The Buffalo Tavern

April 17th  a young singer/ songwriter/ poet moved into our B and B suite for  3 months. .  It has been so enjoyable to have her in the mix.  Last week she wanted to  watch “The Voice” on NBC.   That sounds like a simple enough  request, but since watching TV is not a priority around here, I had my doubts that the rabbit eared contraption would be able to deliver.  Both the wife and I would much rather read a good book, or spend time in deep conversation.

If you ever come to visit, bring a favorite book and read me a chapter

Below is one of my favorite stories from one of my favorite authors, Robert Fulghum:

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One Portion Of A Minister’s Lot concerns the dying and the dead.  The hospital room, the mortuary, the funeral service, the cemetery.  What I know of such things shapes my life elsewhere in particular ways.  What I know of such things explains why I don’t waste much life time mowing grass or washing cars or raking leaves or making beds or shining shoes or washing dishes.  It explains why I don’t honk at people who are slow to move at green lights.  And why I don’t kill spiders.  There isn’t time or need for all this.  What I know of cemeteries and such also explains why I sometimes visit the Buffalo Tavern.

     The Buffalo Tavern is, in essence, mongrel America.  Boiled down and stuffed into the Buffalo on a  Saturday night, the fundamental elements achieve a critcal mass around eleven.  The catalyst is the favorite house band, the Dynamic Volcanic Logs.  Eight freaks frozen in the amber vibes of the sixties.  Playing stomp-hell rockabilly with enough fervor to heal the lame and halt.  Mongrel America comes to the Buffalo to drink beer, shoot pool, and dance.  Above all, to dance.  To shake their tails and stomp frogs and get rowdy and holler and sweat and dance.  When it’s Saturday night and the Logs are rocking and the crowd is rolling, there’s no such thing as death.

     One such night the Buffalo was invaded by a motorcycle club, trying hard to look like the Hell’s Angels and doing pretty good at it too.  I don’t think these people were in costume for a movie.  And neither they nor their ladies smelled like soap-and-water was an important part of their lives on anything like a daily basis.  Following along behind them was an Indian-an older man, with braids, beaded vest, army surplus pants, and tennis shoes.  He was really ugly.  Now I’m fairly resourceful with words, and would give you a flashy description of this man’s face if it would help, but there is no way around it-he looked, in a word, ugly.  He sat working on his Budweiser for a long time.  When the Dynamic Logs ripped into a scream-out version of “Jailhouse Rock” he moved.  Shuffled over to one of the motorcycle mommas and invited her to dance.  Most ladies would have refused, but she was amused enough to shrug and get up.

     Well, I’ll not waste words.  This ugly, shuffling Indian ruin could dance.  I mean, he had the moves.  Nothing wild, just effortless action, subtle rhythm, the cool of the master.  He turned his partner every way but loose and made her look good at it.  The floor slowly cleared for them.  The band wound down and out, but the drummer held the beat.  The motorcycle club group rose up and shouted for the band to keep playing.  The band kept playing.  The Indian kept dancing.  the motorcycle momma finally blew a gasket and collapsed in someone’s lap.  The Indian danced alone.  The crowd clapped up the beat.  The Indian danced with a chair.  The crowd went crazy.  The band faded.  the crowd cheered.  The Indian held up his hands for silence as if to make a speech.  Looking at the band and then the crowd, the Indian said, “Well, what’re you waiting for? Let’s DANCE.”

     The band and the crowd went off like a bomb.  People were dancing all through the tables to the back of the room and behind the bar.  People were dancing in the restrooms and around the pool tables.  Dancing for themselves, for the Indian, for God and Mammon.  Dancing in the face of hospital rooms, mortuaries, funeral services, and cemeteries.  And for a while, nobody died.

    “Well,” said the Indian, “what’re you waiting for?  Let’s dance.”

Excerpt taken from the book All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergartenby Robert Fughum

“The length of our days is seventy years- or eighty, if we have the strength;  yet the span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass….so teach us to number  our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”  Psalm 90:10.12

Thursday and Friday night of this week  we stood in a funeral home receiving line to acknowledge the passing of two more people.   Combine that with my cousin Michelle’s unexpected passing and that makes for a busy month.   So, fellow bloggers and Internet surfers, make sure you are not just sitting on the side lines and watching life pass you by.  The Indian said it best.   “Let’s Dance! “

The Poetry of Anne Maren-Hogan

“I can feel the grit of dust and crunch of downed cornstalks in these poems.  They are not nostalgic ditties, but instead are strong songs, often in a haunting minor key, that remove me to a time when many footsteps, from many families, from many homes, sounded on the Midwestern farm scape.”

Timothy Fay  (taken from  the back cover of Anne’s book of poetry)

Anne and Sam  with the Mrs and I  March 23 2013

I was introduced to Anne Maren-Hogan’s book of poetry this past November by her nephew Chris.

I would be the first to admit I am not a big reader of poetry….which makes what happened to me all the more powerful.

I can still remember sitting in Ms Burns 7th grade class reading “Jonathan Livingston Seagull. “

I got the impression something deep and profound was  going on in that story, but it was  beyond me.

(The same thing happened in Mr Newland’s slide rule class…..I felt  over my head and could not swim)

NEVER  wanting  to find  myself in that sort of discussion setting again.

Flash forward 40 year .

Chris  hands me a little book of poetry @ coffee break written by his aunt Anne. (Chris works with me)

In my mind, I’m thinking...oh/ no/  if I take it, he’s going to ask me later what I think…?

I will be exposed for the uncultured farm boy that I am.

I took the book.

I inhaled the book.

I discovered a writer that drew me in.

She wrote about growing up in a large farm family , not too many miles from me.

Here’ another quote from the back of the book:

“With narrative grace and keen insight, Anne Maren-Hogan celebrates the strength and perseverance of women.  Spanning two decades, the poems in The Farmers Wake offer a thoughtful meditation on family, place and culture.   The poems move beyond a chronicle of farm lief in the Midwest to remind us all of the very human connections we share with each other and this earth.  The landscape in these poems may be harsh and isolated, but the writing is rich and rewarding: stitching it all together with this certainty/ of leaving and returning as  Maren-Hogan writes in “Lifting My Eyes”  Pat Riviere-Seel

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Anne and her husband Sam were back in the area this past week visiting family.

I’d built a multipurpose addition to our shop this Fall and had been wanting to do a “German Building dedication”

Last Saturday night, was the dedication.

Anne and Sam, joined us for a night of poetry/ music and mirth.

I asked Anne,  if she cared if I included one of her poem on this post.  So I did get her blessing.

I intended to include my favorite poem titled The Farmer’s Wake”

(It is about her dad’s wake)

I’ve had a change of heart.

I’m going to hold off  because  I feel like she  has shared something with us very precious and sacred.

A  glimpse into her heart.

I will instead give you a link to her book of poetry, so you could have your own copy.

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In case you stumble across this post later Anne, I just want to say  thank you again for  sharing your heart, both in your poems and for actually coming and reading them aloud .

I am a wealthy man.  DM

German building dedication

Lead carpenter (me) nailing the evergreen branch to the gable. 

“Also” Did he just say “also”????

A pit you don’t want to fall into

Jim  told  with  me  yesterday  he had been thinking about  the things I’d shared with him  the week before.

“What things?”  I asked with a smirk,   “What  did I tell you? “

(That’s one of the beautiful things about short term memory loss….every day is a new day)

He reminded me I   had vented some  anger  frustration  in the realm of relationships.  I had been  feeling devalued.

(Last week’s blog post came out of that stuff) 

Well, He said, “I thought more about it  and by the middle of the week  I  was also battling self pity.”

“also”…did he just say “also”?

Self pity is  what Junior High girls do, right????

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After my conversation with Jim  I decided to look up the definition for self-pity:

     Psychiatrists have an interesting name for people who habitually indulge in self-pity–it’s “injustice collector.” These are the folks who are constantly dwelling on their hurts and hardships – whether real or imagined – and they enjoy thinking about them and talking about them. They lovingly collect and number each and every offense that others commit against them, and they search out people who will sympathize with them and commiserate with them. All this keeps the focus on themselves, which is what they want most.”

Dang, some of that felt a little too close to home.

That is the last thing I want rolling around in my brain!

I”m beginning to  think self pity is a lot more common than I realized.

I’ve been calling it other things  like ” being in a funk”,  “being down” “discouraged” “feeling rejected” feeling down”

My wife’s  daily devotional  had a warning about self pity this past Saturday:

“Be on guard against the pit of self pity.

  When you are weary or unwell, this demonic trap is the greatest danger you face.

  Don’t even go near the edge of the pit. 

Its edges crumble easily, and before you know it, you are on the way down. 

It is ever so much harder to get out of the pit than to keep a safe distance from it, 

That is why I tell you to be on guard.            

   from   “Jesus Calling”     

Musing on Friendship

      “I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest thing we know.”         Emerson

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      This morning I found myself struggling with two “friendships.”

I was feeling rejected and slighted.

It wasn’t until this afternoon that I finally got past being stuck.

I realized ( yet again) that I was reading more into a certain  relationship  than I should.

Just because I feel a certain connection with another person doesn’t mean they feel the same way towards me.

      Quick word picture.

      We have an apple orchard.

Every  June, after the bees are done doing their thing  and the apples begin to form, there comes a point in the maturing process where the apple tree will shed (or thin) a certain percentage of the apples that have begun to mature.

Newly forming  apples

They just drop on the ground.

I’d guess 20 % fall off the tree @ this point.

I used to think that was such a waste.

The truth is,  that thinning then enables the tree to focus it’s energy on the remaining apples…Less apples but the ones that remain are substantial.

It dawned on me a couple of years ago, that is a perfect word picture when it comes to the people and relationships that come along in my life.  Lots of small superficial relationships begin..even here in the blogging world..but check back in a year or two and you’ll discover, many of them will  not continue.

     I get into trouble when I  think there is more to a relationship than there is….

     It takes TIME for relationships to form (see below)

You’ve probably heard  if we have just one or two deep long term friendships we should count ourselves blessed.

I used to think I was the exception to that statement, and could easily maintain several dozen deep meaningful relationships at the same time.

I know now, that is not reality.

It takes time and energy to keep, and maintain  deep friendships and low and behold Emerson was right .

         So tonight, I re-post this portion of Emerson’s musing on friendship for myself.

   I also want to toast  the   friendships in my life that have made it past the “thinning” process…

    Here’s that portion of Emerson’s essay that I love….

   

      “Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fibre of the human heart. The laws of friendship are austere and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a sudden sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen.”

     Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk, in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening. It would be lost if it knew itself before any of the best souls were yet ripe enough to know and own it. Respect the naturlangsamkeit which hardens the ruby in a million years, and works in duration.”

Naturlangsamkeit: a German word for a slow process of ripening

In other words, friendships take time to ripen…I  can’t  hurry the process….!!!!!!!

      “There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason why either should be first named. One is Truth. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness .”

       “We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds……

     “The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity (Magnanimous: generous in forgiving) and trust”.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Tell me about a time you got  caught in the trap of “expectations” in a relationship   ie.  maybe you invited them to something and they never came or communicated, you were going through a tough time, and  people you thought would be there weren’t and  vice versa …Don’t tell me I’m not the only person who has ever made that boo-boo

Johnny

Friend of mine purchased an old  building, asked if I could help  install a patio door 20 feet up, through an  exterior  wall, covered with Stucco.

(stucco = concrete)

I came prepared.  Brought the  cement saw with a diamond blade.

a handful of new sawzall blades. (they look like sharp steak knives…hold on to that detail)

and two quarts of coffee.

Must have coffee.

My friend had a young man in his early 30′s there to help.

His name was Johnny..

He was built  like a tank.  chiseled,  and had  this hard stoic look in his eyes..

He looked like he belonged  in a  gang.

Construction types  remind me of my dad’s roosters….

Sometimes  I pick up an undercurrent of circling  and sizing  each other up…  like roosters getting ready to spar

Johnny  and I were was no exception.

When I looked at the 4 sections of rickety  scaffolding set up for us to work on, it creeped me out..I told Johnny  I was allergic to heights.   (I really do hate heights btw)

“What???” he said with a sneer ,  “I thought you were  the carpenter, and  you’re telling me you are afraid of heights?”

  “Yep” I  said with a smirk.    Now he really didn’t know what to do with me…

I love to banter w/ tough guys   and soften them up…poke holes in their machismo.

It took me less that   30 minutes  working along Johnny to soften him up ..

He  went from questioning my sanity to thinking I was (his words, not mine  a “Master”).

I jumped on the section of scaffolding below Johnny,  asked him to hand me  the  sawzall.  He let it down by the chord, (it wasn’t running, but the 6 inch  blade was sticking down as he swung it to me).

It slid deeply into my wrist .  I took one look at the wound and  said, “Johnny, I need to go  to the hospital” . 

Johnny said, “You’re kidd’n right?”   “No,  I said,  “I just got stabbed, and need to go to the hospital NOW!” 

           He felt terrible.  “It would be one thing, if you were just some “grunt”, but you are like a “Master” ” he moaned.

Hour and 1/2,  $750.00 later I was back on  the job,  (arm wrapped  w/ 5 stitches)

I tried to supervise when we got back, but it was taking forever.

I  grabbed the cement saw and  went back to work.

  “Man, you are one bad #*&, he said.     

If he only knew.

..pardon the sweat… that’s me showing off

it’s a little trick I know….

you  touch your nose with a 10 pound sledge

very carefully

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Footnote. those of you that are long time readers may remember this post..It was buried in the archives.

Please pray for a fellow blogger

I’m going to get right to the point on this one.  I met Joy probably  4 years ago now because both of us were using WordPress to blog.   While I’ve never met her in person, she has become a  friend in real life.

About a month ago, she found out she had some type of cancer that affects her blood.

She has been uncharacteristically quiet on her Facebook  involvement, so I shot an quick e-mail to a mutual acquaintance  earlier this week who sent me an update.

She needs a blood marrow donor and unless there is at least a 90% match, they won’t even attempt the procedure.

I’m sorry if some of the medical details are a little sketchy…I’m not @ liberty to tell you much more than this…in fact, I’m not even going to link back to her blog because I don’t have her permission and I know she’s in the fight of her life..don’t want to bother her with something like that.

One of the things that has surprised me most about blogging (I’ve been @ it now since late 2007)  is how some blogging relationships have turned into real, honest to goodness friendships, some of them quite significant.

I (DM)  looked into becoming a bone marrow donor this week after getting the update on Joy.  It  sounded like the marrow donor program are really looking for people between the ages of 18 to 44 so they kind of discouraged me from registering

Here’s a link to the national donor registry home page

So couple of things…if you are a person of faith, and believe in the power of prayer, please remember Joy the blogger in your prayers..and secondly, if you’re under 44 years of age, I would really invite you to consider getting registered w/ the bone marrow donor bank…sounds really simple and easy to do…

Thank you in advance! DM

Whoops, Duuuu’s , and Oh fiddle sticks

I  had to return a 10 ft section of plastic 4 inch PVC pipe last week to Theisens.  When the cashier rang up the transaction, I noticed she had accidentally rang up a 4 inch splicer instead of 4 inch pipe.  Simple mistake.   She had to call her supervisor over to override the transaction, which in my mind was no big deal.  She apologized to me and said, that was the first time in 6 months she had made that type of mistake.   I told her, “heck”,  I try to make at least one mistake every day..just to stay in shape.” 

She didn’t know what to say.

My point was, she was being way too hard on herself, and needed to lighten up just a wee.   I had watched her wait on another customer before me, and could tell she was “wound tight”

wound tight:  hard to live with/ perfectionist/never makes mistakes.

Last night our son was lamenting on the fact he had bought a used set of Disney books off his sister for $50, thinking he could re-sell them for $200.00…He found out, they might be worth $25.00.. Oh well

I told him about the time I got caught up in a bidding war on e-bay for an “original” Grant Wood water color.

The picture went from $1600 to over $3200 the last 30 minutes of the auction, and when the dust all settled, I won

I knew that if it were an original, it was worth 3 times that amount.  After we received the picture, I took it to an art appraiser, who informed me it was NOT an original Grant Wood…and might be worth a couple of hundred dollars…tops.

Side note…we did not have $3000 of discretionary money just laying around…..It came from a line of credit which made the whole thing that much more painful.

Why is it we tend not to tell other people our screw ups but are more than willing to talk about our successes?

I could tell my son felt much better about himself when he heard his dear old dad had dropped a couple of thousand dollars he couldn’t afford to loose

That picture I had paid $3200  it lay around here for a couple of months…but it was sending out some bad vibes. .long story short, I relisted it on E-bay and sold it for $400.00   (do the math if you haven’t already

“Tuition”

That is what I call those life experiences…I paid $2800 in tuition to learn I am weak willed when it comes to auctions…the best thing I can do is stay as far away from  high stakes auctions  as I can.

I’ll tell you one more story and call it good..

In 2007 I was asked to general contract a home for someone with a beautiful lakeside view.   The neighbors in the area were none to happy about this new home blocking their views of the lake.  Oh well…

The day we were scheduled to dig the basement, things were really hectic and crazy on the job site.  It was my responsibility to calculate the finished depth of the basement.  After the wall was poured, I started second guessing my calculations,  realized I may have made a 2 ft error  and the house might be sticking out of the ground 2 ft higher than it was supposed to…@ which point, I just knew the neighbor across the street was going to take me to court and have me tear out the wall and re-dig (that would have easily been a $25,000 to $30,000 error)…When I was able to finally  re-check my numbers  I discovered I  had NOT made a math mistake and swore I would never let someone pressure me when it came time to do important math calculations on the job.

Lesson learned :  NEVER ever be in a hurry when it comes to math calculations when building a house.

OK it’s your turn…tell me a story about one of your screw-ups…. (or more)

you need to do this..

it will be good for your soul    DM

It’s that time of year again…

You could hear them coming.

Geese.

It was a crisp Fall morning, The leaves were turning ,  Dean and I  were putting sheeting on a  12/12 pitch roof of  a  $750,000.00 house.

A Kodak moment.

We watched  as the formation flew over us, low enough to throw a rock at…

plop,plop, plop…

goose dung on his shoulder and hat.

Now  it was really a Kodak moment.

Ever since, whenever geese are heading our way, I will  say to whomever is with me…“Hurry, they’re coming!  Look up,  you might get some “geese candy”.    It hasn’t happened since, but I’m always hoping.

Several years ago this same Dean and I were trying to put felt paper on a new roof in the dead of Winter.

The wind was howling,  wind chill was below zero.

it was crazy we were even on a roof.

Finally,  we decided to head for the basement and warm up.

There was an unventilated LP heater hooked up.   It  felt SO GOOD.

1/2 hour later,  we went back on the roof to finish.  The two of us  started giggling like a couple of little girls, the tears were running down our faces.

We decided that we must have been “gassed.” ;-0

Everything was funny.

We could barely hold on to the roll of paper w/o the wind ripping it our of our hands.  The extreme cold. The fact we’d just about been gassed. Everything.

My wife read to me a proverb the other day that said  ”A cheerful heart has a continual feast”  

She said it reminded her of me.

I have a “help wanted” add in the paper this week…. Here’s  what a “DM” “help wanted add looks like:

 Help wanted.  Could turn into full-time.  General construction.  Prefer someone with NO experience.  Must be able to read tape measure, climb, have valid driver’s license and GOOD ATTITUDE.

If I’m going to spend  8 hours of  my day with you, the last thing I want  is  to work with someone who has a dark cloud overhead.  If you think you fit the qualifications, drop me a note.  I have been known to hire women in the past.

 

Enough for now, time to set some cement forms.   Thank for reading along!  DM

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I originally posted this in 2007.  I was rooting around in the archives this afternoon…there are over 400 posts there..figured some of my newer readers may have never read this one before so I decided to do a little editing and re-post it.  I really may be looking for some help btw..won’t be running an ad in the paper but it looks like I have quite a bit of work coming in the next couple of months..so, if you’re feeling the urge to work in construction…don’t hesitate to ask…you don’t know if you don’t ask DM

Old Cheese

“Society is commonly too cheap.  We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other.  We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are……certainly less frequency would suffice for all important and hearty communications…”

from his essay on solitude  Thoreau

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“I missed you” my wife told me this morning.

Music to my ears.

She just got back from spending 3 days with a good friend who is grieving the loss of her son.

Things have been a little tense (stale?) around here, lately so I chuckled and  and mumbled something about being “good fresh cheese/ and not stale musty cheese”

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There is a rhythm to relationships…

all relationships…

friendships,  family relationships, even Internet blogging relationships…

reminds me of  this verse from Ecclesiastes:  “There is a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing…”

I (had) a friend who used to stop by to chat.

He would stop by on  Sunday afternoons.

I noticed I started to get this knot/ uptight feeling in my gut Sunday afternoons.
I would feel a nap coming on, and  think….hummm, it’s been 3 or 4 weeks since my friend had last stopped…I wonder if today he’ll pop in….

These would not be 30 minute visits,  they would last for a couple of hours.

Things finally came to a head.

One Sunday, we were getting ready to leave for a birthday party…Wife and I were scurrying around, I still needed to shave…

This friend pulls into the driveway, I meet him at the door, he steps into the kitchen, I say to him...’Today’s probably not a good day for a visit…I need to get ready for a party,”

he replies…“Go ahead and get ready…”

he continues to stand there, looking like he has no intention of leaving….

It ticked me off.  Can’t remember what I said after that, but it took some additional coaxing for me to help him connect the dots, that now was not going to work, and he would have to leave…

We have another friend, whom we see  3 or 4 times a year….tops

We’ve been known to close down a Starbucks on more than one occasion…reminds me of those days when I would sit for hours engrossed in a deep conversation with someone on a Saturday night in a bar….it would feel like we were in a bubble, and the people  and noise all around us were not really there.

As I thought about this second friendship and the frequency of our getting together’s , I  said to the friend who had a hard time connecting the dots when it came time to leave

.“I  would prefer we just  together every 6 to 8 weeks..”

(My thought was, in this other friendship,  which I dearly enjoy, we can go 8 to 12 weeks between visits, then getting together only every 6 to 8 seems more balanced with the rest of my life)

He took it well enough I thought at the time…. I said maybe we could do a little more communicating via e-mail…

(side note : I have not seen or heard from him again, as of this writing it’s been about 30 weeks.. ..I’ve called, e-mailed and sent him a note, oh well, )

What I was experiencing in this relationship is not uncommon…. it is part of being human.

When the knot in my stomach would start and I would have these thoughts about   not being a “good friend”. this verse would pop into my head:

“Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor’s house, lest he have his fill of you and hate you.”                           from the  book of Proverbs 25:17

yep, that pretty much summed up what I was feeling…

(boy am I on a roll this week..two verses in one blog post )

So here’s to all of us who enjoy  interacting with people…

Sometimes less is better.

Even in the world of cheese…it’s all about timing.

ps if you’re ever looking for a gift ideas for me… I love swiss cheese DM

In a Funk

I’ve been in a funk now for about 6 weeks.

It wasn’t until yesterday that I could finally put my finger on why.

Due to the personal nature of two of the issues, I would be foolish to post it here on my blog…

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I’m one of those people who process life out loud.

It helps for me to get all of my stuff out on the table, so I can look at it.

Historically, I have used this blog to process life. ..hence the name of my blog : heart to heart.

I would still be willing to process  these things that are dogging me..only, it will have to be one on one.

You’ll have to shoot me an e-mail

I write because  I enjoy it.  I used to have illusions of grandeur that I would have something published that would touch people.

Not any more.

In fact, the older I get, the less I want to change the world at large.

I have enough to keep me busy trying to figure out myself.

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I wanted to write something this morning to break the silence.

There is a small handful of you who do regularly stop by this blog and interact.

I enjoy that.

Thank you .

The older I get, the more I value the time we have each been given.