Reunions and the Popcorn Years

I was never a fan of High School reunions. I was never sociable in my teenage years. As a strategy for staying away from home as much as possible, I worked all the time, and in jobs where I learned how to behave like an adult in order to interact successfully with adults. On returning to school each fall, I'd feel like a stranger in a foreign land. Coming back out of an adult world, I didn't share the usual teenage interests, so it was hard to relate to most of the other kids. They all seemed so ... childish. Their usual take on this was that I seemed so ... aloof. To me, other kids were mostly juvenile and boring; to them, I was a stuck up odd-ball. Hence, I made very few friends among my classmates - I thought.

What reason would there be for me to go to a class reunion?

This year was our 50th high school class reunion. I didn't participate. I had other obligations anyway, so that provided a convenient excuse. The real reason was the archaic feelings and perceptions left over from fifty years ago - all the awkward moments, the feelings of being different, of being on the outside looking in, of not really belonging or being accepted as part of the group. I never cared to revisit any of that. (More truthfully, I probably always feared that.)

But then, I got the bright idea of developing a class reunion website template and giving it away for free to promote a couple of my not-so-best-selling books. Part of that template was a "Remembrance" page. Building the prototype around my own high school class, I discovered that so far, forty-two of my former 270-some classmates have a spot on that page. Some I never knew, and others I barely knew.

But then there were the others.

I remembered Dawn, a flippant, flirty girl who often volunteered a teasing conversation with me in classes and hallways, in spite of my lowly place in the pecking order. Evidently, she saw something in me that I didn't know was there. I remember her as a fun person who frequently made me feel comfortable in that otherwise seemingly hostile environment.

Janice was a twin. I went all through school, beginning in the grades, with she and her look-alike sister. They were quiet. In the lower grades, when one became ill and vomited on her disk, so did the other. They were twins, after all.

Jim; good-looking and having an engaging way of always looking surprised and interested in what was going on. Peter, the son of some city fathers, and trying to carry on in that tradition. He married a girl I thought I was in love with in the Second Grade. Brent, the athlete, but crippled and doomed to never succeed in spite of credible athletic abilities. Then Perry; a rather strange and quiet boy who didn't seem to fit in - like me, maybe.

Then there was Albert, known as "Pug." I don't know why, except that his dad was also named Al. I knew him forever. As little boys we used to swap night-overs. His Dad took me to the first football game I'd ever seen. Sitting there on the side of the hill at Green Hill Field, I stupidly kept calling the guys in the black and white stripes "umpires." They thought that was funny. It turned out that I would know Al senior until the day he died. When we were operating our family manufacturing business, Pug's dad provided us with electrical maintenance supplies, and stopped by frequently. I think the last time I saw Pug was at my Dad's funeral. He was then called "Al."

Jane, William, Arlan - I really didn't know them at all. Dennis was almost a neighborhood kid, but lived just outside the boundaries of what we considered "our neighborhood," and inside the borders of a somewhat rougher territory. He seemed like a "boy's boy" who would grow up to be a "man's man." I think his parents were divorced, which was not a common thing then. Kids from "broken homes" were expected to be difficult. When I eventually got to know Denny a little better, I was surprised to discover that he was not all "tough kid." I liked him.

Sharon I was barely acquainted with; only knew her by name. Jerry stands out in my memory as an example of the perfect personality conflict. He and I somehow got along, although our ways of thinking about things were always different, and usually diametrically opposite. I don't know why, or why we got along in spite of that.

Jay; didn't know him. Always seemed like trouble, I don't know why. Then Bob - cripes! Bob is gone? I didn't know that. He was always a happy, highly personable type, as a kid and as an adult. I've passed him so many times in the past few years, usually at the Post Office, and that always left me with a good feeling - pleased that he'd recognize me with a smile and a greeting. After all, he was one of the "popular kids."

And on, and on, through Charles, my "smart kid" childhood playmate; Sig, who I really didn't know real well in high school, but who, years later, always somehow recognized me on the street, down to Durrell, another one who quietly slipped away; we often bumped into one another at the supermarket, and he'd always somewhat sheepishly say hello. He was like me; not one of the "popular kids."

These are all people whom I thought I didn't know - whom I thought I had little in common with. Going back through the forty-two pictures, I count twenty-one who were actually special to me in one way or another. Exactly half.

Somebody once wrote -

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven … For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

I guess this is what he was talking about. These memories are indeed treasures - "golden" dividends of a person's investment in life. Opening this box to revisit one's treasures brings special feelings to the heart that somehow make life seem worth its trials and troubles after all. Meanwhile, if one does not dwell on the mud and lumps of coal, memories of unpleasant things inexorably sink deeper and deeper into the psyche, becoming ever more difficult to fetch back up.

What an ass I've been about class reunions!

Here's yet another example of the adage, "Ve get too soon olt, und too late schmardt!" Only now, at the twilight of my life, I've finally figured out what reunions are all about. I passed up fifty opportunities to polish some golden pieces of my life. Now many of those will have to remain as they are, perhaps somewhat tarnished with this new regret.

It took me a couple of days to put the Remembrance page together, using the class reunion's information, the SSDI (death index), and scanning portraits from the old high school yearbook. During that process, some very strong feelings about our human situation arose, bringing to mind from some corner of my memory the poignant truths of an old song written by Earl Wilson Jr:

We laugh, we cry, we live, we die;
And when we're gone, the world goes on.
We love, we hate, we learn too late;
How small we are, how little we know.

We hear, we touch, we talk too much,
Of things we have no knowledge of.
We see, we feel, yet can't conceal,
How small we are, how little we know.

See how the time moves swiftly by;
We don't know how, we don't know why.
We reach so high, and fall so low;
The more we learn, the less we know.

Too soon the time to go will come.
Too late the will to carry on.
And so we leave too much undone.
How small we are how little we know.

---

Then I got thinking about popcorn.

Somebody takes a handful of corn kernels and puts them into a bag. A little grease is added to facilitate the process, and a little flavoring, to improve the final product. This goes into the microwave for about four minutes. In a little while, there's a single pop, then a few moments later, another. During the first couple of minutes nothing much happens as that happy group of seeds turns round and round with the microwaves shining on them; just the occasional pop of the odd one, which for reasons unknown succumbs to the heat and pressure before all the rest. Then, in the third minute, all hell begins to break loose. Another pop, then another and another, popping in pairs, and finally an explosion of activity!

Then a few, a couple, a single pop or two - in four minutes, it's all over.

Classmates seem like a handful of humanity that, through happenstance, wind up in the same bag. We get a little upbringing and education in hopes of greasing our paths as we revel in the sunshine of life. Then there's the first pop. In our class that happened forty-eight years ago. A year after that came the second pop, then six years later yet another. Now, as my classmates and I are all pushing seventy, there are lots of pops. There will be lots of new pictures coming to my Remembrance page now; perhaps even my own.

In four score years, it'll be all over for us.

Is this aspect of life not like a bag of popcorn? Its duration is four score years, rather than four minutes, but its life story seems the same. I never could see why anyone would call these "The Golden Years."

I think "The Popcorn Years" is a caption more apt.

--=glw=-

Thoughts on “Foreign Aid” and “Mission”

(Note: this was written in response to a note from a pen pal in India.)


Your interest in promoting assistance for your compatriots from foreign sources brought a couple of issued to mind.

When I was a young schoolboy, we used to receive a little publication called the Weekly Reader It was designed to promote an interest in reading, and to help develop reading skills. Among other features, it included articles about current events, and one title that has always stuck in my mind was Trade – Not Aid. This was in the early 1950’s, and the point being made in the article was that people in countries who were receiving “foreign aid,” which was a political issue here at the time, did not want handouts. They wanted assistance in rebuilding their infrastructures and economies so that they would be able to support themselves and determine their own destinies.

Today, the U.S. Government spends a lot of money on various aid programs, although much less than the post WW-II/Cold War era, and what is distributed amounts to just a miniscule fraction of our government’s annual budget. Unfortunately, the largest portion of that aid involves military assistance and the fostering of political self-interest – money spent to buy and retain friends, in other words. The largest benefactor is always Israel (currently excepting Iraq). India is no longer on the list of leading aid recipients.

Mainline Christian denominations are big on “mission,” which is their euphemism for charity. A lot of money is collected and distributed to causes at home, and around the world. Perhaps nobody knows exactly how much. I was unable to find a figure, but I estimate it is somewhere in the area of $800-million (estimated by multiplying total Presbyterian spending by the ratio of PCUSA membership to total mainline church membership). This amounts to only about $6.75 per member. Unfortunately, much of that is wasted on projects that are ineffective, inefficient, or inappropriate. In the case of the Presbyterian church, upwards of 75% of the money is spent on personnel, support and administrative costs – almost exactly the opposite of what is ordinarily considered to be an acceptable program spending ratio by most charitable organizations.

I was brought up in a protestant Christian tradition, in the Presbyterian Church. Like any other religion, Christianity has its moderates and its zealots. Presbyterians have traditionally been on the moderate end of the spectrum, emphasizing mission (good works and charity) and education as an appropriate way of carrying on the work begun by Jesus Christ. Christ’s agenda was to bring hope for a better life, now and in the hereafter, to common people, and He worked to that end in his time by teaching and healing. Hence, Presbyterians have gone out into the world to build schools and hospitals, rather than to preach and proselytize.

Mission is legitimate and effective when it helps people become capable of helping themselves. Otherwise it is often just an easy give-away which permits the more fortunate to justify their affluence without getting their hands dirty, while the rest of the world continues to suffer. Mission done right is not simple or easy. Ineffective and inappropriate projects therefore often result, with the well-intentioned, but misguided rushing in with temporary assistance of some kind, which does nothing to solve systemic problems. Eventually the recipients are left in the same poor condition, while the givers walk away feeling good about themselves.

Several years ago the World Council of Churches got into trouble for providing aid (money, food, and medical supplies) to people in Africa who turned out to be murderous rebels. That is an (admittedly extreme) example of "feel good" mission that has no good result.

A more typical example of wasting mission resources is the annual trip to Mexico that involves teenagers from our local church. Traveling across the country to a small village in Mexico, they reopen and repair a small derelict church building while befriending the local Mexican youth. For the Mexican kids, this has evidently turned into a festival of sorts; a time when they expect the gringos and gringas from America to show up to host parties, play games and pass out gifts. The price they pay is having to listen to American kids witness and preach. The reality is that Mexico is predominately catholic with a much stronger family oriented culture than ours, so Mexican youth could probably better be teaching the American kids about things that matter. After the American’s leave, the Mexican’s close up the building, permitting it to fall into a state of neglect again in preparation for next year’s event, and life in their little village returns to normal. Our kids come back home clucking to the congregation about all the wonderful things that happened in Mexico, while the congregation pats itself on the back for yet another contribution to mission. As a cultural exchange or encounter, this activity probably has merit, and it should probably be billed as such, rather than thought of as a mission project.

On the other hand, our local church helps support a man who felt he was called to go to Haiti to help the poor. His first project was to teach rural peasants how to build simple concrete water filters. That cost very little, and had a big impact upon disease. More recently he came up with a program where a $40 donation enables a peasant boy to establish his own small plantation, which will provide enough income over the years to pay for twelve years of schooling. This may not be a big deal in a global sense, but it is a big deal to the people of this small mountain region in Haiti. This man paid a significant personal price for the privilege of helping others. He devoted his own money and material to what began as his personal project. He gave up all the opportunities he would have had in his own country. He gave up the safety and security of his American home to take up his work in a risky, politically unsettled and relatively lawless place. He contracted a chronic form malaria, which evidently never really goes away. On the plus side, he also eventually met, fell in love with and married a fine Haitian woman.

Our church is small; only about 1200 members, all of whom are fortunate enough to have $40 to contribute to mission. If each small affluent group were to support a similarly small but effective mission, the world would soon become a better place for many.

***

As a footnote, I hasten to add this:

I am not trying to promote Christianity or the Presbyterian Church. I am not a student of religion, but am intelligent enough to understand that all religions have good and bad aspects, and that we are what we are mainly by virtue of the culture we are born into. My ancestors came to America as immigrants from Norway and Germany, and were therefore of the Christian tradition. Not surprisingly, our family was originally part of the German Evangelical Lutheran persuasion. My father was in the U.S. Coast Guard, a military service. After World War II, he was reassigned to a life saving station in Grand Haven, a small town on Lake Michigan that was originally founded by a Presbyterian missionary. As has been the Presbyterian tradition, the missionary quickly built a one-room schoolhouse, recruiting his sister-in-law as the volunteer teacher. In this town therefore, the Presbyterian Church was understandably prominent, and that is how we happened to become involved with that particular church.

We remain Presbyterians mainly because:

The denomination is liberal enough to recognize the equal legitimacy of other denominations and other faiths. That is unusual, most other traditions think that they must believe in the exclusive validity of whatever it is that they believe, and must therefore believe that everyone else is wrong. Today we are rediscovering scientifically and philosophically what wise people of old easily knew as a matter of common sense - that human minds are imperfect and our thinking on any subject is therefore fallible. Zealotry in any matter is therefore the mark of an ignorant person. Presbyterian doctrine is the only one I know of among the god-fearing faiths that acknowledges this fact of life. The alternative, which is to claim infallibility and insist that everyone else accept whatever such zealots claim to be "the truth" has a long history of destructiveness.

The other reason we are Presbyterian is that the denomination is governed democratically, rather than by a hierarchy of ordained clergy. Governing bodies include both lay members and ministers. A Book of Order, which is essentially a constitution, guarantees the rights of individuals, thereby limiting the power of any other individuals or factions, and assuring everyone of fair treatment, and a voice in the affairs of the church.

-=glw=-

"ADS" - The Obscure Cost of Urban Decay

I was in Warrensburg, Missouri a couple of weeks ago. Warrensburg is a small town of about 16,000. The town never had much of a history. It grew up on the frontier around Martin Warren's blacksmith shop, and eventually became the county seat.

Warrensburg was put on the map, as it were, during the latter part of the 19th century, when the newly formed Pacific Railroad replaced steamboats on the Missouri River as the carrier of choice for passengers and freight between St Louis and Kansas City. The rails through Warrensburg are still heavily trafficked, with several Amtrak and Union Pacific trains passing through town daily. A county normal teacher's training school evolved into today's Central Missouri State University (Dale Carnegie's alma mater). During World War II, Sedalia Army Airfield was established south of nearby Knob Noster ("Our Hills") and that became today's Whiteman Air Force Base, the home of a B-2 bomb wing, and one of the Air Force's larger installations.

Warrensburg is typical of many other small towns. It has some nice neighborhoods, and too many used-to-be-nice neighborhoods. The latter are a little more plentiful and unkempt than usual. I suspect that is because Warrensburg, the temporary home of lots of college students and Air Force personnel, has more than the usual numbers of residents who consider themselves non-residents. Like too many other small towns, Warrensburg also has lots of downtown storefronts and other commercial property that has obviously outlived its usefulness. Also present is the usual unsightly and slapdash distribution of bank branches, fast food joints and strip malls along all the main thoroughfares.

Hastings is a popular local seller of books, videos, music and games in Warrensburg. Their clientele is therefore youthful; teens to twenty-somethings. While sitting outside the store and people-watching as my wife and youngest daughter shopped inside, my observation was that the people coming and going matched the qualities of the town in general appearance. Except for two or three individuals in Air Force uniforms, I cannot remember seeing anyone who could be described as attractive and well dressed. On the whole, people seemed apt to be overweight, poorly groomed, and/or tastelessly dressed. Many were equally tasteless in behavior. I have gotten used to tattoos and piercing, although I still find those styles tacky, and the mark of the neurotic. However, I doubt I will ever see public nose picking, spitting, and "package adjustment" as kewl. I'm certainly no prude, but I am old enough (or should I say, mature enough) to find it objectionable when men utter the F-word ("fug-itit") in conversations loud enough to be overheard in a public setting, or when women utter even less vulgar expletives, such as the S-word (i.e., "she-it".)

In fairness, I must hasten to say this is not an indictment of Warrensburg, Missouri. I could have been people watching at a similar venue in my own hometown, or almost any other town. The only exceptions seem to be downtown office districts in larger cities. In those zones, the people on the street are apt to be professionals, or para-professional workers, who are obligated to pay attention to their personal appearance and demeanor. Being well groomed and dressing in the attire of a business executive seems to upgrade behavior in a way that is probably both unconscious and unintentional.

With that in mind, here's why I'm writing about this - I'm wondering about the relationship between our physical surroundings and our self-esteem. How much does living amongst crummy surroundings influence our personal perceptions about ourselves? Which comes first, the urban decay, or the crappy attitudes?

America is suffering from epidemic neuroticism. That manifests itself in lots of different ways, all anti-social and self-defeating; personality problems, divorce, delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, crime, terrorism, war, and more. These things are much studied, written about and discussed. All sorts of solutions and fixes are proposed, but they all ultimately fail, because they attempt to eliminate the superficial symptoms, rather than the cure underlying disease.

Neuroticism results from low self-esteem. Therefore, by common sense we can easily and safely postulate that the most common and costly disease in America today is low self-esteem. That probably sounds too simplistic for most people to embrace. People seem to prefer being diagnosed with something that sounds more mysterious or sinister, and do not like to be referred to as neurotic ("nut cases"), I am going to coin a new name for this condition. I will refer to it as ADS, meaning, "Acquired Disesteem Syndrome."

Ohmigod! Millions of our fellow Americans are afflicted with ADS! Whatever can we do to stop this terrible scourge?

When it comes to urban decay, the "one bad apple" adage often applies. However, the reverse also works. When just one neighbor cleans up and fixes up, it makes everyone feel just a little bit better about where they live, and that good feeling is very often what instigates a contagion. Without any government or community action, master plan, or any other sort of "big deal," things slowly but surely get better.

ADS is certainly a more malignant and insidious threat to our nation than drugs or terrorism. We Americans apparently love wars. Whenever there is a problem, we like to declare war on it. Let us start one we can win for a change - a "War On ADS."

We can start this new war without firing a shot or spending a penny. Clean up your room. Mow the grass. Pick up the junk. You'll feel better about yourself. Spend a little money an move on to fix up and paint projects. The neighbors will soon get on board, then the whole town. Everyone will begin feeling better as they drive around town and see things looking up. With a little money and volunteer help, you can do bigger things corporately - perhaps launching a "Habitat for Humanity In Reverse" program, removing junk and derelict structures from property that can be cleared and perhaps someday repurposed, but which in the meanwhile can abide as clean, open space. Pride might happen!

Look around the place you live. Will you say, "Oh, what's the use; this neighborhood (or town) is the pits! My neighbors are all pigs. To hell with it. I'll soon be moving on to greener pastures; then they can have this dump."

Maybe you will be moving on someday; and maybe you won't. One way to help ensure that your future will be brighter in any case is to do something to improve your self-esteem right now.

You got it. Get your rear end off that couch and get out there.

-=glw=-

Comment for Tamara (and other "survivors")

Preface:

I originally began writing this in response to a friend request I received on a social networking website from someone using the moniker “achildabusesurvivor.” The requester turned out to be a woman in her mid-thirties named Tamera, who claimed to have been a victim of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her mother, father and step-father.

As such stories go, hers didn’t sound all that horrific. But, of course, children living in their own little world inevitably arrive at a belief that their situation is unique and worse than anyone else’s. That happens because children usually won’t talk openly about things they feel are shameful or threatening to themselves or someone close to them, and their scant experience in life provides little basis for ranking their personal fear and pain. Her purpose was to lobby for a more aggressive child protection system, and harsher punishments for perpetrators of abuse. Meanwhile, she took satisfaction from the fact that her father was in prison, and would remain in confinement for the rest of his natural life, and seemed to suggest that her mother’s suicide was a well-deserved end.

The responses to her post ranged from politely supportive to viciously collaborative, one “Christian” writer even wishing he could go into that prison and murder her father. Assuming hers was an original appeal, I also felt somewhat sympathetic, but not for the same reason. Indeed, here was a person who had evidently embraced a “victim” identity early on, and has been wasting the best years of her life on a self-defeating hate campaign. That, indeed, is a sad situation. I found it disturbing that of all those who responded, none suggested there was anything wrong with her obvious obsession. And an obsession it turned out to be. Googling her moniker turned up hits on other sites where she had copied and pasted the same story.

Here’s my comment to Tamara, and many of those who commented on her blog.

Dear Tamara ~

I was also a severely abused child; physically and emotionally by parents, sexually by others. The physical and emotional abuse affected me much more than the sexual abuse. That might have been because I was a boy, I suppose, and was, most of the time, an accommodating "victim" of the sexually abuse. But the result of it was that I wasted the better part of my life hating my father, seeing myself as a victim, believing that my case was unique, and feeling that I was somehow "different" than everyone else.

Because of what went on in my childhood home, I developed what psychologists call "Avoidant Personality Disorder." Personality disorders always arise as a way of coping with low self-esteem. I did not begin to grow out of that until I was 36-years old.

At that point, people thought I had it made. I'd become a successful young executive, the resident "boy genius" at the small corporation where I worked, single, handsome, well-built, always tastefully dressed, cool car, money in the bank, great apartment, admired by all the cute young girls - all the things any normal young man would dream of.

Living on the West Michigan shoreline, I spent lots of time at our wonderful Lake Michigan beach watching those other guys come out in the evenings and pay with their kids. That really began to hurt as I began to think 'That'll never be me. I've let that opportunity slip away.' In fact, I did not have it made at all, or at least that is not how it felt to me. In spite of how much I achieved, it was never enough. I was still always lonely, hopeless, self-loathing, and clueless. I had no idea how I had gotten to that age and never been able to find anyone who could love me.

At the end of my 37th summer, I couldn't stand it anymore. By that time, I had finally come to realize that I wasn't any different than anyone else, just severely screwed up attitudinally and emotionally. I'd actually known that for quite a while. I had seen a couple of shrinks and read lots of books. None of that did much good because I wasn't able to accept the fact that the situation I'd gotten myself into by all the stinkin' thinkin' I'd been doing over all those years was my own fault - nobody else's. Like all neurotics, I blamed others for the way I was, rather than accepting the reality that the responsibility for making a life for myself was, and always had been, mine alone.

As long as I continued to blame others, nothing in my life could change, because I had no power to change other people, or to rewrite history. I did not realize that then, so only knew that I was a hopeless case, and nobody, least of all me, knew how to fix it. During that time in my life, most nights I went to bed hoping that I would not wake up in the morning. Nevertheless, each morning I did wake up, disappointed and frustrated at having to cope with yet another day. Suicide was not an option, because I was sensitive about the good opinion of others. In my goofy way of thinking, I thought a natural death would be seen as tragic; suicide as idiotic. So I had no choice but to get up, slog on, and hope to die in my sleep the next night.

Early one evening I finally turned tearfully to God (something that was not characteristic of me at the time) and pleaded, "I know I'm a loner and a looser, but I know I don't know how to change it. If You are not willing to change me, for Christ's sake let me die! I don't want to go on like this anymore."

Within a day or two, I young waitress at a restaurant I frequently dined at sheepishly handed me an envelope containing an "I just want to be your friend" greeting card. I did my best to let her down gently, because I wasn't into flirting with the young waitresses at the restaurants I frequented. I did not care to be seen as a dirty, lecherous old man.

Then one night my "cool car," a bright red and white Oldsmobile Cutlass S, suddenly died. Something went wrong with its electrical system, and it was just totally stone dead. My neighbor owned a garage, so took it to his shop and tore it all apart - just before he had a minor heart problem and wasn't able to work for weeks. The young employee that he entrusted his business to in the meantime evidently wasn't capable of finishing the job, so the car sat there in the garage, in pieces. At the time, our town didn't have much to offer by way of dining places, so I usually frequented higher-class out-of-town restaurants. Now, without wheels, I was stuck with the few in-town choices. I never did "fast food" back then, and the restaurant where the girl worked was the only place open on Sunday in our town. So while the car was broken, I got into the habit of going there.

She was only 19 when she handed me that sappy "just wanna be friends" card; I was almost 37. We have been married for just over 30-years now, and have five wonderful children, four of whom are already all grown up, two with kids of their own.

When I look back at my life, I am never sorry about the way things have turned out, but I do regret all the years I wasted, and all the good things, and all the good times I was given that I never appreciated because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself and blaming others for my miserable life. I had indeed achieve much, but could never take any pride or find any satisfaction in those achievements. I did indeed "have it made," having a life that was the envy of many, but never took any pleasure in that, or felt any appreciation for having been so blessed.

And what of the villains in the story - those devils who were so abusive to the sweet, wonderful boy that I was?

Well, what of them! They were just neurotic, like most other people we see passing us on the street every day - suffering the pain of being imperfect, as it were. They were, perhaps, more imperfect that the typical man on the street, and their behavior was certainly not good. But the way they behaved never had to be defining of me. I just happened to have had the bad luck of being born into a bad situation. I suppose the same was true of them. For his part, my father was in the military for the duration of World Was II, doing convoy duty with the U.S. Coast Guard and watching the merchant vessels they were supposed to be protecting being sent to the bottom by enemy U-boats. That he was so volatile and mean might well have been a manifestation of PTSD; something we never heard of back then. But whatever their situation, they never had the good luck - or perhaps the blessing - that I had of being able to eventually overcome that bad beginning.

Now, their lives are over. It's too late for them. But as long as you are still breathing, the opportunity is still there for you.

How Christian is it to seek revenge, and revel in someone else's prosecution? How righteous is it to glorify the destruction of any of God's children; and we believe we are all - even your parents - children of God. We are all fallible, and it is always quite correct for any one of us to say of another's failing, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." We are taught that God understands this, and makes allowances. How does it profit you to remain angry and vindictive?

The need to point fingers and blame others is always a hallmark of neuroticism, which always arises from low self-esteem. It's simple; we feel badly about ourselves, and are able to find some solace, albeit a sort of sick solace, in pointing out how much worse others are. So-called "sexual abuse" has been elevated to such hysteric proportions that any child involved in it cannot help but feel shame at having been involved in something considered so vulgar and improper, and especially when in their hearts and the privacy of their own conscience they also feel some culpability or complicity.

I know that is a very touchy and debatable subject, and one that victims and professionals involved in the system are rarely willing or able to address. But no matter how the child-adult roles are rationalized, that underlying feeling is often present, and what happens to the child as CPS interrogators and prosecutors attempt to build an iron-clad case usually only exacerbates it. No amount of explaining to a child that they cannot be considered responsible in any way can change what they know about their part in the relationship. Even worse, when the "perp" is a family member, close relative or friend, others close to the "victim" are often hurt and resentful, with the result that investigations and prosecutions destroy relationships well beyond the one in question, giving the child even more cause to feel guilty and blameworthy.

Finally, let us revisit these fairly well-known realities: the majority of all child abuse allegations, for all of the pain and embarrassment they cause, never have enough merit as to result in formal charges. Moreover, of those that do, few result in actual convictions. Of those few that do, even fewer are actually found guilty through the trial process; most cases being settled by plea agreements, usually offered by prosecutors who don't really have what they think is a sure-fire case, and accepted by defendants who are lacking either in the courage or the financial wherewithal to fight them. And again, the children involved are always dragged through these nasty proceedings, often by people willing to use the most damnable strategies and tactics to get things out of them or elicit their cooperation in order to obtain a conviction.

Taking the long view, is this not also child abuse?

State child protection laws are all patterned after the federal law, which was originally the product of politicians pandering to lobbies and public hysteria. The federal law requires states to fall in line, else loose federal funding. Government funding has engendered a vigorous cottage industry, much as has "the war on drugs." Rather than fix anything, it actually exacerbates the problems, while costing everyone a lot of money. Like any other industry, it needs customers, and to assure a supply the law actually waives what we have always trusted to be sacred protections. One only need pick up a telephone and make a quick call to CPS to launch an investigation and cause a lot of trouble for someone they merely suspect, or perhaps just don't like.

Perhaps it is time for a more enlightened approach. We need no special laws regarding cases of rape or assault. The current laws are as protective of children as they are of adults. But what if we were to think of nonviolent sexual relations between adults and children as grossly bad behavior on the part of the adult, but not criminal? What if we thought of such adults as being unacceptably neurotic and in need of dealing with that, instead of being dangerous non-emendable monsters in need of incarceration and permanent stigmatization? Would this not be more compassionate for the children and considerate of their real long-term interests?

And what of you, Tamera? Bad things happen in every life. To grasp such a thing and cling to it as your life's defining moment is a fatal mistake. One cannot grow any more after that, so the only other alternative is to abide, waiting for the moment that death finally ends the agony. After all these years, might it now finally be time to recheck your premises? The woman who coined that phrase (a famous atheist, by the way) also offered this:

"Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity ..."

To that I would add that nobody can be happy so long as they're making it their business to cause pain for others.

[-=glw=-]

Reply to Liar

Note of Explanation: This started out as a short response to a MySpace "friend request" (gladly accepted) from someone calling himself "liar2u ." "Liar" sorely attacked one of the companies I had listed in my bio there, as well as "michigans west coast hypocrits" [sic]. It was not my intention to refute any of that, since I'm not into online "pissing matches," but it did occur to me that something I had previously written (see I've become progressively more disgusted with religion.) could be similarly misconstrued by others. So an explanation of that seemed to be in order. My experience at the company in question was also much different than what Liar reported, so I felt inclined to share something about that also.

Hello Liar ~

About Thermotron Corporation ~

I worked at Thermotron for eight of its early years. It wasn't that way then. We were simple, happy, very successfully growing, but not very profitable. We were also not very shrewd or slick, so didn't have much choice other than openness and inclusiveness.

The owner was Chuck Conrad, who was also the company's founder. The good opinion of his employees was more important to him than money. I don't say that in praise. It was more a figment of his personality organization than a real desire to be thoughtful and nice, but it all came out the same anyway.

All of us Executive Committee members put together wouldn't have made one good manager. Thus, although very successful in terms of growth, technological and market leadership, and all that, we weren't making any money, and the bank finally threw in the towel when the debt began to exceed $2.5-million. At that point they forced Chuck to bring in some professional management talent. That was the beginning of the end for me, and I left a year and a half later to start my own business.

Not long after I resigned, Chuck sold a controlling interest in Thermotron to a holding company from Wisconsin. By virtue of their professional management talent, the company's financial situation quickly, and significantly improved. A few years after that, Chuck finally sold off his remaining share, and exited with a well-deserved $8.5-million. Over the years that followed, he donated large chunks of that to various projects in the Ludington area and elsewhere. He and I took a final nostalgic tour of the place on the day he received his final payment.

After Chuck's exit, I didn't follow the company's fortunes much. I was then doing business with their competitors, so they were not comfortable with the idea of my having access to any inside information. I did a couple of deals with them, but they were both unpleasant experiences, so I kept away after that.

Evidently you had a bad experience at Thermotron. I'm sorry to know that, but am aware that others also suffered some bad times there under the regimes that followed ours. On the other hand, there are others who survived and made out quite well, and I have often thought that had I been more mature, personality-wise and in a business sense, I probably would have fared equally well, and would be much better off in retirement than what I have to look forward to now. That's just an observation, not a lament.

On Evangelicalism ~

As for Larry Huch, I don't know anything about him or his organization. His approval ratings are low, but then so are Robert Schullers (A Hope College alumnus, by the way), whom I always thought was pretty much on the up and up. Meanwhile Jim and Tammy Faye Bakers ratings are high. Go figure! If you worked with the man, I'm willing to take your word for him.

I'm a Presbyterian (PCUSA); we're on the very liberal end of the reformed tradition. What I was alluding to in my commentary was the evangelical movement that's going on not only in our denomination, but elsewhere. Two things bother me about that. The first is a (supposedly) unquestioned acceptance of the Bible as the infallible word of God. The Second is the sometimes in-your-face or ostentatious sort of worship, witnessing and proselytizing.

The Presbyterian tradition has, up to now, emphasized learning, imparting knowledge and doing good in the world.

The emphasis on education arose from the idea that ignorance is not a good basis for faith, that the strongest faith is that in which the tenets are able to withstand scrutiny by wizened worshipers.

Some of what's in the bible is a mere recitation of history, as it was preserved for generations in the Jewish oral tradition. Why would any of that be need be considered infallibly inspired, and the word of God. Moreover, during the past three centuries scholars have studied the Bible and its various roots, and have concluded that in many ways it reflects the fallibility of its human writers and compilers, misinterpreting things, stretching facts and perhaps even making things up. An example is the often-quoted passage from John, where Christ supposedly said, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." That's particularly disturbing to members of other traditions since, if true, that sort of leaves them out. I have a Vietnamese son-in-law who was naturally raised in the Buddhist tradition. We love him dearly, and the grandchildren he and our daughter had brought into the world. Am I to believe they are lesser in the eyes of God, and perhaps even doomed?

Many scholars doubt Christ ever said that, and as a simple matter of logic, so do I. Christians are a minority in this world, and I can't believe that God loves the child born to an earnest Jew, Muslim or even Buddhist any less than He does one born to someone professing to be Christian. Christ might well have said something on that order, but if He did, I'm sure it has been badly misconstrued - a costly mistake that, so far, has cost millions of lives because of religious intolerance and strife.

But this fallibility should come as no surprise to anyone with any common sense. We are all imperfect. Paul even acknowledged that of himself in his writings.

As for works, Presbyterians are famous for providing schools, colleges, hospitals, and similar social institutions where they have been sorely needed, and working for the less privileged around the world, as a means of demonstrating what real faith and the love exemplified by Christ looks like in action. Over the generations since its inception, thousands of "everyday saints" have generously given of their fortunes and put their hearts into all the good works the institutional church has done.

So when I see a movement that seems all too eager to take over, dumping that tradition simply because it is tradition, and without bringing anything of equal or better worth to replace it, I am disappointed. What the evangelical movement seems to bring is a lack of respect for the institutional church, bad music and ostentatious worship, with the belief that "talking the talk and walking the walk" makes one a real Christian, and that "good works" can be manifested by growing the congregation into a "mega-church," where thousands more can do the same.

At this point I'm suddenly hearing strains of the old We are One in The Spirit tune in my head. I guess there's also a version called They will know we are Christians by our T-Shirts, but I couldn't find a link to that. I thought I'd write up a witty, tongue-in-cheek lyric like that, but it's late, and I'm not really that cleaver.


[-=glw=-]

Beauty is Wasted on the Young ...

... and wisdom is wasted on the old.

Here's the "before" picture. Compare it with the mug shot on the home page. Ain't it a shame?

What possible explanation can there be for nature's making us progressively less attractive as we grow older? (Yeah, I know ... keeps the gene pool fresh and vital.)

On the other hand, youth is a time of ignorance. While we're at our best physically, we're at our worst intellectually. What sense does that make?

Moreover, when we're at our best intellectually, we're at the least socially acceptable time in life ... "senior citizens," "in our golden years," and all that crap, which really means we get to be viewed as bumbling old farts who are totally irrelevant and just taking up space. Never mind that vocationally we're at the top of our game, and merely by virtue of our years of experience and hard knocks, wizened well beyond the younger generations. What sense does that make?

According to the demographics for "hi5," I'm much older (at 67) than almost everyone else on here, so I feel moved to share my wisdom with you all.

My message is that old age really suques. Thus far, I've yet to find anything good about it. Secondly, take warning – it happens much sooner than you expect. In just the blink of any eye, you'll be where I am ("If ever you should live so long.")

[-=glw=-]

Why Larry Craig Need Not Resign

"I did not have sex with that woman!" Remember that? The President of the United States said that, looking right into the eyes of his inquisitors. In his view, that was not a lie, since he apparently never did engage in sexual intercourse with the young woman in question, which is what people usually think of as "having sex." It's called "spin." Washingtonians are very good at that - obscuring the truth, without actually telling a lie.

Larry Craig says, "I am not gay. I never have been gay." He did not say he is not bisexual, or ever got it on, or wanted to get it on, with a person of his own gender. So he's probably trying to "spin" the facts of the matter.

Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's Prime Minister, says "... American officials ... should come to their senses." He was talking about his critics in Congress, and he is more right than he probably actually knows. That is long overdue, and not just with respect to Iraq, and not just with respect to people in Congress.

Larry Craig probably is sexually attracted to certain guys, and has probably attempted to do something about it from time to time. So what? So does Barney Franks. But Larry Craig lies, you say. So what? So does everyone else in Washington when it suits them, and we tolerate it. That's why they do it.

Let's think about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example. We know, beyond any doubt that our invasion of Iraq was originally justified by lies. Those lies have resulted in the deaths of thousands of our own military people and the injury, physically and emotionally, of tens of thousands of others - not to mention the deaths and injuries suffered by hundreds of thousands on the other side, and the hatred for America engendered in millions of others in the region. Had some other government engaged in this behavior, we would be calling their leaders "war criminals."

As for "common decency" and "family values", let's think about our admitted flaunting of the standards of decency we subscribed to regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, spinning that by calling our captives "enemy combatants," rather than POW's. Let's think about the flaunting of the principles that made our country great by our withholding from our captives the rights our founding documents declare humanity owes to any person as a matter of common decency.

Aren't any of these things enough to get anyone fed up with the George W. Bush regime? What is Congress thinking? What are we thinking?

So Larry Craig hit on some under-cover police officer in a public restroom. For that he should hang?

What was the under-cover cop doing in the restroom anyway? Isn't that a job for airport security - or even just the janitor? The cop wasn't there to protect the public, he was there to "get someone." That's what law enforcement does these days. The tag lines on the black and whites say, "To protect and serve." But there's no power or excitement I that. Fishing is a lot more fun, especially when the fish are biting. Cops like to set up situations that make it easy for people to do dumb things, so they can pounce on those who are suckered in and "get" them. They're called "sting operations." I'll bet the officer chosen for that duty was not unattractive, and was behaving in a way designed to encourage solicitations. Maybe we should come to our senses about "sting operations" also. The people we pay to protect and serve should not be coaxing others to misbehave.

Sex certainly sells. Were it not for the sexual nature of Larry Craig's faux pas, this story wouldn't have gained much attention. What if Senator Craig had, in effect, sold his office by taking millions of dollars worth of illegal, or shady, "campaign contributions." Nah, that happens all the time. That's not very interesting, and doesn't sell any papers. But the media is in the infotainment business, and sex is always good seller. We love to hear the dirt about other people. Perhaps it's because we can easily imagine ourselves in the same situation (before their having gotten caught at it, of course).

al-Maliki's right. We need to come to our senses. About a lot of things.

[-=glw=-]