poor old me had to do that disgusting job and had likely listed the ‘stuff’ I had pawed through, to them. The items were still fresh in my mind, if the word fresh can be used in this story, and it was truly an amazing list, believe it or not.

            In that trash was the envelope from a wonderful card my granddaughter Sofi had given to us just days before, for our forty-sixth anniversary, and to thank us for picking her up at summer camp. That young girl is such a treasure to us, as are all our grandkids. There were also several empty and discarded toddler food containers from the last time we had fed another beautiful granddaughter, two-year-old Nahla. She loves having Grammy and Papa feed her. I had to move many bags from recent trips to Walmart, Hannaford’s, and T J Max, along with others. Evidently, in the time that trash bag was in our kitchen wastebasket, we had been able to make a lot of purchases at those stores.

            There was a broken toy. (It’s fun to watch Nahla play, but she tends to be a bit rough on her toys.) There were a few empty medicine bottles; We had received new ones. What would we do without that medicine? There was also a wrapper from a new shirt I had purchased, and several candy and cookie bags. I also remember seeing a soft drink-soaked coloring book picture that one of the grandkids and their grandmother had done together when they were visiting together around the dining room table. Of course, there were lots of slimy food scraps and gross coffee grounds in the mix. Evidently, we had food, and plenty of it, including my morning coffee.

            We in our country have so much to be truly thankful for. As strange as this may seem, counting our blessings may be as simple as counting our bags of trash. If you’re the one at your house who always takes them out to the can, be thankful that you have them to take.

            

The Coming of Fall

By G. E. Shuman

                Okay, so, I admit it. THIS really is my favorite time of year. I enjoy spring, but don’t like spring cleaning; I like summer, but don’t enjoy mowing, raking, or bugs; and I like the first snowfall of winter, for about the first five minutes of that first snowfall. UGH!

                Fall, to me, is perfect. The sound of electricity pouring through my air conditioners is gone for the year and the roar of our fuel-guzzling furnace is yet to begin. The lawn no longer needs to be mowed, and whatever unaccomplished summer projects I had projected to produce are also in the past, or, more precisely, definitely postponed into the indefinite future, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer. With my projects, I usually end up poorer. The results, again, for better or for worse, of not getting those projects completed will have to wait until next year, and something about that does not bother me in the least. Yeah!

                The fact that I can venture outside without fear of sweating or sunburn this time of year is wonderful; the idea that I can actually perform work outside the house without fear of passing out from the heat or freezing to death from the cold is a great double-blessing.  I know I complain about the coming of snow, but I don’t usually mind getting the house ready for winter, and I LOVE tramping through crunchy, beautifully-colored fall maple leaves on my lawn. Note: Did you know that a soft rain falling on freshly-fallen dry leaves sounds exactly like bacon frying?  It really does, and who doesn’t like bacon frying?

                I feed the squirrels that inhabit the trees all around our neighborhood, but I don’t have a delivery service. They must come to the satellite dish-turned squirrel feeder shelter on the tree behind our house to get the bread, popcorn, old cereal and a weekly five-pound bag of peanuts in the shell, (The peanuts are unsalted, of course. I don’t want my squirrels developing high blood pressure.) but they don’t seem to mind doing that.

                Admittedly, I will have to haul in our four air conditioners and do what I can to insulate the windows and doors of our one hundred thirteen-year-old home, but I do that every year, and getting ready for the blasts of January is something better done now than a few months from now. The ritual of ‘tucking in’, as I have often referred to it, almost adds to the fun of fighting the frosty, freezing foe that invariably arrives shortly after a Vermont fall.

                Things are starting to quiet down for fall in our neighborhood already. Trucks hauling boats to and from the lake on the weekend are pretty much gone from roaring past our house, and the big ol’ Harleys ridden by those ‘cool’, leather-clad snowy-bearded men and their babes have all but packed it in until spring. They will all soon be replaced by cars with skis and boards on their tops and pickups hauling trailered snow machines, and all of that is okay with me. I won’t be on the slopes and trails with them, but my two-year-old granddaughter and I will watch them head down the snowy road, from our cozy spot behind the window.

                Today it’s just the coming of fall that fills hearts and heads at our house. We need to get ready for all of that, and that’s enough for now.  

                                                        

The Sign at the End of our Street

(A Slightly Seussical Saying, for Stop Sign Obeying)

By G. E. Shuman

We have a red sign, at the end of our street.

It says the word STOP, in white letters so neat.

I think it’s a law, that when seeing that sign,

A driver must do what that sign has in mind.

To slow, and to look, when approaching a ‘T’

In the road is just part of what driving should be.

When you come to that sign, to avoid the police

You should always try stopping and looking, at least.

Because there are cars full of other folks, still,

And sometimes they speed when up-climbing that hill

That meets with the street that goes right past our place.

It’s as if, for some reason, they’re running a race.

To see who can win, with their slowing, not stopping

To get to the store, to start grocery shopping.

It hardly seems worth the dear price you might pay

If someone gets injured on one sad ‘someday’

When your car gets crumpled and bent up and beat

Because you just had to be first on the street.

It seems pretty sad, at the end of the race

To learn that two cars cannot share just one space.

And, once in a while, whether good or bad weather

At the end of our street, two cars will come together.

And then come the sirens and bright flashing lights

And other cars stop, to see if all’s alright.

Big trucks take some folks for a hospital stay

While bigger ones haul all the metal away.

And then people talk about what they had seen

When passing the place of the accident scene.                                                                                

     

More cars are made daily, delivered brand new

But there’s just one copy of me and of you.

So, to keep yourself safe, and to keep your car neat

PLEASE stop at the sign at the end of our street.

  

                                    

A Child of the ‘60’s

By G. E. Shuman

Okay, so, I am a child of the ‘60s. Well, in truth, it’s even worse than that. I was actually born in the 1950s, but only came to understand that I was alive in the ‘60s, if you know what I mean. The fact is, I was really there, right dab in the middle of the 1960s. I was in high school until 1972 and saw all kinds of tremendously neat stuff in that era. I also saw some not-so-neat stuff. I stayed up into the middle of the night to watch the first moon walk on July 20, 1969, (which was a feat accomplished, obviously, with 1960’s era technology) even though my future bride was at her house watching it with another guy and HIS 1960’s technology. Dang. I also saw news coverage of college riots and the Viet Nam war, with my dad, on our old black and white TV every evening in those days and suffered through new episodes of Gilligan’s Island and I Love Lucy with most of the rest of America every week. (Sorry Lucy fans.)

All that I really want to relate to you younger people today is the idea that those days, those years, were very ‘physical’ in their nature. Things were real. They were hard. They were right there in front of you, presented in some metal, wood, or plastic form, and you simply had them and made them do whatever they did, (if you were lucky.)

Radio circuits were still soldered together by human hands and the results of the making of such things were tested before our eyes, physically, not in some simulation. The radio either worked when you turned it on or it didn’t, and you were never quite sure if it would until you turned that knob and tried it. The drama of seeing if some electric or electronic thing worked, whatever it was, whether radio or

rocket, was for physical, immediate, human consumption. I think that that idea has been lost to the present.

These days any consumer would be appalled if something they purchased didn’t work as it should. In those days, a lot of things didn’t. Believe it or not, I have what used to be called a ‘transistor radio’, still in its original box, with the included instructions as to where to send the radio for an actual repair if it didn’t work.

Kids in my day played with handmade, or what we used to call ‘homemade’ wooden airplanes, complete with real gas engines. (Yes, I know that model planes are still around.) My point is that there were no electronically controlled drones or planes with electric motors and batteries then. Balsa wood, (Does anyone still know what balsa wood is?) string, muslin cloth, and glue held together the model aircraft of my childhood days and some of the real aircraft flown then.

There was a true drama in the idea of launching something off a small runway or launch pad, just to see if it worked. This excitement was shared by everyone from young kids to NASA administrators when I was a child.

It is true that in the time of my youth there were no cell phones, tablets, texts, google searches, Facebook posts, snapchat pics or other distractions from reality for us to deal with. The things that we had were physical, real, and made of ‘stuff’, as I mentioned at the beginning of this column. But, and this ‘but’ may surprise you, I’m not sure that those long-ago days were better ones. ‘The good old days,’ to my generation, are usually remembered as being better than today. Lately, I don’t necessarily agree with that. Those rugged, physical times that I lived through in the ‘60s and ‘70s were just as important, just as ‘real’ as every one of the days contained in our present year, and somehow, they do still call to me.

Still, today is pretty wonderful. Medical advances, communication improvements, and the digital world, in general, all help make this the best time in history to be alive. I’m sure that if Neil Armstrong were with us now even he would rather ride a spacecraft from 2018 to the moon than one from his and my time… the ‘60s.  I wouldn’t blame him.

Potato Salad

By G. E. Shuman

            In this column, I would like to discuss the very serious topic of potato salad. It may not seem like much of an issue to you or me, but it’s a big deal to a potato. After all, many lowly spuds, each year, give their very lives for the privilege of being included in this summertime picnic/barbecue/cookout/pig roast/ favorite. Truly, no self-respecting picnic table would dare show its face, (if it had one,) without offering picnickers at least one version of a potato salad, or as it is called in one language ‘baa-DA-da” salad. I’m not sure what language that is, but I’m pretty sure I heard that word somewhere in the South.

            I will admit that for some people, potato salad, (as we call it here in the North) is an acquired taste. For my family, it’s always just been a part of summer, and such salads are as individual as the person who made them, or at least as individual as the places they came from. It’s true. German potato salad is great. The Germans have produced some wonderful inventions in the past, including both potato salad and my antique VW beetle. I’m not sure what else they have done, but those two things are cool. Then, American potato salad is as much a melting pot experience as Americans are themselves, and I’m convinced that almost any food that could fit into a mixing bowl has, at one time or another, wound up in someone’s potato salad.

            My salad is very well known all over (my house,) as yours probably is, all over yours. In fact, it’s hard to make potato salad without getting it all over. My salad has a few variations, depending on how ‘spicy’ I’m feeling when I make it. (Wow, you’re thinking… he gets excited over potato salad.  He must be a blast at parties!) Anyway, my recipe always includes about a five-pound bag of potatoes, (big surprise), and I also put in about a half dozen hard-boiled eggs. Notice the word ‘about’ in the last sentence. My theory is that when it comes to my version of potato salad, part of the secret is the great, wandering impreciseness of it all. The potatoes are cut into smallish cubes and boiled, and the eggs are chopped up. They have also had their shells removed. I’ve found that the salad is easier to swallow that way. I also include chopped onions or scallions, a cut up cucumber, a squirt of mustard, (Check your measuring chart to establish just how much a squirt is.) garlic salt, and the all-important completely un-measured heaping mound of mayonnaise.  (See how I slid two hyphens into that one sentence there?) Also, remember, it’s mayonnaise. That stuff called salad dressing is not for dressing a salad.  I’m not sure what it’s for.

            I’m sure your potato salad is different from mine, and that’s a good thing. After all, your potato salad is your picnic fingerprint, and if your young kids like your salad, you get to have spud salad fingerprints all over your car windows on the drive home.  Aren’t those little ones so precious?

            I thought through all of this important stuff about the VERY important topic of potato salad today, because my wife asked me to put one together for her to take to her ladies’ Bible study meeting tomorrow morning. They’re doing a Christmas in July party at the meeting, so, being Christmas and all, of course, they wanted potato salad. Huh? I made the salad this afternoon and put it in the fridge to cool overnight. As I made it I prided myself that I had finally figured out what those ladies actually do at those meetings. I guess there are worse things they could be up to than sitting around studying the Bible and eating my potato salad.  

The Technology of Their Time

By G. E. Shuman

                My grandkids have always amazed me with what they know about, and what they’re able to do with the technology that surrounds them today. It astounds me, the places they can go, and the internet-borne information they can easily glean from around the globe, nearly instantaneously.

                For years I’ve preached to my high school English students the importance of having some of that knowledge ‘up here’, as I would point to my head, hoping they got the idea of the relevance of actually KNOWING things. Some of them would reply with the question “Why?”, when, as I would have to agree, they would recite that they could reach into their pocket at any time for their device and have all the information, not just from memory, but in perfect, wonderful completeness, literally at their fingertips. Lately, I’m not absolutely certain I was correct in expounding on the importance of compiling knowledge, to those kids, although I still think there are things we just need to know.

                Our world has never been through anything like the technological revolution we are experiencing today, but, without question, it has experienced other versions of it that were likely as disconcerting to the ‘older’ people of those times as the information age is to us present-day ‘seniors’. This was the exact case when, sometime in the 1970s, I showed my grandfather my first pocket calculator. His reaction was to input the equation 2 + 2 =, and when he received the answer, stated: “That’s almost immoral.” He said this, simply, or maybe not so simply, from his generation’s point of view, because the answer was given without any effort being exerted.

                The other day I happened to see a clipart drawing of a hand, holding a quill pen, and carefully writing the ones and zeros of computer code, on a partially unrolled scroll. I thought that this image was just brilliant!  The idea of writing the language of computers in one of the earliest versions of the recorded writings of mankind was just wonderful, to me. The only thing better, I think, would have been if the code had been expressed in a cave painting.

                I thought, as I looked more at that scroll and the old quill pen, that whoever first invented the idea of ink and of sharpening a feather to a point, to apply the ink to a papyrus or other scroll, must have been in awe of one of his grandchildren, as that child picked up this ‘adult’ instrument and blithely drew a stick-figure picture of his family or his first effort at expressing a sunset.

                Then, in our history, came the binding of books, and the greatly advanced semi-permanence of the recorded thoughts of other generations, even if they had to be painstakingly copied, a letter at a time. And then came the printing press, a great advance in allowing those thoughts to be shared with countless others, followed by movable type, which further eased and advanced the task of securing and preserving the knowledge of the ages.  Those advances, as they say, are history, but I believe they’re much more than that. They’re the reason that many of us love the literature of the past. The preservation of those writings is the very reason we are even aware of what our history is. 

                As I said when I began, my grandkids have always amazed me with what they know about, and what they’re able to do with today’s technology.  This morning I felt like that guy with the first quill pen, when my granddaughter Nahla took my iPhone out of my hand as we sat together on the couch. She turned the device on, handed it to me so I could input my password, and then proceeded to take it back, search through Netflix and YouTube, skipping ads, flipping through options, and speeding to the videos she wanted to watch with me.  She was simply doing what we all have done, in using the technology of her own time. I wonder what she’ll be able to do next month, when she turns two years old.

Short and Simple Summer Stories

By G. E. Shuman

           

            I’d like to relate three short summertime stories that I know I have shared in the past, but it was long ago, and you wouldn’t have heard of them. As I get a bit older, I realize that my stories also age a bit, but are, hopefully, still relevant.

            Summer is my favorite season, and these short tales are ones I have heard along the way, during one summer or another. I hope you enjoy them.

            The first was shared with me by a retired police officer as he sat at the lunch counter of a store I once ran in Concord NH. (Does anyone remember lunch counters?) This nice man would come in and have coffee with me from time to time and loved to tell the tales of his youth in the south, and of the (mostly harmless) mischief he and his friends would get into. I loved to hear his timeless short stories, told with Twain-like acerbic wit. This particular day, at the end of his fondly remembered story, he looked out the store window, obviously lost in his own memories, and softly said: “Nothing tastes better than a stolen watermelon.” Truly, that was wit, wisdom, and a window into the human spirit to match any other I have known.

            The second story is from another friend from about the same era of my life. He was one who loved the adventure of riverside summer fishing, and related tales to me, both of the ones that got away, and of some that didn’t.  He loved the pastime of leisurely fishing, which is fishing of a special type. My old friend realized, as do I, that the idea of this version of the sport was in the fishing itself. Actually catching something was an exciting bonus but wasn’t necessary to still have a great time.

            I can still hear his voice and see his face as he would launch into one or more recollections of riverside adventures. I only wish I could better relate his tone as he told me of them. They were Huck Finn styled adventures, indeed. They were slow ones, enjoyed with the idea that the hot afternoon sun would crawl across the sky, and that fishing from the shade of a riverbank tree could easily consume the entire time that it did so. His final words, on one particular day, iced the cake of his story in a telling and beautiful way. He simply said: “I never caught a decent fish while I was awake.”  What an amazing, comforting thought that was.

            I’ll end this list of simple summer stories with another that has to do with fishing. This occurred many years ago, when my children were young. We had rented a cabin on a small pond here in Central Vermont. On one early morning I happened to be out on my very small sailboat, slowly plying the still water’s edge with what little breeze there was. It was a beautiful scene, to me, as I sailed around the rim of the pond. In one spot I noticed two older gents fishing from one of the docks. As I approached I called to them: “How’s the fishing?” to which one gave the perfect and surprisingly revealing response. Raising his hook from the water, he smiled and answered back: “Not fishin’. Just teachin’ this worm how to swim.” To me, wit isn’t packaged any finer than that.

            I hope you enjoyed these summer ‘shorts’, and that you will enjoy this beautiful season even more. As you navigate the coming sunny days, listen to the casual comments of those around you. You never know what summertime wisdom you might hear.

           

Summer… A Time When Less is Often More

By G. E. Shuman

               

                I love summer!  After one of our usual long Vermont winters and very short spring, summer, to me, is so welcome I almost can’t stand it. I love the green grass, the flowers, and, especially, the summer sun!

                I’ve been thinking lately about some of the things that make summer the wonderful time it is, and it’s not all about the temperature, although that plays a huge part. Summer, to me, is a time when most of us just naturally simplify our lives, even if we don’t realize we’re doing that. The entire season lends itself to the idea that less is more, I think.  We shed winter jackets, gloves, sweaters, and even long pants for the chance to go outside in less clothing than we wear in any other season. We put away all the paraphernalia (My mother taught me that word.) of winter, including snow shovels, ice picks, car ice scrapers, snow blowers, bags of salt, and other things we need in that cold season, not to mention packing up snow skis, snowboards, snowmobiles, snowshoes and any other ‘snow’ items that we use in the winter. Then, when the summer sun is bright in the sky and the vacation request is approved, we go to the beach, have picnics, and go camping.

                The beach, camping, and picnics all have a few things in common. They are places to go and things to do that require less of everything than what we use in the other seasons. We, being tired of the indoors, and of the TV and tech-oriented lifestyle it brings, leave the ‘screens’ behind (hopefully) and experience the beauty and wonder of actually being in the ‘out of doors,’ as they say.

                Going to the beach is a great example of doing with less, and actually having more, at least as far as enjoyment is concerned. Clothing-optional beaches are not for me, (You can be thankful for that.) but by the tiny amount of clothing some people wear when in the sun and by the ocean, they are not far behind in the ‘less’ category. We go to the beach, bringing a few toys for the kids, flimsy chairs and umbrellas for the adults, and simple lunches for all, as we enjoy the beauty of the sun, sand, and sea. We soak up rays and salty sprays on those sandy beach days, never missing our more ‘proper’ hours at work and home.

                Cookouts and picnics are always great times, to me. They are the ultimate in the eating aspect of less being more. We bring our food, the likes of which we have had to cook in the kitchen for many months, outside, and get it ready to eat on appliances much less tech-oriented than the simplest of stoves. We grill meat over charcoal, a wood fire, or a simple gas flame, with no temperature control or timer to help us. We cool our drinks, not in an expensive refrigerator, but in bags of ice. And we eat on paper plates and drink from plastic cups, enjoying the experience far more than some ‘regular’ meal at the same old boring dining room table.

                Camping, to me, is the greatest example of going all out to get away from the things of the other seasons, especially the ‘w’-word season. People camp in everything from luxurious recreation vehicles to simple tents. Our family always chose the latter for their camping experiences. For us, camping was not actually going out into the woods somewhere and pitching our tent among the wild animals and insects of the untamed world. It did mean reserving a campsite at a state park and pitching our tent there. It also meant sleeping in that tent, in sleeping bags, and eating our meals, which were cooked on our camp stove or in the campfire pit, on a rough, well-used picnic table. The best part of the camping trip was the evenings spent stoking that fire pit and roasting marshmallows and hot dogs on the coals. What fun we had, in those days, living simply, eating simply, and simply enjoying the natural world around us.

                This summer, please go on some picnics, to the beach, and even do some camping if you can. I think you will find that this great season is, truly, a time when less is often more. And there’s nothing better than a burger or hot dog from a flaming outdoor grill. Enjoy! 

Acts of Kindness

By G. E. Shuman

                Sometimes I think the things that come to me to write about are just random thoughts that somehow, hopefully, congeal into understandable paragraphs. Sometimes it’s not that way at all. Many times, it seems that a point, an idea, a philosophical or ethical ‘something’ is just beating on my brain, waiting to be recognized and written about. Please know, as do I, that these things do not come from me when that happens. I believe that they either come from just paying attention to life’s experiences, or from God. I choose to believe that they are from God.

                Anyway, that’s how it has been the past few weeks about this kindness thing that keeps popping into my head. Several weeks ago, I wrote a newspaper column about a saying that I had just heard for the first time. The saying was: “Throw kindness around like confetti.”  I have no idea who came up with that thought, but I like it a lot.

                Here I’d like to share a few examples of “throwing kindness around.” The first one happened to me, and two others happened to my 93-year-old mother, who lives in Florida, and who has been throwing kindness around, herself, her entire life.

                My little kindness event took place as I stood in line one evening, at my favorite local sandwich shop. There I was, at the checkout, with my subs already made and bagged, and my debit card would not work. I had no cash in my wallet and I later learned that my account had been compromised, causing the bank to shut the card off.  I just looked at the poor girl who had to deal with me as she ran the cash register, and said: “Now what do I do?”  A very kind lady behind me handed the girl her own card and insisted on paying for my order, even refusing to give me an address so that I could pay her back. I was amazed at her kindness to me, a total stranger. She was all smiles as she blessed me with this wonderfully kind act.

                I spoke with my mom on Mother’s Day, and she related two stories that I will abbreviate here but want to let you know about. The first was something that happened to her as she was at a store checkout stand paying for several articles of clothing. A blouse she was purchasing rang up at a much higher price than she thought it was selling for, so Mom politely asked the cashier to take it off her sale. The cashier then said that it was fine and that there was a lady behind Mom who wanted to buy it. Mom turned and told the lady that she thought it would look very nice on her. The cashier then said, no, that the lady wanted to buy it for my mom, which she did. Mom was thrilled, as was the lady who paid for the blouse.

                Mom’s other story happened the day I was talking with her, Mother’s Day. She and two of my siblings and their spouses were at a restaurant enjoying a Mom’s Day lunch when suddenly Mom felt something touch her arm. She looked over and saw, as she told me: “The cutest little boy I have ever seen!” (Gee Mom, cuter than me when I was a kid? Oh well.)  Mom then told me that the little boy of five or six years handed her a big, beautiful red rose. Mom asked if he wanted her to have it, and he nodded his head, then happily left to rejoin his parents. I told my mother that I think God gave her a flower on Mother’s Day. She said, “I think so too.” 

                These three small events are only some of the reminders I have recently had of the importance of throwing kindness around, like confetti. (I do love that thought). Acts of kindness are never wasted and seem to always do the ‘thrower’ at least as much good as the receiver.

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My Best Insomnia Advice

By G. E. Shuman

                I’m a firm believer in generally helping other people if we can, and in spreading information that may be of use to others when we can. I’m sure you are, too. Although I don’t always, if ever, live up to the following thought, I recently read someone’s admonition to “Throw kindness around like confetti.”  I think that’s just a great concept, and one which will always benefit the ‘thrower’ as much as the receiver.

                Having said that, I’d like to share one idea here that might help you, if you, like me, have a problem with occasional insomnia. It’s not a cure, I’m not a doctor, and it won’t always work, but it is something that might be helpful.  So, here’s my ‘kindness confetti’ helpful-hint for today.

                I’m someone who, since my wife and I rarely get enough sleep, almost always goes to bed very tired. Probably because of that, it’s easy for me to fall asleep. She reads in bed for about fifteen minutes and is out. I write in bed or look at a few short YouTube videos, and I can then go to sleep. My problem is that in the early morning hours I often wake up and begin that awful process of middle-of-the-night thinking. I rehearse all that I have to do in the coming day and rehash all the trouble that I got into yesterday. If this ever happens to you, you know that it’s not fun and does not promote sleep.

                A few years ago, I did, accidentally, come up with something that likely sounds foolish, but works well for me if I want to get back to sleep. (I always want to get back to sleep.) So, at the risk of sounding absurd, here’s my insomnia remedy.

                What I do first is try to relax my entire body in whatever sleeping position is most comfortable for me that night. (For me the fetal position generally works, especially if I’ve had a stupid-crazy day.) Next, although I don’t attempt to force thoughts from my brain, I do try to think on the following, probably laughable one. (Although, please don’t laugh at me. Okay, you can laugh, but not until you’ve tried it.)

                I love movies… at least ones that I consider to be ‘good’ movies.  What I think about to fall back to sleep is not any particular movie, but I do momentarily concentrate on the length of most movies, which is about one and a half hours. If it’s three in the morning when I’m awake, I just lie there and say to myself: “I don’t have to wake up until six. Right now, at this moment, I don’t have to do ANYTHING. I don’t have to mooove a muscle… for the length of two ENTIRE movies. No one will ask anything of me, and I don’t have to answer even one question, but can just lie here still, relaxed, for alllll that time. Wow!”  Usually, within moments, I’m sound asleep again.

                See, I told you it was probably a laughable idea, and might sound absurd, but it works for me, and is cheaper and healthier than sleeping pills. I just thought I’d spread a bit of ‘kindness confetti’ today and give you my best tip for a good night’s sleep.

               

In Praise of the Lowly Crock-Pot

By G. E. Shuman

            I know what you’re likely thinking; what kind of a crackpot would write a newspaper column about a crock-pot? Truthfully, I guess I don’t have an answer to that question, and, since this isn’t a recipe page or something from a cooking channel, the crack about being a crackpot is probably fitting. In any case, this column is dedicated, this week, to the lowly crock-pot.

            Everyone has one of these things, and if everyone doesn’t, they really should get one. We have two of them at our house, even though that may seem a bit extravagant. One cost about $20, and the other was sold to my wife by a friend of hers, in brand new condition, for $1, for some reason. The crock-pot was what was in brand new condition, not necessarily my wife’s friend. (That may have seemed somewhat unkind and I’m sorry that I said it. Oh well, too late now.)

            Since I do most of the cooking at our house, I was introduced to the use of crock-pots years ago. I have to say that they are about the most convenient things in the world for a guy like me, who knows little (or nothing) about fine cooking, to use.  I just throw something in there, like a roast, a chicken, ingredients for my special homemade chili, meatballs, or almost anything else, put the cover on, and presto, it comes out perfectly done every time. In fact, using a crock-pot to make a meal is about the only thing in life that I haven’t had some success at screwing up, so far.

            I think that crock-pots were originally designed for people like me, who are not, as I said, gourmet cooks. Both of our pots have just one little knob on the front, which simply says Off, Low, High, and Keep Warm. How much easier could it get than that? Off is pretty much self-explanatory and Low and High are not that hard to figure out either. Keep Warm is just a friendly Vermont greeting, I think. I’m not even convinced that the setting matters much anyway. With either the high or low setting I can throw some pork in there in the morning, dump barbecue sauce all over it, and by evening have perfect pulled-pork sandwiches for dinner.  I can also make mac and cheese or my special beef stew, even in the summer, without heating up the kitchen, or an entire chicken dinner without ever going near the stove or watching to be sure nothing burns.

            I’m also confident that a crock-pot uses very little electricity. I don’t have statistics, but I would wager, if I was a pot wagering man, that it costs less to cook a meal in one than it does to make my coffee and English muffin in the morning, especially since our toaster is slower than death and I always have to push the handle down at least twice. This claim could be an exaggeration, but you know me better than that.

            So, that’s my column in praise of crock-pots. If you have one somewhere in the deep dark recesses of your cookware cupboard, haul it out, plug it in, and make something delicious for dinner. Easy-peasy. If you don’t have one, get to Stuff-Mart and get one. Your family will think you’re awesome. Mine thinks I actually know how to cook.

Dear Readers:

                This time I’d like to present something very special for your enjoyment. As many of you know, I teach high school English at Websterville Christian Academy. (It is a school I highly recommend you consider for your children’s and grandchildren’s education.)  Last week my sophomore class was assigned the task of authoring a poem on a subject of their choosing. Miss Sera Fecher, a student in that class, handed in a truly brilliant and thoughtful creation which states, better than I ever could, just how writers, and especially poets, feel about the power of words. Sera writes with a level of maturity far beyond her years and I have often felt that she could just be our next Emily Dickinson, or Edna St. Vincent Millay.  I’m privileged to share Sera’s beautiful poem with you now. 

Ink – 

Seraphina E. Fecher

She voyaged oceans, deserts, skies 
And never took a trip 
She touched a hundred thousand lives 
And never moved her lips

She sang a song, her mouth closed tight
The audience still heard 
She drew a picture, black and white 
And colored it with words 

She gave life to a hundred dreams 
And never saw their deaths 
Her mind - it raced - and still it seemed 
To never lose its breath 

She built a city in no time 
She only had to think 
For all she needed was her mind 
And a little bit of ink 

Anything but Temptation

By G. E. Shuman

            I spend many weekday evenings with my wonderful 19-month-old granddaughter. We have a great time together and, as the father of five and grandfather of twelve, I can tell you that THIS child is able to test the abilities of a tired adult, and the ability of a house to remain on its foundation, like none other I have known.

            My granddaughter is a very sweet child. She loves her Grammy and me, and hugs and smiles abound whenever we are with her. She is also something else. She is the most active little girl I have ever seen. From the moment she arrives at our house, until the moment she leaves, she leaves nothing untouched that can be reached by those little hands. She’s funny and fun to watch and to just be with, and she makes our lives interesting and challenging. Being with her may not keep us young, but it does keep us going.

            I recently sat on one of the couches and traced an imaginary red line around the room, hallway, and other front room of the house, thinking of how we have moved things up, and further up, out of the reach of those hands as she has grown. (Don’t ask me how the line was red. It just was.) Fortunately, very recently, ‘child-proofing’ at our house has lessened a bit, as she is just learning that some things are a no-no because we don’t want her touching them, not just because they are physically out of reach.  The dials on the kitchen stove are an example of that, as are Papa’s coffee mug and Grammy’s phone. (She uses my phone all the time because I’m ‘Super Papa.’)  I know, not much consistency there. Oh well.

            It then came to mind, as I watched this beautiful child testing one or two of those off-limits things, all the while smiling and staring right into my eyes, that most of us adults do exactly the same. We test the limits of what our conscience, our faith, our bodies, or even the law will allow, all the time smiling and staring those things in the eye. We do things that are not allowed, not good for us, or even dangerous for our health, and just keep on smiling as we do. We outstretch a hand to take whatever risky thing we want to have or do, gambling that we are above it all as we stare right into the possible consequences. Doesn’t this seem silly? Then, sillier still, we expect better behavior than that from even a small child.

            I have often said that I can resist anything but temptation. That is supposed to be sort of a joke, but every good joke contains a grain of truth. Lately, I have slipped and fallen occasionally, as I try to break a few negative habits of my own. I do intend to succeed in my efforts to make some changes and live a healthier life.  I’m going to be here to watch this little girl grow up.

           

Missed Deadlines and Other Things

By G. E. Shuman

                At this writing, it was only a week ago that it happened. It was Friday evening and I was on one of my many runs to a local supermarket, for some thing or other that I needed to get for some late-night meal or other I was planning. (My wife works evenings. I don’t.  I enjoy cooking, and I’m not sure she does anymore, especially after work. It works out well.)

                What happened was that as I approached the store’s entrance I saw the rack for the local paper that I write for and it stopped me in my absent-minded tracks. Wait a minute! (I said this to myself, but out loud, and the lady walking past me at the time was likely not impressed with that. In fact, she seemed a bit shaken.)  At that moment I had realized the awful truth!  I had missed the deadline for getting the next week’s column sent to the paper!

                This all might not seem earth-shattering to you, but it did to me, and maybe to that lady that I frightened. You see, it’s been over 24 years since the paper’s publisher graciously allowed me to place my very first column in its place.  The written evidence of my ever-advancing lack of sanity has since appeared right there, every other week, for all 24 of those years. Come heck or high water, sickness, vacations, wars and rumors of wars, tragedies, triumphs, spats with my lovely wife, and a million other ‘life can suck’ sort of things, the column has always made it to the editor on time. That was until now. Now I had missed my deadline!

                I do hope that this is not just the beginning. If memory serves, (pun intended) I know that it’s not the beginning at all. I missed the deadline for my column here in The Sturbridge Times only last month, by three days, after writing here every month for over five years. (Five years… wow! Time flies when you’re having fun, and I AM having fun!) The great guys who publish this magazine somehow squeezed my stuff in at the last minute anyway, which I very much appreciated.  

                I don’t think my memory is slipping, is it? I’m hoping that we’re all just very busy these days, and there’s not something wrong with me. I guess I would have to ask my wife. Oh, remember, I did that a few evenings ago, after serving her one of those late-night meals. She was polite in her answer that of course there is something wrong with me. That scared me just a little.

                You see, I changed the oil in one of the cars the other day. (Talk about a sudden change in topics, but not really.) Yes, at 63, I still usually do this myself, partly because it is cheaper than having someone else do it, and partly because it’s one of those things guys do when they are young, and I will never admit to not being young. After all, my memory isn’t slipping yet, is it?  Oh, I guess I already asked you that.  The thing about the oil change was that the next day I noticed that oil had dripped a little onto our driveway. As someone who has performed this humble oil-change chore nearly countless times, I knew I couldn’t have neglected to tighten the oil pan plug. I then put the car up on my ramps and found I had neglected to tighten the oil pan plug. If you know anything about cars and engines, you know that this was, potentially, a very expensive mistake to make. That also scared me just a little.

                I also waited about fifteen minutes one morning a few weeks ago for my coffee to get done brewing, before realizing I had never turned the coffee maker on after getting it ready. Coffee takes a long time to brew if you don’t turn it on. (It’s not like I make coffee the same way every single morning of the year or anything.) That gurgling, groaning, phlegm-like sound the thing always makes at the end of the brew cycle just never happened.  Yes, that too scared me a little.

                I’ve heard that if you forget where you put your car keys, it’s no big deal. Also, that if you forget where you left your car in a big parking lot, it’s still not a big deal. (I push the alarm button on my key fob to find mine. It’s easier than using a long piece of string.)  But, if you forget that you OWN a car… that might be a big deal. So far, I know that I own a car… several of the things, in fact.

                So, the next time you misplace your keys or forget to turn on the morning coffee, I don’t think you should worry a lot about it. At least you didn’t miss a deadline… or two.