Celebrating a Life

An interesting and poignant article from NPR on-line has given me some pause this week.  Following is the link, well worth reading: 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/tellmemore/2010/07/12/128472402/how-do-we-judge-whose-life-is-celebrated?sc=nl&cc=tmmb-20100713

Here is a clip from one of my favorite movies, "Notting Hill."  (With subtitles in Swedish!) Perhaps you will wonder what one has to do with the other, but any of you who have read my "rants" in the past will get the connection:



How do we chose whom we celebrate, and on what information is the choice based? How well do we listen, and how much do we really know?

In light of the Mel Gibson debacle currently flooding the airwaves, I am wondering once again why what is going on is deemed to be my business - or anybody else's other than those directly involved.  I am also deeply concerned for the child in the middle of this lurid mess.  As Julia Roberts' character says in the above excerpt, what is reported now is filed away in the newspaper's or the web's computer archives...it will always be available, and whenever you want to report on someone's life (or anything else, for that matter), the "information" is available to you at the click of a button - no matter how dated, irrelevant, or downright false that info may be.  There is no automatic "reality" or "truth" filter on these archives.  There is no tool that eliminates misinformation or separates fact from fiction.  Once reported, it comes back over and over again in various forms, and virtually none of it with the benefit of hind-sight. The genie is out of the bottle. 

How often have you gone on-line hunting for information on any given subject and come across items dated and lacking in much-needed details?  Have you ever found things that you know for a fact are untrue?  I remember a discussion I had with my brothers after reading my father's obituary in one of the local papers.  My mother was identified as "Peal."  We reflected that in years to come should someone, researching our family's history or ancestry, come across this typo, they would have no way of knowing that "Peal" was indeed a typo, and that her name was in fact, "Pearl." Now of course one would hope that our fictional researcher would use more than once source, and s/he most probably would, but we have no way of knowing which material someone would or will use.

There is not a whole lot left to say on my part.  Basically I'm distressed a bit over our eagerness as the public to hear information of little or no consequence, and our willingness to accept as fact only what we want to hear, and dismiss any other point of view.  I believe we owe it to future generations as well as to ourselves, to listen carefully and judiciously to what we are being told; to not repeat what cannot be verified, and remember that none of us knows the whole story. So many people, celebrities and non-celebrities alike, have found  too late that there is nothing private and nothing sacred in our world of instant information.  And, unfortunately, the information that lives the longest is "mis-information."

There was a saying, regarding personal behavior, when I was growing up that said in effect, "Don't do or say anything today that you wouldn't want your mother to read on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow." It was always meant hypothetically...well, it is no longer hypothetical. Welcome to the future.

One more thing:

1. 

Main Entry: in·for·ma·tion

Pronunciation: \ˌin-fər-ˈmā-shən\

Function: noun

Date: 14th century

1 : the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence
2 a (1) : knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction (2) : intelligence, news (3) : facts, data b : the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects c (1) : a signal or character (as in a communication system or computer) representing data (2) : something (as a message, experimental data, or a picture) which justifies change in a construct (as a plan or theory) that represents physical or mental experience or another construct d : a quantitative measure of the content of information; specifically : a numerical quantity that measures the uncertainty in the outcome of an experiment to be performed
3 : the act of informing against a person
4 : a formal accusation of a crime made by a prosecuting officer as distinguished from an indictment presented by a grand jury

— in·for·ma·tion·al \-shnəl, -shə-n^əl\ adjective

— in·for·ma·tion·al·ly adverb

I wish you all enough... 

The Book and The Ring - Part 2

(From left: Sapphire/diamond pendant from Ashley, Original ring, Carnelian heart from Daddy, Daddy's wedding band, Gold chain from Ashley)

My Dad was a very large-framed and tall man of Swedish ancestry. He had the most beautiful, expressive hands that I have ever seen. I inherited my large frame from my Dad, and my hands resemble his proportionately, though not in beauty.  Daddy's left hand was adorned with the one piece of jewelry he always wore - a simple gold band - his wedding ring.  The beauty and simplicity of that ring only served to make his hands more beautiful, and I had long desired to have a real piece of jewelry, a ring of my own to wear, and perhaps make my own hands more beautiful..

I did not have nor desire a lot of jewelry, but I did want to have a ring.  The only problem was that it was extremely difficult to find any feminine rings that would fit me.  Having rings re-sized or made-to-order were things that I knew were expensive, and I never would have dreamed of asking for something like that.  For a number of years, as I said, Daddy commuted by train to NYC for his job.  Also, as he was a VP of one of the European divisions of his company, it was necessary for him to "commute" to Italy about twice a month. He was away from home a lot during those years, and it was often hard on all of us, and particularly for him. On several of the trips to Italy, my Mom was able to accompany him, and they did some extensive traveling and sight/site-seeing on those occasions.  One of the first times she went with him they spent several days in Firenze (Florence) and did some shopping for gifts and souvenirs to take home to us.  My Mom spotted a ring in the window of a jewelry store, and on seeing it, my Dad decided that would be a perfect ring for me.  They had one in stock that fit him, so he knew it would therefore fit me.  It was beautiful!  Eighteen-karat yellow gold, with an enameled checkerboard design in dark blue layered on it.  I was over the moon about it, and from the day they brought it home to me, it was almost never off my hand. It signified a great deal to me, and was very special.

One day in my 9th grade gym class, we were working on some gymnastic routines/exercises and the ring interfered with one of the stunts, so I took it off (one of the rare occasions) and laid it on the floor next to the mat. As I hardly ever removed it from my hand, I forgot that I had and it was not until that night at home, when feeling for it on my hand - I had a habit of spinning it around - I realized that I no longer had it on.  I panicked.  I did not remember taking it off, and had absolutely no idea where it was.  The house was scoured, and all the steps that I remembered taking were traced over and over again, all to no avail.  Needless to say I was heartbroken. My parents were sad for me as well, and not angry.  It was just one of those things, so I gradually pushed it away from the front of my mind, but never completely out of it.

I went without a ring for about a year. Sometime in my Junior year in high school, on one of Daddy's trips to Italy, he decided to make a stop once again, in Firenze.  He found the jeweler where he purchased my ring and stopped in to inquire whether he might have another ring like the one he had bought before.  The jeweler said that he did not, but would be glad to make another for him if he could describe it. Daddy gave him a perfect description, and once again using his own ring size as a guide, he asked the jeweler to make it for him. When Daddy brought it home to me, I remember I broke into tears.  It was such a kind and loving thing to do, and knowing my remorse at not having looked after the first ring as well as I could have, he was quite certain that, barring a major catastrophe, this one would not be lost.

Catastrophe struck, of course.  About a year later, during the winter of my senior year, my mother picked me up from school just as it was out for the day.  There was some sort of appointment that we had to keep, and we were in a hurry.  In front of the auditorium where I waited for her, there was a broad expanse of lawn bisected by a walkway to the auditorium entrance.  While the walkway had been shoveled of most of the snow, there remained a couple of inches under foot, and the lawn was still covered by almost two feet of snow.  The weather that day was very cold and dry, so when the car pulled up, I immediately jumped into the front passenger seat.  As I reached out to close the door, my ring, loosened by the cold, flew off my finger and disappeared into the snow.  My mother saw it happen and marked the spot visually where she thought it had landed, then pulled up the car to park.  We both got out and went to the spot where it surely was.  It was not.  The ring had apparently flown into a black hole, or slipped into another dimension, because despite a lengthy search on our part, and other students who stopped to help, the ring was not recovered  Once again, I was heartbroken.  This time I did not have to suffer quite as long.

About three months later, and shortly before graduation, I and some other friends decided to make a nostalgia tour of the Jr. High school we had attended, and visit with as many of our teachers as we could find.  It was not my favorite school, by a long shot, but there were a couple of teachers that I remembered fondly.  One of them was Miss Broderick, our gym teacher.  She happened to be in her office when we dropped by, and we were delighted to find that she recognized all of us, and remembered each of our names.  While talking with her, I took a look around the room and saw a glass jar sitting near the corner of the desk.  It was filled with all sorts of bits and pieces of a variety of things, and I asked her what it was.  She said it was her "Lost and Found" jar, and the items were things she had found lying around in the gym or locker rooms that she felt might be of some value, so she kept them in case anyone came looking.  Just then, I noticed at the very bottom of the jar some yellow gold glinting in the light and saw that there was also some blue enamel on parts of it.  It did not resemble a ring, however, because it was almost completely flattened, but I knew immediately that it was my ring - the original.

My jaw dropped, then I shouted out, "MY RING!, MY RING!!"  Miss Broderick saw the look on my face and immediately dumped the items onto her desk, and I retrieved my precious piece of jewelry. I could barely contain myself.  I convinced my group to leave right away, because I could hardly wait to get home and show my parents. In its crushed state, it looked in pretty bad shape, but I just knew that it could be repaired.  Gold is very durable; however, the blue enamel was pretty much a lost cause.  When my Dad saw the ring that evening, he too was delighted, and he took it with him the next day to a local jeweler in hopes of having it reshaped and re-enameled. The jeweler was able to get it back into shape, but he did not have the means to have it re-enameled.  After consulting with me, Dad asked him if he could remove what was left of the enamel without damaging the ring any further.  The jeweler felt he could, and did just that.  The following week, that wonderful gift was back on my finger.

It is still there.  During an extended period of illness I was forced to remove it, so for about a year or two in the past 25 or so, the ring was safely tucked away in my jewelry box, awaiting the time when I could wear it again.  I have worn it ever since.  When my weight fluctuated and it became either too tight or too loose, I put the ring on a gold chain that my husband gave me, and wore it constantly around my neck, until the day came when I could put it back on my hand.

My Daddy died almost 20 years ago.  Every day I feel him with me, and I have only to look at my hand, and see that ring - the first one I had ever worn - and my Dad's handsome, smiling face, and his blue eyes appear before my mind's eye. I was so blessed to have this amazing man as my father.  The material gifts he gave me were all wonderful, and while both the book and the ring serve as beautiful butterfly memories, the gift of his presence, his love, his commitment to and confidence in me - his Fatherhood - are a part of the very fabric of my being, and they are the true treasures, and they will never be lost.

I wish you all enough...

The Book and The Ring - Part 1

( Max Bowers Tohline, 1914-1991, @1987, working at his lathe, photo by John B. Tohline)

I have written a lot about my Mom in the blog, but not so much about my Dad.  This does not mean that my Dad has not had a profound influence on my life, just the opposite!  But it does have to do with how inadequate I feel in representing him through the written word.  My Mom's personality jumped out at you and just gushed from her pores.  She was extraordinary and a unique, gifted woman, and someone I am glad I had the opportunity to learn from throughout her 85 years - and that includes the final ten years that she battled Alzheimer's disease.

My Dad was also a truly unique and extraordinary man.  His life, however, was much more a mystery to me than my Mom's.  I grew up knowing only one grandparent on each side.  My mother's father died before any of her children were born, and my father's mother died before my parents were married.  Mom's mother, my Grandma Brock, I knew intimately, and loved her dearly.  She was filled with stories, and I came to know about my mother's upbringing through those wonderful tales. She lived with us for a significant period during my "growing up" years, and died shortly before I graduated from high school.

My Dad's father was more of an enigma.  We saw him rarely, as he lived several states away from us, but what I remember of him, I loved very much.  He was a quiet, skilled, and I think a rather lonely man.  He remarried shortly after my grandmother died, and his second wife, whom we called "Granny," was very dear, but again, not altogether communicative, though I stress that neither she nor my "G-Daddy" were at all hostile - in fact they were very kind and gentle, though distant people.  Since I know so little about my Dad's parents and about his upbringing, I believe that is why so much of Daddy's life remains a mystery, despite the few stories he told and wrote out for us.  The primary (and most important) thing I do know is that he loved me, and all of us, very much.

My Dad and my two brothers "spoiled me rotten!"  I was the youngest of three children, and the only girl, and if you were to look for a definition of "Daddy's Little Girl" in a dictionary, you would find my picture there as an illustration. Daddy was six and one-half feet tall and strikingly handsome, as well as extremely intelligent and gifted artistically.  I was a sucker for him and vice-versa!  His relationship with my brothers was quite different than mine - naturally - but that is a story they will have to tell.  I wanted to please my Dad and tried to live up to his high estimation (not expectation) of me.  He helped me to believe that I could do anything, and any sense of self-confidence I have today is firmly rooted in the relationship I had with him.

I learned early on that my Dad did not respond well to hidden or subliminal cues from his children (or perhaps even his wife). He lived a very up-front life, and spoke directly to the point, and with very precise (as I have said in previous posts) vocabulary.  If he needed or wanted something, he asked for it, and he expected us to do the same - he didn't ever want to have to guess, intuit, or discern those things from our behavior. That particular character trait was not in his skill-set.  As I learned this about Dad, I also discovered something else:  he was willing to give me anything I asked for (and often did), but with one proviso:  it had to be something that interested him as well, and I learned to tailor many of my interests to fit his own.  So many of the books I read - right into adulthood - were books he got for me, because I had "casually mentioned" to him  my interest in a particular author or subject.  He always wanted to fuel my education, and increasing his own knowledge - in a variety of subjects - was important to him as well.  Our interests frequently meshed, and our mutual interests profited me greatly - both through his material gifts and more importantly his time.

When I was in high school, the movie version of  Boris Pasternak's novel, "Dr. Zhivago," was released.  This sweeping epic tale, beautifully filmed, starring beautiful people, was a very big hit.  I, along with most teenage girls, fell in love with the movie, its stars, and the story.  Since I loved to read, I decided that I wanted to read the original, and other books by Pasternak.  Because of that movie, I developed a keen interest in the great Russian novels/novelists, and wanted to read all that I could.  My Dad commuted by train to his job in New York City each day.  One morning before he left for work, I asked him if he could possibly find, if he had time, a copy of the book "Dr. Zhivago" for me, as I wanted to read it.  He took an early train (6:50 a.m.) most mornings because he liked to get the bulk of his paperwork done before most of the other employees arrived.  That also gave him the opportunity to take an earlier train home (4:40 p.m.), and avoid the train station crush that often occurred after 5 p.m.  This particular morning was very rainy and stormy - not really even nice weather for ducks, as it was too windy.  Dad did not get home at the usual time that evening - around 6:00, and two more trains brought commuters home before my Dad got home.  He walked into the front door and looked rather bedraggled and damp, but he had in his hands a brown paper bag, which he gave to me upon his arrival.  Inside the bag was a paperback copy of Dr. Zhivago.  It turns out that Dad did not have the time during lunch hour to browse area bookstores in search of the book, so he left work a little earlier than usual in order to find a copy to bring to me.  He spent a couple of hours in the pouring rain going from store to store until he found a copy of that book (and I still have it - some 43 years later).  I grinned up at him and thanked him profusely before I even knew the whole story of his search.  He brushed off my thanks, but he was obviously pleased at my own pleasure.  Like I said, I was spoiled rotten - and it is a tradition that my brothers both continue to this day.  (My husband is equally good at it!) 


To be continued, next post.
Until then, Gentle Readers, enough...

The Genius of Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash has been on my mind a lot in recent days.  Not sure why, but because he and his writings have been so present in my mind of late, I thought today I would share some of his insight and his humor with you all.

My Dad enjoyed Nash, and would often quote him at appropriate times. One of the first recitations I ever performed for a school class was a poem by Nash called "The Tale of Custard the Dragon." that my Dad used to read to me. Looking back on it, this poem - all 14 stanzas of it - was quite an undertaking for a 9-year-old to memorize, but I loved it, and find that I can still recite much of it to this very day.  Nash wrote for children - much of it nonsensical verse - as well as for adults, often including equally nonsensical words.

He is famous for his inventive vocabulary - made up to humorously and many times ironically rhyme where needed. Nash loved to rhyme.  "I think in terms of rhyme, and have since I was six years old," he stated in a 1958 interview.  He had a fondness for crafting his own words whenever rhyming words did not exist, though admitting that crafting rhymes was not always the easiest task."   Nash said of his poetry, "My verse represents a handle I can grasp in order not to yield to the centrifugal forces which are trying to throw me off the world."

He had an uncanny ability to comment on the ordinary events and objects of life and in so doing became very popular, not only with the rather elite readership of magazines such as  "The New Yorker,"( the editorial staff of which he joined in 1932, and remained with for many years,) but also with the "man - or woman - on the street."  Most people today have heard or know some of his rhymes without knowing perhaps their authorship:  "Candy is dandy/But liquor is quicker," or "The Lord in His wisdom made the fly/And then forgot to tell us why." 

So, Gentle Reader, for your amusement, I include some of my favorite quips, clips, and rhymes by the inimitable Frederick Ogden Nash.

“There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, And that is to have either a clear
conscience, or none at all.”

“The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up
our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.”

“The trouble with a kitten is that-
eventually, it becomes a cat.”

“Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave, when they think their children are naïve.”

“Candy/ Is dandy, But liquor/ Is quicker”

“The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other, milk”

“Here is a pen and here is a pencil, here's a typewriter, here's a stencil, here's a list of today's
appointments, and all the flies in all the ointments, the daily woes that a man endures -- take them, George, they're yours!”

“The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks Which practically conceal its sex. I think it clever of the turtle In
such a fix to be so fertile.”

“Sleep is perverse as human nature, Sleep is perverse as a legislature, Sleep is as forward as hives or
goiters, And where it is least desired, it loiters.”

“Some tortures are physical and some are mental, but the one that's both is dental.”

“I do not like to get the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so
right for so many of the wrong persons.”

“The Pig, if I am not mistaken, Gives us ham and pork and Bacon. Let others think his heart is big, I
think it stupid of the Pig.”

 “Middle age ends and senescence begins, The day your descendants outnumber your friends”

“Hark to the whimper of the seagull. / He weeps because he's not an ea-gull. / Suppose you were, you
silly seagull. / Could you explain it to your she-gull?”

“I prefer to forget both pairs of glasses and pass my declining years saluting strange women and
grandfather clocks.”

“Tell me, O Octopus, I begs,/ Is those things arms, or is they legs?/ I marvel at thee, Octopus; If I were
thou, I'd call me Us.”

“The camel has a single hump;/ The dromedary, two;/ Or else the other way around./ I'm never sure.
Are you?”

“In real life, it takes only one to make a quarrel.”

“You can take it as understood that your luck changes only if it's good

The Termite
Some primal termite knocked on wood
And tasted it, and found it good!
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.

The Wasp
The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamity.
He throws open his nest with prodigality,
But I distrust his waspitality.

Lines on Facing Forty
I have a bone to pick with fate,
Come here and tell me girly,
Do you think my mind is maturing late,
Or simply rotting early.

Crossing the Border
Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendents
Outnumber your friends.

The Panther
The panther is like a leopard,
Except it hasn't been peppered.
Should you behold a panther crouch,
Prepare to say Ouch.
Better yet, if called by a panther,
Don't anther.

The Lama
The one-l lama,
He's a priest;
The two-l llama,
He's a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn't any
Three-l lllama

The Eel
I don't mind eels
Except as meals.
And the way they feels.

What's the Use?
Sure, deck your limbs in pants;
Yours are the limbs, my sweeting.
You look divine as you advance --
Have you seen yourself retreating?

A Word to Husbands
To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up.

A child need not be very clever
To learn that "Later, dear" means "Never."


So, I leave you for today, Gentle Reader,  with a smile, a few laughs, and praying for you all, enough...