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. 

“You can sit by me if you like….”

“You can sit by me if you like,” Jarret said to me at lunch today

“Do you know why I asked you to sit by me?”, he asked.

“No, Why do you ask me to sit by you?” I replied.

“Because I like you! “he said with a shy smile.

Jarret is 4 years old.

He has been asking me to sit by him now for the past three weeks.

Our crew is building a shop at their farm.

The family  has  invited us in for  lunch  almost every day we’ve been on the job.

When I sit down at their  14 ft farm table  I think,...this is what it must have felt like to be a part of a large threshing crew..

Grant Wood’s Dinner For Threshers

People with a real gift of hospitality are a dying breed.

Even here in Iowa.

It’s one thing to invite a few close friends over for  lunch once in a while..

I scratch your back, you scratch mine..right?

Well, …it’s a completely different ball game to cook lunch for  a construction crew of 4 , 5 days a week, for the better part of a month.

Today lasagna  was on the menu

Yesterday I thought  Jarret’s mom had asked if I wanted a piece of “cheese cake” for desert?
“Yummy I said..I love cheese cake…!

“No” she replied, I said  “sheet cake”

my bad.

Well, today, guess what we had for desert?

Cheese cake topped with a blueberry filling.

I had to pry the guys away from the table today….

They did not want to go back to work.

John said it was the best tasting lasagna he’d ever had.

While I’m thinking about it..here’s a recent crew photo

Crew photo

I work with a great bunch of guys.

The morale on this crew is second to none.

Nothing worse than working around someone with a bad attitude.

At this point in my life, when I’m looking to hire someone, the numero uno thing I am looking for is

ATTITUDE.

I don’t care if you don’t know how to properly hold a hammer or read a tape measure.

I can teach you those things.

What I really detest is a whiner or someone with a dark cloud following them around.

I am really enjoying  the guys   that is helping me out this Winter.

As I write this, I feel like I’m starting to fade….4:30 AM comes pretty early

Jarret’s comments were still rolling around in my head when I got home from work, and I wanted to tell you about it…

Yea, I’m assuming I have a couple of regular readers 

There is just something serendipitous about a 4 year old   requesting that I be his lunch buddy 3 weeks in a row.

I am a rich man.

I will miss Jarret when the job is done…

Heck, I will miss the whole family…

Here is a picture of the shop we’ve been working on:

End view of shop

One last thing before I sign off…

Did you know what the word Hospitality literally means?

Hospitality:  Lover of strangers

I believe it is more caught than taught…

Jarret is growing up in a home where it is being modeled in a powerful way….

If I were a betting man, someday when he has a home of his own, he will also know how it’s done….

Is there anyone in your life, with the gift of hospitality?  Tell me about them.

If you were my daughter, if you were my son…

Had a little drama on my other blog last night.

A mother  recently left a comment on a blog post sharing about the heartache she has been going through with an older son….well, Son got onto the computer that was still logged onto my post  her comment  was still visible.

He was not a happy camper.

Having personally experience 18 years of parental hell myself, ( it started when our oldest was about 14..and is only just now tapering off 19 years later as child #4 is finally getting his bearings)  I have some perspectives on parenting I wish I could have tapped into so many moons ago.

So for what it’s worth, if I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with this distraught mother (and her slightly dysfunctional son)  here is what I would tell them…

First to the Young man.

I would sit across the table , look him in the eyes and  say.. ” It’s time you grow up.   You need to move out and get a place of your own.  It’s going to be tough…financially and every which way..but the truth is, you do not appreciate what your parents have been doing for you  and you  need an  attitude adjustment.  I might (might have) considered letting you stay here a little longer if you had been willing to play by the rules of our home..but as it is, the drinking, smok’n and blatant disrespect for your mama is the last straw…. You need to be out by the end of the week.  period.”

“Mom…I know you love your little cub.. you love him dearly..unfortunately, at this point, he doesn’t feel it. and he will continue to disrespect you and break your heart until he comes to his senses.  and that may take getting to the end of himself.    When that finally does happen. he’ll be back and you’ll have a new son.”

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Parents..(especially moms) have a tendency to short circuit the natural consequences of of poor life choices ..the result is, our children continue to flop and flounder and get into all sorts of heartbreaking  situations…heartbreaking.  and we keep bailing them out... you need to stop.  if they get busted, let the natural consequences of their choices  unfold…period.

When I was in the middle of it all, there was a time when I felt like an elephant was stepping on my chest…the stress and pressure was crushing.  I told someone yesterday, I felt like I went through an emotional wood chipper.

I am not the same dad I was going into the parenting gig, 30 plus years ago.

I’ll never forget the time I sat across the table from my 14 yr old daughter who I had just brought home..she’d ran away for 3 days, had no intention of coming home..( I knew where she was, it was just a matter of reeling her in)…

I sat across the table looking @ her …anger, defiance rebellion,contempt written all over her face

She was our strong willed one….that rebelliousness needed to be broken… to break the rebellion but not break the spirit..  you can do it..in fact, if you don’t you will never have real peace…  so I gave her two options…put her in a girls school, or spend a week @ my cousins and his family..(which she really , really did NOT want to do either,for reasons I am not @ liberty to tell you)…. It was a watershed moment in our relationship.  She is still a strong willed young lady.  Yea, we went through a lot more after that, but @ least she knew if push came to shove, I was not going to back down.

I taught a high school shop class for a year…I discovered the same dynamics that made for healthy relationships with my older children also made for healthy relationships in the class room with a group of rowdy young men…

First they needed to know who was in charge…call it what you want, respect/ fear..maybe a little of both…

Secondly…love..they needed to feel that I genuinely liked them… and I did..

Once in a while, they would test me just to see if I was still in charge….

Here’s how it works in Realville :

teacher first- friend second..

Parent first- friend second.

boss first/ friend second.

Feel free to do otherwise   DM

 

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This post is still in a rough draft form, but wanted to post it, so I could get some initial feedback. DM

My rendezvous with a pumpkin beer

On Thursday, Jason asked me if I would  drink a pumpkin beer with him after work the next day?

While I am not a “tea-teetotaler” my alcoholic consumption in a  year is probably less than   4 or 5 drinks….

and then to clinch the deal he adds, “By the way,  there’s a quote on the bottle by Thoreau about pumpkins, and it IS pumpkin season “

“What the heck I told him...bring me one…..”

So Friday after work I had my first pumpkin beer.

The taste  wasn’t half bad/ pretty mellow as far as beers go…about 1/3 of the way into the bottle he tells me…“By the  way, this stuff has an 8% alcohol content in it, so it has more “kick”than a regular beer…

Boy he wasn’t kidding…

Within a couple of minutes  I was feeling no pain. It took a good 2 hours before the effects wore off.

I haven’t had a hangover in 30 years..don’t miss those days one bit.

Looking back, the  turning point for me, came when I began dating my future wife.   We were out for pizza one night…I looked across the table at her and thought, Boy ,she would probably drop me like a hot potato if she knew some of the stuff I was doing…..

The decision was  simple…I walked away from the booze, the weed and the little diet pills and never looked back.

Today my drink of choice is coffee.

Starbucks French Roast if you’re looking for any gift ideas

It’s  legal, affordable and I don’t wake up with a splitting headache.

Our kids grew up in a home where heavy drinking was not the norm.  There was  too much heartache in both of our families related to alcohol.  I was telling my wife about the pumpkin beer Saturday night…told her  how thankful I was she rarely drinks…

I am of the persuasion there is nothing wrong with an occasional drink.

The issue for me is control.

I’m completely convinced the bible does not teach total abstinence.  You have to really do some linguistical   contortions to come to that conclusion.

On the other hand, alcohol is so subtle in its ability to enslave a person.   I’ve watched it happen to at least three people near and dear to me.

Early in our marriage wife and I made a decision to not drink  unless the other person was there or  on rare occasion, we were at some kind of family gathering.

We were both on the same page with that idea….I’m not talking about being sticks in the mud, I’m talking about setting up simple boundaries so as not to get sucked into something you’d regret later…

I’m in construction.  Stopping @ the bar on the way home at the end of a long day was what we did.

Before I was married I did it regularly.

Now, not a chance.

I can still remember sitting in The Office  watching Dave, a family friend  make lovey-dovey eyes with  some young lady 1/2 his age.  Pretty sure it was someone from work.  He had no idea I was there…his wife was a good friend of my mom…..

I told Jason on Friday,  when I’m out  in public, the last thing I want to be is fuzzy headed.  I want to be on my game.

I was telling my 25 yr old son about all of this yesterday….I told him, there is a part of me that would love to make my own wine, or even moonshine for that matter.  I am intrigued by the whole  fermentation process.  My grandpa even gave me the family recipe for moonshine. My concern is, I would like the stuff.

 

Parents in pain

This post is written to the Christian parent who finds themselves dealing with a prodigal child (or children).

Dear fellow parent,

As I sit  here this morning, our children range in age from 32 down to 25.  The last 17 years have felt like I’ve chopped my way through the Amazon jungles on foot.  Many, many times I felt lost, did not have a clue as to where I was at or if I were even heading in the right direction .

I have to tell you, once the overt rebellious stuff started happening, I realized there is are overly simplistic and   naive  schools of thought in the Christian camp about our children and  how to keep them from wallowing in all of the crap this world has to offer.

You can do it all right…not try to jam your faith down their throat,  be an approachable parent, willing to own up when you’re wrong,  involve them in good activities,  try your best to help them find good friendships, and avoid the bad ones, participate in youth programs, church, even send them away to  a Bible school…do it all, and  there is NO guarantee, they will still not chose  to shack up with some looser of a boyfriend or, binge drink till they black out...week after week.….

Then what are you going to do?

Nag?

preach ?

take them for counseling?

Second guess yourself?

….if only I had been more firm when I first noticed  she had a strong will!

Why didn’t I do a better job of looking into _________________(fill in the blank)

What do you do with the anger?  Because at some point,  besides feeling afraid for your dear child, there’s a good chance you’re going to be angry about something that has happened…maybe their blatant disrespect or sass, …maybe at someone they “love” , or are running around with…

What

To

Do

About

The

Anger???

As I sit here this morning 2 of our 4 children are still sexually active outside of marriage. (at least I’m 95% sure they are, they’d never tell us that is the case, but  it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to  connect the dots…

So, what is my role in their life, and what is my attitude with them as they continue to make choices that will bring them emotional pain, not to mention some STD or unplanned child, etc?

What do I do with the stuff  you feel?

Biggest help has been finding another parent that “get’s it” and rant together.

Nothing wrong with ranting.

Second thing… I can’t emphasize this strongly enough…

Nagging does not work

Getting angry with them does not work

See, deep down, they feel conflicted…and second thing..it’s not about you,  if sure feels like it is, I know but it’s not…it’s between them and God…

And at the end of the day, God has got to be the one to reel them in, and he is able.  I’ve seen it twice now..and there is a good chance they will have even more spiritual depth than their parents when it happens.

Keep the lines of communication open

Resist those  temptations to draw a line in the sand and say..if you do ________________,  then I’m through trying….

Nope, best thing you can do, is to find another adult and unload.

Couple of final thoughts…

If you kids do happen to turn out, right, don’t be to quick to take the credit..

I’m sitting here 17 yrs into the crisis called parenting older teens and I still have my joy, the kids still love to come home for visit,  2 out of 4 have found their way back spiritually, and the wife and I still love each other…nobody said parenting was a walk in the park.

Drop me a note if you need to talk.   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

If you’re feeling trapped

Maybe you are

We just got home  from a  family reunion..

Seeing most of these people only every 2 or 3 years gives me the  a sense I’m watching  time-lapsed photography…

I used to internally  cringe at these get togethers.

I would compare our families life choices with the other young families in the mix.

5 of the cousins are either Dr’s or have married Doctors.  I suspect several of the Aunts and Uncles are millionaires…

And then there was our family

My wife chose to stay at home as  our  kids came along…

which meant shopping @ Goodwill and garage sales for the kid’s clothes

Renting instead of owning

Driving an older car

bread from the day old store….

you get the picture.

There are lots of people in the world who have it a 100 times tougher..that I know..

but still, it’s so easy to fall into the comparison trap.

Now, 30 years later, our kids are grown,

wife and I are still in love

I’m still working at a job that energizes and stimulates me most days.

money is still tight, but for the most part we are out of debt….

And those earlier choices don’t seem so stupid any more…

I came across the following description in a book a few weeks ago, that described our life to a T:

     “My grandparents lived a simple country life.  They were totally self-sufficient, tilling a small piece of land and raising their own food….there was a sense of unhurriedness  and simple pleasures.  All the money in the world couldn’t buy such luxury in today’s world.  It is not for sale.   You have to create it….

It is unlikely you can ever totally escape from this high-stress world.  We are all on the same train….but to preserve your sanity and achieve a healthy life, you have to make some choices and resolve to live a balanced life.  By a “balanced” life, I mean, that like a marathon runner, you must learn how to pace yourself.  You give it all you’ve got going uphill and rest as much as you can going downhill.  You try to balance the drain on your energy so you can “go the distance”

From the book The Anxiety Cure by Archibald Hart

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As I listened to some of the stories this past weekend, I couldn’t help but think about an article I recently read  about rats,   overcrowding and stress.

Because some (not all)  of  my successful relatives are living under a lot of self-imposed stress, .and I thought to myself but are they happy?

They may be making big bucks, but at what cost?

Here’s a link  to that article  if you’d like to read it.      Rat Study

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If you hear a still small voice calling you to get out of the rat race don’t just ignore it.

It may be the voice of God.

And He can make a way.

I know what you’re thinking…

There is nobody in your life who would understand…

But here’s the deal…30 years from now, you will not regret it….

“If you make it to the top of the company ladder, but loose your family in the process, you are a fool.”

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Sorry if this comes across as a little intense.  I don’t mean to be.  DM

Who’s counting?

by Mary Pierce

Life’s a dream with Firstborn.  In his perfect nursery, we arrange educational toys by stage of development, sub-categorized by color.  Good books like his bookshelves according to the Dewey decimal system.

We order 100 copies of Firstborn;s hospital picture.  We gush.  “Did you ever see a cuter baby?

Every precious Firstborn moment is documented in his baby book.  The first real eye contact (“He looked at me!  He’s a genius!”  The first time he rolls over (Olympics, here we come!”)  His first word  (“Did you hear that?  Hippopotamus” clear as a bell!”_

We save his first shoes, film his first steps and preserve a curl from his first haircut.  We even shrink-wrap Firstborn’s first outfit, for Firstborn’s first born  to wear someday.

Ever ounce of Firstborn’s food is scrutinized for salt, fat and sugar content.  We puree fresh fruits and veretables and offer only whole grains and healthy cereals.  No junk food for our little one!

We record Firstborn’s growth on the “See How I’ve Grown” chart.  Month after month, we suspend him by his underarms, dangling him against the chart, his tiny toes barely brushing the floor, to preserve – and celebrate0 every  adorable quarter-inch.

Life is under control.

Number Two

Along comes Second Child.  We take the hospital picture, but by now we know the truth.  Newborns are kind of goofy looking – even ours.   Only the grandparents see the pictures.

We’re tired but try to valiantly to maintain that perfect atmosphere Firstborn enjoyed.  Feeding standards, however change.  WE puree less and purchase more.  Instead of daily nutritional balance, we try for weekly.

We are stunned as Second Child dismantles the educational toys.  She chews through the home library, finding picture books and the Encyclopedia for Babies equally tasty.

The growth chart reflects Second Child’s development in larger chunks: 1, 3, 6, 8 months and a year.  Her baby book is succinctly sums up her early stages of development:  She came, she saw, she destroyed.”

     Three’s a Charm

Enter Child Three.  We only thought we were tired before.  The Third-child Challenge hits the first time we have to get the whole family out the door.  It’s easier to herd worms.

Child Three has little archeological evidence to prove she exists.  Her hospital picture was lost in the chaos of life.

One photograph is eventually found stuffed into the binding  of her baby book, after the page recording her birth and first shots.  (the rest of the pages are blank)

Child Three appears on the growth chart at 7 weeks and 13 months.  The next mark is at 25 months and then nothing.

With three children food rules go out the kitchen door.   Our menu plan is simple:  Don’t open the same kind of can two days in a row.  Marshmallows become a food group.  To cover the nutritional bases, we toss an occasional chewable dinosaur vitamin into the morning bowl of Sugar Maxi-Bits.

     Home Sweet Home

As Child Three wrestles with the dog for a bologna sandwich that fell off the table, we dream about life before kids:  reading grown up books, watching movies with no animation.  Everything was under control.  Live was better wasn’t it?

We thought so, but somewhere between potty training and T-ball we changed our minds.  Control is highly overrated.  Maintaining a perfect atmopshere is exhausting and impossible – really impossible.

Life got better when we gave up trying to keep a perfect house and decided instead to create a home: an imperfect, sometimes crazy place where imperfect  people can live, grow, try, fail, laugh and love.  A place to belong.

A home with new rules:  Clutter keeps, kids don’t .  A little dir – even occasional chaos – never hurt anyone.  and every life, every season, every day, every moment is a gift.  Precious and brief.

One day we expect to have plenty of time for grown-up movies.  Life will have some semblance of order again.  And the house will be quiet.  Very, very quiet.

We’ll have plenty of time to marvel at how quickly these days have passed.  And we’ll have plenty of time to miss them.

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(This was an article Mrs DM clipped out of an old Focus on the Family magazine.  I printed off a copy for a friend tonight (she has 3 little ones in tow, one was “grazing on the kitchen floor” when we stopped…Mrs DM reassured her, that it was OK and had this article to pass along….Wanted to share it with those of you with little ones.  DM)

Picture of my brother and I back in the day…I was a first born

I know I could decieve her…

…”A few years ago I had been away from home for many weeks on a long trip and had been with people constantly.  I was desperate3 to get away from people for a while.  So when I got on the plane I sat in an aisle seat.  The middle seat was vacant and the window seat was occupied by a young woman.  As we waited for the plane to take off,  I retreated as deeply as possible into a book I was carrying.  It was purely an anti-social maneuver.  But my traveling companion wanted to talk.  She asked, ” What are you reading?”

“A book,” I replied.

“What is the name of it?” she asked.

“Psycho-cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz,” I said.

“Do you study psychology?”

“No”

Everything was monosyllables.  By then the engines were running and we were beginning to taxi down the runway.  She kept at it.  I had a head cold and could hardly hear.  Finally, I closed the book and moved to the vacant seat between us, and we began to converse.

I soon realized what she really had in mind was to find a companion.  Going straight to the point, I said, ” I travel a lot and many times I am lonely.  I often encounter temptations to be unfaithful to my wife.  But I’ve decided it’s not worth it.  I know I could deceive her, but the basis of our relationship is our mutual love and confidence.  She trusts me, and I trust her.

I’ve lived long enough to realize that meaning in life is not found in seeing what I can get away with, or in bigger achievements, or in a position, or in how my leisure time is spent.  I’ve learned that meaning is found in relationships.  Consequently, I don’t intend to destroy the best relationship I have.  If I came home having been unfaithful to my wife, even though she might not perceive it, and even though I could keep it from her, I’d know.  She would come to me with her blind confidence and I’d have to somehow create a distance between us.  We’d be pulled apart and she would never know why.  Soon we would be strangers living together under the same roof.”

The ones who would pay most heavily would be my wife and children.  That strikes me as the height of selfishness.”

She was dumbfounded!~

Then she began to open up.  She said, “I”m twenty-four years old.  I ought to be getting married, but all my married friends have affairs and if that’s the way it is, I don’t want it.  When my friends go away for the weekend, their husbands are soon knocking at my door.  They are like little boys.  I just don’t think I could handle it if my husband were like that.”

Then she added, “I’ve never heard ideas like yours.  Where do they come from?”

“You’d laugh if I told you.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she said.

“I got them from the Bible,” I said.  I went on to explain to her what the Christian message is and how it changes a person so he can get his life in order.  By then we were about to land.  What frustration!  We were in the middle of my explanation.  She was intensely interested in every word, but we had to quit.

As the passengers moved into the aisle, I let her go on ahead.  When I came off a bit later and walked up the concourse, I passed her standing with a circle of about ten of her friends who had come to meet her.  They were the ones she had told me about on the plane.  She stopped me and made the rounds of introductions.  I stood there for at least ten minutes while she related our conversation to them. …

excerpt from a book by Jim Peterson

_______________________________________

I (DM) have been chewing on this book the past couple of days.

What does  trust look like in  a marriage relationship?

Integrity…

Who am I when no one is looking?

Priorities….What are the most important things  in my life?

Temptations…

Internet relationships…

Dad

Old newspaper clipping  dad running a transit

Dad worked  the equivalent of 2 full time jobs  all the while  I was growing up.

I don’t remember seeing much of him except on the weekends.

It wasn’t until  mom had a run in with cancer that priorities and family patterns started changing.

Definitely never heard “I love you” or  “I’m proud of you” those early years.   though I’m sure both were true…we just weren’t a verbal / “touchy -feely” family.  I didn’t really know what a hug was until I married into my wife’s family.

It wasn’t until I was  in my early 40′s that dad asked if he could take me out for breakfast on my birthday.

It was a stretch.

The only thing we felt comfortable talking about those first few birthdays  was work.

That year, Dad began taking all of my siblings out when our birthday’s rolled around.   He  wanted to invest in  and regain some of the ground lost from our youth.   A few years later, my siblings and I decided it would be good to take him out for breakfast on his birthday.

Siblings taking dad out for his birthday

Yesterday we had a surprise  party for his 80th birthday.  The four of us kids invited  people  he had worked with over the years to a buffet at the local truck stop.

He didn’t see it coming

 yesterday morning

I’m feeling nostalgic today….can you tell?

Here are some random things I’ve picked up from my dad.

#1  “Retirement is not in my vocabulary”  He is still working, though not quite as intensely as he did 10 years ago.  He was pouring concrete walls last Saturday morning with  my uncles crew at a dairy set up.  He loves what he does (farms 240 acres of ground and part-time  construction.)  Do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life

#2  “Look people in the eye when you talk to them, and have a firm hand shake.“  Yep.  If you ever meet me in person, expect both.  I got both of those traits from my dad.

#3  It is possible to love the same woman your whole life time.

Mom and dad celebrated 55 years together last Fall…and they still like each other.

#4   Real men have a spiritual dimension to their lives.     He is not just a “go through the motion” type  of guy.

I’ve watched him   wrestle with what  it means to bring your faith with you to the construction arena.

#5  I’ve definitely picked up the  “farming bug” and love for animal  from my dad.

#6 Heart of mercy.  Yep, got that one from him for sure. I remember one time, our family dog had taken a liking to fresh chicken. ie.  he got into the chicken house and killed several hens.   Dad took the dog out behind the barn to put him down…cause once a chicken killer/ always a chicken killer…that’s just how it works.   Dad came back in the house a few minutes later and said. he just didn’t have the heart to shoot the dog…it just sat there on its haunches, looking him in the eyes,  with a guilty look.

#7  “Your word is your bond.  If you tell somebody something, then by golly, you need to follow through on it.”  In the mid 1970′s  one of the local banks in our community decided to build .  It was built on a handshake between dad and the bank president.  I’m serious.  Things are still done around here on a handshake on occasion.

#8  If you win every job you bid, then you’re probably too low.   Profit is not a dirty word.  Regardless of what the politically correct crowd would have you believe today.

#9 Attitude.   There is power in a positive attitude….and I DO have some control on what I allow my mind to think on.

I remember dad reading Norman Vincent Peal’s book, the Power of Positive thinking….to this day, those thoughts are with me.

#10   Hair is sooooooooooo  over rated.  I’ve got my receding hair line from my dad and by the look of things, have passed it on to my son.

It’s never too late to set some new patterns in your life.   Even in your 70′s and 80′s you can do it if you want.  You really can.

Well, it feels like it’s about time for my power nap.   DM