Melancholia (What a word.)

 

By G. E. Shuman

 

I hate to admit it, but I’ve been in a somewhat melancholy mood the past few days, even though I have no good reason for this and actually HATE the sound of that word. It ranks right up there with opaque, obtuse, and mediocre on my list of disgusting sounding words. (Mediocre is the absolute worst.) I know, most people probably don’t have a list of words they don’t like, but I do, and you have just read it.

Anyway, I really have been feeling a bit ‘blah’ about life recently. I think that has to do with the past few rainy days here in central Vermont; those always drag me down a bit. Also, I watch the news entirely too much and, lately, that is enough to turn anyone into a sourpuss. I am pretty certain my melancholia also has to do with this ‘aging’ thing that seems to be happening to me lately. (My wife would say it’s been happening much more than just lately.) I am acutely aware that this summer will mark the end of my sixth decade on earth and that’s just peachy. My happy birthday may not seem all that genuinely happy to me this time around. I’m practicing sitting in a rocking chair and shouting “Get off the lawn!”

Also, probably partially because of that aforementioned ‘aging’ thing, the seasons are just blowing by like a March wind. March itself has already blown by and, at this writing, has taken most of April with it. On the day you read this it will have finished the job. I’ve always contended that part of the blur of the quickly passing seasons is the fact that they really just aren’t all that long. A whole year is only 365 days. (You knew that.) And a season is only a fourth of that… (and most of you knew that, too.) I do tend to ramble sometimes, and I’m sorry for the sarcasm, sort of.

Each morning, I have my coffee in a front room of our old house as I listen to the clocks tick off more seconds of my life while I groggily gaze out the window. How’s that for melancholy? On the other side of that pane is one of the big lilac bushes and, this time of year, every single morning that bush is greener than the day before. Every day the buds are a bit bigger and more have burst into leaves. This is a really awesome thing to me and helps my mood as I briefly watch the new life springing forth. Hey, maybe that’s why we call this season ‘spring.’ No, that would be too sensible. Sarcasm, again.

You know, it was only a month ago that I was outside and snow blowing about sixteen inches of newly fallen heavy white stuff. Yuck! Yesterday my granddaughter was playing outside and brought me in a bouquet of tiny yellow flowers. Thinking about that I can feel my mood improving already.

I’m finishing writing this column on the next new morning. Yes, the clocks are still ticking, their pendulums still swinging another day away. But the birds are singing, the sun is shining, and the beautiful buds on the lilac bush have burst out even more.

In case you missed the eclipse.

A Blatant Book Blurb (Say that three times, fast.)

 

By G. E. Shuman

 

Dear Readers,

Once a year or so I work up my courage to ask you all to consider purchasing one (or more) of my books. (More is better.) It’s been a while since I last did this, so I thought I’d do just a tad bit of self-promotion this week. This act is something I’m terrible at, but it’s unavoidable in any effort to keep the publishing ball rolling, and I do want it to keep it rolling.

So… here’s the blurb. Please head on over to the Amazon website and check out the novels and the childhood autobiography by that awesome author, George E. Shuman. You will be amazed at the metaphysical, mesmerizing writing in “The Smoke and Mirrors Effect” and captivated by the kind and mysterious Mr. Little as he gently changes hearts in the wonderful “A Corner Café.”  Be amazed at the time altered states of lives past, the struggles of a young couple caught in the terror of The Civil War, and even experience the magically preserved voice of Abraham Lincoln, himself, in the captivating “Cemetery Bridge.”  Then journey to a rural 1960s Central Maine town in the autobiographical “Up on Heath Street.”  “George’s World -It’s a Little Strange Here-” is also available and is a super collection of hundreds of these awesome columns, written over the years by the author for his very favorite Vermont newspaper, “The World”.

Okay, so, there’s the Blatant Book Blurb I promised you. Please know that without such joking around it’s painfully hard for me to talk about my work. Truthfully, I’d love to have you read my books because I think you’d really enjoy them and also because I’d really like to sell them.  :-)

Sincerely,

George E. Shuman

Please search my full name on Amazon, including the middle ‘E.,’ as, unbelievably, there is another author named George Shuman on there and I don’t want to take credit, (or blame) for his books.

The Imminent Solar Eclipse

 

By G. E. Shuman

As you probably know, on Monday, April 8^th, Vermont, and other states up and down our great nation will be treated to a total solar eclipse. The eclipse will occur in Vermont at about 3:20 in the afternoon that day and should prove to be quite a show. Be prepared for the streetlights to come on, if only briefly. Pretty cool!

There seems to be much excitement brewing already about this eclipse, including many schools being closed all day or closing early to be sure the kids get a chance to see it. (Even though most schools are already closed by 3:30. Hum :-)  Anyway, I don’t blame them. Teachers want to get home to see it too; I know I do.

Yes, it should be an exciting afternoon. Stores and online sources are offering viewing glasses and other fun things to buy to help celebrate the event, and kids, no matter how old we are, are going to be ready for the show. Please, if you intend to watch the eclipse, be sure to have those approved eclipse glasses. Watching it without them is extremely dangerous to your eyes. Remind others!

If you are not familiar with solar eclipses, don’t feel too bad. Unless you’re a “space geek” like me, you probably don’t think about them much. They don’t happen very often either, and when they do, they are only visible to a limited area. Often, any specific area might experience a partial eclipse, which means that only ‘part’ of the shadow affects where you are, only partially darkening the sky. Hence, (I love the word hence.) the name partial eclipse.

This time, Vermont is right in line for the moon’s shadow to treat us to a total solar eclipse. And, if you’re not familiar with the differences, there are two types of eclipses experienced on earth. The eclipse on the 8^th will be a solar one, which means the moon’s orbit around earth will cause it to come between the sun and the earth, creating the shadow that we will experience. A lunar eclipse is when the earth comes between the sun and the moon. When this happens what we see is the actual shadow of the entire earth as it briefly covers the moon. All of this is absolutely amazing to me.

I remember viewing a solar eclipse when I was a kid. My class, probably third or fourth grade, and I viewed it from the school playground. I don’t remember the year of that eclipse, but I could probably look it up. I won’t, because a depiction of that eclipse would probably include dinosaurs watching it right along with the humans. Our teacher had shown us a way to view the eclipse, using large cardboard boxes. There were no fancy eclipse glasses for us back then, or for the dinosaurs.

To make an eclipse viewing box you just needed to get a large cardboard box, (One big enough to put your head in, and that depended, I suppose, on the size of your head.)  You would cut the bottom out of the box, (for your head), and make about a ¼ inch hole in the middle of one end of the box. Then you had to tape a piece of white paper on the inside of the other end. Unbelievably, if you aimed the end of the box with the small hole at the sun during the eclipse the image of the sun, and the moon as it covered it, would be projected onto the white paper on the other end. Then, if you put the whole thing over your head and could get your head out of the way enough, you would be treated to a live and very safe way of viewing the eclipse. It did work, but passers-by of the playground could easily point out who we little geeks were. We were the ones running around with cardboard boxes on our heads.

If you get a chance to safely view the eclipse on the 8^th, please make an effort to get out there and do so. When you do, remember these few facts that make such an eclipse so amazing. Firstly, science has wondered for years how the earth could possibly have a moon as large as ours. It has been said that our planet should not be able to support one so large, and still, it does. Also, you may not know that our sun is almost exactly four hundred times bigger than our moon. The only reason the moon can perfectly cover the immense disk of the sun is that the sun is almost exactly four hundred times farther from the earth than the moon is. These things, to me, are miraculous examples of the precision and perfect plan for creation of the creator of it all. Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God,” When watching an eclipse, I can’t argue with that.

Books, Banters, and Banana Bread

 

By G. E. Shuman

 

I have the distinct honor of being the high school English teacher at a wonderful private school here in Central Vermont. Websterville Christian Academy, (WCA for those who like abbreviations,) has taught all my kids, some of my grandkids, and hundreds of other youthful beings for more than forty years now. I recommend it highly.

The past few years, especially, of my teaching saga have been wonderful, at least for me. My students may disagree. I have genuinely enjoyed doing my best to at least keep the English language alive with the kids in my classes. (Everything can’t be emojis and lol.)  I can’t say that I have convinced those adolescents to fall in love with the classics, but they have well tolerated some snippets of Shakespeare, the tales of Twain, and poems of Poe with nary a complaint. (They also tolerate my attempts at alliteration, as did you just now.)

I do emphasize the teaching of English, but one thing that has been fun for me is when a discussion goes down the rabbit trail of differences between them, and me. The banter is just so fun for this old man. They can’t fathom how old I am, I presume. I think they are astounded at actually knowing someone who well remembers the day President Kennedy died. I do remember that day, but not the day President Lincoln died, even though some of those wide-eyed kids would probably believe that I do. Fun fact: My grandfather, whom I knew well, once had a friend who had been a friend of Lincoln, so maybe it’s not so far-fetched. Time flies, after all.

And then there’s the old chat about the moon landings. I love that one. Yes, they occurred, I must reassure the doubters, and, yes, I watched all six of those landings, live. (There really were six landings, and, yes, my family had TV back then. As a bonus I let them know that there is no ‘dark’ side of the moon. What we can’t see is the ‘far’ side. Look it up.)

Sometimes it baffles me a bit to know just how young these smart kids are, as I realize that none of my present students were even alive on 9-11 2001, and that some of their parents were still teenagers on that date. Amazing.

And then we sometimes banter briefly about music. I don’t know any of the groups that my students listen to. I hate rap because, (tell me I’m wrong,) I think it’s just talking, not singing. (Okay, get my room ready at the home.)  About the only musical group my students have heard of from my day is The Beatles, so the chats about music are short. We get back to literature quickly on those days, dang it.

You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar, they used to say, so, even though I’m not comparing high schoolers to flies, (at least not most of them,) I usually try to sweeten classes up a bit for them with supermarket donuts or mini-muffins or something. I do want to be their fav teacher, even if I must buy it. (Kidding… sorta.)

All told, I believe the kids learn from me. I know I learn things from them. One of those things is simply that, no matter what generation you’re from, we’re all here for about the same stretch of years, we all have similar wants and needs, and most of us have a sweet tooth. Tonight, I’m baking banana bread to help a big quiz go down a little easier tomorrow morning. I love those kids!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Judge Not

 

By G. E. Shuman

 

Several days ago, I happened to notice that out behind our neighbor’s home someone had discarded a last-year’s Christmas tree. It was real, and was still green, but, come on. It was almost March. What kind of person waits to get rid of their Christmas tree until March? I couldn’t believe it. Later that same day I happened to notice that in front of our home, on our porch, someone (I) had discarded a last-year’s Christmas tree. It was also real and was still green, but, come on. It was almost March. (I had also not yet removed the wreath from the front door.)

My wife used to be a ‘saver’ but has lately decided that less may often be more, which is a sentiment I have always claimed as my own. So, a few years ago she and I went through our home and discarded many things that were serving no purpose and only collecting dust. I loved the way the old house looked after that and vowed to never let it get cluttered again. As I said, that was a few years ago, and some new clutter has somehow crept back into the rooms. This fact is bothering me, especially since realizing that much if not most of those new things are mine.

There is a familiar old Native American saying, (or, at least, old white people like me ‘think’ that it was said by a Native American because we’ve heard it that way so many times,) admonishing us to not judge someone “until you have walked a mile in his moccasins.” Of course, the idea was that we should not judge someone until we have ‘been in his shoes’ (a version of the saying that doesn’t blame it on Native Americans.) Another man’s moccasins or shoes might be extremely uncomfortable and hard to walk a mile in; another person’s life and burdens may be harder on them than we know.  I remember years ago, hearing some TV comedian reciting the ‘moccasin’ version of the saying, and then making a joke of it by adding: “That way, if he’s mad at you, he’ll be a mile away and barefoot.”

It has taken me a lifetime to come to one realization about that idea of withholding judgement until after you have walked that mile. The realization is that the well-meant saying is simply wrong. The old Native American (or whomever it was) that first thought of it assumed that judgement should ever be done by us. The Bible is one place that is very clear on this, with admonitions to ”Judge not that ye be not judged,” and telling us to take the log from our own eye before we try to remove a spec from someone else’s eye.  That hits hard with me… because I know me.

I believe we would all do well to simply stop judging others. In the intense political year that we are beginning, it would also be wise to truly respect a person’s opinion, as being as valuable to them as our own is to us. What ‘side of the aisle’ some family member or friend may be on should not estrange and divide us. Life is much more than politics.

Wherever that old ‘moccasin’ saying originated, I think we can do better. We should hate sin, but not the sinner. We should despise crime and insist on punishment, but then work on forgiveness.

Forget the footwear and the situation. The old saying should say, simply, “Judge Not.” 

It’s All in How You Look at It.

 

By G. E. Shuman

 

I’ve been amazed, and thankful, for the wonderfully mild winter we are experiencing here in Vermont, this year. At this writing, (and I know the situation can change quickly,) there is not one bit of snow on the little lawn surrounding my Barre City home. Yes, that’s amazing to me! It would be less amazing in April, but this is mid-February, after all. We have had beautiful winter sunshine and higher than usual temperatures for this time of year. Which, since you probably live here too, you already know. I have often said that any days that my furnace and snow blower don’t have to run, are good days!

Still, there might be something slightly selfish in my assessment of the recent weather. When I was younger, I’m sure I looked at the Biblical idea of the rain falling on the just and the unjust to mean that ‘bad’ people experience downpours in life, but so do ‘good’ people. I don’t think I took much thought to the fact that there really aren’t any ‘good’ people to get drenched with rain.

More recently, in my wonderful situation of aging wisdom, (ya, sure,) I’m looking at the rain and snow thing a bit differently. Rain and snow are not ‘bad’ things. I believe that The Bible was referring to the rains as actual blessings. For every one of us who will soon be praying for a sunny summer weekend at the beach, there will be at least one farmer praying for rain that weekend for his crops. For every person like me, who looks out his window and at his phone every winter morning to see if we have been ‘cursed’ with snow and low temperatures during the night, there is a skier, snow-mobiler, or winter resort employee looking for the ‘blessings’ of those things.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a person who must talk myself into seeing the positive aspects of life, at times. I don’t try to look for the dark clouds, but don’t often seek the silver linings either, and that is wrong. We can’t change the weather, or many other things that we face in life, no matter what our point of view is.

In the words of Christian pastor and author Charles Swindoll: “We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how l react to lt. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitude.”

Like I said, it’s all in how you look at it.

The Spoon

 

By G. E. Shuman

 

I recently received a great gift from my mother. The gift had been waiting for me to pick it up at my sister’s home in Maine since last fall. It is something that I once asked her if I could have as an inheritance. Mom is in the process of selling her home in Florida and has been handing out some of her possessions to family members for a while now.

The gift, as you can likely tell from the picture here, (and the title?) is a remarkably simple, unornate, and somewhat battered, big, old, aluminum kitchen mixing spoon. To some this may seem a strange thing to inherit. To me, although probably monetarily close to being worthless, it is priceless.

You see, this spoon is one that I actually remember Mom using in the kitchen of our small home in Maine when I was a young child. She would often use it in stirring a big pot of her delicious beef stew, (I still can’t make it as good as hers.) baked beans, vegetables, or other wonderful food on the stovetop. I remember her mixing cake batter with it and even stirring Kool-Aid for us kids on many sizzling summer days using that big old spoon. I think I even remember sneaking that spoon, (which was much bigger when I was about five years old than it is now,) out behind the house to dig in the sandbox with. I’m sure Mom scrubbed it pretty well after that.

There is one unusual thing about my (or Mom’s) spoon. It is something I haven’t seen on more modern utensils and may prove the old assertion that some things really were better in ‘the good old days.’ The spoon has a small pressed-out hook near its bowl which allowed the user to ‘hang’ it on the inner edge of the pot, keeping it handy for stirring and keeping any drips inside the pot. Pretty ingenious for something made nearly, or maybe more than seven decades ago.

The spoon also has other valuable things. It has little lines, scratches in its surface, that hold many secrets. Those scratches represent memories that it has stored for many years, and keeps. They are records, as much as any old phonograph record would be, of the time in which they were made. Some may be from scraping a big metal pot, or from being dropped on the floor by accident. Others may even be from grains of sand the spoon once shoveled into old Tonka trucks on that fateful day it found itself plowing through our sandbox. Whoops. Sorry, Mom, for that.

Regardless of whatever circumstances caused those tiny scratches to be carved into the spoon, they are certainly there forever. They record no music. They record no words. They record memories. The very moments of each of their creations there were just as real as this moment you are reading of them now. For me, they are the proof of the reality of many remembered childhood days and of an absolutely wonderful, dedicated and devout Christian mother as she prepared food for her big family.  

In just a few days my Mom will be the guest of honor at a large party celebrating her 100^th birthday. How amazing that is, and how amazing she is. Thank you, Mom, for your love, your care, and for the wonderful memories. And thank you for (our) spoon.

 

Those Dreaded Dreads

 

By G. E. Shuman

Hello my friends. Firstly here I will answer the question about dreads. No, I am not now inclined to grow dreadlocks, although maybe that would be an improvement over my rapidly retreating head of hair. Believe me, my dreads are not about baldness.

I’m talking about having the ‘dreads’. You know, dreading some inevitable something that you know is either in your immediate or even distant future. I for one tend to dread things more than I should. I know that. Still, there are things that I will probably always not exactly look forward to, and I’m sure it’s the same with you.

Once I actually had a doctor ask me how I felt about a procedure he was about to do on me. I told him I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. (The truth was I had been up most of the previous night, dreading it.)  His reply was: “There would be something wrong with you if you were looking forward to it.” I completely agreed with him.

Yes, I do sometimes dread medical appointments; things that seem to be occurring much more often than they used to. My brother-in-law recently even said that at our age doctor appointments become our social life. (And he’s a doctor.)

I also dread some lesser occurrences of life. I dread having to make certain phone calls. I dread starting home improvement projects, (Maybe that’s why our home looks as it does.) I dread meetings, and other things. Also, I can barely write the words ‘tax season’ without including the word ‘dreaded’ first. I often even dread, or at least don’t much look forward to things that are supposed to be fun. Church potlucks, school plays, and other functions are things I attend but don’t always relish, partly because, these days, I also try to avoid going out in the evening. I wonder what that’s a sign of. 

I ALWAYS dread using my snowblower. Yup, I really dread that. It’s a good one, but I don’t care. It’s a pain to use. Just yesterday as I was teaching my morning classes I couldn’t help dreading going home, bundling up, and spending two hours of quality time behind that thing. Still, as far as that machine goes, it’s definitely a love-hate relationship. I hate it, but I’m also glad I have it to use. Shoveling would be no improvement.

I guess I wrote all of that to say that I, and likely probably most of you, have definite dreads. My advice, mainly to myself, is to get a grip, quit whining, (just plain stop it,) and go do whatever it is I’m dreading. 

It’s a sure thing that dreading and worrying never helped anything. It never helped a doctor appointment or test result, it never helped a meeting or ‘dreaded’ phone call either. It dang sure didn’t help my ‘date’ with my snowblower yesterday.

The things that I have dreaded over the years have, apparently, not killed me. It’s time for me to trust more, pray more, and dread less. How about you?

 

 

 

 

 

Ticking By

 

By G. E. Shuman

 

I like clocks. I think that’s because I have always been interested in the concept of time; of its passing, in particular, and time travel and other science-fictiony stuff. As far as clocks themselves go, antique clocks are the best. My wife’s family actually once owned an old grandfather clock with all wooden works. Wow! I guess that shows how old her relatives are.  

I also enjoy other types of clocks. I’d love to have a real coo-coo clock someday; an old one if possible. If you happen to have one that you’re dying to get rid of let me know. And I even like the new clocks that run on a small black plastic chunk of works in the back and go for at least a year on one double A battery. Amazing! And more amazing to me is the fact that many young people probably think all clocks run like that, or don’t think of any of this stuff at all. (You don’t need a clock if you ‘ve got a phone. You don’t need to know things if you’ve got Google, I guess.)

To me, clocks are cool, and evidently people know that they are a big part of our home. We received two new, interesting, beautiful wall clocks for Christmas this year… ‘last’ year at this writing. Clocks are in almost every room of our home, not really intentionally, and I don’t know how some of them got there. Okay, so I’m probably to blame.  

When it’s quiet here it reminds me of Papa Geppetto’s shop, with the various ticking and ‘tocking’ sounding of each room. I’m often reminded that each of those ticks, and all of those ‘tocks’ represent more than just the sound they make. They are literally measuring and counting down real seconds of my life and yours, and they are seconds that will never come back. And that reminds me that many things around us are measured by time. We are in a certain day, month, and season, whether you’re reading these words in my ‘now’, or months from now. We measure other things in other ways, like calorie intake, (at least in January) heights and lengths of things and the new tallness of those grandkids who were shorter seemingly moments ago.

And, according to Albert Einstein, time, and the experience of it is somehow fluid and can seem to fly by in one instance and drag on in another. To loosely quote him: “Ten minutes spent in a dentist’s chair can seem like an hour; an hour spent with a beautiful woman can seem like ten minutes.”

As I write this, I’m looking at one ticking clock on the other side of the room I’m in. I look at it, and then look away. Looking back only a few minutes later those seemingly still hands have somehow moved to those few minutes later.  What happened to the ticks and tocks in between? Life seems to be short sometimes, but someone once said that it isn’t, “It’s just that we waste most of it.”   Humm.  My nearly one hundred-year-old mother, after experiencing more moments than I ever will, would say: “That’s just the way it ‘tis.”

From my point in time, right now, we have all just entered a brand-new year, and we would do well to pay attention to it, and not waste it. 

So, my clocks keep tick-tocking away, and time keeps ticking by.  Would it help if I took out all those double A batteries?