No news is good news?

Every morning, I go through the two large Twin Cities newspapers’ online editions. It’s a routine, an attempt to keep an eye on “the pulse” of the area in which I live. Almost every morning, I am disappointed by the vapidity (a new favorite word of mine) of “news”. I can see that the newspaper folks are working hard to present something of interest. Often it feels like they’re busting their butts to find anything that might be of interest. Today, both papers dutifully covered the astounding story that Best Buy is now going to sell musical instruments in some of their stores. Now there’s fodder for conversation!

“Hey, Henry, did you hear about Best Buy going into the music business?!”

If Henry hadn’t heard that news, I’m sure he’ll immediately drop whatever he was doing and hang on my subsequent comments. Yah, Shure, you betcha. But the news is so very often just that dull. As a result, the media latches on to “continuing sagas” that are even more bland, but that can appear to change slightly each day, such as the Bret Favre thingy (is it a scandal or nothing at all), or that Barack Obama and John McCain used to smoke (hold your breath) cigarettes and did they really quit or are they sneaking drags once in a while? Keep reading for more such intriguing revelations.

There are some stories I find of some interest… the human-interest stories, such as “Stillwater couple flying high with love of planes”, but even that paled when I found that the hubby of the couple worked for 36 years for 3M. Thirty-six years for the same company?! That put him in a class so alien to me that I had to stop reading.

There is a kind of story I would enjoy reading, and they’re all around us, and unending in variety. Every small business has a great story behind it… and it’s a story seldom well-told. We are surrounded by such small businesses, and, inevitably, the effort and grief involved in getting that business into operation is heroic in nature and a fine example of gritty determination. They are the stories of what made America great. Risk-takers, entrepreneurs, gamblers, spending long, long hours doing the needed pure grunt work to get a business afloat, and then to keep it afloat. Newspapers cover business “success stories”… the local business that grew and is now national or international, but they don’t cover the thousands of small businesses that stay small because that is what they choose to be. One-man operations, family businesses, or a couple of people working together to make something from almost nothing by risking both their efforts and their money… that’s a story worthy of the front page.

On living the dream

Ah… the American dream… home, family, good job, plenty of “toys” and activities. We all know what it is, and most of us strive hard for it. Is it really dreamy?

A comment from Paul T, UK to my “25,000 days and counting” brings back a memory I had almost forgotten:

But now the mortality of life has only just really dawned me and I can’t afford to waste any more days. Everyone of them is so precious – we must seize each and every one.

Carpe Diem indeed, Paul T. The memory you referred me to was that time of midlife. I think what I became aware of was that I had lived more than half my life… that I was clearly on the “downside”. At that time, I thought “This is a time that I aimed at long ago” All those times I considered “What do I want to be when I grow up?”, I was thinking about NOW. “Here I am, grown up. Is this what I wanted?“

I suspect that most of us, to ourselves, grudgingly answer “Not really”, which triggers some changes in our lives. We do tend to get caught up in some many silly pursuits that veer us away from our youthful dreams. I quickly resorted to evaluating my life’s midpoint in terms of “success”, and found only brief comfort in that. In my youth, “success” was not my goal… “doing something significant, something grand” was more what my thinking had been. My honest evaluation was fairly depressing, as seems to be common. What had I done?

I was, at midlife, a family man… wife, kids, house, cars, taking pride in possessions and a comfortable lifestyle. I found myself naturally comparing my situation with that of my peers, and scored myself a big, dull “OK”, and realized that I had dug myself into something that was feeling like a hole… surrounded by responsibilities that fit together to constrict my choices to that lifestyle we come to think of as normal. Yes, it felt like a trap, but a trap I had slid into willingly, and worked to build around myself. It was not a good feeling, despite feeling “successful”.

I wish I could claim to have made big changes, and reset myself on a path toward “something significant, something grand”. I didn’t, because to do so would have meant dumping responsibilities I had taken on. I’ve considered writing a book on the subject, because I’ve known so many men who suddenly discovered what they had done. I can’t say that I understood it well at midlife, and didn’t until that carefully-crafted lifestyle started falling apart… of it’s own weight. I had concentrated so hard on “building a family lifestyle” that I neglected the people in it… the woman I loved, and the delightful children we had together. As the male provider, I worked on providing things… every thing but love.

Much later, when my family was broken by divorce, I could better evaluate what had happened, and begin to understand how my life could have gone so astray. I had worked hard to achieve something, a good family life, had achieved it, and yet failed at what should have been the heart and soul of it. I had become a good provider, a good head of household, yet a flop as a husband and father. My midlife evaluation and disappointment paled by comparison with that.

I concluded that it must take failure to really force me to learn. I did learn, but only after the great endeavor of my life had fallen in shambles around me. I must tell you that I’ve seen the same thing happen to so very many families, but it was earth-shaking to me. I am one who has never lacked for capabilities and talents, but, in attempting to build a typical family lifestyle, I had failed miserably. I could not avoid the judgment, and it triggered an unending evaluation of “how in the hell could that have happened?”

I understand now, but it took a long time. Much of it lies in accepted male roles and “competition”, and it’s far too complex to more than touch on in a blog. I can give men reading this a very big clue. It’s a fact that divorces are almost always the wife’s decision, and that the husband will fight like a banshee to avoid it, especially if there are children involved. No matter how miserable the situation may be, the man will fight to keep it going… not because he honestly believes he can “fix” it, but because he cannot accept the abject sense of failure. Astonishingly, it’s not so much losing the people in the family that drives him crazy, but losing the family unit itself… the whole package. I, and many other men, concentrated so much on the “package” that I ignored the valuable contents. Instead of 4 unique individuals, I saw a family unit. I worked for the “success” of the family while ignoring, and even stifling, the needs and desires of all 4 humans within it. That may be as “bent out of shape” as human endeavor can become. For your own sake, look for that tendency in your own life. If you find it, resolve to fight it NOW… for the sake of everyone involved.

Family divisions

I just returned from what has become an annual family reunion. More specifically, it’s mostly a first cousins reunion… the grandchildren of Fred and Nellie Beard. My first cousins grew up in a divided family, so many of us didn’t know each other despite living with 20 miles or so. No need to go into why our parents ended up divided, but we’ve tried to get back together and make up for family we should have had and didn’t. We range in age, right now, from 69 (me) to 45. Truth is, we have tried to determine why the division stood all those years, and we are determined to get past whatever the roots of the division were.

It has been delightful getting to know those “missing” first cousins, and we’re all aware now of some of what we missed in not knowing each other all those years. We are all mostly now in our 60’s, but when I look at them, I see the kids in the photos that were my only memories of them, and some of our chatter is as if we were still kids getting acquainted.

There are still a couple of first cousins, younger and living far away, who haven’t participated yet, but hopefully we’ll bring them into the group next year. My oldest daughter attended this year too, but her interest is a bit different; I’m an only child who married an only child, so our daughters (2) have no aunts, uncles or first cousins. They’ll have to settle for first cousins once removed or 2nd cousins. We first cousins can make that happen if we get demanding with our own children. One day a year is not much to spend to pull together ones extended family. Most of them will someday wish they knew each other; we first cousins should press for those connections to be made as soon as possible. Believe it or not, relatives are at least as interesting as the friends we all make in our non-family lives. Why ignore them while we’re networking with hundreds of others? We already have a built-in connection with them to begin with.

How many hands to show your age?

Today is my youngest grandson’s (Xavier) 6th birthday. He can no longer show his age using fingers of just one hand (isn’t it fun watching a 3-year-old trying to get only 3 fingers up?). Once you get to age 16, you just can’t show your age in fingers… until you reach another milestone at age 20. Then it goes back and forth for a long time… both hands then three hands, until you get to 56; then it’s never again possible with two hands. Once you get to 66, four hands are needed.

We wise adults learn an alternative, though… using both hands for each digit. That works great until 100, then 3 hands are again needed. By that time, though, we expect those around us to remember how old we are, and not ask.

We could teach our children about the quinary number system (base 5, having only digits 1 through 5), which would coincide with use of our fingers. In fact, most of us are used to using quinary without realizing it; the old practice of noting counts with vertical marks and then crossing over the 4th with a diagonal line… and starting another group of 5.

Ain’t math fun?

25,000 days and counting

One of the few advantages of age is realizing that you’ve done more things more times than others have. If you’re lucky enough to reach the age of 68 1/2, you’ve survived 25,000 days. I’ve gone a year past that, but what’s a few hundred days here or there?

We worry about our mortality, and life does often seem so short, but if I were to count the hours I’ve spent doing nothing of any significance, it would be depressing. I’ve slept for 17 years. Eaten 75,000 meals, and smoked a million and a half cigarettes.

If I had never cut my hair, and had managed to keep it all around, it would be 27 feet long by now. That would make one hell of a ponytail. Picture a couple of tail-carriers following me around. I’ve shaved maybe 8,000 times. I shudder to think what I’d look like if I hadn’t.

The stuff that’s easy to estimate over a lifetime is mostly the maintenance stuff, the necessary stuff. What’s difficult to measure is what we choose to do. How many years of actually productive labor, rather than years of being paid for showing up. How many times have you had sex? Difficult for someone of any significant age to remember, much less estimate.

None of these calculations are of any importance, except to demonstrate, perhaps, how much time we spend doing what we must do, rather than what we freely choose to do. Life is all about choice, after all. Some of us choose to lead quite ordered, routine lives (that make calculations like these easy), while others tend toward more extemporaneous paths. We have a strong tendency toward routine, because it’s relaxing and not confusing. I guess my tendency involves leading a rather routine life, but upsetting the applecart fairly often, leading to a different routine.

the boBLOG is back in business

After 5 years, I’ve given up on Blogger as the host of boBLOG. I just simply couldn’t get any new entries to post. Not sure why, but I’m tired of wasting my time trying when there are other alternatives, such as WordPress.

So… onward and upward.