« February 2006 |
Main
| April 2006 »
(A tribute to Bill Thorne, The Tomato Man)
by Jean Steel Venrick
He was a soft-spoken, gentle man, tall and thin with no outstanding features. I met him only once, Bill had talked with him and Gertrude, his lady friend, numerous times at McDonald’s. He was getting up in years but still had enough drive, even though suffering with arthritis, to be able to start, plant and nurture 180 tomato plants this season. Bill had been following this schedule for years and all his neighbors and friends relished his tomato crop.
He lovingly cared for those plants each season until he had huge tomatoes, some two and three pounds! He was so proud of his crop. We visited him and Gertrude, who lived nearby, this summer when he showed us his plantings, all different kinds he knew by name (some actual names and some he named after some characteristic details). Some he paid dearly for from a catalog while others he carefully saved seed to start more plants.
He helped Gertrude Hayes, his friend, prepare the soil, plant and nurture her row of tomatoes, but he would never pick hers. He was quick to say, "we don’t live together, we’re just friends". They lived within walking distance of each other’s house on Hopewell Church Road, south of Hamburg Road—a familiar territory to me because my childhood home was just a few miles away.
Together they gave us big boxes of those delicious tomatoes three or four times this summer, starting August 8th when we first visited them. The last box, we thought, arrived as a surprise because a cold spell killed the growing season for tomatoes. Later, Bill and Gertrude brought another surprise box of green tomatoes around the first of October. He taught us to enjoy fried green tomatoes. I learned to cook them, even preparing them for us and our kids Labor Day, September 4th—all ten of us—when we were at our country place near Somerset, Ohio.
From the box of green ones we did not have fried green tomatoes—instead we ate them as they ripened. When they started getting red all at once I took most of them and made chili sauce, a total of ten pints. I still have some left that we will savor as something special served at our dinner table. Bill Thorne’s tomatoes outlived him. The news of Bill’s death came during a casual Sunday morning chat at church with Gertrude’s son when he asked if my husband had heard Bill Thorne died. He had died two weeks ago. Not taking the daily paper regularly, we did not know this so consequently we didn’t get to the funeral.
The interesting story about this "Tomato Man", Bill Thorne, is that Bill and Gertrude did not sell their tomatoes but gave them away, getting much pleasure from giving. When my husband spoke by phone with Gertrude, she said Bill had requested in lieu of flowers at his funeral, people could bring canned goods to be given away to the needy. She said a room set aside at the funeral home showed that his request was taken to heart by his friends who had brought many canned goods. Even in death he was still giving. Apparently Bill had viewed death was near when he made such a providential request about canned goods instead of flowers.
We will never eat tomatoes, especially fried green ones unless we think of Bill Thorne. It was simply a summer friendship which meant a lot to my husband and me.
###
Post notes: Gertrude, when not getting a response to her phone calls to Bill Thorne, went to check on him and found him lying on the floor, still in his pajamas. His departure was evidently quick. Gertrude would prepare breakfast for Bill sometimes, other times they would drive to Lancaster for breakfast at McDonald’s, something Gertrude says she will not be doing soon again. Just too many memories. Bill had taken her to Niagara Falls for a few days this summer. Also they took a trip to Lake Erie. The day before he died they had taken a day’s drive to New Straitsville and West Virginia. They enjoyed each other’s company.
#####
Jean Steel Venrick is the wife of Bill Venrick, The Wordwright
Jean originally wrote this story Oct 29, 2000
In our world of millisecond technology it may surprise some that there are some facts that have been around longer than the internet, the computer, the television, radio or the telephone – in all likelihood even before the days of early Egyptians! BIRDS – and all about them; well maybe not ALL about them, but certainly some of following facts I found on the website of JOHN CLAYTON. Mr. Clayton publishes a bi-monthly magazine by the title DOES GOD EXIST? In his Nov-Dec 2005 issue the following BIRD FACTS appears (John gives further credit and reference to DICK E. BIRD NEWS, Jan/Feb 2005) WONDER how these birds "figured all these things out"?
Enjoy these interesting facts! The Wordwright
BIRD FACTS
There are a number of facts about birds that are not known by most people, and yet speak eloquently of the planning and wisdom that is designed into the bird kingdom so that they can survive. Here are a few interesting ones:
Herons will place a feather or some other floating object on the water to attract the fish they eat.
Burrowing owls collect mammal dung and pave their nests and the surrounding area with it to attract dung beetles, one of their favorite foods.
Bird feathers are kept waterproof by oil which birds secrete from a gland under their tail.
Bird feathers are made of keratin, the same stuff that makes our nails and our hair.
In the winter, ptarmigan (the state bird of Alaska) grow special feathers on the tops and bottoms of their feet which act like snowshoes, allowing the bird to walk across the surface of soft snow.
Whooper, trumpeter and mute swans weigh as much as 35 pounds.
Vultures have been proven to fly at 37,000 feet.
Peregrine falcons have been clocked at 217 MPH in a dive.
Jays will sit on ant hills allowing the ants to douse them with formic acid, a natural pesticide which rids the birds of parasites.
Urban crows have been seen placing nuts in the middle of a road, waiting until cars have cracked them, then waiting until the light changed to retrieve their prize.
South America has 2,500 species of birds, as opposed to the 950 found in North America.
--Reference: Dick E. Bird News, Jan/Feb 2005.
#####
WHEN you stop and think about it, LIFE in itself and the many components of life as we know it are very simple. Some of the simplicity is a result of divine laws that men such as Newton decided to call "Laws of Nature". Specifically, in Newton’s case GRAVITY was observed and identified. Concepts such as centrifugal force, inertia and gravity are factors identified by men, women and children almost every day yet most of us are not really aware we KNOW these complex facts. Once I heard a professor sarcastically ask, "How can you know something that you don’t know?" He was condescendingly putting down a student who had missed several questions on a quiz and had told the professor, "I KNEW the answer but I just couldn’t think of it." This professor was not a man who could understand such levels of mental disabilities because at the time he was writing three books, and was able to keep three secretaries busy working on the text for those books. But I think I can vouch for the disability of that student.
Driving onto one of my neighboring streets a few days ago I saw a person flick his cigarette against an opened window and I would almost bet he did not have a clue he was working within the parameters of physics – inertia and gravity for starters. He moved his fingers toward a fixed object (partially opened window) and the ashes on the cigarette were forced off the end of the smoking cigarette and slowly descended to the street. He was conducting a classic experiment of physics but was he aware of this? I doubt it.
We ingest food into our bodies every day but our lack of specific knowledge about digestion, the workings of our stomach and its unique acids never enters our minds—unless of course we experience heart burn. Those of us who have a reflux condition have learned the hard way what kinds of food and positions of the body can do to interrupt our body’s tranquility.
Why do I bring up such things? The answer to that question is like life, it is simple. William Cowper said, "When was public virtue to be found when private (virtue) was not?" If that’s deep, let it float around in your mind like a marshmallow in hot chocolate for a little while. Read Cowper’s question again.
How we live…how we act…how we talk…how we treat our fellow man…how we pay our debts…how we regard our obligations to contracts we sign…I could go on and on, but the answer or solution to any of these statements is: Everything we DO in life depends upon our concepts of God, others and our personal response to duty and obligations or responsibilities of life. Sure, there are some things that could be mentioned that may be discounted but to the believer most of life’s (basic) problems are theological problems.
If you claim to be a believer in God and fellowship with a group of believers, and find yourself wondering: about your faith, about the whole scheme of spiritual things – it should come to your mind "quite simply" (or maybe gradually) what William Cowper phrased as a question: "When was public virtue to be found when private virtue was not?" It should also be obvious that the ANSWER to Cowper’s question is "NEVER."
In other words you cannot be or will not be "in church" what you are not in private. As Lincoln once said, "We can fool some of the people some of the time, and all of the people some of the time; but we cannot fool all the people all of the time." More precisely, we cannot fool God any time! He knows what we are inside even if the person sitting beside you in church doesn’t have a clue as to how deep your spiritual life is (or should be). So, next time you "go to church", ponder just where or how deep your virtue really is; you may discover that is how and why most believers find such self-examination is a prerequisite to "getting something" out of a sermon—or even "going to church". If we don’t "get anything out of a sermon" maybe we have not opened our minds to new information – it’s that simple. #####
THE WORDWRIGHT
Many, many moons ago a group of folks decided they'd had enough of their king. So they up and revolted and started a new world, a world of equality and opportunity. Of course, as with any human endeavor, this one had flaws. And it was the work of many generations before some flaws were sorted out by sharing more opportunity with groups within the greater group.
In the beginning there were the first great rights, the Bill of Rights. In time the Word became Right. And in more time more groups asked for more rights. When they weren't granted handily, people demanded them, in essence revolting against the land that had already revolted against the king. During the middle of the century there was the great Civil Rights uproar. Out of that movement came some success, but more importantly a thirst for more rights was whetted. First there were women, who knew that the fine words "All men are created equal" clearly didn't include them. Next were the handicapped, who knew by painful experience that the world was built without disabilities in mind. And in a spurt, rights fights came from all sorts of minority groups: Indians (or Native Americans), ethnic groups, senior citizens, and animals.
As new rights became the law, the land changed, sometimes in the shape of wheelchair ramps, sometimes in wrinkled faces and gray hair on clerks in fast-food chains. The rights of citizens even extended to boat people and others who weren't U.S. citizens. The cost of their maintenance was borne by real citizens. But more than physical conditions we re transformed: so too were the attitudes of the people. The increase of rights to one group sometimes matched the diminution of rights for another. And all our lives changed. The case had been made that almost any vocal and persistent group could claim a "right"—essentially create a right. Enough pressure and enough friction usually legalized the new right.
And so it came about that everyone became so nervous about violating anyone's "rights" that anything—be it the most outrageous behavior—became our way of life. Academic courses and dictionaries were rewritten to suit new perceptions. Behaviors that had been defined for centuries as unacceptable (or even pathological) were blessed with acceptability. The litany of ill-nesses that have been sanitized would be long and depressing. First, groups of advocates shouted, "What we're doing is okay!" Their pressure made public officials antsy, and they began to fudge and say, "Well, okay, just this once." And finally enough anything-goes folks got control of higher education to lend an intellectual patina to this new World Order—which is really nothing but a facade that asserts that anything goes. And ultimately finally, churches got around to recanting the damning they had done since long before the writing of the New Testament.
Recently a man persuaded a district court to ban the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in school because it "made his daughter feel like an outsider." An article in Reader's Digest reports the trend in education to downplay, even countenance, cheating because to expose it would mean psychological or social difficulties for the culprits. The author of an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education concluded, "[W]e risk becoming the enemies rather than the mentors of our students; we are replacing the student-teacher relationship with the criminal-police relationship." And in one state the literary passages in the standardized tests administered in public schools have been expurgated to remove any terms that would give offense to anyone.
The quintessential nature of our grand republic has been the notion of constitutional rights. Suddenly the most liberal among us are become the most repressive. To believe in everything is to believe in nothing. To stand for everything is to represent nothing. To share all cultures is to have no culture. In the 70’s many social engineers advocated the "I’m OK, you’re OK" tenet. If I’m okay and you’re okay and all God’s chillun are okay, can anything actually be okay? So what’s it all about, Alfie? It’s about everybody being allowed to do anything and claim anything. It’s about everyone standing for everything – which is the same as standing for nothing. It’s probably about the end of the American experiment.
##### T. J. Ray, Oxford, Mississippi
To a weaver, this is may be an old term or axiom, but to others the expression probably needs some explanation. When a weaver’s work is finished after having thrown the shuttle back and forth through the sheds, pulling beater to bang the threads together after every shot, all to weave a wonder such as has been around for centuries, cloth is finally "cut free of the loom". The ends of the warp are tied and, there it is, a finished piece of cloth.
Life is somewhat like a loom. We[ft] are shuttled back and forth between several courses of warp -- "threads of circumstances" that are switched first one way and then another as each shed opens. Someone pulls the beam that forces us between those warp threads and this process continues until we die and are "cut free of the loom".
My maternal granddad is a perfect example of this analogy. He was born in Missouri during the time his father taught school there. They returned to Ohio to settle in the area of Zanesville, Ohio. Years later, when Harry Edmund Keadle, my granddad, married Jessica White, of Corning, Ohio, who knows the thrill of that young couple as they awaited the birth of their second child. But the beater that was pulled hard weaving the weft of their lives did not turn out the way they dreamed. Leroy, their first child, died in January, 1904 at about four months. Alice Marie Keadle, my mother, was their second child but granddad’s wife died a few days after my mother came into this world. Jessica was "cut free of the loom" of life leaving Harry to weave a life for a baby daughter. Fortunately his mother was available and my mother, Alice Marie, was raised by her grandparents.
But the banging of that weaver’s beater was not finished with Harry’s life. At the age of 42 he was struck down by what they termed in those days "a sun stroke" that eventually took his eyesight. He had remarried after his first wife died at childbirth. At the news that her robust husband and provider was going blind, the woman who once vowed "til death do us part" decided she "did not want to live with a blind man." She cut herself from Harry’s life. Being squeezed between the strands of warp in the weaver’s loom is often not a comfortable time.
What now? First wife gone. Daughter to raise. Second marriage which produced two more daughters. Now, the joyful plans for "the rest of your life" are nothing but shattered dreams—or a rug torn from a loom, not cut free as it should have been..
My grandfather decided to learn how to weave – his mother had a loom and apparently wove for years to provide for her family needs. She was either the firm example of tough love or strangely selfish because she would not let him use her loom! The genre of my granddad produced men who did not take no easily. As strange, and nearly impossible as it seems to even me, I was told that he "felt around" that great old loom of his mothers calculating measurements in his head and "built his own loom". I have an old workbench that could well have been used in constructing his first loom, starting his career as a weaver.
As my granddad’s abilities grew through experience he became very popular as the one who could make rag rugs like no other. He even worked for the [Ohio] State Blind Commission and wove rugs patterned to their specifications. Those were not readily available to the public but were all shipped to the State [for later sales].
Since Granddad Keadle "could do anything" why not have him weave a 9 x 12 rug for their house? My mother and father began "sewing rags together" for Granddad Keadle and almost became obsessed with their special project. So they would sew rag pieces together, wind them into balls until we had enough for the rug. Naturally, you cannot weave a 9 foot wide rug on a modest sized loom, which normally was used to make strip rugs probably a maximum of 36 inches; nine feet would require three strips sewn together and twelve feet was a long runner. In itself, this last task of sewing those long strips together was not a small job.
I do recall one instance when Granddad Keadle chided them for making the balls too big—they were just too hard to handle; so they made smaller balls. Of course it wasn’t a rug until it was woven using those sewn rag strips shuttled back and forth weaving one row at a time—all on hand-powered looms, of course.
I remember it clearly that day the task was completed and we had that huge [to the mind of a small boy] 9 x 12 rag rug to lay in our house. I can’t be exactly sure where we first used that rug but it seems in my memory we used it in more than one house. My dad must have really wanted something unique to have started such a project. Long after we first used that rug it was passed on down to my wife and me and we were privileged to use it in one of our first houses.
Years later, after granddad’s own father was "cut free of the loom" leaving him and his sister to care for the Homestead – something had to be done. Sell the place? Move? What now? Well, my granddad’s loom room had five looms and now he had to reduce the number of looms when he found another place. He was getting on in years now. So, he moved into a small cottage in Putnam, across the river from the main city of Zanesville, Ohio, and started up his weaving again, but this time with just two looms. What a change it must have been for him, being cut free of the homestead, but this time to live by himself. Granddad Keadle had just a one room cottage, with a bath; and he even heated with a coal stove that he had to keep going during cold winter months. As I’ve said before, my Granddad Keadle was not an easy man to discourage. In fact he was a happy, well-informed man keeping himself up to date with news from his radio.
I was probably the typical precocious "little boy" and granddad was always telling me I could weave something some day. Well, my time came and Granddad Keadle "set up" his unique Deen loom so it could weave a tubular weave. On the drawing board of his mind he sketched out the plans to weave a pair of pants for me.
Technically, each shuttle would weave "one side" of a leg. Each shuttle only goes halfway across the warp. One shot of each shuttle for the top side half way across, change the shed, and the shuttle goes back again for the bottom layer. When the legs were finished, then only one shuttle was needed to weave one shed all the way across the top layer of the tube that would be the top of the pants. Remember, all this technique was "sketched out in the mind" of my blind granddad. He had it all figured out as to the length of the two tubes [for the legs] and just when to convert the weaving process to a single tube for the upper part of the pants. In all honesty the practicality of these pants was sacrificed for the novelty of making such a garment; one unique example was the absence of a "fly" closure for a male garment so the upper portion was once again adapted in the weaving process to leave an unfinished edge of the "tube" to close with a fastener of sorts. Another term would be to call this a seamless garment.
As the weaver on most of the straight weaving portions, I know certain details were confusing to me but the master weaver was close by. Believe me, I was one proud 10 years old grandson. I still am, for that matter, because even though it has been over sixty years since those trousers were "cut free of the loom" I still have them, with a note explaining how they came to be made!
My granddad Keadle was finally "cut free of the loom" of life at 79. Nineteen years after I wove those pants I was asked to "preach my granddad’s funeral". I have not woven a thing since then, but my life has been continuously pressed between the warp strands of life. Until the Weaver of Life decides it is time to "cut me free of the loom" I will content myself with throwing the shuttle back and forth weaving this life of mine that God started before I was a gleam in my father’s eyes.
#####
Credit and appreciation to Dee Burnlees, Ontario, Canada, for her expert assistance with technical terminology in writing this story. Originally printed and published for distribution in the American Amateur Press Association monthly membership bundle in the year 2002. William B. Venrick, Author, Lancaster, Ohio. (Entered in the category of HISTORY on the The Wordwright website 03-12-06)
The stories or tidbits about The Wordwright which are planned for this section are being labeled VIGNETTES. With the usual reaching for the dictionary the definition of vignette comes in full view: 1) … illustration used on a page; 2) a picture…with no definite border…; 3) a short, delicate literary sketch. Yes, maybe, sort of – the Vignettes of The Wordwright will pretty much be "a picture…with no definite border but you may have to provide some pictures in your mind; snatches of my childhood or perhaps unfettered moments of later years. These vignettes decidedly will be "short" but the words delicate and literary might be harder to find or better described as number two: a picture with no definite border. Let’s face it though, it is hoped all three of the dictionary’s verities will give an honest picture of The Wordwright and the "chemicals of life" the Creator used in developing the fellow pictured in the masthead. Mostly it is hoped these vignettes will provide a feast of words, or perhaps something like a cud which can be recalled for further digestion later. The Wordwright wishes you well today in your visit.
If I were to type a four-letter word beginning with "S" and leave 3 "blank spaces" and add the word "HAPPENS" I would guestimate that no less than 90% of those who read this would know the word I have not spelled out. I am not accustomed to use such four-letter words so I didn't spell it out; however, LIFE could well be used in place of that four-letter word.
And even then, if someone else laid that expression on me I think I would contest it with something like, "That could be true, e.g., LIFE HAPPENS, but by the same token (of things happening) I believe that WE ARE RESPONSIBLE for much of what goes on around us. The way we think. How we treat "spare time" or those free moments. What we read. Maybe even what we eat. The list could go on and you are probably just as capable as I to make a list of your own so let's assume I have made my point.
John Lennon, one of the Beatles, once said, "Life is what happens while we are busy making other plans." In this generation we have seen professional (salaried) and hourly workers reach a point in their lives when they finally were ready to retire and "all of a sudden" the company they worked for a good part of their lives went "belly up". Strange, that all the plans they had made for retirement, and the money they had been promised to be laid aside and "taken care of" and even more, GROW larger, was now GONE but somehow the C.E.O. had conveniently been able to salvage a million or more for themselves! And the faithful, dedicated employee was now facing their retirement years WITH NOTHING (with the exception of Social Security). Can we honestly say, even with all this, that LIFE (just) HAPPENS? Our nation has taught us that "it will take care of us". Many have allowed themselves to be duped, misled, convinced against our better judgment that SOMEONE ELSE knows better how to take care of us!
My interests in life, as I have found them have reaped rewards mostly in these days of retirement. There have been very few times in my retirement years that I could not find "something to do" or "how to make a dollar or two". Notice I did not say HUNDRED$, THOU$AND$ or MILLION$, but an extra "dollar or two". So I guess my advice today is to be frugal. How is it possible to be frugal in a time in history when there seems to be nothing in the market place that stays constant? Gasoline prices have been the biggest surprise recently and fluctuate for no apparent reason. I can be frugal because I know WHATEVER I do for myself (and by myself) is the (only) real way to be a responsible person. The late Linda Bowles once wrote something that may be a bit blunt but hits the nail right on the head: "The task of weaning various people and groups from the national nipple will not be easy. The sounds of whines, bawls, screams and invective[ness] will fill the air as the agony of withdrawal pangs finds voice." Linda Bowles wrote that in "The Weaning Process," Washington Times, December 20, 1994, pg A16. All I can add is, AMEN.
RECYCLING is nothing new to people my age (74) so when I drive down country roads or even certain city streets or on parking lots and see beverage cans littering the area I just consider it a few coins and casually pick them up and toss them into my trunk. Some country roads are more rewarding than most "in town" resources. Admittedly when I take my treasures to the junk yard I only make a few bucks but such an activity can be therapy -- I can think of a lot of things while I am harvesting such resources. If I bother to smash the cans that is just another time to THINK. Aluminum is a far more rewarding material to bother with than steel -- so look for any kind of aluminum. See an old junked storm door -- check it out, is it aluminum? Got an old pressure cooker (or pots, pans) you quit using because you found better ways to cook? Check them out – get a small magnet and easily identify aluminum from steel (the magnet will "stick" on steel but not aluminum) – there you go. All steel parts need to be removed when you recycle aluminum (junk dealers like the metal "clean") so that's more time to THINK while you're removing screws or manufactured steel parts. (Needless to say, but sanitation should not be ignored so wear gloves or use tongs to pick up some stuff and keep a good supply of small garbage bags in the trunk of your car. Have a supply of those towelettes handy too!)
I don't have a pick-up truck but if you do, corrugated cardboard is a pretty decent resource to trade for cash. Check out your local junk yard or paper mill and get busy. You just might become a believer that LIFE doesn't just HAPPEN! Besides that, you might just help your town look a bit tidier while you're making an extra buck or two. #####
Michael E. Coughlin, printer and publisher, now in Cornucopia, Wisconsin, published a small 12 page booklet in 1988 by the title of GROWING, As a fellow member of the American Amateur Press Association (*), Mike and I have traded thoughts back and forth through the years and now I would like to extend that trading by presenting this booklet in this web site. Publishing booklets has become a signature work by Michael E. Coughlin. His booklets can be easily held in one hand to read as you wait for an appointment to materialize or parked in the car, again waiting. They are easily slipped into a pocket and retrieved for more entertainment later. Once you read this booklet you may see why it has been selected to be in the section called Personality Profiles. This appears here with Mike’s permission, of course.
+++++
"How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?"
Leroy "Satchel" Paige
+++++
THE HANG OF IT
Robert R. Updegraff
At about the age when many men begin to consider themselves crossing over to the shady side of life – the half-century mark, Sir Christopher Wren, who built magnificent St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in the seventeenth century, was entering enthusiastically upon a career in a new profession. After serving as professor of astronomy at Gresham College and Oxford, he turned architect.
In the forty-one years after his forty-eighth birthday this amazing man executed fifty-three churches and cathedrals, most of which still stand as monuments to his greatness. Like the man James Whitcomb Riley wrote of who had "lived to three-score and ten and had the hang of it now and could do it again." Sir Christopher discovered the secret of living a second life and doing another life’s work.
++++++
SHEDDING SHELLS
by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Following quoted from a Gift From The Sea, published by Pantheon Books in 1955.
Perhaps middle age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells; the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, the shell of the ego. Perhaps one can shed at this stage in life as one sheds in beach-living; one’s pride, one’s false ambitions, one’s mask, one’s armor. Was that armor not put on to protect one from the competitive world? If one ceases to compete, does one need it? Perhaps one can at last in middle age, if not earlier, be completely oneself. And what a liberation that would be!
It is true that the adventures of youth are less open to us. Most of us cannot, at this point, start a new career or raise a new family. Many of the physical, material and worldly ambitions are less attainable than they were twenty years ago. But is this not often a relief? "I no longer worry about being the belle of Newport," a beautiful woman, who had become a talented artist, once said to me. And I always liked that Virginia Woolf hero who meets middle age admitting: "Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires…I am not so gifted as at one time seemed likely. Certain things lie beyond my scope. I shall never understand the harder problems of philosophy. Rome is the limit of my traveling…I shall never see savages in Tahiti spearing fish by the light of a blazing cresset or a lion spring in the jungle or a naked man eating raw flesh…"
The primitive, physical, functional pattern of the morning of life, the active years before forty or fifty, is outlived. But there is still the afternoon opening up, which one can spend not in the feverish pace of the morning but in having time at last for those intellectual, cultural and spiritual activities that were pushed aside in the heat of the race. We Americans, with our terrific emphasis on youth, action, and material success, certainly tend to belittle the afternoon of life and even to pretend it never comes. We push the clock back and try to prolong the morning, overreaching and overstraining ourselves in the unnatural effort. We cannot compete with our sons and daughters. And what a struggle it is to race with these over-active and under-wise adults! In our breathless attempts we often miss the flowering that waits for afternoon.
For is it not possible that middle age can be looked upon as a period of second flowering, second growth, even a kind of second adolescence? It is true that society in general does not help one accept this interpretation of the second half of life. And therefore this period of expanding is often tragically misunderstood. Many people never climb above the plateau of forty-to-fifty. The signs that presage growth, so similar, it seems to me, to those in early adolescence: discontent, restlessness, doubt, despair, longing, are interpreted falsely as signs of decay. In youth one does not as often misinterpret the signs; one accepts them, quite rightly, as growing pains. One takes them seriously, listens to them, follows where they lead. One is afraid. Naturally. Who is not afraid of pure space – that breath-taking empty space of an open door? But despite fear, one goes through to the room beyond.
But in middle age, because of the false assumption that it is a period of decline, one interprets these life-signs, paradoxically, as signs of approaching death. Instead of facing them, one runs away; one escapes – into depression, nervous breakdowns, drink, love affairs or frantic, thoughtless, fruitless over-work. Anything, rather than face them. Anything, rather than stand still and learn from them. One tries to cure the signs of growth, to exorcise them, as if they were devils, when really they might be angels of annunciation.
Angels of annunciation of what? Of a new stage in living when, having shed many of the physical struggles, the worldly ambitions, the material encumbrances of active life, one might be free to fulfill the neglected side of one’s self. One might be free for growth of mind, heart and talent; free at last for spiritual growth…
*The American Amateur Press – if you have a yen for writing or publishing, take a few minutes and look over their website. The Wordwright has been a member of the AAPA for about twenty years.
Upon choosing the moniker, THE WORDWRIGHT, some could view it as presumptuous, but believe me, the title has been long in coming. Roy Underhill, The WOODWRIGHT, has entertained and taught thousands of wood workers (and wanabees) who have enjoyed and appreciated his period approach to woodworking – and goes many steps further back than Norm Abram who has every tool and machine imaginable. It is Roy Underhill’s opinion that "the brain is the ultimate power tool". Roy takes his viewers back to the days before power tools and all the gadgets to make dovetails and fancy joints in woodworking. Rarely do we see even a band aid on Norm’s hands but Roy laughs about a nick here and there – even worked with stitches in plain view (he must have nearly cut his finger off one time!). Roy shows techniques of woodworking from as far back as the 18th century. About the same time his television show was catching on, Roy moved to Williamsburg, Va., to accept the position of master housewright at Colonial Williamsburg, where he also served as director of interpretive development. So Roy is not exactly the sometimes fumbling character he portrays. They are, shall we say, the extremes of then and now – if you want to see how it used to be done, Roy’s the guy to watch (appreciate his skills and enjoy his humor). If you have a healthy bank account and want to see the latest tools or machines, Norm Abram is your man. A casual search will find either ROY UNDERHILL, the Woodwright or NORM ABRAM, the Master Carpenter – both on public TV.
What’s with this term WORDWRIGHT? For hundreds of years the suffix "wright" has been attached to assorted trades: Wheelwright -- makes wheels; Shipwright -- makes ships; Cartwright -- makes carts; Housewright -- makes houses; Playwright -- writes plays and of course there were Orville and Wilbur Wright, who made airplanes! (The wisdom in wit about the different "wrights" is adapted from Roy Underhill’s website.)
The WORDWRIGHT works with WORDS – naturally. There is a certain wonder to words. Rarely do I write anything without reaching for my dictionary to be sure I have chosen the precise word – now some will find I used the wrong word and tell me about it. In today’s world of word processors, computers, scanners and printers to fit every pocketbook there are few excuses left for someone to claim they can’t write. I am not thinking about writing the epoch novel of the century, or even a small booklet – how about writing home (if you’ve been away too long)? How about writing a Thank You note? Most of us will never write many best sellers but let’s move the rail down a bit.
Naturally one has to define the subject but as a matter of fact, there is a lot to write (or say) about nearly anything that goes on. In the house. In the neighborhood. In the church. At the school meeting. In the city. In the county. In the state. In the nation. Well, I guess, since you put it that way, there IS a lot to say, isn't there?
You can be a writer too -- oh, you may not consider yourself capable, but whenever you have an opportunity to express yourself, e.g., by writing to the newspaper Letters to the Editor, you are a writer. So when you have something to say, write it down (better RE-read it though, maybe a couple times) and mail it to the person or persons involved. A suggestion: if the subject is controversial and you wrote it "right away", sometimes it is better to write it, then allow yourself time to cool off (24 hours will usually do it), then pick it up the next day, read it again and if you still like the way you wrote it, MAIL IT! (Some such missives are often thrown in the trash can once we read them again.)
You have the necessary tools at your fingertips -- you're using a computer to SEE this, so unless you do not have a word processing program, you are "on your way" -- so get to it. If your Mom & Dad are still around, communication is always in order. If you're the Mom or Dad, the same thing applies with the kid(s). Or write to a teacher or mentor you appreciated in school -- do it before they’re gone! Computers and the Internet have been a great enabling factor with e-mail -- so, "What's there to say?" Just think about it -- you will probably come up with a lot to say. FAMILY is always in need of communication -- that cross word or old sore of a family dispute that is old enough to be settled, or that word of encouragement or love left unexpressed, grab a Kleenex and think about it -- then do it! WRITE! ###
|
|
