Touching the past in the present

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Within our lives we often go through experiences that last a few years and pass into the annals of history.
During those years we often make friends and create family-like relationships that during those periods sustain and mean the world to us.
Then one day it all ends and we move on to other frontiers with new worlds to conquer and new friends to make.
Our high school, college or military experiences are often this way, and when we graduate or are discharged we are catapulted out of those environs and those friendships forced to make a new field of play.
After that, these types of situations are more relevant to those people who have jobs that are often project based or simply enjoy moving from job-to-job.
In the last few days I have found myself taken back among friends who at one time were present, but life moved on and so did we.
It was amazing to me how we were able to pick up on old conversations and shared memories that only we might understand and were able to recall great people who are now gone but remain within our hearts and minds.
While many spend years in one place often working for the same employer, I have spent a lifetime creating short but meaningful experiences working with many amazing people through music entertainment and film and TV. With each opportunity I picked up a circle of friends and created bonds that sometimes amaze even me.
I can gather with someone from one circle laugh and talk about the common memories and personalities that rotated within it, then walk a few feet away talking with another old friend and do the same about another circle.
It is fascinating to me how our minds can compartmentalize our lives so efficiently that we might do that even within the same room.
Though my recent years have limited my contact with those older circles, I found my spirit and my hope for the future reinvigorated based on those shared past moments.
They provided me a window to see into once who I was and whom I still am within.
The smiles, the laughs shared with the great people who once walked beside me and whom now rest somewhere in the sod reminded me that they still walk in my laughter, in my smiles and in my stories of them. They live as long as I do and someone else from the circle does, so we can encourage each other in those shared moments,
Life is a blessing. Its phases provide us benchmarks upon which we may build a chapter that allows us to grow. As the page is turned and a new chapter is headlined, we from time-to-time enjoy a flashback, but ultimately, it’s our job to forge ahead, creating the energy for new circles of influence. Think upon this; one-day two old friends get together to talk about old times. Will your name come up? Will something you did or said be shared with a smile?
Are you creating circles of influence that will last for ages? If not, maybe you should start. Today is a good day for it.

Are we who we should be?

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At many points in my life I have recalculated where I am. I pull out the proverbial compass to figure out if I am headed towards due North, or if I am off course headed somewhere else.

To my surprise, I have never been on the course setting for due North. That is assuming that is the place I am suppose to be headed. It seemed to be where everyone headed in the old black and white movies. I wonder sometimes where exactly am I suppose to be going.

I have traversed many paths in my life, and God has afforded many adventures upon which I could not have dreamed. But no matter what day it is when I wake up, I think there is more to accomplish.

It’s an old story, I still want what I wanted when I became an adult and a few of the things I wanted as a child. No matter how many years pass, I seem to be checking off from the same old list. At least trying to do so.

I have read the list in my mind again and again, and some of the items begin to become impractical as time passes but yet they remain on the list.

I probably won’t have that houseboat that I once visited as a twenty-something. The mansion with all the latest guy toys is probably also not among my future acquisitions either. Both of those would have been nice, but in this day and time, I just don’t see it.

A farming homestead seems more appropriate and better sustaining for long-term needs.

I have always had a desire to have a dream job doing what I love. While I have been blessed to have short runs in such positions, I have never held that dream job.

That is one thing I would still like to do. Although I don’t know if it will be possible. God only knows if such will be in the miles ahead. I can only remain open and prepared for the possibility should it arise.

Improving my skills in some of my many already learned areas of study. That is a constant hope and desire, but as in many areas, I have always gotten bored easily when trying to refresh already learned techniques or even start a new focus.

The main list remains a part of my daily routine. It gets impeded by shorter lists with items that have a more immediacy in need. Those things must be done more quickly and I generally accomplish those lists with ease.

As time passes the items on the big list seem farther and farther away from ever being completed.

I am still hopeful on some of the items. I think God intended me to succeed, my insufficiency has limited my ability to reach some of the goals. Perhaps, I am striving to eliminate those inabilities so I may yet reach the remaining goals as I continue my journey.

I’ll just pull out my compass and keep heading North, I know a fellow there who is suppose to be good with checking lists.

Reaching beyond one’s self

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I stepped forward and the next thing I knew I was lying at the bottom of a flight of steps.

I didn’t know the door I opened led to the basement. But it wasn’t a moment before the reality of my mistake became a realization. The abrupt nature of my landing was certainly a rude awakening.

As a youngster at this point, about eight years old, thankfully as I tumbled quickly down the stairs at the bottom of the flight was a landing and the outside wall. When I hit the wall, somehow I stubbed my toe, busting it open on the end. Thankfully, no broken bones, just a bit of bleeding on my toe and residual pain as I picked myself up and walked back up the steps.

I was staying over night with my elderly neighbor, Millie Dobbs, who became an adopted grandmother to me. She lived with her daughter and son-in-law, who were out of town. They didn’t have any children.

Of course, my tumble upset her, but we got my to bandaged and all was good.

We had a light dinner with a warmed ham sandwich and barbecue Charlie’s chips. After dinner, we spent the evening playing games such as Chinese checkers and gin rummy while the television played a John Wayne western in the background.

As we played hand after hand, she talked about her work as a nurse in New York and asked me questions about what I wanted to do in life. Though she was a Yankee of German descent, she seemed to fit right into the contemporary Southern suburbs of Atlanta. She shared with me about meeting Marilyn Monroe during a hospital stay. She had been deceased a few years at that point but she had captivated America during her film career. Even an eight-year-old knew who she was.

Much of what we did was just be. We talked, we laughed, we had fun and enjoyed each other’s presence.

I spent much of my youth doing odd jobs for Millie. I think it was just her way to give me some money to buy things I might want, but it wasn’t a birthday or Christmas. Millie became a regular presence at our house, she spent a lot of time with my mother passing the day. My Uncle Waymond stayed with us for extended stays and Millie always came up to be the fourth in a card game as the evenings were filled by topics the adults knew more about from the shared decades they lived through.

One of my favorite things to do was on her birthday, we walked to an Irish restaurant which had opened about a mile from our homes, and had lunch. They made the biggest hamburgers and put all kinds of things I had never imagined on the burger such as mushrooms and other adds.

Why have I shared these memories, what is the point?

I didn’t have to spend time with Millie. She was not my kin. But her presence enriched my life with her experiences and the time shared. One day, her son-in-law had to move for work to Florida and of course Millie went. Letters back and forth followed until the word of her passing came by phone.

That day saddened me more than I could have imagined.

She really had become a regular part of my life. Even today, I have a storage box and if opened, one would find various crafts which her hands made and gave as gifts. These things are cherished as was she.

Is there an older person in your neighborhood, in your family, in your path which is open to sharing life experience with you and your family?

Don’t miss that chance. Share a bit of your time, and let them do the same, and what you might receive back could give for decades to come.

History can inspire

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History has always been a passion to me. I love to read about what happened and delve deeply into whatever topic of history I am learning about.

While today finds me expanding my knowledge of world history, as a youth, it was primarily the American experience which fueled my exuberance – the Revolution, the War of 1812, Mexican American War, the Civil War, WWI and WWII. These wars were all moments in time for which I sought our family connection. The young male desire to learn generally leaned more toward the physical struggles and the fighting. The sense of excitement was what drove my childhood mind. Overcoming the adversary and surviving to return successfully to your family was an enriching story and satisfying story. The deaths however always brought a sense of sadness knowing that someone would not be returning home.

The stories of home didn’t really excite me until I reached adulthood. By then I realized we each spend most of our lives repeating and doing what a child would consider mundane to keep the home fires burning.

I talked with my surviving uncles who had served in WWII. WWI was still alive for my gra ndparents as that was the war of their youth and their friends and family faced being sent to fight. I had two great uncles go, one returned in ill health and tried to get back to life but the impact of the war took a toil that saw him eventually succumb to long-term impact of his injuries. Great Uncle Tom returned in a wooden box and we always remembered his sacrifice for our country especially on Decoration Day (Memorial Day).

For their parents, it was the Civil War. Most of their children recalled more of the impact of upon daily life, the limited food and supplies long after the war, the guerrillas who raided the farms claiming allegiance to one side or another. The absence of men who went off to fight, some for North, some for South. I had grandfathers on both sides.

The oral and written history of the War of 1812 and the War of Independence were also sought. And there were stories that passed. I had grandfathers in both. Currently, I have found about 13 Patriot grandfathers who fought in the Revolution. I fondly remember getting to visit cousins, sitting by the fireplace that my Revolutionary ancestor Greenberry Wilson had sat in front of and listen to my cousins share the stories passed down. I played upon the paths and the furrows that Adam Sherrill had farmed.

They were alive to me as a youth through the words shared. As I grew, they were not a name in a family tree, they were part of me. As real as they were standing in front of me sharing a bit of their story with one of their grandchildren. I heard the story of Adam falling from his spooked horse at the Battle of Boyd’s Creek in 1780 at French Broad River, Tenn. breaking his ribs. The Indians had laid in wait flat upon the ground for the patriots. While dazed, an Indian springs upon him with a tomahawk about to end his life. Then a musket ball from a comrade fell the Indian, saving Adam, who escaped and joined in pursuit. I heard about the march of the Over-mountain men to fight the Battle of King’s Mountain.

All these fueled a desire to find more connecting me to cousins like Davy Crockett who gave their life at the Alamo in Texas in 1836 and so many others.

I have found battles around the world where my grandfathers fought hand-to-hand against other grandfathers. I am lucky they had already had their children, or when they died, I would not be here.

I have shared all this to say, thank you to those who struggled through all that they may have faced to raise the next generation. I am here because of the mundane and the extraordinary that you experienced. For those who fell in war, thank you for your sacrifice.