patterns of ink

Here's to my daughters and their mother!

2012-01-09T22:27:00.009-05:00

About once a week I ride to school with my youngest daughter. It's always interesting. Sometimes we talk about things. Other times she communicates through music. This morning she plugged her Ipod into the radio and played a song I've never heard of by some songwriters I never heard of. She didn't say a word, but I knew it was not a random selection. It was as if she wanted to introduce me to a friend she had already met who had something I needed to hear. I asked her who it was, and she said, "Us and Our Daughters."

Without knowing anything else about the couple singing this duet, as a father of three girls, I could relate to the name they had chosen for themselves, and the words of this raw "under-produced" track began to sink in. The couple sounds tired--a good kind of tired. The kind of tired that comes after years of making ends meet but forgetting the beginnings. The kind of tired that puts a head on a shoulder with a deep breath and "I love you" veiled in a sigh. See if you hear it, too. My daughter has no idea that the song she played on the way to school has been on my mind all day.

There is honesty in these tired voices and in the written words on their webpage. Imagine a couple, thirty-something, with two little girls at home, and having gone through what their home-page says "Last year was a harder year for us and our love but we walked through it..." Like I said, I could relate. And hearing the song again on-line tonight reminded me of a short verse I wrote for Julie fourteen years ago on the eighteenth anniversary of our engagement:

"If time could somehow be reversed

to change what might have been,

I'd choose the life that we've rehearsed

and do it all again..."

Remember when we were young?
Our hearts they would beat like a drum,
like a freight train runnin’ on a Mississippi track,
but faster like that…
Remember when we felt free?
Free to be anything?
Time was on our side and everything was fine.
The day was ours and the night.
How do you and me keep this burnin’
when the whole world has gone crazy?
How do you and I keep the spark alive
Well, I’ve been thinking lately...

We should sail away to some distant place
Forget each others names and faces
Fall in love all over again
Tell me we can get back to…remember when.

Remember when she first cried?
We joined along that night.
The tears were runnin’ down our tired faces
To the sound of God’s grace…
Remember when you held me close
The wind it was spinnin’ round us
I couldn’t tell the difference between the sky and sea
lost in each other, just you and me.
How do you and me keep this burnin’
when the whole world has gone crazy?
How do you and I keep the spark alive?
Well, I’ve been thinking lately.

We should sail away to some distant place…
Forget each others names and faces…
Fall in love all over again…
Tell me we can get back to…remember when…
…remember when…
…We should sail away to some distant place
Forget each others names and faces
Fall in love all over again
Tell me we can get back to…
remember when…remember when…

Lyrics by: Phillip & Lia LaRue
Performing Name: Us and Our Daughters
Album: Songs about Us / “Remember When”

Happy New Year! 2012

2012-01-01T00:01:00.022-05:00

It was the Year

Then came the dawn
of changing times
of shifting winds and paradigms
when all but gone
was memory
of how we lived and used to be.

It was the year
that some foretold
on scribbled stone in days of old
“Sit now and fear.
For all your days
will fade in this galactic haze.”

It was the year
that others told
to those in other days of old:
“Sit now in fear
and trembling still.
Work out your faith as is His will.

"For it is not
the task of man
to set or see the sovereign plan
nor then to plot,
according to
the flesh, what he in turn will do.

Mayan calendar in stone

"‘Tis all, alas!
what’s meant to be
and though it seems a tragedy,
This, too, shall pass,
and in the end,
bring hope as sun and moon descend.”

Then came the dawn
of changing times
of shifting winds and paradigms
when all but gone
was any fear
of what might happen in that year.
© Copyright 2012 Tom Kapanka
Here are the same words (in prose-like form) with links to some of the reasons for inclusion.
Then came the dawn of changing times of shifting winds and paradigms when all but gone was memory of how we lived and used to be.It was the year that some foretold on scribbled stone in days of old: “Sit now and fear. For all your days will fade in this galactic haze.”It was the year that others told to those in other days of old: “Sit now in fear and trembling still. Work out your faith as is His will. For it is not the task of man to set or see the sovereign plan nor then to plot, according to the flesh, what he in turn will do. ‘Tis all, alas! what’s meant to be, and though it seems a tragedy, This, too, shall pass, and in the end, bring hope as sun and moon descend.” Then came the dawn of changing times of shifting winds and paradigms when all but gone was any fear of what might happen in that year.

In case you didn't know it, the year of our Lord 2012, according to some mystics, is going to change (or end) our lives. Spend some time reading this Wikipedia article and you'll get the general idea. It opens by saying, "... Many contemporary fictional references to the year 2012 refer to December 21 as the day of a cataclysmic event…” That article loses by citing many cultural references to this phenomenon, including this note for tourists:

"In 2011, the Mexico tourism board stated its intentions to use the year 2012, without its apocalyptic connotations, as a means to revive Mexico's tourism industry.... The initiative hopes to draw on the mystical appeal of the Mayan ruins. On December 21, 2011, the Mayan town of Tapachula in Chiapas activated an eight-foot digital clock counting down the days until b'ak'tun 13 [December 22, 2012]."

Mind you, Patterns of Ink does not ascribe to any "Dooms Day" prophecies that set dates. This post is provided to assist readers in conversations that are likely to come up this year.

The lines above were more of an exercise in meter and rhyme. I have used medial rhyme before "Summer Road." And I have used alternating eight-count and four-count lines in "My Father's Hands." But I have never forced myself to lock into the 4-8 count, medial rhyme while including a pattern of first-word line rhymes (1st and 4th lines of each stanza) nor do I recommend this idea.

Meter and rhyme are simply tools of poetry among many other tools, and when they play too prominent a role, the words can sound contrived. This exercise in writing was not a disaster, but I think you can see why it don't often let form become so demanding. In my opinion, the challenge of writing and reading metered verse with a strict rhyme scheme is making it sound as conversational as possible. To whatever extent one can resist sing-songy "Roses are Red" rhythms, even a rigid piece like "2012"may have some merit given the historical context that prompted it.Here is a word from a NASA expert to calm any concerns that this post may have inadvertently raised.
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Since 2007, this NASA public outreach website, has received over 5000 questions from the public on the subject of 2012 being the end of life as we know it. While this year is likely to bring significant change to life as we know it, I believe it is the beginning (and not the end) of some very interesting paradigms. It is a wondrous year to stretch our faith as is His will... "For it is not the task of man to set or see the sovereign plan."

The Miracle of NOW... Merry Christmas 2011!

2011-12-25T09:00:00.008-05:00

In December of 1962, I was in the first grade at Huron Park Grammar School in Roseville, Michigan. Between our house and the school was a six-block maze of nearly identical three-bedroom homes that sprouted up fifteen years before to accommodate the coming Baby Boom. It was the accessories that made the sturdy little houses distinguishable--shrubbery (there was not enough yard to call it landscaping) the painted trim and shudders, an awning over the concrete porch, the family car in the driveway, and of course, the address beside the front door. Ours was 18140 Buckhannon.

A decade and a half before, as the developers built the brick homes after the war, they also planted an elm tree in the center of each yard between the street and the sidewalk. Only the homes with a fire hydrant in that spot did not have a tree in that spot. Had they been oak trees or some other hardwood, they would have still looked like saplings after fifteen years, but these were elms, fast-growing shade trees chosen for that very purpose so that while the houses still looked somewhat new the neighborhood itself looked settled in the rhythm of the seasons.

The elms kept sentinel watch along the streets all summer long as bikes and wagons and strollers passed beneath. By late September their shade gave way to falling amber leaves. And by winter, the street-side trees stood nearly forgotten, invisible above with dark trunks spotted white from snowballs that we threw on our way to school anc\d home again.

Each morning, after oatmeal bowls were stacked in sinks and ,one by one, the family cars took fathers off to work, kids of all ages came bounding out the front doors to the shoveled sidewalks, heading east in sibling pairs and groups of friends that grew and split like cells the closer we got to Huron Park. My sister Kathy and her friends wore matching things and stylish boots. My brothers and I were bundled up as if for play in motley scarves and mitts and stocking caps. We clumped down the walk in black boots--the kind worn over shoes passed down from child to child through families so that typically the oldest boy’s looked new. They had bend-over tongue and slot buckles that would get so encrusted with ice and snow we had to kick at each others’ ankles at the back door to chisel the buckles free.

I being the youngest had the boots already worn and worn out by Paul and Dave. There were patches on them. It’s true. The year’s of sledding and kick ice from the buckles had taken their toll, and Dad had mended rips here and there with the same rubber patches he used on inner tubes. The tongues of nearly all the bend-over buckles were broken off years before so that now we tied them tight with tourniquet shoelaces. I thought nothing of the my raggedy boots because even when new (and I don't recall ever seeing a pair as new as this picture), there is nothing frumpier looking than black overshoes bought one-size too big for growing into, which was always how our mother bought things. What mattered was my boots kept my feet dry, and the patches made my boots easy to find before recess.

And so it was, in ways I didn‘t notice at the time, I learned the art of family life, of getting by and making do and feeling fed and dry and warm as each day passed around us.

I lived in that neighborhood with the elm-shaded streets from kindergarten to college. What happened at school I don’t much recall.

It is family not school that brings meaning to life. In its most important role, school simply provides a time and place where the rest of life soaks in. I’m sure I learned whatever teachers taught in much the same way pancakes absorb syrup.

**************

The above paragraphs were written to open a longer collection of memories and stories I've been writing through the years. Maybe I'll put it all together someday, and if so, I'll try to use the elms as a theme of sorts, perhaps with a title like "When Elm Trees Line Our Way" or some such thought. Because as it turned out, the three decades of those elm trees was truly a remarkable time and chronologically coincides with the Baby Boom. As most boomers who grew up in those Michigan suburbs can tell you the elm trees did not survive the 1970’s. They called it Dutch Elm Disease and it made our neighborhood turn from this … to this. (These are not pictures of our street, but the change was just as dramatic.)

I chose to begin these thoughts in 1962, because that is exactly 50 years ago, a half century. President John F. Kennedy was completing his first year in office. Just two months before that Christmas season, something called “The Cuban Missile Crisis,” but I remember nothing of it from the time. I was in first grade, and knew little of what went on beyond the tightly-woven streets between my house and Huron Park.

We watched TV of course, but I never paid attention to the news. (The first "news event" I recall watching on TV would happen in November of 1963, but I'll get to that in later chapters.) Think about this when you think about the elms, and the Boomers, and coming of age of telelvision. When the elm trees were planted, the number of TVs in homes in the United states was less than one million (circa 1949). Twenty years later, there were 44 million U.S. homes with TV sets, and today there or 115 million homes with TVs--and the average American home has more televisions than occupants. And this does not factor in the multiple other electronic devices now available to families.

I mention these statistics only to give some context to the following television event from 1962. That year on NBC, the very first animated Christmas special was aired. It was called Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.

I highly recommend watching all of the parts to this classic on Youtube, but for now simply imagine a family of six sitting in front of the one TV in their house. The television itself is about ten years old. The special was broadcast "in color" but it would be another decade before our family had a color TV. We were content to watch this and all the other Christmas specials of the Sixties in black-and-white. May the message of this scene and song bring meaning to your home this Christmas season.

If time is factor, begin at the 4:30 mark for the segue to the song.

Mother: And how did Tiny Tim behave?

Father: As good as gold, Mother. He told me coming home that he hoped the people saw in church because he was a cripple and it might be pleasant to let them remember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see…

And here are the words to the song that begins around the 4:30 mark:

We’ll have the Lord’s bright blessing
in knowing we’re together,
Knowing we’re together heart and hand
We’ll make the whitest Christmas--
the lightest brightest Christmas
A Christmas far more glorious than grand.

We cant afford to have a hen
We will someday I vow
So I suggest you dream of then
And prize what we have now.

We can’t afford to have a tree
We will someday I vow
Start smiling and enjoy with me
The miracle of … now.

I Miss the Times...

2011-11-14T17:14:00.001-05:00

Two months without a post may be a record for me since I began Patterns of Ink in 2004. It is partly because, I have been doing some writing of a different nature on weekends, and partly because of other reasons, but know this...

I miss the times when I could sit in a recliner blogging away with the background noise of my family around me, each doing different things together. Homework, talkin' on the phone, watching TV, throwing a frozen pizza in the oven, chatterin' on about what to where to school the next day. (It may be different in your house, but Julie and I raised three girls.) It's a wonderful thing when life feels like a pair of worn-out slippers--so comfortable you almost forget they're there. At the peak of my blogging years, that is what our house was like.

It's quieter now.

Nataie keeps up hopping. She just finished her volleyball season and basketball practice has already begun. Nora comes over a couple nights a weeks and we love that. Kim and Nate are doing fine in Chicago and looking forward to coming home for Thanksgiving. But mostly I am very busy with school-related work right now. It's good work--there's nothing else I feel more called to do!

Last Monday, I was asked to share some closing remarks for our National Honor Society Induction Ceremony. I knew it was going to be a very busy day and a Board Meeting came right on the heels of the NHS event, so I put the remarks in "videoverse" just in case I had to step out before my part of the program.

Since these "Two Words" have been at the top of my blog for over two months. I thought I'd post the video here.

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Two Words Were Tumbling in My Head.

2011-09-18T00:51:00.009-05:00

I have not written here for quite some time. I am sorry about that.

I woke in the night and was sorting through the archives of Patterns of Ink in search of something else when I found this "saved draft" of a piece I wrote in April of 2008 but did not post. I had originally written it in prose then tried to see if "blank verse" would add impact to the words.

I once heard poetry defined as "words that don't go all the way across the page." In that sense, some might call this "piece" is a poem. I guess it doesn't matter. All I know is, just now, reading it for what felt like the first time (having forgotten that I'd written it) the words hit me between the eyes. Perhaps that is a suitable definition of poetry: "words that hit you between the eyes." At any rate, here is a poem or a piece or just some "tumbling words" that were in my head three years ago and have been aging in the cellar 'til now.

Two Words

Two words are tumbling in my head.
I've had them there before,
and no doubt so have you.

These two words often mean no harm.
They simply go off like an alarm
in our head when we realize
that whatever was said
or caused the fret isn't worth the worry.
We use them to console ourselves
that what spilled was only milk,
that there are other fish in the sea,
that the grapes were probably sour,
and no matter what we do or where we go,
this may be as green as the grass gets.

I've said these words that way before,
and no doubt so have you.

The eight letters of these two words
can be strung together and spoken in love,
or passed from hand to hand
like fallen pearls from a necklace
with the promise that most things mend.
They can be whispered in a sigh to soothe
like a mother’s voice that lulls “There-oh-there”
to the sad and sleepy head upon her lap.
They can reassure as does a father's hand
upon the trembling shoulder
as if to say, "Never mind what they say."
They can prompt the deep breath
that comes when love helps us
remember what matters most.

I've said these words that way before,
and no doubt so have you.

But these same two words
can slap our senses,
burst our bubble,
and leave our sails slack
with no hope of a breeze.
They sometimes come from nowhere,
hurled in the lake of life like a boulder
just as the smooth skipping-stone
we saved for last leaves our hand.
They can sprout up
from failure and success alike
but seem ever rooted in the same futility.
They can cripple us with the doubt
and indifference of false isolation until,
looking so deeply within ourselves,
we're left without a prayer.
Worse yet, they can leave us wondering
if in the end anything matters at all.

I've said these words that way before,
and no doubt so have you.

These two words echo 'round the world,
and if followed for long they lead to a corner,
the conclusion that life is all about achieving—
that when all is said and done,
only what's said about what is done
gives life meaning.

That's not true, but repeated enough,
these words can belittle into oblivion
any moment, any deed, any person
that for lack of note goes unnoticed
or left uncounted is esteemed of no account.

In this latter sense,
these two words rest juxtaposed
between the heart and head.
The more loudly we exclaim them
the more likely our voice cracks
and our shell gives way
to show a longing for the answer.
The question matters more than we let on.
It implies that we were created not to live in

isolation

but communion
and that in the fullness of time and life

our greatest sense of achievement
rests not in ownership, not in leadership...
but in RELATIONSHIP.

Our lives offend God least,
reflect Christ most,
and serve our neighbor best
when they answer the empty echo of this plea:

Who cares?'
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Hope Without the "S"

2011-08-12T09:59:00.013-05:00

Five years ago in July, I posted this poem that I wrote for my brother Jim and his wife in 2003 when they were waiting to hear some good news. This past Sunday, Jim and I were in a unique situation on a river, which I will write about later, but I wanted to post this as a thank you to him for helping me reach a goal.

The gist of the lines is that hopes with the "s" are more or less wishes, dreams, goals, and aspirations (as expressed in Sinatra's children's song, "High Hopes"). I like that song; it makes me smile; but it speaks of a different sort of hope than is expressed in praise songs like this, because hope without the "s" transcends what we aspire to on earth and it inspires us to focus on things beyond. One kind of hope brings happiness...the other joy.
.
Hope
.
Hopes have a secret parlor
just big enough for two
with a loveseat near a reading lamp
and a window with a view.
.
.

Hope_ is a high cathedral
where we sometimes sit alone
in the silence of the stained glass
and the certainty of stone.

Hopes and dreams that happen
are the stuff of happiness
but more enduring is the Joy
of Hope… without the “s.”
© Copyright 2003, Patterns of Ink

“…and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings,
because we know that suffering produces perseverance;
perseverance, character; and character, hope.
And hope does not disappoint us…” Romans 5:1-5

To Jim and Heather, 2003

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2011-07-23T00:44:00.009-05:00

"The Little Boy"
A Story of Childhood Creativity

Twenty years ago, long before digital cameras and Youtube, a friend of mine in Iowa gave me a copy of simple but powerful piece by Helen Buckley called “The Little Boy.”

It had been published in School Arts Magazine in October 1961, the year I entered kindergarten, but that was thirty years before and even while earning my teaching degree, I had never come across the piece until Kirk gave it to me. A year later, Kirk's wife Joan was taking a college class on teaching methods and asked if I would help her film a dramatization of Buckley’s simple story. She had no video equipment, no editing equipment, etc. but she was willing to line up the cast of characters if I would help her shoot, edit, and narrate the film. My daughter Emily (age six at the time, now 26) was in the cast, so how could I refuse?

Joan got an “A” on the project, and the professor used the video in that class for many years--not because my video work was particularly good... but because the lesson is something all teachers should be required to learn early in their careers.

A few days ago, I found the old VHS videotape, and I must say the words hit me as hard as the first time I read them. I’m posting it in hopes of helping teachers remember the essence of childhood, creativity, and the power of a blank slate.

Most of the children in this short film are now grown with children of their own. I hope they remember the time we spent together making this film, and more importantly...I hope they remember the story as they watch the imaginations and creativity of their children blossom naturally...like a flower.

It's on summer days I'm most aware of what children are at risk to lose when life is too structured, too dictated from above (or worse yet, for today's youth...played out on a video screen). Three years ago I wrote the following and posted it here at POI.

There Was A Time

There was a time--
was there a time, O my!--
when days dawned blank
and yawning to the sky
we flung the sheets
and sprung from beds
pulled the blankets "made"
and pushed our waking heads
through wadded shirts
yanked off the night before
did up our trousers
running out the door
and leapt barefoot, impetuous,
from porch shade to the sun
arms outstretched
to wrap around another day begun.
© Copyright ,2008, Tom Kapanka, Patterns of Ink

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Gone Astray

2011-07-09T22:57:00.026-05:00

Through woods and weeds and winding roads
we spent the midnight hours
searching all the likely paths
and whistling in the dark
the three familiar chirps
that brought him to our side
for thirteen years.
Called his name but not so loud
the quiet windows heard.
Gravel crunching, tires roll,
flashlights beaming to and fro
as if some prison break occurred.
But in the glair the only signs of life
were the startled glowing eyes
of a cat or coon or ‘possum
traipsing in the night.

By one o'clock, a dreaded thought
broke like an egg in my mind...
For cats and coons and 'possum
too often find their fate
on whining roads by morning light,
and inside dogs who've lost their way
fare even worse it seems.

All this I know too well.
For once before, quite long ago,
I cared... and carried home
a little dog who looked
as if he lie asleep
along the curb,
and such a task can make
a grown man weep
in the corner of a shed
where the shovel leans.

This time, my wife stayed up ‘til four--
calling at the door each time she passed,
and I slept at an open window screen
listening through the night.

At sunrise, I searched again
through woods and weeds--
but especially along the winding roads.
Nothing.

But then at nine from nowhere
he came hobbling to our porch,
eyes begging for an open door,
trembling legs, whimpering sighs,
his white coat--cut and groomed
just five days before--
was muddy and laced in burrs.
Warm soapy water in a tub,
staring eyes, caring hands,
rinsed and patted dry
with whispered soothing scolds
for giving such a fright,
he curled in a blanket on the couch,
and slept from noon to night.

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Isaiah 53:6 "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

The first picture I took today. The second is from Christmas 2009 and what I used on the Craigslist "Lost and Found" item I posted before going to bed.

Campfires, Kayaks, and Candids

2011-06-27T16:41:00.016-05:00

This weekend we went camping up on the White River with friends. Between the campfires and a couple kayak runs down the river, I put together some candid footage from the morning of Kim's wedding. My brother Dave shot the actual wedding video, but he had to work that Friday and asked if I could gather some candids during the hours he was in route. Being preoccupied during the pre-wedding hours helped keep my mind busy and less prone to the weight of symbols and sentiment around me.

The last time we were all there at that church was for Emily's wedding. Kim's Grandma Kapanka (my mom) was there, too. This time her dress was there. Kim had it remade for her special day.

Gathering the moods and dialogue from behind a camera reminded me of my old Heritage Video days, a business I had many years ago. The main difference between that "analog" era and the digital age is that I could not have done this editing in a couple hours at a campground on a laptop in the old days. I was glad to see Dave arrive (which happened right at the end of these shots).

At 1:30 minute mark, Kim asks me to "floss" her necklace. By that she meant for me to take a a few fibers pulled from a piece of dental floss and tie her necklace so it would be two inches shorter than the clasp-length--an old trick we did when she was a little girl. It was harder than it used to be--the eyes aren't what they used to be--but I finally got it tied.

It had rained the morning of the wedding so Kim had to lift the train of the satin gown everytime she went outside.

[The background song is called "Madonna Lullaby" by Danny Wright (1995).]
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Two Weeks Ago Today...

2011-06-24T00:01:00.009-05:00

Two weeks ago today was Kim and Nate's wedding. The days since then have been filled with all the things that were put on hold in the weeks before the wedding, but I did say I would post some pictures so here are some informal shots.

As Kim was getting ready to leave for the church, she called out for one last "Dad can you fix this" moment. The pearl necklace was about two inches too long, and she needed me to "reduce" it by tying the back with...what else... a fine stran of dental floss. I had done that for her with one of her first necklaces many years ago. Worked great and no one even noticed.

These are not the "real" wedding pictures. All but the first one were taken by Natalie. This first picture at the top tells the story of Kim's wedding dress. She shopped and shopped all over West Michigan for months and just didn't find the "right" dress. Then several months ago, her Aunt Kathy showed her my mother's wedding dress, worn sixty years ago in February 1951.

It had been kept neatly folded in a cedar chest up in Mom's attic all those years. Kim tried it on, saw the train, touched the satin, and felt the significance of the fact that it fit so well. With the family's blessing, she removed the sleeves and added some other details for a look more suited to June.

The last time we were in that very church just four years ago for Emily's wedding, mom was there, and I must admit that seeing Kim in her dress as the day unfolded was a gift from Kim to the entire family. When you see the video (and I'll try to post clips here in the weeks ahead), you'll see what a truly joyous and laughter-filled event it was from beginning to end.

Nate and Kim exited from the church in a blizzard of bubbles, blown by the guests on both sides, and then stepped in to a classic Jaguar provided by some friends.

The reception was in an outdoor tent at Oak Ridge Golf Course a short drive from the church.

I saw Natalie taking this last picture at the reception. She really has an eye for interesting shots.

I may post more photos or some video clips when they become available. Last weekend, we went to Chicago to deliver wedding presents. It was great to see the newlyweds in their northside flat. A big thank you to all who made this a beautiful day and who helped "feather the nest" they are now enjoying.
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Glimspe

2011-06-19T07:32:00.011-05:00

Sometimes…

I sense what really is

and what I see is not.

It happens only rarely,

barely now and then,
a fleeting sort of fumbling
feeling like stumbling
on the shadow of a cloud.

Then looking up

as all around me blurs

I catch a truer glimpse

of unseen things--

not with my eyes
but something
faint and far away
that’s looking down
on time.
© Copyright Tom Kapanka June 19, 2011

Yesterday, I was packing wedding presents in the back of our Durango to take to the newlyweds in Chicago when a strange feeling came over me and these lines came to mind. (They are rooted loosely in James 4:14, which reminds us that life is vapor. What could be more fleeting than that? Perhaps, the shadow of a vapor. While I often sense how quickly life passes, I don't often sense the faint unearthly feeling I "stumbled" on as I packed the car.)

In the days ahead, I will post some pictures from the beautiful wedding, but for now, Julie and I are celebrating Father's Day with Kim and Nate. We are also celebrating Kim's and Natalie's birthday. (Yes, they were both born on June 19th.) Nat is in Kansas, getting ready to attend and work at Peniel Camp, but she and I skyped early this morning before church--it was fun. We're going to connect again tonight during a party they're throwing for her there.
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Together Again...

2011-06-08T22:28:00.022-05:00

This has been an eventful year in many ways, and yet I have blogged far less than any year since I began Patterns of Ink in 2004. I have been writing as much as ever (mostly work-related) but have not had much time for writing of a personal nature, which is the purpose of this little corner of cyberspace.

I did mention a couple weeks back that I would update you on our piano's return to its place against the living room wall. Its absence has become somewhat of a metaphor. This post is about how it feels to have people and things together again, if only for a little while, but first a bit of a rabbit trail may be in order. [I know what you're thinking: "Tom? A rabbit trail? How unusual... Ha Ha]

“Form follows function” is an architecture dictum coined by Louis Sullivan (who was Frank Lloyd Wright's boss for six years). The same principle was later applied to office furniture by companies like Herman Miller, Inc. This understanding of man’s relationship with occupied space resulted in iconic buildings and artistic furnishings inside. But it is important to remember that the concept of “form preceeding function” is a part of creation itself. (I alluded to this in lines 4 and 5 of that poem about my father's hands in the previous post.)

The more form fits function the more natural things are in life. Unfortunately...the more something or someone becomes a natural part of our routine the more likely it is to be taken for granted. That is... until a change occurs, and suddenly that thing or person is not a part of our daily life. It's then we better understand what we once had. This is true of things and family pets, but more true of people in our lives...in the office or the work force, in politics, in friendships, in family ties (e.g. losing a parent or spouse). When the thing or person is gone, their function (the things they did) may be missed immediately, but when the form is missed--the physical presense itself-- the loss becomes more personal. This is the essence of human relationship. [End of "rabbit trail" and back to the piano and more important things...]

The function of the piano was missed mostly by Natalie, but what we learned in the ten weeks of seeing that empty wall was that the form of the piano was also missed.

You see, that piano was purchased (used) by Julie's parents in the early 1960's in Greenville, SC. Julie and her sister played it as children. In 1988, it was given to us so Emily could begin taking piano lessons. (Through the years, each of our three girls took piano, but I think the older two would agree that Natalie not only took but was taken by piano.)

This mahogany console has been in our living room (in three different houses) for over twenty years. When the snow-buried roof leaked on it, replacing the piano was an option (costing twice as much as refinishing), but readers at POI probably know us well enough to know we did not want a new piano. Below are some photos of how crafstmen made a 65-year-old piano look like new again.

The Acrosonic was one of the best selling models made by Baldwin in Chicago in the mid 1940's.

When the roof leaked, the water dripped directly onto the piano, ruining the finish and causing the keys in the lowest scale to stick. The die from the red felt inside seeped through to the carpet below and could not be removed.

Have you ever wondered what the black keys on a piano look like when they are not in the keyboard? Wonder no more.

The white keys were also removed and refinished to look like new.

This is what the piano looked like the day before we left for Senior Trip.

The day after we returned from Senior Trip, we stopped by the refinishing shop to pay the bill the day before it was delivered. Natalie tested it out and was surprised that it was not terribly out of tune.

Two weeks before the wedding (which is June 10), the long-awaited piano came back from the Van's Refinishing Shop in Spring Lake. That same day, Kim came home from Chicago to work on the wedding with Julie.

That night Natalie came home from her soccer game, and gave her sister Kim a hug (she had driven home and had picked up some carryout from Applebee's). Then Nat couldn't help but sit right down at the piano and start plunking away her recital piece. Emily and Nora were over and quite naturally Julie began twirling Nora around in the living room (as they love to do whenever Nat plays).

I'll admit that the video below may seem a bit corny. (I'm still learning a new camera and editing program, and this was good practice.) The moving men didn't even notice me, but later that night, when I picked up the camera again, I was soon discovered and begged to quit. Natalie will not be happy that I posted this--because she's still in her soccer uniform--but it was such a moment that I couldn't resist:

The piano was home (not yet re-tuned but playable); Nat was happy; Kim was happy to be home; Emily was smiling as she watched her daughter in her mother's arms; and Julie was happy to be a grandma. Keith (Em's husband) was working at the church, and Nate (Kim's husband-to-be) was working in Chicago. As I glanced around the room, I realized that I was surrounded by the five most precious ladies in my life. It was great to be together again.

So here is our little piano coming home in a huge truck. (Seriously, this is how the insurance refinishers recommended it be returned.) But more importantly, my family is all together again as we anticipate adding one more member.

That was two weeks ago. This week, my daughter Kim came home again very early Tuesday morning (for the wedding week). Julie's parents got in from Kansas late last night. Nate's parents also arrived yesterday. Nate and half the groomsmen came over tonight for a cookout at the fire pit. Tomorrow the entire bridal party arrives for rehearsal and celebration afterwards... and then Friday is the big day!
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From and Arm's Length...

2011-05-28T19:26:00.015-05:00

I was going to plant tomatoes this morning and do yard work for the "wedding weekend" all day, but it was raining--just enough to postpone those tasks for a few hours. So I spent some time putting together a video that has been simmering on the back burner since 2008.

A few years back, before we sold the family homestead, I took some random video shots of the inside of Dad's barn. We always called it "the barn," but it was really more of a huge tool shed that Dad built the second year we owned the property. The story of how we settled the land and made it our home is told in many chapters beginning here. That first year we cleared parts of the heavily wooded land, and Dad set aside the straightest logs to build the barn, which was finished just before the first snow of '69. That winter, we sometimes spent the night "roughin' it" in the barn as Dad used to call it...just for fun.

The barn (which years later was deemed a work of art by the building inspector) became home to more and more stuff over time. Through the decades, it housed three different tractors, and though at first glance it looks a mess, in many respects (along with Mom's attic) it was the most familiar time capsule of my life for forty years.

When Dad died in '95, we continued using the work space in the barn, but many of the corners and overhead areas and the countless things that hung here and there remained untouched for fifteen years. Barns are like that.

As we anticipated selling the house and property, I knew that this familiar space with its smell of rope and creosote and sawdust and chainsaw oil would soon be a place for someone else to use as they saw fit, so I shot some footage, which remained untouched in my video files for three years. I knew at the time that I wanted to use this Newman piece from The Natural called, "A Father Makes a Difference." It has no lyrics, but its title gives meaning to every measure. The poem is something I wrote, framed, and gave to Dad on Father's Day 1994 (not knowing it would be our last). I first posted the lines six years ago.

Sometimes…
I see my father’s hands in mine—
…not in my clasp
but in the flesh and form and line
…of span and grasp.
It’s not the look that came with age.
…I see that when
my lamp-lit fingers press a page
…or hold a pen.
But when my grip takes on a task
…or holds a tool,
my palms and fingers seem to ask
…if as a rule,
hard work alone gives hands their worth—
…not just their pain.
If so, then sweat must mix with earth
…as well as rain
to dampen new-sown dreams and seep
...into the soil
where hope takes root in things that keep
… and call for toil.

But who am I to talk of such…
…hard work I mean…
I’ve not attempted half as much
…as what I’ve seen,
and what I’ve done is only more
…or less child’s play
(like completing a morning’s chore
…that takes all day).
Occasionally, however,
…I’ve had to rise
to the call of some endeavor
…that otherwise
I’d never do…or even try.
…And when It’s done,
I stretch my arms toward the sky
…and setting sun,
and in the glow I almost see
…my father’s strength—
his hands are there (or seem to be)
…from an arm’s length.
Tom Kapanka
(8/4 count) © Copyright 1994, Patterns of Ink

By the way, I did get the yard work done and the tomatoes planted, but I must admit it was a case of "completing a morning's chore that takes all day."

For more pictures of the barn and its former suroundings, click this link to the November 2008 Archives.
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Natalie's "Clair de Lune" by Debussy

2011-05-23T00:23:00.006-05:00

I mentioned that these are busy weeks--especially busy weekends, one after the other until the wedding. And I told you I’d try to have Natalie’s recital piece posted this week. Well, I’m late by an hour and 23 minutes (as this is technically very early Monday morning).

I had filmed Natalie as she rehearsed the piece an hour before the recital and then I recorded the recital itself, but from where I was seated, I could not see her hands, so I decided to practice with some video-editing software to see if I could blend the actual recital footage with some of the other angles I took during the rehearsal. It’s a little rough, but it’ll do. I have been fond of Debussy’s "Clair de Lune.” since first hearing a friend play it in college.

I wanted to blend a few different camera angles to help capture the various moods of the piece. The trick was synchronizing the finger movement from the various takes to match one track of music. I should probably have just uploaded the recital version itself, which was nearly flawless, but I had to use the take with the most actual footage of hands. I am really not as experienced with this editing software as Nat is with the song itself.

Good job, Natalie! Thank you, Mrs. Strattan, for helping Nat foster a love of music and true joy in keeping company with a piano.

Natalie, I can’t wait to get our piano back from the shop this Friday so I can pull back the lever on the recliner and listen to you play this again. The piano has been out of the house for over two months. I went by the refinishing shop three days ago to see how it was coming. Once I get an adapter for the mini-memory card in my cell phone, I’ll upload some pictures of the refinished but still disassembled Acrosonic below this video clip. In the meantime, enjoy this rendition of “Clair de Lune.”

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Kim and Nate Graduated from College Saturday

2011-05-15T22:35:00.018-05:00

This was Moody's 125th Graduating Class, the largest in the school's history.

Nate and Kim marched together in May 2011. Her sister Emily and her husband Keith marched together in May 2008. And Julie and I marched together back in 1980 (me with my Masters and Julie with her Bachelor's). Kim was basically done with her TESOL degree [Teaching English to Students of Other Languages] in December, when she was hired by an organization called World Relief there in Chicago. She spends her days with adults from all over the world, helping them adjust to life in the United States.

They don't call it the windy city for nothing. When we left West Michigan Friday afternoon, it was in the mid-seventies and all sunshine. I put on some shorts and we hit the road. Julie and I didn't even take jackets. Big mistake! The temperature dropped twenty degrees in three hours. And not long after these pictures were taken, it began to rain. We did have an umbrella in the car, but it didn't do much to keep us warm as we walked the streets of Chicago.

Kim is a pretty spontaneous girl. After taking the second picture above, we ran across the street from the historic Moody church in downtown Chicago where commencement was held, and she says, "Dad, how 'bout takin' a picture of Nate sweeping me off my feet!"

You may remember this couple from their engagement post last August.

The next pictures I post of this couple will likely be from their wedding, which is only twenty-five days away!

Besides this wonderful graduation celebration, the coolest thing about this trip was meeting Nates parents who are missionaries to Guatemala. We had met his mother, Brenda, back in the fall, but met his father, Randy, just Friday night as we were unpacking things from the car. It was fun visiting with them, sharing a few meals together, and getting to know each other better before the wedding. After just a couple days with his folks, I can see why Nate is such a great guy. Looking forward to the big day!

Lot's going on between now and then, though. One big event after another every weekend right up until the wedding on June 10th.

I hope to post a Youtube video from Natalie's piano recital later this week.
Stay tuned....
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Crescent Noon

2011-05-15T09:37:00.001-05:00

When I was fifteen, in ninth grade, my two older brothers, Paul and Dave moved out of the bedroom the three of us had shared for nearly ten years. My little brother Jim and I began sharing a room, and Dave and Paul set up their twin beds at the far end of the basement. There was no room really, just the bend around the corner by the furnace room door with the dart board. Beside the door was the hanging punching bag we boxed through the years until the leather was rough and spotted from bloody knuckles.

In the corner of the "bedroom," my brother Paul had a stereo on a rickety stand that held his growing collection of albums.

In the fall of 1972, all three of my older siblings left for college on the same day. Paul left his collection of albums in that corner of the basement, and though my room was upstairs, I often found myself in that downstairs "bedroom" lying on my back on the bed beside the stereo, listening over and over to Paul's albums. It was in these months that my fondness for Simon and Garfunkel, the Letterman, and the Carpenters grew--all pretty tame and mellow stuff really, but scores of those songs embedded in my mind the interplay of melody and the rhythm of words.

One little-known song that got in my head forty years ago was "Crescent Noon" from the 1970 Close to You album. That melancholy song seemed to summarize the months of that first fall and winter with Dave and Paul and Kathy all being so far away.

Out of nowhere, those haunting words came to my mind yesterday, and hearing them in the clip below took me back to that lonely feeling in a quiet basement in the company of pleasantly-woven words...

Green September
Burned to October brown
Bare November
Led to December's frozen ground
The seasons stumbled round
Our drifting lives are bound
To a falling crescent noon
Feather clouds cry
A vale of tears to earth
Morning breaks and
No one sees the quiet mountain birth
Dressed in a brand new day
The sun is on it's way
To a falling crescent noon
Somewhere in
A fairytale forest lies one
Answer that is waiting to be heard
You and I were
Born like the breaking day
All our seasons
All our green September's burn away
Slowly we'll fade into
A sea of midnight blue
And a falling crescent noon
by Richard Carpenter and John Bettis

The song's simple melody and added harmonies add meaning to the words. The lyrics may seem to lack hope for some listeners in that, on the surface, it simply states...we're born;we live; we die. But in its non-sectarian way it actually speaks of an answer waiting to be heard. Like Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy," I think the answer is to a question about being loved. That song ends with: "The greastest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." That kind of love is what brings meaning and purpose to the passing of time depicted in "Crescent Noon"... being loved--by God and those He brings into our lives.
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"Because I Knew You..."

2011-04-30T22:49:00.016-05:00

Some folks asked me to post the video I made for the banquet last week. Since posting it Sunday, POI has had well nearly 600 hits in six days. Thanks for watching, and sharing the link with friends who may be interested in a great school that has made a difference in thousands of lives since opening in 1980.

On Wednesday, I re-posted the video with a few minor changes and with the help of my friend Greg at T1GTV, we were able to get the whole video into one link. You'll notice a musical theme that recurs at beginning, middle, and end. It is the song "For Good," by Stephen Schwartz.
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Cross Words

2011-04-24T17:04:00.006-05:00

Years ago, I had a much older friend, a long-retired teacher in his late seventies who took pride in his mastery of the English language. Every morning at breakfast, he perused the morning paper circling random spelling errors and typos with glee between spoonfuls of oatmeal.

This proof-reading was a warm up of sorts for what awaited him on the final page: the daily crossword puzzle. On most mornings, it was child’s play, and he hastily filled its blanks while sipping warm coffee. In no time, he downed the last cold inch of brew, plunked the cup to the table as if it were an empty shot glass in some old-west saloon, and he rose victorious from his seat, ready to face the hazards of his day.

On rare occasions, however, he drew a blank on a crossword answer and felt trapped at the table. It was only a puzzle, but in the order of his world and sequence of his day, leaving the breakfast table without conquering the word-grid was tantamount to losing his keys before stepping out of his parked car, a embarrassment he had suffered increasingly with age.

Years later, I was a pallbearer at his funeral, and these memories brought a faint smile even as the weight of his casket strained my grip.

Me. I’m not a big fan of crossword puzzles. If I happen to have time on my hands at an airport or in waiting room, I may dabble at some random unfinished puzzle, but I can drop it mid-way as effortlessly as cutting short a telemarketer’s phone call during dinner.

CROSSWORDS have been on my mind during this season of Lent—but not in the sense that I have thus far shared. I have been meditating on the brief bits of dialogue in the gospels from the day of Christ’s crucifixion, particularly the stark contrast between the cross words Christ heard that day and the meek words Christ spoke from the cross.

Below I have highlighted some of the cross words Christ endured in the hours before his death, followed by the words he spoke from the CROSS.
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Cross Words Christ Endured That Day:

Matthew 26:65-67

Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. 66 What do you think?”

“He is worthy of death,” they answered.

Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him 68 and said, “Prophesy to us, Messiah. Who hit you?”

Matthew 27:28-30

"They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again".

Mark 15:7-15

“Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

“What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.

“Crucify him!” they shouted.

“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified

Luke 23:1-5 and 18-20

Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king.” But they insisted, “He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here.”

But the whole crowd shouted, “Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us!” (Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.) Wanting to release Jesus, Pilate appealed to them again. But they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

John 19:19-22

Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.” Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

Words Spoken from The Cross That Day

Using the accounts from all four of the Gospels, there are traditionally seven short utterances spoken by Christ from the cross. It is assumed that they are short because of the difficulty of breathing while being crusified.

Traditionally, these seven sayings are called words of 1. Forgiveness, 2. Salvation, 3. Relationship, 4. Abandonment, 5. Distress, 6. Triumph and 7. Reunion.

Luke 23:34

Then Jesus said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do".

This first saying of Jesus on the cross is traditionally called "The Word of Forgiveness".

Luke 23:43

And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise".

This saying is traditionally called "The Word of Salvation".[14] According to Luke's Gospel, Jesus was crucified between two thieves, one of whom supports Jesus' innocence and asks him to remember him when he comes into his kingdom.

John 19:26-27

Jesus saw his own mother, and the disciple standing near whom he loved, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold your son". Then he said to the disciple, "Behold your mother". And from that hour, he took his mother into his family.

This statement is traditionally called "The Word of Relationship" and in it Jesus entrusts Mary, his mother, into the care of a disciple.

Matthew 27:46

Around the ninth hour, Jesus shouted in a loud voice, saying "Eli Eli lama sabachthani?" which is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" see also Mark 15:34.

This saying is traditionally called "The Word of Abandonment" and is the only saying that appears in more than one Gospel. This saying is given in Aramaic with a translation (originally in Greek) after it. This phrase is the opening line of Psalm 22.

John 19:28

He said, "I thirst".

This statement is traditionally called "The Word of Distress" and is sometimes compared and contrasted with the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan Woman at the Well in John 4:4-26.

John 19:30

Jesus said, "It is finished".

This statement is traditionally called "The Word of Triumph" and is theologically interpreted as the announcement of the end of the earthly life of Jesus, in anticipation for the Resurrection.

Luke 23:46

And speaking in a loud voice, Jesus said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit".

This saying, which is an announcement and not a request, is traditionally called "The Word of Reunion."

I trust whenever you hear the term "crossword" again, you think not only of a puzzle but of the most puzzling truth since the beginning of time: that Christ endured the wrath of God and man for us and even in those hours when spit and hate and cross words were being hurled at him, only love was spoken from the cross in return as the worthy lamb was slain.

But that was Friday. Today is Sunday. He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Happy Easter
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Almost Home Again...

2011-04-09T21:37:00.007-05:00

There were times between 2004 and 2010 that writing at Patterns of Ink was my personal outlet, and in some ways it was a connection to family during the years my mother tried to find some sunshine through the cloudy skies of cancer. I had a sense of urgency to write about our camping trips and other things that Mom enjoyed to read, and she helped me with that Duncan Phyfe story that capsulated my parents’ first year of marriage. Then after Mom died in 2008, I had a sense of urgency about writing Unsettled as my siblings and I were unsettled about what to do with the family homestead. It was all very cathartic, and some readers followed along.

I look forward to the time I can write more regularly here again. It has been a busy year with plenty of urgent deadlines and tasks but not such a good year for personal blogging thus far.

Today I opened Patterns of Ink and saw that I have not posted since March 17, when I told you about our water damage. Spring Break for our school has come and gone, but it was a task-driven week for me, and I am exhausted. It was this week that all of the insurance work (as well as the projects triggered by those improvements) came to a head. The ruined part of the ceiling was torn out and replaced--looks as good as when it wsa built in 1969. Wall damage fixed. New bathroom fan. Kitchen light repostioned..Stained carpet is replaced, and lots of other carpet put in, too.

Literally every room in the house, has been emptied or stacked full of furniture for two weeks. Yesterday, room by room, as the carpet layers completed sections, we put our lives back together.

Today our carpet installer, Brent, came back to finish the final touches on the basement stairs. After three days in our house, he seems like an old friend. Today being Saturday, he brought his four-year-old son, Bryce, as his helper. He’s a great kid who wants to do everything just like his Daddy does. His father’s forehead was dripping with sweat so Brent pulled a bandana from his back pocket, rolled it, and tied it above his brow as a sweat band. His son asked, “If I get sweaty, too, can I wear one of those.” There is nothing like watching a four-year-old help his father work.

After Brent and Brice left, I crossed the living room carpet in stocking feet. It felt like a stepping into a brand new pair of slippers. In my recliner where I usuallly write, I began this post, looking up occasionally at the empty wall at the end of the room.

Here is the craftsman who removed the ruined finish, prepared the legs, polished the pedals, reconstructed the inside workings, and will apply the final darker finish. The restored piano will be the last piece of the water-damage puzzle, but it is still in that quaint refinishing shop in Spring Lake, stripped down to the faded rose-tones of bare mahogany. We look forward to its arrival at the end of the month, but until then... it almost feels like home again.

My Roof's Got a Hole in It, and I Might Drown...

2011-03-17T00:05:00.006-05:00

When I do not have time to write recreationally a part of me is missing, but the demands of life sometimes trump all else it seems. Nora is not one of the "demands of life," but last night we did babysit her. I had only seen her once in two weeks, and I am quite sure she "grew up" in the meantime.

Nothing does Julie and I more good than a few hours with Nora. No matter what else is going on. No matter what is waiting at my desk at school or on my laptop at home (from my desk at school). No matter how often I catch myself singing that old song..."Aha, Oh no, Don't let the rain come down...my roof's got a hole in it and I might drown" [I'll explain that after the pictures.] No matter what other pot-holes await me in God's to-and-fro, an evening with Nora puts it all in perspective.

These pictures were not taken at our house last night, but our daughter Emily posted them on Facebook and they were so similar to the playful Nora we enjoyed tonight that I borrowed them for this post. She is 14 months old and talking. Here is what she said:

"I'm gunna go hide. Are you ready?"

"You better be ready 'cuz I'm fast. Here I go..."

"You can't catch me!"

"I know you can't find me. Give up? I'm over here"

Alright... I confess she is not talking yet, but I am sure from her face that she was thinking those very words while she was playing with her mom (who took those pictures). And last night at our house, she was playing the same game. She loves to run in a big circle from the kitchen doorway into the dining room then through the archway into the living room into the entry way and then back in the kitchen. She'll run (it's actually kind of a waddle because of her diaper) in that circle about three times and then stop to catch her breath.

After a few laps last night, she stopped where the piano has been for ten years and looked around with her palms turned up as if to say "Where did the piano go?"

Listen to this old 45 RPM record that my mother used to play when we were kids as I tell you where the piano went.

Several posts back, I wrote about the biggest blizzard of the year. It was a doozy! Our house had about a foot of snow on it BEFORE the storm hit, and that doubled overnight. What I did not know was that on the back side of my roof (the part I couldn't see) a three foot drift formed and it added a ton--literally a ton--of snow to my roof.

Our home is very well insulated so the snow does not melt from the heat of the house...except in one place: the back of the house on the second roof of our tri-level where the heat-stack of the hot-water heater comes through the roof. At that point of the roof, under the big drift of snow, an ice jam formed and eventually on a warm Saturday five weeks ago, water began pooling in our ceiling and dripping below, drenching our piano, the wall behind it, and the carpet below it. The leak was active for hours before we noticed it. Be blotted up the water as best we could and put a huge Rubbermaid tub on top of the piano to catch continuing flow.

Things would have been much worse had we not been home to limit the damage. I learned a trick as a result of working 30 years in schools that had "dropped ceilings" with acoustical tiles which sometimes fell victim to a leaky roof. If you take a pencil and poke a hole through the ceiling at the point of "dripping" it will drain all the water that has pooled above that spot and limit the damage to the ceiling. I did that in the soft, wet sheetrock of our living room ceiling. Our insurance adjuster praised me for doing so because it made his visit to our home much less costly for his company, but I've jumped ahead of myself in this story.

The day after this leak began, I went up on the roof and shoveled most of the drift away. The following Saturday, my friend Steve came over and we finished shoveling the areas of concern and gently broke away the ice jam, ensuring that our roof was again able to do its job.

It wasn't until a few days later, that I called our insurance compay. I was not at all sure this would be coverd. But good news! It is. In fact, they said this is one of the busiest winters on record for this very kind of damage.

I won't tell you the total repair bill was (partly because it is not yet known), but I will say that after nearly thirty years of paying "home owners insurance" it was the first claim we ever filed and our company treated us very well. The piano was picked up Tuesday to be refinished and repaired by a local company that specializes in that process. The room looks and sounds empty without it, and I look forward to its return.

While the piano is gone, the ceiling and wall will be repaired and repainted. After that messy work is done, the new carpet will be installed. New carpet? Yes. As I said, "Auto Owners Insurance [there's my plug for a fine company] considered it the best option. You see, inside our piano are various pieces of deep red felt. When the felt got wet, the water that dripped onto the carpet left red die residue that could not be removed by ServiceMaster (another plug for a fine company). The spots were in plain view. Solution? Replace the living room carpet. There was other related water damage to the bathroom on the other side of the same wall below the drift of snow. That, too, will be fixed.

All of the work should be done by the end of April, leaving about one month before the hoopla of Kim's wedding. Isn't God's timing a beautiful thing. But in the meantime, every time I sit here in the living room, my eye goes to that hole I had to poke through the ceiling and that old 45 of Mom's begins playing in my head.

2011-03-05T12:20:00.004-05:00

To an Athlete Dying Young
by A. E. Housman (1859-1936) [Lines 1 through 20 only]

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honors out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
[In memory of Wes Leonard]

Wednesday night, at a gymnasium near Kent City, Michigan, my daughter's team won the most exciting game of their season with a buzzer-beater that capped a 52-50 win over our rival Algoma in round one of the District Tournament. In the moments after the swish of the net, dozens of players, students and parents swarmed around our team captain, Sydnie Clark (who made the shot). Our coach lifted her high in the air the way a father lifts a young daughter in playful jubilation. There is nothing like that feeling of shared accomplishment and victory. By now, we've all seen the footage of a very similar moment in another small Michigan town that happend just one night after our girl's victory. Last night, in the same gymnasium, we met for round two of district play and prayed for the Leonard family and that town as they work through this tragic loss. I was pleased that the "moment of silence" suggested by the MHSAA was followed by an actual prayer in that gymnasium.
89175

2011-02-21T09:08:00.035-05:00

The Old Popcorn Bowl

Something funny happened Saturday night. I was hungry for popcorn, but we could find no microwave popcorn in the house.

Throughout our children’s lifetime, this convenient snack (which takes less then three minutes to make) has been a food staple in our home. In recent years we have grown particularly fond of Pop Secret’s “HomeStyle” because its touch of real butter and salt makes taste most like the kind I used to make on the stove as a kid.

Before I tell you what struck me as funny, I need to back up a bit and give a brief timeline of memories and experiences related to this post:

Thousands of Years ago: Western Hemisphere "Indian" nations discovered popcorn, which led Native Americans to introduce it to explorers hundreds of years ago. I was not there to witness this, but I have no reason to doubt that the story we were all told in elementary school is true.

1966-1980: I was the in-house expert pop corn popper in my childhood family. We typically only made popcorn when the whole family was home and there was a good movie or “special” on TV. The older I got, the more often this culinary honor fell to me, and I became very good at it if I do say myself. I put the burner on "high" until the three "test kernels" popped in the oil; then added the perfect amount of popcorn to the oil; turned the heat down two notches; and when the kettle was half full, I removed the lid to release the steam so the kernels would not become tough in the final seconds of popping. And voilà!. I poured the perfect batch into the popcorn bowl.
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Never in my childhood did my mother ever buy Jiffy-Pop, which came in its own aluminum frying pan. It was about ten times more expensive per serving than regular popcorn. (These were the "mixed milk" years, and Dad would never allow such a novelty on Mom's grocery list.)

There was one time, however, when my brothers and I were spending the night at Grandma Spencer’s house, and she bought some Jiffy-Pop as a special treat. I was about twelve, and I remember reciting the jingle as I put it on the red hot burner. "Jiffy-pop, Jiffy-pop, the magic treat; as much fun to make as it is to eat!"
But it did not pop as shown in these pictures. Grandma's stove was too hot and the popcorn began to burn when the aluminum “dome” was only about half full. It was one of the great disappointments of my childhood.

(I have never met an eye-witness who has seen Jiffy-Pop perform as shown on TV.) [Update: as you can see in the comment section, I actually have met at least two people who have successfully made Jiffy Pop as shown on TV. Thanks, Stephen and Marcia! That's one of the great things about blogging...it helps expand our knowledge of human accomplishment.]

1971: My brother Dave and I were at an “afterglow” (youth group get-together after Sunday night church) at Nancy W’s house, and everyone was fascinated with her mother’s new microwave oven. None of us had ever seen one before, and everyone wondered how they worked. I asked her if we could put a kernel of popcorn in the oven to see if it would it pop. We tried it and it DID NOT pop. It got very hot, and Mrs. W. stopped the experiment,afraid it might ruin her new appliance. (What we didn’t know is that if we had put the popcorn in a paper bowl with some vegetable oil, it would have worked (would have made a mess, but it would’ve worked), and had we continued the experiment and developed an expandable paper packet we might have become rich. But alas, that was 40 years ago.)

During the early 1980’s: Julie and I used a “hot air” popper. The popcorn made in these contraptions was very dry—so dry salt would not stick to it. Eating popcorn form an "air popper" was basically like eating packing peanuts. So the manufacturers added a little place to put slabs of butter which was supposed to drip on the kernels as it ricocheted into the bowl. The only problem was the yellow plastic part of the machine eventually melted, and the thing looked like they’d been in a fight with a blow-torch.

1989: Microwave popcorn was invented and by the mid-1990s, it became the most common use of household microwave ovens.

Which brings me back to the purpose of this post.

This past Saturday night, Keith and Emily and Nora were visiting because Kim was home from Chicago. Among other “wedding things,” the girls were sorting through family pictures for the photomontage.

I wanted to make some popcorn but could find not a single “packet” in the house…that was when a dormant idea struck me for the first time in two decades: We do have popcorn. I slipped out of the room and went downstairs. On the shelf of antique toys that encircles the basement, there was a decorative container of popcorn—real popcorn—it was something my mom gave us as a joke about fifteen years ago. As I brought it upstairs, Emily gasped, “Gross! You can’t use that old stuff.” I took out Julie’s largest kettle, poured in some vegetable oil, and added the hard kernels.

Here is the strange part, the “funny” part. Not only were my adult-age children concerned about the age of the popcorn, they also gathered around the stove with amazement. Emily is twenty-six and she had never seen popcorn made in a kettle on the stove. They weren’t sure that it would work, and as the lid began rattling like a tin-roof in a hailstorm, and the steam puffed out the rim, and the wonderful aroma filled the air, they stood there in shock and awe. Just at the peak of popping, I poured the yellow fluffy treat into the perfect destination for this nostalgic trip back in time.

Throughout my childhood whenever we made popcorn, the whole family ate out of one large spun-aluminum tub we dubbed “the popcorn bowl,” which was rarely used for anything else. About six years ago, I was visiting Mom who still lived in the house we built back in the 70’s. We were watching a movie called Mother starring Debbie Reynolds, and we made some microwave popcorn and divided the portions into baskets lined with open napkins. “Whatever happened to the popcorn bowl?” I asked without meaning to begin a treasure hunt, but she scrounged around in the dark corners of her lowest cabinets until she found it. “Your dad and I got this as a wedding present,” she said, handing it to me.

I looked at the bowl in an entirely new light. “This is fifty-five years old,” I mumbled respectfully.

“Isn’t that something! I can’t believe it. Where does time go,” Mom sighed, “Do you want it? You’re the one who always made the popcorn.”

It was a bit dented and out-of-round. Even though it says "Mirro The Finest Aluminum" on the bottom, it would be worth only a couple bucks at Goodwill. But its value to me had nothing to do with it's worth (as is often true of treasured things). This container had been my family’s popcorn bowl for decades. It had passed from lap to lap back in the days when our whole family could nestle on the couch between Mom and Dad. It remained the popcorn bowl in the later years when the couch could no longer hold us all. If our family had a holy grail, this was it... so I gladly brought it home and began using it solely for the purpose it had served so many years ago.

And there it sat on the kitchen counter as one by one our doubtful family tasted the oldest popcorn I had ever popped sitting in a now sixty-year-old bowl. To be honest, the popcorn itself was not as good as a fresh-popped microwave bag, it was also twice the work, but sitting there with the old popcorn bowl on my lap as I watched the girls sorting pictures gave me a very unique sense of home.

This post made possible by a "snow day."
89065

LIfe is Not a One-Page Book (revisited)

2011-02-11T15:47:00.011-05:00

Sometimes something I wrote a couple years ago comes back into my life, and to my surprise, I can read the words as if they were not my own and be helped by them in reading as I was in first writing them.... If that makes any sense.

A couple nights ago, I was really missing my parents, missing their counsel, missing their voices, missing the sense that they are praying for me and my family. (Strange that at my age such needs are still inside me. I suppose to some extent they always will be.) Thinking about these things that night, I realized that when I took a year of late-nights to write about the years we cleared the land and built the house, it was a form of useful grief.

So anyway, this chapter from February 2009 came back to me, and I thought I'd repost it. Maybe it will be of help to someone else.

Life Is Not a One-page Book

There is a word that repeats itself in my writing and in my conversations with people. It’s not deliberate and hopefully not too obvious, though once I mention the word, it may seem blatant, considering the title of my blog since 2004.

The word is PATTERNS. It’s a good word, and the meaning behind how I typically use it is good for tracing and tracking the human condition. We understand the presence of patterns in art and music but sometimes overlook them in life.

Sometimes when I talk with the faculty and staff at school, I remind us that, beyond the books, we are working with the home to help students form good patterns of life (and avoid getting into bad patterns). This simple reminder helps moderate our responses to the routines (and, yes, rules) we are expected to follow. Anyone can be tardy, but is it a pattern? Anyone can not complete an assignment, but is it a pattern? Anyone can say a cross word, but is it a pattern. When we choose to focus more energy on patterns than on single incidents, we become people who RESPOND to incidents rather than REACT to them.

This does not mean that single events don’t matter, they do, but they deserve far more attention when they become patterns. Determining whether or not something is a pattern requires the passing of shared time and space and the passage into relationship, which is the context for the best kind of learning. Shared time and space and the assumption we will meet again tomorrow is the essence of relationships that matter. Life is not a one-page book.

Let me say that again because it hit me as I wrote it: "the assumption we will meet again is the essence of relationships that matter. " When we assume time is shortly shared or that we'll never meet again (even if it's true) we diminish the importance of current interaction and its impact on our future. I'm sure the percentage varies from setting to setting, but relationships dictate much of perspective and productivity. The more we observe patterns of life rather than snapshots in time, the more inclusive the context of our relationships becomes. The more inclusive the context, the more thoughtful the response; the more thoughtful our responses, the more pleasant and productive the patterns of life. [This paragraph added 2-20-09]
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Our goal as a school is to maintain not a problem-free setting (no such place exists) but a setting in which the "problems" that are to be expected in a fallen world are responded to appropriately. .

Nobody likes “gotcha” moments. You know what I mean: those times when you get nailed for doing something that is not typical of you, not a pattern of behavior, and yet you did it and the one time you did--GOTCHA!--comes from someone who has the power to make you regret it. Whether it’s a referee on the basketball court, a policeman at a speed trap, a teacher at the door when the tardy bell rings, a boss who watches the staff parking lot ten minutes before quitting time... GOTCHA is an unpleasant world to live in.
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We’ve all heard the term “knee-jerk” reaction, which refers to actions that by-pass the brain. A knee-jerk reaction is fine on the doctor's examination table after that little red-triangle hammer taps the knee. It means the patient is alive and well. Dealing with the human body, however, is not the same thing as dealing with human beings. Knee-jerk reactions when dealing with people are never helpful. It’s never good when a “REACTION” to people by-passes the brain (or heart).
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We've all knee-jerked before, and we all know people who tend to be in such patterns. Sometimes they've learned to excuse it with statements like "Well, at least people know what I'm thinking," but reactions typically reflect impulse rather than thought. Or "Well, at least people know how I feel," which should never trump how what was said makes others feel. Given the chance, most people would rather learn from thoughtful "responders" than impulsive reactors.

Even in an emergency, a quick-thinking mind and body that RESPONDS appropriately is a better bet than mere REACTING. Well-trained emergency professionals, heroic pilots, or Hall-of-Fame quarterbacks may look like they’re reacting without thought, but they are more likely directing their agility and intuitive responses in patterns they've repeatedly practiced.

Understanding the patterns of life and of people is one of the best ways to avoid knee-jerk reactions in a GOTCHA world. To whatever extent I model these thoughts in my dealings with students, parents, and the teachers I serve it reflects my understanding of God the Father. Oh, how I'm glad He does not run a GOTCHA world. He is long-suffering. He sees the big picture and the road ahead. He is far more concerned with the direction of our path, than a slip along the way. His path for us is not random; there is a plan; there is a pattern to follow.

My parents were far from perfect, but in the shared time and space God granted us as a family, I learned to sense the rhythms of life, the ebb and flow of events, the patterns of meaning, and the meaning of deviations from those patterns. The following chapter is just one example of such a lesson.

The line "Stuck in reverse" from this Coldplay song subtly foreshadows the second link's events.

If you would like to read the chapters from "Unsettled" that followed these thoughts entitled "Life is not a One-page Book," CLICK HERE, and after that chapter CLICK HERE.
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The Groundhog Day Blizzard of 2011

2011-02-01T23:09:00.000-05:00

Well, we watched and we were warned and now we just hunker down and stay warm.

No school on Wednesday. Watch this radar link if you want to see when it has passed.

2011-01-31T06:32:00.005-05:00

It's a "Watch" Not a "Warning"
But Consider Yourself Warned...

The followng text is from weather.com:

A WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM TUESDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH WEDNESDAY EVENING.

* TRAVEL AND COMMERCE ACROSS THE WATCH AREA MAY BE SEVERELY IMPACTED BY HEAVY SNOW AND SIGNIFICANT BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW TUESDAY NIGHT AND WEDNESDAY.

* HEAVY SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW WILL MAKE CLEARING OF ROADS DIFFICULT TUESDAY NIGHT INTO WEDNESDAY. CONDITIONS WILL IMPROVE GREATLY INTO WEDNESDAY EVENING AS THE WINDS DIE DOWN.

* NUMEROUS EVENT CANCELLATIONS INCLUDING SCHOOL CLOSURES ARE POSSIBLE... AS WELL AS FLIGHT DELAYS AND CANCELLATIONS.

* HEAVY SNOW IS POSSIBLE ACROSS THE WATCH AREA WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR TOTALS IN EXCESS OF A FOOT BY WEDNESDAY EVENING... ESPECIALLY SOUTH OF A MUSKEGON TO ALMA LINE.

According to this radar map, it's already on its way and will hit west Michigan Tuesday evening.

[Note: My daughter Kim is in Chicago a few blocks from the lake. We typically get her weather about five or six hours later. Here is what they are bracing for: * SNOW ACCUMULATIONS IN EXCESS OF A FOOT ARE EXPECTED OVER MUCH OF THE WATCH AREA FROM TUESDAY AFTERNOON
* THROUGH WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. LOCALIZED TOTALS IN EXCESS OF 18 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE...ESPECIALLY NEAR THE LAKE.] 88736

Big Night for Nat and Big Day for Nora!

2011-01-29T12:40:00.034-05:00

Last night our boys and girls Varsity Basketball Teams won their Homecoming Games in hard-fought matches against taller teams with deeper benches. It was a proud night for our school.

Let me pause for a moment as I "free write" to explain that there are two kinds of pride: there is the "Pride goeth before a fall" kind of pride the Book of Proverbs warns us to avoid, which is haughty and arrogant and leads to one's own destruction.... and then there is the "Well done, thou good and faithful servant" kind of pride that comes from taking whatever talent you have and adding interest, instruction, effort, and teamwork to become better as a whole than you are in your individual parts. It is in this latter sense that I say "It was a proud night for our school." Because Natalie is on our girl's team, I'll take a minute to further explain.

This is a team of seven girls from the smallest school in the conference (some of our competition have student bodies that are 8 to 9 times our size); none of our girls had the benefit of playing on a junior varsity team (because we don't have a JV team); some (including Nat) were not sure they were good enough to play at all. Our varsity girls consist of one gifted 8th grader, one feisty 5'2" freshman, four improving sophomores, and on inspiring junior who stands 5'4". These seven girls have been well-coached and have held their own all season against teams they have no business beating. "Better" upper-classmen teams with deeper benches have underestimated this team right up to the last buzzer when they sulk back to their guest locker-room in disbelief.

(I never noticed Nat's secret for making free throws until I saw this picture. I do the same thing when I'm concentrating. See it? Her Gramma Kapanka used to do that when she made a cake. Nat hit 7 of 7 from the line last night.)

Printed on the back of the girls' warm up shirts are four words: "Hard work beats talent." They were hoping that was true at the beginning of the season, but what they didn't know was that, through hard work, they have multiplied their talent since the last time they met this Grand Rapids team six weeks ago (and lost by 9).

That's the kind of good playing that makes hundreds of parents in the bleachers smile as their "little engine that could" team huddles around their coach in victory as they did last night.

He knows the game; he works them hard; he coaches with intensity (and sometimes gets too intense and he knows it); but after the games, win or loose, he gives his players phone calls of encouragement, positive text messages, and Facebook "Attagirls!". He studies the tapes and teaches accordingly. The girls know he cares. More importantly, he is a big enough man to own up to mistakes and say "I'm sorry" or "I blew it" to the team and others when he gets too harsh or too focused or too "in the moment" of the game. It takes a big man to apologize when he realizes his passion and intensity has become a stumbling block to the things that matter most. He's working on finding that balance, and I respect that.

It has been interesting to watch this particular coach-player relationship grow over the season. It's been encouraging to see both the coach and the team work on their individual weaknesses and by working together become better versions of their former selves—not perfect by any means…but making progress in the right direction. The most important element of athletic competition is not in the "win" but in those steps toward becoming and in those shared "well done" moments with or without the win.

Oops! I almost forgot... [This photo and paragraph added Monday.]

It was also a big night for Nat because she was her class representative on the Homecoming Court. After the basketball game, she ran back stange, waved a magic wand, and POOF! she came out looking like a princess in royal blue!
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But I digress... this post was not originally about last night's game or Homecoming; it was intended to be about today, which happens to be my granddaughter Nora's first birthday.

Last year, Julie and I missed the Homecoming Game and presentation of the court because we were downtown at the hospital enjoying our first hours as grandparents. A few weeks later, shared that being a grandpa was a lot of hard work. And back in October, I showed you Nora in her skunk costume. Wow! A whole year has passed. She has been walking for three or four weeks.

We're having a birthday party tomorrow with Keith's parents and all the siblings that are in town. Can't wait. This has been a great year for Julie and I in our new role as grandparents. It's been a difficult year in some other respects, but through it all, I would say that Julie and I are more focused on the things that matter most in life, and I didn't realize it until this morning when I sat down to write this post that some of that focus—maybe perspective is a better word—is because of Nora. Below is a poem and post from last February.

A Candle Came
.
A candle came
to mid-day light
and even then it shone
bright with the hope
that one tiny flame alone,
a wick aglow in a window,
can change the night;
its faint and flickering cry
from two points far apart
can burn just bright enough
to catch the eye
and turn a wandering heart
t’ward home.
© Copyright 2010, TK, Patterns of Ink

“Her name means light,” my daughter Emily said as we began to leave the hospital room last Friday, “I mean… in case you want to know what Nora means for something you might write someday.”

I smiled, because I knew it was Emily's way of planting a seed (if not giving me a small homework assignment), but nothing clicked at the time, and I forgot about it until last night.

After leaving school around 5:30PM, I dropped off a meal that one of our secretaries made for the young couple’s first week at home with a new baby. I stayed about a half hour, holding Nora in my arms the whole while. She opened her eyes only once. Toward the end of my stay she did make the faintest cry while being changed, but the rest of the time she just slept and squirmed and made cute baby noises.

Before I gave Nora back to Emily, she said, “I read your blog. That was real nice, Dad."
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"Did you read all the comments"

"Yes, those were nice, too. Did you see the pictures from the delivery room on Facebook? I just put them up today.”
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I hadn’t yet seen the pictures, and since I’m not on Facebook [Julie is], Emily pulled them up on her computer right there in the front room. As we were looking at pictures, she showed me the one I included above and said, “Isn’t it cool how the light caught her face just as the doctor was trimming the cord? She’s is less than a minute old in that picture.”

It was a remarkable picture taken at 1:43 in the afternoon by a new father in a moment of sheer relief and joy. When Emily mentioned the light on Nora's face, I remembered what she had told me Friday about the meaning of her name.

Just then I noticed that the candles in the front window had come on while we were sitting there.[i.e. small brass-based window candles Emily inherited from my mother’s house]

"Were those on a second ago? I didn't see them." I asked.

"They're on a timer to come on at dark," she said, clicking to the next picture.

That's the picture there to the right. It made me laugh because it looks like Nora was smiling and winking at her daddy's camera as her footprints were being taken for the birth certificate. There were lots of other great snapshots, and I chuckled and said "Awww" a lot in the way that only grandpas can do without sounding light in the loafers.[I mention that last part for my fellow grandpa, Keith’s dad, who has been a good friend through the years and shares my growing inclination toward misty eyes and wonder as we enter this new phase of life.]

It was after six o'clock and time for me to head home where Julie was making some chicken corn chowder for supper. I gave Nora back to her mommy, and stepped out the back door to my car.

The window candles again caught my eye as I backed out of their long driveway, but I thought nothing more about it. Then this morning, about ten minutes before my alarm went off, I woke with some lines tumbling around in my head. This happens to me sometimes so I keep a notepad in my bed stand, but to be honest I haven’t touched it in months. I scribbled the lines down, and to my surprise they still made sense after I took my shower.

I’m sharing this explanation only because it’s strange how, like in some dreams, there is a connection between seemingly unrelated events and a much more concrete image they later bring to mind. Only Emily will know first-hand the tie between real life conversations and the scribbled lines, but I hope someday they bring a smile to Nora’s face and remind her of the meaning of her name.
0174 and then 88657

Another Ten Inches To Boot

2011-01-22T21:27:00.005-05:00

In the Tuesday "Snow Day" post, I shared a photo Natalie took two weeks ago. Here is another snapshot from the same vantage point. We woke today to another ten inches on Top of Tuesday's snow. I said "ten inches to boot" but it was actually well over my boots when I plowed us out this morning. Scroll up and down between this post and Tuesday's to see the additional snow.

I mentioned Tuesday that the mailboxes in that post's picture were now buried. Here is a close-up of them... just to the right of the pine. See them? The snow there is about three feet deep. Somehow we still get mail and a newspaper each day.
Temps are in single digits. This would have been another snowday if it hadn't happened on Saturday. Sorry kids!
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Snow Day Today

2011-01-18T21:48:00.006-05:00

I must confess, this picture was not taken this morning. I found in on my daughter Natalie's Facebook page from last weekend. She took it from our front porch window. She is developing quite an eye for photography.

Had Nat taken this snapshot this morning, there would have been another foot on the ground and a huge mountain ridge of plowed snow along the street and even more flocked on the trees. See the mailboxes down by that pine tree? You can barely see them now. They are buried.

Typically, a snow day is a chance for me to nestle in with the family and get caught up on my thoughts and writing, but not today. Today I was wrapping up a four-month pile of paperwork as deep as the last night's surprise. I'm not complaining, and the good news is that mountain of forms and faxes is now plowed off to the side and I can move on to other things. I believe I will feel like a new man in the morning.

It was excellent packing-snow--perfect for making snowmen, but that was not to be.... Still, I'm very glad it came. Snow has a way of making bleak pictures bright!

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Between Brilliance

2011-01-13T00:43:00.025-05:00

Considering all the facets of my life,

I should sometimes feel

more like a diamond

--once in the rough--

but cut to catch the light

and gently cast its glimmer

to a glancing eye.
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But dice have facets, too:

six sullied sides,

pockmarked squares

that claim to cast our fate

or dictate our next move.

Far better, I believe,

to cast the light than fate

and to profess
the former holds the latter
in His hands.
And yet, I must confess,
too often do my best-laid plans
fall short and hover hopelessly
between brilliance... and a crapshoot.
© Copyright 2011 Tom Kapanka/ Patterns of Ink
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Thoughts about the writing process:

In Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carrol explains what he calls portmanteau words which carry meaning by blending two or more words into one. The word brunch is an example of a portmanteau word, blending breakfast and lunch since it is served somewhere in between. This term makes a metaphor of portmanteau, a hand-held suitcase, into which two or more things may be packed. [Port is of Latin origin, meaning to carry (e.g. portable) and manteau is Middle French for coat or cloak.]

I mention this only to say, that if you read a sampling of short pieces including the one above, you may see that I use something I call “carrier terms,” Like portmanteau words, they are meant to pack more meaning into the few words around them by vaguely alluding to another piece of literature. Quite often I will use a term or phrase from scripture or a hymn. Some might call them code words, because unless you know the code, the greater work alluded to, the terms hold meaning in and of themselves. It is only extra meaning that comes from knowing the source or connotation of the carrier term.

In my library, I have an old paperback copy of Jacob Korg’s introduction to poetry entitled The Force of Few Words. Taking nothing from the contents of the book, the title alone makes an enormous contribution to the study of poetry. It lays bare the secret: the essence of poetry is its power to spin our minds with a tiny sip. In that sense it is not so much like vintage wine as it is distilled spirits, boiled down to potent drippings of thought. Carrier terms are a tool in that process. Changing metaphors a bit, carrier terms crystallize more meaning than the words themselves convey in saturated prose. Like all effects, they are more effective when they go unnoticed.

There are at least two examples of carrier terms in "Between Brilliance." The first would be more subtle had I not included a link and capitalized the word His. The carrier term is light. The first image of the poem is diamond with cuts that capture light and cast it. We call this brilliance or sparkle. And if we recall that Christ said “I am the light of the world,” we understand that all the facets of our lives are meant to reflect Him. Likewise, the line “the former holds the latter in His hands” means, Life is not a roll of the dice, not left to chance, the Light holds our fate is in His hands, in his sovereign plan.

So why then end the poem on a less certain note? Because life is lived somewhere short of where we know it’s meant to be. Somewhere short of brilliance. Sometimes, in spite of what we believe (inwardly) or profess (outwardly), we find ourselves in times of uncertainty where we simply don’t know how things are going to turn out. Which brings me to the second carrier term: “best-laid plans.”

To some "best-laid" may simply be a hyphenated adjective, bringing nothing else to mind. To others it may evoke the old saying, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” And to still others, it brings to mind the entire poem from which the original version of that quotation comes. For readers in this last category, the carrier term is a fully loaded suitcase bringing far more meaning when unpacked.

I’m speaking, of course, of Robert Burn’s poem “To a Mouse” in which the speaker is plowing a field in late fall and breaks open a mouse’s borough. He feels bad for the small creature and begins talking to it, but as is true in much of the poetry from the Romantic Period, the conversation transcends the brush with nature and addresses man’s condition. What begins in common experience ends in wisdom. The second stanza says,

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
And justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
And fellow mortal!

The familiar quotation is found in the last two stanzas:

But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects drear!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!

And thus my purpose for using “best-laid plans” as a carrier term at the end of the "Between Brilliance" is to invoke (for those who know or subconsciously remember Burn’s most famous poem) all the feelings of uncertainty we sometimes have about the future.

I’ve heard it said that we should “work as if it all depends on us and pray as if it all depends on God.” The problem with that advice is that it reflects isolation from God rather than collaboration with him. It is probably better to say, “Work as if you work for God; pray as if He’s working with you.” The latter suggests a more fatherly, side-by-side relationship. But either way, if we’re honest with ourselves, there are times when our faith seems too short a blanket for our bed, we pull it up to our chin and expose our feet. There is sometimes tension between the brilliance we hope to show and the sullied commonness that comes when we settle for the work of our own hands.

It’s in the uncertainty of waiting when we wonder and rejoice that we are not at the mercy of fate or a roll of the dice. It’s in such times, when we stand palms high, face up, eyes closed, as if longing for a needed rain. It’s when we cannot see that we see what matters most.
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2011-01-13T00:33:00.001-05:00

My Daughter Emily Sent This Christmas Eve day...

2010-12-25T06:20:00.007-05:00

Updated with photos the next morning...

In the post below, I dared not write about something because it would have made me feel the very way the beautiful song above did.

Emily and Keith and Nora are not with us here in Kansas this year. It was inevitable that such a Christmas Day would come. I completely understand. It just so happens to be the first time in her life that Emily is not with us on Christmas, and the song describes perfectly what Emily knows is going on all over the house even as I type. The movie, White Christmas, is playing on one of the TVs. The sisters are in the kitchen with grandma. Grandpa is trying to get help figuring out some computer glitches. (He always has a bunch of technical questions to ask his young grandsons and they typically know the answers).

Tonight we will be playing a video-taped version of "A Minute to Win It" that Keith and Emily put together. Those two are always in charge of Christmas Eve games, and they are still fulfilling that role even though they are in Michigan. We will be home to see them and Nora on Monday. Meanwhile two house guests are bringing life to our home and enjoying our tree until we return.

Merry Christmas!

Photos added Christmas Day...

We gathered in the great room and watched the video Keith and Emily made for us with games from "Minute to Win it."

That's Emily on the TV to the right, demonstrating how each game is to be played.

That's Emily on the lap top watching us play the games via SKYPE. Keith was there, too, but when this photo was taken he was holding Nora off-camera. It was like they were there with us

even though they did not make the trip to Kansas this Christmas.

That is me playing the "Snowball" game. I had to put Vaseline on my nose and transer snowballs (cotton balls) from one bowl into the other. I got 13 in one minute--it's harder than you think!

Julie won the "Blockhead" game by stacking five baby blocks on a plate on her head.

A few days before Christmas when Nate (Kim's fiance was still here with us), we did some skeet shooting.

This is Kim firing a shotgun for the first time. Her shoulder survived. She was funny to watch. No, she did not hit her target, but after she saw the blast of smoke come the barrel she said, "I am smokin'!"

By the way, a week ago the yard was "smokin'" Grandpa McNabb was burning trash out back of the house and something in the trash blew up sending the fire onto the very dry grass. It burned about half an acre and they caught it about 30 feet from the back door. When we looked out the back door this morning, the scorched-earth was basically the opposite of a "White Christmas." Next spring it will all come back greener than ever.

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Familiar Rooms

2010-12-23T12:00:00.004-05:00

I knew it would be good to be home. This place is really Julie’s home not mine, but I’ve been coming here since the Christmas Break of 1978, and her folks did such a good job of making me feel at home the first time I visited that it has always been a second home to me. I knew it would feel good to step through the door and see Julie’s folks waiting there as they always do whenever any of their children are on the road toward home.

This year our trip from west Michigan to Waverly, Kansas, seemed extra long. We left our driveway at 4:30 AM and pulled in here thirteen hours later. We can usually make the 700 mile trek in eleven hours if the roads are clear—and they were clear and dry the whole way—but we had to pick up Kim at her campus apartment in Chicago. That was her last night there. After Christmas, she is moving in with three good friends who had a little room to spare. Literally, it is a little room no bigger than a bed, but it will work for a few months.

Kim finished all of her classes last week, and began her new job at World Relief, teaching English to adult refugees. After picking up Kim, we headed north just past Lincoln Park area to pick up Nate, her fiancé, at his apartment, a third floor walk-up on a quaint street of tall row houses so close you could pass salt and pepper from window to window. It will be a nice place for him and two other rent-paying friends between now and the June wedding.

So the detour up to Chicago added a couple hours to our trip, but we still made great time with four drivers.

Typically when we come here, it is closer to Christmas Day and all of Julie’s siblings and their children here. It’s sort of like the film Dan in Real Life. Every one of the seven bedrooms is taken, along with two sleeper-sofas. There are four-and-a-half bathrooms in this large rambling split-foyer ranch house; two kitchens; four “living rooms” (places where five or more can sit and visit or watch TV).

The first time I came here to visit Julie, it was a three-bedroom house with two bathrooms. About ten years later, we helped Julie’s dad convert the three-car garage into an apartment for Grandpa Sutton. Then about ten years after that, they converted the walk-out basement into a “Guesthaus,” for assisted living seniors, a business they ran for about twenty years. That explains all the bedrooms and bathrooms we now use whenever the whole family gets together.

But for now, it’s just my family and Julie's folks, and to be honest, it's been great. We needed a few days of “down time” before all the delightful hubbub begins. Every now and then I hear Natalie practicing Christmas music down in the great-room. The old piano is just enough out of tune to sound homey as the music meanders up and down the stairways to familiar rooms.

This morning I woke up Kimberly in the same bedroom that was "mine" whenever I visited here. We were talking a while and then I said out of the blue, “Just think. This is the very room I slept in the night after I proposed to your mother at 1:00 AM January 1, 1980.”
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My kids wonder how and why I constantly connect family history to physical space and otherwise insignificant landmarks, but it happens whenever we visit someplace from our shared past. It has something to do with the way my mind files memories. Maybe all minds work this way, but my filing system is extremely “associative.” I have no doubt that it affects the way I think, speak, and write. So for you friends who have been reading here through the years, thank you for your patience.

Tonight all the others arrive. Tomorrow we may get snow!
Hoping you and yours have a wonderful Christmas!
Tom
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Life is Mostly Prose

2010-12-16T06:31:00.023-05:00

Looking back on it now, it was perhaps the most profound experience my family and I had ever shared. It began with a vague uneasiness in Julie which progressed to something we never saw coming. But the night before our journey began, our mood and minds were elsewhere, which is typically true the moment before life's storms begin.

Why speak of it now? What brought it to mind?

I wondered that myself this morning when I woke, and then I remembered. Tonight is the Christmas Program at school. It's always the Thursday before we let out for the holidays. For the past five years, the program has reminded me of that journey my family took six years ago, for what began as a vague uneasiness in Julie progressed to open-heart surgery three days later on this very day, Thursday, December 16, 2004. That night at the school, before the festive songs began, five hundred people paused to pray for the Kapanka's who were not there to join in the celebration.

In the days ahead (next week), I will try to post the journal entries of days that followed this Sunday post--not to relive the ordeal, but because many of you have faced your own frightening realities, and it is sometimes encouraging to see God's hand at work even when we do not know His plan.

Life is mostly prose, measured by pedantic glances in the mirror, those leaned-in looks we take at waking up or turning in at night. But thank God for the parts of life less focused on ourselves, for relationships that bring meaning and form to our daily function. Thank God that sometimes on some days, between prosaic glances in the mirror, there is just enough poetry to lift our hearts and help us see what waits beyond the glass.

Sunday, December 12, 2004: Prologue “The Winter Storm”

We’d gone together to the shore to see the breakers crash against the pier. Since our first winter here, we’d seen pictures of the red lighthouse coated in a shroud of ice, and we’d heard the sad stories of this pier during high-sea storms, but we’d never seen one for ourselves.

In the far-reaching headlights of cars parked behind us, shadowy swells rose and rolled across the concrete break wall. And there at the far end, the red lighthouse was awash in arching plumes of foam. A cold mist from the spewing surf and howling wind squinted our eyes as we leaned into the gale to hold our ground.

Julie gestured back toward the car, and we turned and let a strong gust push us toward the calm and common sense of shelter. The doors slammed tight behind us, and we just sat there, in awe of the contrast between the stillness and the storm. I rubbed my gloved hands together and started the car.

“Well, we can scratch that off of our list of ‘things worth doing once.’” I joked.

“You can go back out if you want,” she replied with a quick tilt of her head. The tilt meant: she was staying put, but if I wasn’t, she would be happy to watch me blow around from the car.

“No. I’m with you,” I said. Besides… I heard a post-war crooner in the background and turned up the radio to hear “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” It seemed a pleasant bidding to stay warm, so I crooned the male part as best I could, and turned the car toward home. Julie smiled but didn’t sing.

As we crossed the Grand Haven Bridge, the heavy snow began.

Thirty months later, I read this post and tested the prose as "poetry" in quatrameter/enjambment :

Between the Stillness and the Storm

We’d gone together to the shore
to see the breakers crash against the pier.
In postcards, since our first year here,
we’d seen the mystic lighthouse
coated in a shroud of hoary ice.
We’d heard the stories of this site--
souls washed away in high-sea storms--
but never had we'd seen it for
ourselves 'til then, in the headlights
of the dozen cars behind us.
The shadowy swells rose and rolled
across the craggy, concrete wall
half-hidden by the falling snow.
At the far end was the lighthouse
awash in arching plumes of foam.
The cold mist from the spewing surf
stung our cheeks and squinted our eyes
as we leaned against each gust and gale
to hold our ground. Then turning back t'ward
the car, the wind dragged us by our arms
to the common sense and comfort
found inside two slamming doors
indifferent as the frosty glass
between the stillness and the storm.
I rubbed my gloved hands together
and fumbled with the ring of keys.
“Well, we can scratch that off the list
of ‘things worth doing once.’” I joked.
“You can go back out if you want,”
she said with a tilt of her head.
The tilt meant: she was staying put,
but she would be happy to watch
me blow around some more from there.
“No thanks. I’m gladly here with you,”
I smiled, turning up the radio
just in time to hear persistence
crooned, “but Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”
The song was a pleasant omen.
I sang along as best I could
'til the rhythm of the wipers
caught my eyes and ears
at the crest of the bridge to home.
It was then the heavy snow began.
© Copyright 2004 Tom Kapanka/ Patterns of Ink
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10,600,000 Hits and Counting! (21,800,000)

2010-12-05T18:34:00.016-05:00

When I posted the food court Hallelujah Chorus last Wednesday [see post below], that particular clip had already recieved over 3,000,000 hits on Youtube. As of Sunday evening, it had tripled to over 10,600,000 hits. (About 150 of those hits were here at POI.)

I think it's because the latter clip has a more "market place" commmon man feel to it while the Macy's event had a more of an opera retail-tabernacle feeling. They are both beautiful to watch, but the food court clip has gotten twice as many hits as the Macy's clip in half the time. I wonder if the 10,600,000 hits will double by next week.

Track it yourself by checking here. I just checked it four hours after posting this, and the hits are up to 10,850,000. That's more than a thousand hits a minute. 7696 [Four days later, Thursday, December 9, 7:00AM, the count has increased by FIVE MILLION to 15,586,000. That is a 12,000,000 increase since I first posted last Wednesday. At this rate, maybe the number of hits will double from the 10,600,000 in the title of this update by next Monday. (It hit 21,800,000 seven days after that update.)]7785-7904

And now, as a thank you for stopping by, I'll change the subject to my granddaughter Nora who went on her first "sleigh ride" today. It's a sled her mom found at a church garage sale in Chicago, but it looks worthy of the word sleigh. We got our first "lake effect" snow last night, and it's still coming down pretty heavy at times. I love it!
[No, students, tomorrow will probably not a "snow day."]

Back in from the cold with Mommy!

It Happened Again!

2010-12-01T04:36:00.013-05:00

Two weeks ago, in a food court somewhere, some talented singers reminded hundreds of unsuspecting shoppers of the true meaning of Christmas.
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A few weeks prior to this event, even more singers shared the Messiah message in a Philadelphia Macy's. My first response to each event was a glassy-eyed astonishment of this "foretaste of glory divine."

The concept of spontaneous "musicals productions" in odd places has been around for while. Previous clips have been humorous pranks. Here's another one in a similar food court. And here is one in the fruit section of a grocery store. Funny, yes, but those staged events, and the reactions of the onlookers, is quite different than what happens when people hear the Hallelujah Chorus in an otherwise earthly, pedestrian setting.

I've seen Handel's work performed in temples and auditoriums before thousands of believers gathered to worship and enjoy, but never have the words been more powerful to me than in these clips when throngs seem compelled by shear truth, unable to hold their tongues, and begin proclaiming the joy of the Messiah's rightful rule in the world He created. 7550

For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

The kingdom of this world

Is become the kingdom of our Lord,

And of His Christ, and of His Christ;

And He shall reign for ever and ever...

Didn't You Think the Rudolph Puppet was Bigger? I did.

2010-12-01T04:35:00.001-05:00

Posted Thursday, December 9, but not at the top out. I want to keep that Food Court post up there for a while.

We Could Use a "Teddy Bear" this Christmas!

2010-11-30T00:02:00.018-05:00

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that our Senior Class asked me to play Teddy Roosevelt at our "Night at the Museum Party." It was not until I tried to come up with a plausible "outfit" for that night, that I realized, I was nearly the same height, weight, and age of TR when he left the White House in 1909. Hmmmmm. A year after his 8-year presidency, TR traveled to Europe and Africa for 18 months.

Exactly 100 years ago, in 1910, while visiting France, former president Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech on citizenship in a republic. The speech is sometimes called "The Man in the Arena." As a college freshman, I memorized the most-quoted paragraph for a speech class. It reads as follows, but it is important to remember that these words were a SPEECH and not an editorial or written document. To fully understand the power of his words, it may help to listen to his voice on the brief video clip below before reading some other interesting passages from that speech.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
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Here are some unbelievably prophetic extended quotes from that 1910 "Citizenship in Democracy" speech:

On National Defense:
"There are well-meaning philosophers who declaim against the unrighteousness of war. They are right only if they lay all their emphasis upon the unrighteousness. War is a dreadful thing, and unjust war is a crime against humanity. But it is such a crime because it is unjust, not because it is a war. The choice must ever be in favor of righteousness, and this is whether the alternative be peace or whether the alternative be war. The question must not be merely, Is there to be peace or war? The question must be, Is it right to prevail? Are the great laws of righteousness once more to be fulfilled? And the answer from a strong and virile people must be "Yes," whatever the cost. Every honorable effort should always be made to avoid war, just as every honorable effort should always be made by the individual in private life to keep out of a brawl, to keep out of trouble; but no self-respecting individual, no self-respecting nation, can or ought to submit to wrong."
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On Definition of Marriage and Sanctity of Life:
The first essential in any civilization is that the man and women shall be father and mother of healthy children, so that the race shall increase and not decrease. If that is not so, if through no fault of the society there is failure to increase, it is a great misfortune. If the failure is due to the deliberate and willful fault, then it is not merely a misfortune, it is one of those crimes of ease and self-indulgence, of shrinking from pain and effort and risk, which in the long run Nature punishes more heavily than any other. If we of the great republics, if we, the free people who claim to have emancipated ourselves from the thraldom of wrong and error, bring down on our heads the curse that comes upon the willfully barren, then it will be an idle waste of breath to prattle of our achievements, to boast of all that we have done. No refinement of life, no delicacy of taste, no material progress, no sordid heaping up riches, no sensuous development of art and literature, can in any way compensate for the loss of the great fundamental virtues; and of these great fundamental virtues the greatest is the race's power to perpetuate the race.
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On Not Being Swayed by Gifted Speakers (or teleprompter readers):
It is highly desirable that a leader of opinion in democracy should be able to state his views clearly and convincingly. But all that the oratory can do of value to the community is enable the man thus to explain himself; if it enables the orator to put false values on things, it merely makes him power for mischief. Some excellent public servants have not that gift at all, and must merely rely on their deeds to speak for them; and unless oratory does represent genuine conviction based on good common sense and able to be translated into efficient performance, then the better the oratory the greater the damage to the public it deceives. Indeed, it is a sign of marked political weakness in any commonwealth if the people tend to be carried away by mere oratory, if they tend to value words in and for themselves, as divorced from the deeds for which they are supposed to stand. The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger, the ready talker, however great his power, whose speech does not make for courage, sobriety, and right understanding, is simply a noxious element in the body politic, and it speaks ill for the public if he has influence over them. To admire the gift of oratory without regard to the moral quality behind the gift is to do wrong to the republic.
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On Individuals Doing Their Part for a Greater Good:
In short, the good citizen in a republic must realize that they ought to possess two sets of qualities, and that neither avails without the other. He must have those qualities which make for efficiency; and that he also must have those qualities which direct the efficiency into channels for the public good. He is useless if he is inefficient. There is nothing to be done with that type of citizen of whom all that can be said is that he is harmless. Virtue which is dependent upon a sluggish circulation is not impressive. There is little place in active life for the timid good man. The man who is saved by weakness from robust wickedness is likewise rendered immune from [more robust] virtues. The good citizen in a republic must first of all be able to hold his own. He is no good citizen unless he has the ability which will make him work hard and which at need will make him fight hard.
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On Equality Being an Ideal (not a Socially-engineered Outcome):
Abraham Lincoln, a man of the plain people, blood of their blood, and bone of their bone, who all his life toiled and wrought and suffered for them, at the end died for them, who always strove to represent them, who would never tell an untruth to or for them, spoke of the doctrine of equality with his usual mixture of idealism and sound common sense. He said (I omit what was of merely local significance): "I think the authors of the Declaration of Independence intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal--equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all -- constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, everywhere." [Abraham Lincoln...Now back to TR] To say that the thriftless, the lazy, the vicious, the incapable, ought to have reward given to those who are far-sighted, capable, and upright, is to say what is not true and cannot be true. Let us try to level up, but let us beware of the evil of leveling down. If a man stumbles, it is a good thing to help him to his feet. Every one of us needs a helping hand now and then. But if a man lies down, it is a waste of time to try and carry him; and it is a very bad thing for every one if we make men feel that the same reward will come to those who shirk their work and those who do it. Let us, then, take into account the actual facts of life...."

On Patriotisim, "One World" Government, and Globalism:

I am no advocate of a foolish cosmopolitanism. I believe that a man must be a good patriot before he can be, and as the only possible way of being, a good citizen of the world. Experience teaches us that the average man who protests that his international feeling swamps his national feeling, that he does not care for his country because he cares so much for mankind, in actual practice proves himself the foe of mankind; that the man who says that he does not care to be a citizen of any one country, because he is the citizen of the world, is in fact usually an exceedingly undesirable citizen of whatever corner of the world he happens at the moment to be in. ... if a man can view his own country and all others countries from the same level with tepid indifference, it is wise to distrust him, just as it is wise to distrust the man who can take the same dispassionate view of his wife and mother. ...Now, this does not mean in the least that a man should not wish to do good outside of his native land. On the contrary, just as I think that the man who loves his family is more apt to be a good neighbor than the man who does not, so I think that the most useful member of the family of nations is normally a strongly patriotic nation."

And that is why, one hundred years later, I say we could use a Teddy Bear for Christmas. (Like this one made in 1908--just after the cartoon above began the craze.) What I mean, of course, is we could use a dose of Teddy Roosevelt's common sense!

This is not exactly a "holiday post," but I thought it might give reason to "be of good cheer" in a political season that seems to have forgotten what it means to be a useful citizen in a republic or a defender of "right over wrong" in a fallen world.

Hallelujah!

2010-11-22T00:08:00.004-05:00

I know it's a song written by human hands and sung by human voices, but hearing it in such a public context made me whisper aloud, "Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and my all of your shopping put a song in your heart!
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Something About a Child's Voice

2010-11-19T20:45:00.005-05:00

My daughter Natalie was playing Christmas music at the piano tonight, including the song called "Lucy and Linus" from "A Charlie Brown Christmas." That song is harder to play than its simple notes suggest. The rythym of the left hand is quite different from the right, but she was getting it. That song always makes me smile.

Sitting there in the room behind her, it occurred to me that we will be seeing that Christmas special soon. I love the part where Linus recites the story of Christ's birth from memory (in King James English), and then at the end he turns to his friend and says, "And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

There is something about a child's voice telling a wonderful story. Enjoy the following recitation.

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I am assuming that the three kids behind this little girl still have to get up and do their part of the program. They seem to be in another world--probably thinking, "Why didn't we save this kid for last. She's killin' us. Please just let us go back to our seats when she is done. I can't even remember how my story starts."

Just Another Night at the Museum

2010-11-14T21:07:00.018-05:00

In the previous post, I explained that education is more effective when the lives of students, parents, and teachers overlap like Venn diagrams. Friday night was just one of the many examples of this at our school.

[Double-click on photos to enlarge. Kala M.was a WWI nurse.]

Way back in 2002, we had our first Sadie Hawkins Party. These are thematic “costume” events where the girls ask the boys (although, the vast majority of students just go as groups of friends). I remember that first year because Emily asked Keith—five years later they were married. Wow! Some party!

[Hey, that's the nick-name of one of our foreign-exchange senior from Korea, enjoyed her role as Sacagawea. She was one of the seniors who organized this evening.]

Anyway, the theme that year was true to the original Sadie Hawkins (i.e. L’il Abner) and the kids dressed up as hillbillies. Other themes through the years have included: “Old West,” “Lord of the Rings,” Hoe Down in a Barn,” “South of the Border,” Fifties “Sock Hop,” “Roaring Twenties, “Mystery Dinner Theater, and so on. But this year’s theme, I must say, was pretty clever.

[Mr. and Mrs. C. were Grant Wood's "American Gothic." I caught myslef singing that old New Country Corn Flakes commercial from 1967.]

It was “A Night at the Museum,” based loosely on the Ben Stiller movies, but some of the kids broadened the concept to wax museums and came as famous people who were not in the movie.

[Mr. and Mrs. W. were Bonnie and Clyde. Grand Haven was the scene of a famous bank robbery in 1934, but it was not Bonnie and Clyde.]

The Senior Class organizes the event, and the details are usually kept secret. They typically start at the school and go from there to an unknown destination. This we booked an actual museum in Grand Haven.

[Mr. and Mrs. S. were lumberjacks.] This area of West Michigan experienced its greatest growth in the late 19th Century lumber boom. Most of the lumber used to rebuild Chicago after the great fire came from West Michigan. There were more great costumed characters than I have photos to show, but all of the students also came in historic costumes.

We called several museums, but most were not too keen on the idea of having 60 high school kids, parents and, teachers take over their historical displays. So we were thrilled when the curator of the Tri-Cities HIstorical Museum okayed the idea.

[David E. ran a 19th Century mercantile clerk.] Each museum character had clues and puzzle pieces that prompted nine teams of students through the whole museum.

The teachers and seniors dressed up as historic people and took our poses before the bus arrived. Once the students arrived, a variety of scavenger hunts and other games began that allowed the posed characters to come to life and join in the fun. I was Teddy Roosevelt.

I painted my beard with cover-up make-up and darkened my mustache. From a distance it looked okay. Up close, it looked weird, but it was fun.

[Ben S. and Mitch N. were Lewis and Clark.]

Three hours later, the curator came back. (Yes, believe it or not they trusted the whole museum to our care. Of course, there were security cameras all over the place, but honestly, the students showed respect throughout the evening and meal.)

One of the adults, said as we were cleaning up and getting ready to leave. “It’s great to see kids who know how to have good clean fun.”

Thank you Tri-Cities Historical Museum!
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Becoming...

2010-11-13T22:53:00.025-05:00

At its day-to-day level, education is a service enterprise—not a production industry. When those involved forget this, they begin to see students as products and the K-12 years as an assembly line: Mix, heat, mold, extrude, pass on down the line. Pause at quality control; check the specs, separate irregularities, send the others down the line. The last month of 12th grade adds a coat of paint, some packaging, and voilà! The product turns its tassel on cue and steps into the world.

But no. Educators are not foremen on an assembly line; they are service providers. As such, the teacher-student relationship is more accurately depicted in a Venn overlap than a line graph. "Life prep" education must intersect with students beyond books and lectures. The Venn crossing points bring texture to subject matter and add context to the character, knowledge, and judgment modeled by educators in and beyond the classroom.

Teachers enter a classroom with "positional authority," which comes with the title, but they must earn "relational influence," which comes with time. These are not mutually exclusive terms.Though the latter is perhaps more endearing, the former should never be abandoned. Exemplary teachers know how to maintain their professional role while fostering appropriate, professional relationships with students. The greater the Venn overlap, the easier it is to maximize each student’s learning style and personal gifts. Such teachers soon elevate process over product, the means over the end , their outpouring into lives over the immediate student outcomes.

While it is true that teachers are influencers and role models for students, if those students are considered merely products, and if the process is only data-driven, and if evaluation therefore focuses only on that which can be objectively measured, then in time, students mistakenly believe that a person’s worth is measured by numbers on a transcript. When, in fact, by the time graduates enter their careers, their potential employers look beyond transcripts in search of employees with integrity, values, good judgment, a teachable spirit, personal responsibility, team approach, strong work ethic, and the ability to do one’s best for a greater good beyond one’s self. Such students will always be in demand because such citizens are the strength of communities and the American work force.

In the 80's educators called it O.B.E.--outcomes-based-education. The intention was not bad, but the scope of outcomes often overlooked the most important aspects of personal development. The student is not a collection of papers, not a string of letters in a grade-book-—he is the person behind the eyes at each desk. The papers and worksheets and letter-grades are means to an end—and not the end itself. Grades merely reflect the more measurable elements of the process. While it is true that measurements help us evaluate that process, those measurements should never be considered the “product” or most important outcome of education.

Tests and measurements are merely an attempt to motivate effort; reward achievement; identify personal strengths and weaknesses, and assess improvement. For college-bound high school students, grades, rank, and GPA provide helpful though imperfect points of reference for colleges, etc., but such data should never be seen as the outcome of education. Perhaps the most important evaluation in a school is regular assessment of the services rendered, the character and virtues modeled, and the exemplary relationships formed.

Grades and GPAs tell only a portion of each student's preparation for life. The truest outcomes of education reveal themselves over time.

Ideally, parents and teachers understand that they, too, are not “finished products.” They are people in an endless formative process. They have “become” teachers and parents, but they are not done “becoming.” They are life-long learners who have not arrived but are further along in the journey, and therefore, better equipped to help students become what they will someday be more clearly becoming. Becoming...becoming. At our best, we are all still “becoming” our best. And it is very becoming of educators when they realize that they and their students are still works in progress.

Or as I once wrote to a very memorable English class back in 1986:

I owe you—
not in dollars and cents
(though, in a way, that’s true).
I owe you…
I owe you in the sense that
every day… every day…every day
we meet,
and I say, “Listen…”
and at the various levels which you do,
I owe you…
for it’s a costly thing
to be paid ATTENTION
a single time more than I’ve earned it.
Open eyes and ears keep book—
and surely after all this time…
I owe you…
Not just in dollars and in sense,
but in reflections…
..........reflections...of Him who created
time and space and you and me
and mixedtheminto… NOW…
which we occupy together.
He holds the true account,
and His grace provides the balance
I owe you….
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© Copyright 1986, TK, Patterns of Ink

Come and Gone: Nora's First October

2010-10-31T07:16:00.024-05:00

Two additional skunk photos added Wednesday, November 3, 2010.

I have written before that I am prone to meloncholy in the fall, but this particular autumn has been overshadowed with many other things large and small. The large things are around me—unsettling at times—but not so much that my little granddaughter can't bring me joy and turn my heavy sighs to laughter. Her name is Nora, and this was her first October.

This is her at the Lewis Orchard with Mom and Dad three weeks ago. The apples were huge, plentiful, and perfect for eating on the spot.
.

That day trip began with our annual trek to Country Dairy. Contrary to the sign, it is not an arm store (for prosthetic limbs) but a farm store with a cafe on the grounds where customers get a bottomles glass of ice cold milk with every meal. The old railroad track in front of the farm has been made into a great bicycle trail.

Just down the road from Country Dairy is another farm, famous for its fall activities. Nora wasn’t the least bit afraid of the zebra, the elephant, the camel, and even this goat.

She picked out a pumpkin last week...

...and last night, while hundreds of Trick-or-Treaters came running to our porch, they were greeted by this little skunk.

She wore her skunk costume for about an hour, but then she really got "into character," and the little stinker had to go inside to get her diaper changed.

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Emily (Nora's mom) bought the costume on Ebay. I'd swear she was a giant skunk trying to get away from Pepé Le Pew.
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Iconic Remembrance : Ten-Ten-Ten

2010-10-10T16:39:00.022-05:00

In case you haven't noticed it, today's date is 10-10-10, The tenth day of the tenth month in the tenth year of this century. That fact has absolutely nothing to do with this post.

Iconic Remembrance
I have a strange gift (or curse?) of remembering where and when and why I heard a word for the first time. The more obscure the word, the more likely I am to remember the moment its meaning first took root in my head. In this case, it is a word I never needed before I learned it for a college orientation class and in the past decade it has become a word that we use casually for something quite unlike its original meaning. I used it a few minutes ago with my daughter. I was helping her with a computer task, and I said, “Now double-click on the external hard-drive icon.” She immediately knew what I meant, because for her and her generation the word icon means a small graphic symbol for a file, program, or piece of computer hardware.

But in 1974, as a wide-eyed college freshman, I was required to go on a guided tour of perhaps the single-most comprehensive collection of religious art in the United States.
In one of the galleries, I was surrounded by what the guide called icons, a word that comes from Greek εἰκών eikōn, which means image. Icons are typically painted on wood, and sometimes in three-paneled hinged form allowing them to stand freely in place. These are called triptych icons. They're common in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. That little room in the huge gallery was filled almost exclusively with triptych icons. I have not been in that room for about 35 years, but that is where I first heard the word icon.

Because I was reared in a protestant home, I must confess that iconic religious art does not move me emotionally or spiritually. By that I mean that the “image” does not bring me closer to what it represents. If I look on it meditatively (if I double-click it with my mind so to speak) it does not open my eyes to the real thing. I have no quams with those who are affected by such symbols of the real thing, so long as the icon does not become an idol or the material object of affection; so long as the icon or statue does not venerate devotion; so long as the representation of Christ (or Mary or a saint) does not become a source of “spiritual help” apart from the real thing.

It’s a fine line between iconic remembrance and idolatry. The difference is that of representation vs. relationship. It’s like a husband who claims to know and love his wife who is in the next room wanting his company, but he instead keeps his distance while looking at his favorite picture of his wife. He has a picture of his wife on his office desk, one in his wallet, one on his dashboard. He loves looking at her picture, but he does not actually spend time with his wife. Regardless of how fondly he speaks of his wife whenever people ask about the picture (the icon), if he has no intention of introducing them to the real thing, what good is the picture? It is merely represention—the relationship itself is non-existent. That is the hazard of icons and idols—rather than pointing us to the real thing, they take its place.

Having said that, I will now defend a type of icon we probably all have in our homes. They are framed photographs of loved ones. Not just the hundreds of snapshots that fill our photo albums and shoe boxes under the bed in the guestroom. I’m talking about those dozen or so “iconic photographs” that have a Norman Rockwell illustrative quality and tell part of the story of who we are. I’m thinking of a framed picture of my mom and dad getting ready to drive away after their wedding and a similar photo of the same moment after Julie’s parents' wedding. Both of those pictures are framed and displayed on the antique lampstand in our living room. They are iconic to all members of my family. I look at them and think of the real people and the real life I shared with them. I don’t worship or venerate the image. I think of the real thing. If it were possible, the picture might prompt me to pick up the phone and call them, and in the case of Julie’s parents, we often do. That is the power of iconic photographs.

We share iconic photos as a country. Think of the images: FDR with his cigarette holder rising jauntily in the air from his confident smile; Truman holding up a newspaper announcing Dewey's win; little John-John Kenedy saluting his father's passing casket; and one of my favorites—that iconic planted kiss from a sailor to a nurse upon the news that the war was over. Those photos, happy and sad, along with many others, remind us of events that shaped us as a nation.

In the same way, every family has iconic photographs. They do not take the place of the real thing; they help us remember those who shaped us; they foster the continued relationship with either the person or the moment and meaning of a frozen fragment of time; they are not idols that interfere with our relationship with God; they trigger remembrance of those who introduced us to Him.
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Pioneer

2010-10-03T20:04:00.009-05:00

I was a stranger in a strange place yet not lost,
already his words, machete-sharp, had cleared my mind.
Then as the clamorous praise was done, this song began...
and I wept in the dark hoping no one saw...

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Pioneer, Pioneer

Keep pressing onwards beyond your fears

And only your Father goes before you to your own frontier

Youʼre a Pioneer

Uncharted wilderness stretches before you

And you thrive on going where no one has gone

Still it gets lonely when darkness rears

So sing by the fire until the dawn

[Chorus]

You travel light and you travel alone

And when you arrive nobody knows

But your Father in heaven, He is glad you can go

Cause those who come after you will need the road

[Chorus]

And what you have done, others will do

Bigger and better and faster than you

But you canʼt look back, you gotta keep on pressing through

Thereʼs a wilderness pathway and itʼs calling you

Calling you, calling you

Keep pressing onwards beyond your fears

And only your Father goes before you to your own frontier

Youʼre a Pioneer

Written by Nancy Honeytree Miller

Nate and Kim Would Rather Play than Pose

2010-09-26T17:19:00.009-05:00

Back in August, I mentioned that Nate and Kim got engaged in Chicago. Last week they went with a friend to take some pictures in the park. Looks like fun! I think these photos are for a "hold the date" card for close friends and family. Plans are set for June 10.

(The poem below has nothing to do with this joyous occasion.)

Only Then

2010-09-26T07:22:00.016-05:00

How sad the news came on a day

that was a drizzle of sky and gray

with barely the breeze to move a leaf

just as summer lost its breath

and autumn brought its hint of death

to withered vines of garden grief.

Strange that it was then I learned

the corner we had turned
led not to a path but a wall
and on it, written plain as day,
what no voice dared to say.
Yet only then I heard you call.
© Copyright 2010 Tom Kapanka/ Patterns of Ink
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O Lord, Where is the Lyre

2010-09-12T05:54:00.017-05:00

[David plays his lyre for King Saul.
Double-click to enlarge]

O Lord, where is the lyre

David played for Saul

that took his feet to higher

ground and assuaged all

the anguish of a daunting day?

Too heedless are the drums

of hardened hide at play,

too shrill the sound that comes

from strands, wired to the mind
but not the soul.
Such strident jangling cannot find
the harmony or words to fill the hole
His parting left on earth.
O send again the psalmist chord
to lift Your Word and proclaim the birth,
the cross, the rising and return…
of our Lord.
© Copyright 2010 Tom Kapanka/ Patterns of Ink

In the previous post, I mentioned that my parents enjoyed the great old hymns of the faith. Through many years of singing along side Mom and Dad in church and around our piano at home, we children grew to love the old hymns, too.

The hymns I speak of are not "good" because they are old, they are now old because they were good--because they put Truth to music and help focus the minds of those who sang upon that truth. That is why they were sung for more than a hundred years. I could list the scores of hymns that meet this test--and explain why not all of the old church songs measure up--but my purpose here is simply to say that I'm glad young Christians are once again breathing new life into old hymns. This past week around a campfire, I heard a young worship leader explain the word ebenezer to a group of teens as they sang "Come Thou Fount." The exchange between him and the young people reminded me of Still Waters Chapter Seven, which I'm pretty sure the leader had never read. [Good job, Jer.]

I'm equally pleased that in recent years some great new hymns have been written that rise above the 7-11 choruses that peppered the turn of the 21st Century. (By 7-11, I mean those congregational songs that seemed like seven words repeated eleven times. Such songs were fine, I suppose, to season the Praise meal, but they lacked the meat to be a meal themselves.)

The new songs I'm referring to have been called "modern hymns" in that they reflect the substance of the great hymns that stood the test of time through centuries of congregational worship across many post-Reformation Christian denominations.

One of these modern hymns will be ten years old next year and I hope churches will be singing if for decades to come: In Christ Alone, by Keith & Kristyn Getty and Stuart Townend.

Here is another written by the same trio: The Power of the Cross.

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I've Had a Waltz in My Head for Years

2010-09-03T07:38:00.018-05:00

Thoughts on a song my father used to whistle.

No. This photo is not of my father. Nor is that bearded man a relative. But he wrote something 140 years ago, and a portion of it has been lodged in my brain for decades.

I've written of my mother’s fondness of music, her years in the church choir and lark-like hours at her treasured piano. My father liked music, too, especially hymns, but he was not particularly musical himself with one exception. He was a fine whistler.

In all the years of working outdoors with him on the property, I do not recall him whistling, not when we surveyed the boundary lines, cleared the land, built the barn, spanned the creek , dug the well—I don’t recall him whistling during any of those long tasks. Perhaps he did, and I just couldn’t hear it. Song whistling doesn’t carry well outdoors.

But when we finally had a roof on the house and the sheetrock on the walls, back in the days before there was carpet or curtains or any soft surface to dampen the resonance of the empty halls and rooms, Dad whistled his heart out while he worked. It was perfect-pitch concert whistling with trills and glissades up and down at least two full octaves. The empty unpainted rooms were a wonderful concert hall.

I am a whistler, too, especially when I find myself in a room or hallway with great resonance, but my skill and range falls short of the man’s from whom I inherited the ability and inclination.

I have noticed that my whistling is perhaps the truest expression of my inner peace and joy. I often whistle down the hall at school—many times I don’t even know I’m doing it. I whistle in the school kitchen (a room with great resonance) when I’m getting a cup of coffee, and people come in and say things like “Someone’s in a good mood.” Then I realize I’m whistling, and without exception, it does reflect my spirit at the time. I’m not sure it has much to do with moods, because I’m pretty even-tempered and not prone to mood swings, but I am prone to feeling the weight of burdens—both personal and professional—and whenever that load is lightened or when I have turned it over to God… I am far more likely to whistle songs without even knowing I’m doing it.

But on my best whistling day, with limber lips and full range, I cannot hold a candle to Dad’s whistling (and I suppose if I did hold a candle to it, the candle would go out—forgive my poor choice of idiom.)

Often, when Dad and I were working together in the empty echoing main level of our house in progress, he would be whistling a waltz. I did not know its name, but he would whistle it all day, faint and fluid, until each sweeping, watercolor note was painted on my mind. Of all the songs Dad whistled in my presence, this is the one I distinctly remember. To this day, decades later, I whistled it myself, always mindful that it was the waltz Dad whistled in those empty rooms.

I also remember wondering how my father could possibly know a piece of classical music so well. It was not a song on any album in our home; he did not listen to NPR on the radio; and not one of the many dimensions I knew of my father placed him in a concert hall listening to such music. I wondered how that tune had gotten in his head. It was etched in my mind from hearing Dad whistle it, but where had he learned it?

About thirty-five years after the house was done, as I was writing these chapters, I tried to whistle it to my brother Dave to see if he remembered it. He remembered the melody but not the name of the song. He suggested it might be the tune Mom’s music box played. She had a pot-metal music box a little larger than a tuna can with a shallow dish inside and a lid with a painted cameo-like-thing on top. In it, Mom kept rings and bobby pins—and the little things that turned up in her hand at bedtime. It played a pretty song but hasn't worked since way before we moved from Roseville to the house. I have that old music box. Maybe it can be fixed, and maybe it does play the waltz. Dave has an uncanny memory for such things.

Another time I asked my sister Kathy if she had ever heard Dad whistling the waltz. She hadn’t, but she reminded me that Mom and Dad had taken ballroom dance classes before we kids came along. I knew they were excellent dancers, and had seen the remnants of that set-aside pastime whenever they ice skated together. There is no way for me to know for sure, but I have concluded—and the thought gives me great pleasure—that that waltz is the one Dad and Mom had learned to waltz to, that they heard it played on a scratchy record in whatever room they and their friends took those classes together. That not only the notes, but the count and steps and rhythm and the feel of Mom’s hand and soft back were in Dad’s mind as he whistled that song during those days of endless progress on the house.

Through the years the waltz has flitted in and out of my memory like a welcome ghost.

A few weeks ago, I was watching a movie with my daughters, and I heard Dad’s Waltz in the background of a scene. I sat up in my seat, and said, “That’s it! That’s the song Dad used to whistle.” The girls had not noticed the song. It was background. They were engrossed in the plot and dialogue. My comment was a complete non-sequitur. I had never shared with them any of these thoughts. And in truth—even for me—it was a strange thing to say out loud because it had been nearly a year since the song had been in my thoughts. Back in the fall of 2009, when we were painting the rooms and re-carpeting the house for its sale, I had written about it. So to hear it in this movie, was a great surprise. I watched the credits carefully to the very end where all music used in the film is listed…and jotted down the name of the waltz: Léo Delibes Waltz from Coppelia.

I know a fair amount of classical music from college and personal listening, but I must admit I did not recall the name Léo Delibes or the title of this waltz that has been in my head for all these years.
Now with the help of Youtube, I’ll share it with you. Beautiful as it may sound performed by an orchestra, I can tell you that it is most beautifully performed by a happy whistler doing trim work in an empty, unfinished house that will someday be his family's home.

The part Dad whistled is the first main theme heard in the first 45 seconds with the ending that comes after minute 1:15. (He simplified the boisterous part in between).

Here is a man playing it on a ukulele, which is surprisingly enchanting if you close your eyes. Here is a man playing it on an accordion—sort of the street café version. If there were ever a musical score for the screenplay of The Settling Years, it would have to include some subtle, simple echo of this song.
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Hello. My Name is Tom Kapanka

2010-08-31T07:46:00.014-05:00

For six years, I've been writing here at Patterns of Ink anonymously. I've had many reasons for thinking that was best, but in the previous post, I said "consider this my Facebook for now," and I can't really do that without a name.

I have another reason for disclosing my full name after all these years. This morning my younger brother Jim sent me a Youtube link from my cousin Jack who is a country singer. Back in Chapter Six of the "Unsettled" story, I told of the time my father was confronted about building the barn without a building permit. That story ended with the inspector declaring the barn a work of art. Years later, around 1993, when my cousin Jack [AKA "One-eyed Jack"] was visiting my parents, sitting there in the house we had built in those settling years, Dad told him the story, and like a true lyricist, when Jack heard the inspector's line "This isn't a barn it's a work of art," he said, "Now there's a song!" He took some liberties and made the statement apply to the house we had built at the end of that winding driveway. It was recorded for his second CD many years later. [Other songs can be heard on his Youtube channel.]

The house and land sold last week. The sign was up for just four days. Lots of interest. On the second day, the buyers went through the house and barn twice. They rightly discerned that this was a rare find, a one-of-a-kind place in the area that defied "comps" and the trends in the market, and they wisely made an offer above the list price to send a strong message to the other interested parties from the four-day traffic at the home they knew they wanted. They are a nice family. We are honored that they saw the value of this very special place and that they have invited us to walk its familiar paths whenever we wish. We will not abuse their courtesy, but the invitation brings a sort of peace to this sale. I live on the other side of the state, but someday I will meet them.

They don't know this yet, but as promised, a draft of my "Unsettled" story [which I may re-title as either "The Settling Years" or "Settling Home" or who knows what?] will be on one of the library shelves of Mom's phone nook when they move in. If I don't get it there in time, I'll deliver it in person to the front porch door someday. Perhaps they may also enjoy listening to this song that was written about the house they will now be calling home.

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It Started with a Jingle

2010-08-31T07:45:00.000-05:00

In the post above I mentioned my cousin Jack is a country singer and song writer. It all started with this jingle for Picway Shoe Stores.

Consider This My Facebook For Now

2010-08-31T06:29:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I can’t find things I’ve written. Two years ago one of our faculty retired after teaching kindergarten in our school for 29 years. I wrote a poem to give her at that time, and she put it in a scrap book. She moved to Iowa to live with her sister, and this past June she passed away unexpectedly. I was asked to provide some thoughts to share at her funeral. I could not find the poem anywhere—not a hard copy, not a draft on any of the three computers where I may have written it (and I could not remember which computer I had used to do that). I never did find it, but a copy of it is in Judy’s scrapbook of notes from friends now treasured by her sister no doubt.

I’ve lost other things, too. The nice thing about my Patterns of Ink blog, is I’ve been writing here for six years now. Some months more than others as one can tell by the archives. Occasionally, I have reason to find an old post or poem that I know is in here somewhere, and I’ll begin searching through the archives. I begin talking to myself as I do, “Seems like I wrote that in March, but was it March last year. Nope not there. How ‘bout March of 2008?” Then I’ll find it March of 2007 and say, “Oh, my! Has it been three years since I wrote that?” and a strange sense of lost time sweeps over me.

A trick I sometimes forget to use is a Google search. How strange is that? That I can type the three words "Patterns of Ink" followed by a post title, and to my amazement the link appears, sifted out from billions of internet links afloat in cyberspace like dust specks in the sunbeam of my childhood bedroom after jumping on the bed. Powerful stuff we’re playing with here on this thing we call the web.

The thing I notice when I dig in the archives is that the social aspect of the comment section was once a major part of the process. That aspect has vanished. This is due to many changes: For years, blogging was a two-way process for me. I wrote here but I read at other blogs and left comments at other sites. Those readers would in turn read here and comment. Some of you may be reading now, and I apologize that my blog “visits” have dwindled in this past year. I truly miss the interaction and my writing misses the dimension of being honed by your input.

But the truth is, during the peak of this site’s active months (years?), I spent too much time in that alternate world—now maybe not enough. I was working through some grief by way of writing. The “Duncan Phyfe” chapters I wrote based on phone calls to my mother in her last year of a fight with cancer. The “Unsettled” chapters I wrote in the aftermath of her death. Writing helped me immeasurably, and the support of readers I do not even know in real life was an added blessing.

I’m a grandpa now, and my second daughter is engaged, and my third daughter is very active in school, etc. etc. etc. It seems harder and harder for me to stay up late at night or rise in the wee small hours of the morning and write as I am doing now.

The other thing that I think has changed the social aspect of blogging is Facebook. I know many of you are now much more active in Facebook than you are in your neglected blogs. This is commendable, I suppose. Facebook, afterall, is current—ever changing, ever growing, ever connecting, ever posting the present for all to see. I have not yet jumped on the Facebook bandwagon—for two reasons:

Time. I’ve been caught up in similar thing in the blogosphere, and I now watch my friends and family spend hours in an alternate world discovering more things about more “friends” than humans were ever intended to know. I know I would get caught up in it just as deeply. Sure, I would love to connect with old friends, and if I ever do join Facebook, it will be for that reason.

But this brings up the other reason I am hesitant to dive face-first into Facebook. The term “friend” is used like some sort of social score. How many friends do you have? How many friends can you truly keep up with? How many shirt-tale, score card “friends” do you want in your family and personal business? Maybe I’m wrong, but ask yourself this question if you are in the Facebook world. Have you heard this exchange yet? “So and so asked to be my friend. I don’t think I want to be their friend.” Or “I’m going to drop them from my friend list.” I could be wrong, but it seems like a middle school nightmare. It seems like a Charlie Brown Valentine’s Day, and I’m just not ready for it yet.

So for now, I’ll just stick with my old-school brown-paper-bag blog. I’ll try to post at least once a week. If I start another writing project, it will probably unfold here, but this is a year, I have promised myself and my family to focus more in the present, and as my family has been saying for years… “Take the leap, Dad. Pick some stuff, tweak it and proof it, and try to get it published. So I will be doing that… I think… and no doubt it will really start feeling like a Charlie Brown Valentine’s Day, as I begin to collect rejection letters, but I think it will be healthy process that will result in better balance of my time and clearer focus of my future pastime priorities.

Any advice is welcome.

Here is what a friend sent me:

SLOW DOWN! Robert Putnam ("Bowling Alone") alerted us to the growing trend of "friendlessness" in America. Though the average Facebook-er has 130 "friends," most Americans have no one with whom he or she can share soul-revealing joys and fears. Friendship takes time. So we must choose to break the chains of "conspicuous busyness" that promises status but delivers loneliness.
Wilson Quarterly: America: Land of Loners? by Daniel Akst

Americans, plugged in and on the move, are confiding in their pets, their computers, and their spouses. What they need is to rediscover the value of friendship.

Magnificent News From Chicago Lakeshore

2010-08-21T07:16:00.014-05:00

I'm writing from the hotel (now owned by a motel chain) that has become our home away from home whenever we visit our daughter Kim near Chicago's "Magnificent Mile."

Come back later and this post will attempt to do justice to an event that happened last night, a well-planned happening that prompted magnificent smiles and even some happy tears. Magnificent guy! Magnificent news!

Like the story that has occupied these posts for months, this news also involves water and rock--a very precious rock on a precious hand. I know what you're thinking: "Tom, if this is what I think it is--what in the world were YOU doing there?" Good question, and the answer is part of why it was such a magnificent event.

No time to write about it now, but I will as time allows.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay. I'm back. Last night we got home from Chicago, and I have a few minutes to fill in some details on the magnificant news of Nate and Kim's engagement.

Kim is a senior in college. This summer she stayed in Chicago to nanny for a family who attends Latin School, where she works during the school year. Her boyfriend Nate attends the same college and also works in the city.

On August 2nd we were camping on the shore of Lake Michigan (about 90+ nautical miles from the photo above). We were sitting around a campfire when Nate called on my cellphone and asked if he could drive up from Chicago to visit with me about something. He stressed that Kim should not know he was coming up.

The next day, August 3rd, he drove up alone to meet me at the Starbucks in Grand Haven where we had a long talk. Actually, I mostly listened to his well-planned thoughts that culminated in his declaration of love, commitment, and request to marry my daughter. I assured him of my wife's and my permission and blessing, and then we had a long and pleasant talk about related things before joining the rest of my family (except Kim) for dinner at one of our favorite places nearby. It was great, and best of all, we managed to keep it all a secret from Kim (who called more than once while we were together).

About ten days later, Nate called again from Chicago asking if we could come down secretly on Friday to wait for them in Promontory Point Park along Lake Michigan (first photo above). It is a beautiful picnic setting with large limestone fire pits overlooking the lake.

We brought fire wood and all the goodies to enjoy it. Nate's plan was to propose to Kim at another park along the Chicago River where they have had many significant moments in the past, and then to bring her to our location. She of course thought we were home in Michigan so it was a great surprise that went without a hitch.

That second photo is them arriving shortly after six o'clock. After Nate had proposed and given her the beautiful ring. There was one minor glitch. After Kim said "Yes" she of course began calling family and friends. One of the first calls was to Nate's parents who are missionaries in Guatemala, nearly 2,000 miles away. That call went through fine. We knew Kim would also try to call us (on Julie's cell). That call was going to be my cue to light the fire. Unfortunately, our phones that were only a few miles away had no reception out on the point, so I never got my cue. When I saw them coming down the walkway, I began looking for the lighter. Never did find the lighter, but fortunately there was a nice homeless guy just down the lake a ways who had a lighter he was happy to loan me. I got the fire started, and after that the evening went perfectly as Nate had planned.

It was a great evening of celebration with friends (who later joined us for a cook-out). There is much more I could say all of this... about how happy Kim's two sisters are for her... about how happy Julie and I are for them...about how the fun will continue when Nate's mom flies in to visit over Labor Day... about how much we appreciate the way Nate included us from that first phone call while we sat around a campfire on the west shore of Lake Michigan to that second campfire on the east side of the lake...

But the thing we are most happy about is this young couple's commitment to begin thinking of life in terms of their future together; to see the path God has for them as shared; and to honor each other as they begin making the plans to walk that path together.

Of course, it doesn't hurt at all to see that Nate brings to Kim the very same squinty-eyed smile we have loved since she was a child.

5115

Still Waters: Chapter 15 (Conclusion)

2010-08-15T00:03:00.058-05:00

The close of this chapter, and the story, was modified Sunday afternoon and tweaked again Monday morning and again early Wednesday morning. =)

It is the nature of rivers to bring things together and ultimately wash things away.

The Muskegon River, in its 234 miles, converges with the Hersey River, Cedar Creek, and several other tributaries, but before any river forms and flows there must first be a convergence of sky and earth, of things above with things below.

Whether it is rain and rivers or DNA and generations or strangers bound by circumstance—the way things converge for good or ill has been characterized through the ages as either providential or pointless, as reason either to embrace one's faith or to take comfort in the certainty of a divine vacuum. While man is free to speculate, it is foolish for him to think that the purpose and nature of reality is determined by public opinion or majority rule. He must never overestimate the influence of his consciousness or his conscience on planet earth. Life is what it is regardless of man's denials or doubts or even faith. It is only his relationship to God that is affected by these things.
.
Man’s inclination to put the fraction of what he sees into the thimble of what he comprehends is like fallen acorns floating down a rushing river and pretending that their weight will change its flow while ignoring the rain that put them there and the mystery in their hardened selves that will let them take root downstream.

The fact that flash-flood waters had knocked down the sign that would have told the Sinclairs where to get out of the river… to some is a random coincidence. But had the sign been standing and had they gotten out at the right place, they would not have walked through that pathless stretch of woods where the unseen limb snatched the spectacles from Dr. Sinclair’s face. Had he not had the unusual hobby of tending turtles in a walled-in rock garden, he would not have been gathering stones in a mesh laundry bag while floating down the river, and the bag would not have been used to mark the spot where he lost his lens. Had he not returned to find the lens, a young girl's life would have been forever changed or snuffed out. Had his hand not felt the long mesh bag weighted with three stones when he fell to the earth, an innocent husband and father would be dead.
.
It is the nature of rivers to bring things together and ultimately wash things away.

*************

James drew in a deep quivering breath and held it as he scanned the tree line to his right; he quietly exhaled and his gaze continued around to his left, making sure no eyes had seen. He looked again at his hands, this time to see if there was blood on them. He rubbed the bump on his head where the club had grazed his temple. Bits of bark were his hair, and as he tilted his head forward to tussle them out with his open fingers, his eyes looked blankly at the body on the ground.

A dialogue began in his head and slowly seeped out as mumbled whispers in the air.

“Is he’s dead or just out cold?”

“His head busted like a melon,” he shuddered. “What an awful sound.”

“You didn’t see it crack open, and even if it did, that doesn’t mean he’s dead.”

He reached down and pressed his fingertips along Var’s wrist but felt no pulse.

“That doesn’t mean anything. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

He did the same to his own left wrist and felt the throbbing rhythm of life.

“That still doesn’t mean anything. Your heart’s beating ninety to nothin’—of course you can feel it.”

“Well, if he is alive, I should call 911.”

“If you do that, your life is ruined. There’ll be a trial."
"Not necessarily. It's clear-cut self defense."
"You can't prove that without the girl. Do you really want all that. A jury, lawyers, legal costs? And when you’re found innocent—which you surely would be—your life, your family’s life—will never be the same.”

“And for what?”

“For saving a young girl’s life.”

“Exactly, and for saving who knows how many other girls’ from the same fate.”

“Exactly. You've done a service to society.”
"I've killed a man..." he mumbled

"Fine. Let's assume he's dead. Would you rather it be you lying there?”
“He was going to kill me.”
"You did what you had to do." His thoughts seemed to pat him on the shoulder, "If, before God, you know you did nothing wrong, why complicate it? Just clean up and get out of here before you're seen. There's nothing to prove you did this."
“What about the knife?” he said aloud.

“It has your fingerprints on it, and all teacher fingerprints are in the database. Other than that, there is no proof that you were here.”

He picked up the stiletto, closed the blade, went back to the riverbank, and tossed it in a deep still place in the bend. With a few quiet splashes, the three rocks from the mesh bag fell in with the countless other mossy boulders that lined that portion of the river.

James looked at his watch. 5:25. Only twenty minutes had passed since he had seen his Clair? Not possible, he thought, but the second-hand's steady, silent sweep convinced him it was true.

The next bus would be coming soon, but he did not want to be seen coming from downstream, so he walked back into the woods but not the way he had come. He walked due east fifty yards or so and then due north until he could hear the park to his left, then he walked west again, coming to the park but from the far side of the gravel cul-de-sac. There he sat unnoticed on one of the many large boulders that lined the edge of the parking lot.

The inane tube diving had stopped, and a sort of sullen banter had lulled the tubers into aimless pacing as they waited in the heat for the bus. James watched the scene as if in a fog; the gravity of what had happened haunted him as did his decision to leave the matter unreported. “What ifs” of worry flooded his mind and left him utterly fatigued.

What James did not know was that a bus had come and gone in his absence, taking more than sixty tubers back to the livery. Clair and the girls had every reason to believe James would be on that bus. When he wasn’t, they decided to drive to the spot themselves. Just after six o'clock, Clair turned into the parking lot and rolled toward James who did not see her until she lightly beeped the horn. Her husband was deep in thought and the beep, gentle as it was, caused him to jump so hard he slipped off the rock and sprang to his feet. The girls laughed, and Clair continued to laugh as she got out of the car to let James drive, but when they met in front of the car and she saw his ashen unsmiling face, she took him by the hand.

“James, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled. “I just didn't see you.”

“Didn’t find it, eh?” she said looking at his glasses.

“Find what?” James said blankly.

“Your lens.”

James’s eyes widened. He’d forgotten about the lens.

“What happened to your head?” Clair said, touching the bump near his temple.

“Oh, that. Ah… A branch hit it,” he said, struck by the truthfulness of his evasion.

Clair continued around the car, but James stood staring at the pines in the distance. In the frenzied snap of time, his mind, his right eye, had blocked out the fact that it could not see. He had completely forgotten about the lens, and a fear swept over him that he tried his best to hide.

The lens was a problem. It could be traced to him. It may have a fingerprint or perhaps its strong prescription could place him at the scene.

Clair sat in the passenger seat and shut the door; James slunk behind the steering wheel still deep in thought.

“Where were you, Dad?” Kenzie asked.

“We waited like a half hour and then you weren’t even on the bus,” Anna complained.

“I’m sorry about that, girls,” James said, grabbing a flashlight from the glove box, “and I wish I could say we can leave, but I need to give it another try with this flashlight.”

“It’s not even dark,” said Kenzie.

“I know, but sometimes a light helps you find things that shine—even in the day.”

“James, just leave it," Clair said, “One lens won’t cost that much.”

“We want to get something to eat,” Anna whined.

He pulled out of the cul-de-sac, turned right down the short dead-end road, and parked on the shoulder.

“I’ll only take a few minutes,” he insisted. “You all stay here. Leave the car running and the air on.”

“I’ll come help you,” offered Kenzie.

“No, really. Stay here. There’s poison ivy, mosquitoes…”

“And branches that hit you in the head,” Clair added.

“Exactly,” James forced a smile, “Just stay here. I’ll be right back. Stay in the car,” he repeated almost too sternly to avoid suspicion.

James wove through the trees toward the pines. He could not see the tubers in the park and he was confident they could not see him, but when he stooped under a tree branch and stepped into the clearing behind the pines, his posture snapped to attention.

Var’s body was gone.

Fear worse than before gripped him. He looked around wildly, expecting to see Var standing behind him, charging at him covered in blood.

He looked again at the ground. Was this the right place? Where was the blood? He took a few steps toward the river than turned to study the ground again. He saw the flattened areas in the grass, the two pieces of limb that broke on his shoulder. This was the spot. It was then he saw large tufts of tall grass with the dirt still on the roots covering the spot where Var's head had rested.

A twig snapped behind him.

“Looking for something?” said a quiet voice.
.

James turned with the flashlight raised like a club and nearly struck a young man he had never seen before.

“Easy, Sir,” a young man said, out of breath. “I’m on your side.”

“What are you talking about?” James said.

“I’m not talkin' ‘bout anything. I'm just trying to help."

The young man's hair was wet; his trunks and sleeveless shirt still dripping; his hands and knees were streaked with mossy green stains like those James washed from his hands after putting the stones in the bag.

"What did you?..." James stammered, "Where did?... "

“My cousin told me what you did for her. He was going to kill her."

"Where is he now?"

"Gone that's all. There's nothin' to talk about. When you step in dog dirt you gotta stop and scrape it from your shoes. No point in tellin' folks. Just hold your breath and scrape it from your shoe. I can hold my breath a long time, and I can hold my tongue forever."

"But..." James began.

"But nothin'. Scrape if from your shoe," he said again.

So certain was the young man's voice that James looked down at his shoes wondering if the instructions transcended the metaphor. They did not, but it was a providential glance, for two feet to his right, something glimmered in the glare between the long shadows of the trees. He reached into the tall grass, and pulled out the missing lens.

"This is what I came back here to find when I saw them here," he said, pressing the lens into the frame.

"She said you saved her life."

"I believe she's right," James whispered, staring down at the uprooted tufts of grass.

"You didn't kill him, Sir. If that makes any difference."

"Then where is he?" James glanced around. "He knows where your cousin lives."

"She told me all that. I've got it covered," he looked at his hands and wiped them on his trunks. "This was all my fault. She didn't want to come here."

"Son, I've got to know."

"No you don't! He's gone. What difference does it make? Just scrape it from your shoes and let me do the same."

"You can live with this?" James asked.

"I can live knowing my cousin's alive because of you, and I can hold my tongue forever."

James studied the steel in the young man eyes. "That's a long time..." he whispered, but his head began nodding in agreement as he surveyed the scene once more.

The sky in the west began to cast a pink glow through the trees. The young man broke a leafy branch from a tree and swept away the tracks in a bare patch of ground.

"I'm leavin’now. I never saw you here. I never saw a thing. This never happened." He heaved the branch far into the woods. "Oh, one more thing. Sometimes even when the shoes are scraped clean, it's a good idea to burn 'em. That's what I'm going to do."

James said nothing in return. He walked east back back to the car, watching the ground, testing the words in his head: "This never happened." But no matter how many times he said it, the words felt hollow and bottomless, unable to hold the meaning he tried to pour in them.

The girls gave a heartless cheer for the found lens, followed by requests to eat. It was 6:20. No one wanted to lose another hour in a sit-down restaurant, but on the outskirts of town, they drove through for some burgers. James ordered nothing. He wasn't hungry, and mumbled something about too much sun. Clair worried that it was the bump on his head. They ate in the car as they headed south on the highway. As they began heading west, Clair offered to drive, but her husband shook his head "no" and stared at the road ahead and the red-streaked sky beyond.
.

Less than an hour from home, James looked around the car. Clair was asleep against her window. Anna had her knees up against the front seat, asleep with her earbuds in place. Kenzie was reading something behind him. She leaned forward with a brochure she'd found at the livery while they had waited for him.

"Look, Dad. This says there's another way to tube the river where they take you all the way up to where the Hersey River meets the Muskegon, and then you float back down to the livery. It says it takes five hours. We should do that next time. That would really last a long time."

He shrugged toward the rear view mirror, but didn't say a word.

"I said, 'that would really last a long time,'" Kenzie repeated. "Aren't you going to sing it?"

"Sing what?" her father asked.

Kenzie leaned back in her seat, disappointed, but a moment later she sang the jingle he had taught her softly to herself:

“Long time. Long time. Chewy, chewy Tootsie Rolls last a long time.”

[Notes: A-G...octave up A-G.........E-E..........C-C.........E-E........C...octave down A-G-A-C]

James heard it a few more times, each time softer than before, until she dozed off against her sister's shoulder.

It was contrast and not guilt that weighed on his mind. He had put his motives and actions on trial before God as best he could and found no reason to feel guilty, but the gravity of the day's contrasts wrung out his will. Contrasts between his family's anticipation going to the river and this quiet isolation he felt coming home; between how perfectly things had begun and how horribly they turned out; between the serenity on the faces around him and the turmoil of spirit within. It was the unshared rift in their shared reality that made him feel alone.

As he pulled into their driveway, it was nearly nine o'clock. Four miles away, on the western shoreline of Lake Michigan, thousands of spectators watched the perfect red sphere of the sun begin to vanish beneath the distant waves, but inland, the moment of sunset comes and goes unnoticed and towering trees hasten the night.

Clair and the girls filed out of the car, half asleep as they walked through the open garage without a word. Inside, they gladly prepared for bed, knowing they would rise early for Sunday morning church.

James was not ready to face the comforts of his home. He sat in the car as the dull crimson sky lost all its hue, then took off his shoes in the car, dropped them in the the large trash can beside the garage, and stepped around to the back yard, to his cloistered hedged-in sanctuary.

The cool grass felt good against his feet. Pressing the remote switch on the patio table, he heard the waterfall in the corner of the yard where just that morning he had lifted the heavy limestone slabs in place. The sound of crickets and the trickling stream drew him to his garden where the box turtles were deep in their boroughs, safe in the edenic world he had created.

Looking up to the sky, he swallowed the secret once and for all, and there where the water washed over the rock, he fell to his knees and wept away the fading fragments of the day.
84940-65

"Still Waters" Chapter 14

2010-08-12T07:46:00.050-05:00

Since there has been a full-week gap between Chapter 13 and 14, allow me to recap.

Dr. Sinclair had just sent his wife and girls on the 5:00 bus. He had stayed behind in hopes of finding the lost right lens of his glasses, having marked the place with a mesh bag containing some stones he had found on the river.

From Chapter 12: "More and more tubers occupied the park. Two more tables were bunked up, and another pile of tubes was made. The few beers left in the many coolers strewn about were now being given as trophies for the dives that ended in the most painful landings onto the road. Chants and cursing filled the air. Dr. Sinclair was very happy his wife and girls had gone on ahead, and yet, with his finger still holding his eye shut, he watched the utter foolishness from a distance for several minutes before beginning to walk back toward the blind of pines."

Chapter 13 introduced two new characters, Kara and her cousin Seth, who had just met Var and his friends on Fools Hill. "Var noticed that the smooth perfect skin of her throat did not swallow. He could see in her eyes that she had not been drinking. He could see that the can was out-of-place in her hand. This was a charade, and he enjoyed peeking through her masked innocence. The girls who had joined him on the river held no such suspense. He liked that Kara was not one of them. He liked that she seemed nervous and that she could not look him in the eye."

Chapter 14

Dr. Sinclair walked toward the stand of evergreens in hopes of finding the lens to his glasses. As the drunken cheers continued in the distance behind him, he heard a rustle of leaves ahead.

A whitetail yearling had stopped like a statue in his path, eyes wide and looking at the pines. It stood so near the mesh bag he feared the cloven hoofs would find the lens before he did. A branch snapped to his left and the deer bounded off toward the river. Then came a muffled sound like the bleating of a doe. Perhaps it was the mother of the yearling, for something on the far side of the pines had dropped with a thud to the earth. Had the doe been shot out of season? He walked around the blind, expecting to see a deer on the ground.

But what he saw instead was the bare back of a man whose left hand covered the mouth of a young girl squirming on the ground beneath him. In his right hand, the girl’s delicate wrists were crisscrossed in his grip.

James had never seen the girl before. He did not know her name was Kara or that she was not one of the many tubers he had seen on Fool’s Hill. Her eyes met his, but she could not speak. She turned her head back and forth then bit her assailant’s hand hard, took in a quick breath, and tried to speak before the hand came down again in a heavy slap that clamped across her face.

“Nobody’s gunna hear you, girly-girl, so you might as well relax and enjoy this.”

The girl lifted her head to look at the ground to the left of the man’s knees. She was trying to use her eyes to point out a large bone-handled stiletto stabbed into the ground. She bit his hand again.

“He has a knife!” she blurted before the hand came down.

James had not seen the weapon, and was grateful for the warning, but unfortunately it made his presence known. The man's hand pulled the narrow knife from the ground and his arm extended it behind him before his face turned. It was then James saw three letters tattooed on the shoulder behind the six-inch blade—VAr— and a sense of loathing ripped open his disgust.

Var turned his upper body to see the man from the river standing there, and for a moment, James stood motionless and numb as his right hand dropped from his eye.

“Well, if it ain’t ‘Daddy-to-the-rescue’ again,” Var sneered, “You know this girl?”

“Do you?” he asked.

“We’re new friends,” he said, “just gettin’ acquainted.”

The girl shook her head “no” from under Var’s left hand.

“This ain’t your problem, Mister. It ain't a problem at all. You best get back to your own.”

“Get off her,” James said, still frozen in his tracks.

“I’m not going nowhere. It took my best game to get where I am, and we was fine ‘til you come along.”

The girl again shook her head “no.” James’s right eye was still a blur, but the lost lens that brought him back in the woods was a forgotten detail. Less than a minute had lapsed since he had first seen the deer, and now it was he who stood like a statue, heart pounding, ashamed that his presence posed no threat to the reprobate before him. It was the character of the girl he was trying to assess. No sense in getting killed if this was some floozy of a girl like the many he’d seen earlier who put themselves in such predicaments only to laugh about it later, but he sensed she was not such a girl.

“Let her go,” James said, unconvincingly.

“How 'bout I let you go, Mister. Just go back where ya come from and keep yer mouth shout."

James didn't move.

"Unless you like to watch," Var laughed, "Shoot I don’t care. Just step back a ways. Yer makin’ her nervous.”

He stabbed the knife back into the ground, and he reached down between their bodies. The girl turned her head, gasped for air, and tried to scream again, but the clamp came down tight.

“Get your filthy hands off her!” James shouted without moving.

“I would if she’d quit screamin’,” he said, clamping her tightly between his knees.

There was no help within earshot, no witnesses, no law within reach but that knife.

James was surprised by his own inaction. The younger version of himself was more inclined to be a hero—to act first and think later—but the adrenalin in his veins had not overridden his mind. The fight or flight options were both in play; the latter had been suggested; the former he knew could end badly for him.

A hero does not regret his action the moment he takes it, but James did. He felt the full weight of the choice even as he watched his body move as if he were outside himself. He imagined Clair and the girls waiting for him at the car. Glimpses of the day flashed through his mind: the slabs of rock in his back yard; the chipmunk caught in the trap; the singing in the car; the laughter in the tubes; the blue jay’s harsh cry overhead.

James took two quick steps and leapt for the knife in the ground. Var looked over his shoulder at the blur lunging toward him. But it was only the knife and some distance that James wanted. Var’s hand reached for the weapon, but rolling past him, it was James who came to a stop on his knees with the bone handle in his shaking hand.

“I said get your filthy hands off of her,” he said, now standing.

“Mister, ya shouldn’t oughta done that,” Var said. “Ya went and spoiled a perfectly good time for the both of us.”

“Just get up and leave,” James said, “That’s all I ask. Get off her and go. I have no intention of using this.”

“Ya'ought never hold a knife you don’t intend to use—‘specially my knife.”

“Just get off her and disappear like I said.”

“Mister, you picked a bad day to do a good thing,” Var said evenly, rising to his feet.

“Now, young lady,” James said, “you get up and get as far from here as you can.”

Kara rolled to her hands and knees crawled toward James then stood to face Var.

“Go on now,” James said to the girl, “Go back to your friends. This is over.”

“But Kara’s not here with friends,” Var said omnisciently. “Ain’t that right, Kara? And she only lives down the road a ways. ‘Third house on the right.’ Ain’t that what you told me, Kara.”

James looked at the young lady in the eyes. “I thought you didn’t know him.”

“I don’t,” she whispered.

“Then why…” James began to say, “Then why tell him your name and where you live?” But he stopped himself from asking. All the strength the young girl had shown on the ground was gone. She now stood like a little girl who had fallen from a bike. Her face was streaked with tears, her lower lip was trembling, her upper body convulsed as she audibly inhaled. She tried to utter something, but all she could manage was a broken sob.

“Never mind,” said James. “Just run and tell your dad.”

“I can’t,” she whimpered.

“Then just run and don’t come back,” James said firmly.

She walked in a wide circle around Var, and looked at James again.

“Keep going,” he said.

“She listens good when you got a knife,” Var sneered, “but when ya put it down, she’s a fighter. I like ‘em like that.”

Kara wiped her nose on her wrist and disappeared behind the pines. James took in a deep breath in hopes of stopping the tremble in his hand. What he found most unnerving was the fact that Var’s cocky tone and piercing eyes were the same as before. The knife was not a game changer for Var who studied the eyes of the man before him and smiled.

James raised the knife a few inches but lacked the bravado needed to brandish it with meaning. It is purpose and not possession that give a weapon weight. It was obvious that James did not want the knife; he merely wanted Var not to have it. Var sensed this weakness of will even as James wished the knife were not in his hand. If anything, the glistening blade seemed to sap James of his strength; it made him feel useless and in slow-motion as he did in dreams when he woke to find his arm had fallen asleep beneath him.

Var read all of this in the eyes and posture before him, and the corner his mouth had curled the moment he knew the knife was not loaded.
.

“I don’t want any trouble,” said James.

“It’s a little late for that,” Var said, studying James then glancing at the ground.

James started sidling to his left in the same direction Kara had gone.

“As far as I’m concerned, this is over. I’m going to leave and you’re going to stay here.

“Is that right?” Var said, picking up wide stick a little longer than a baseball bat.

“I’m going to get on the next bus and forget I ever saw you.”

“Just like that,” Var said, stepping to his right to cut him off, “You could forget it.”

“If the police around here don’t care about all this, why should I?”

“’Cuz you got little girls yourself,” Var said, “And you hate knowin’ guys like me exist almost as much as I hate daddies like you.

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know yer type—yer a 'porch watchin', white-dress buyin', walk-em-down-the-aisle' daddy. Think yer too good for me, but yer no differn't.”

Var choked up on the limb and took a wild swing at James who pulled back to miss the blow.

“The difference between you and me,” Var said coolly, “… is that yer afraid of how it will feel to use that knife. Me? I don’t have to imagine. I know it goes in the belly smoother than a Sunday roast. But if you hit a rib, it's harder than ya think. Kind of like that first stab when yer carvin’ a pumkin. You gotta find the soft spot between the ribs and push it through.” He swung again, this time toward the knife, but again James averted the blow. “Me, I like to come up under the ribs. Even if ya miss the heart, ya fersure hit a lung. Makes it hard to breath, and the guy just stands there gaspin’. Here try it,” he said, holding his hands out in false surrender.

A laugh bubbled in his throat. “See?,” he smiled. “The difference between you and me is… you jus' want to walk away, and I jus' want to show ya how to use a knife.”

Var swung again, this time hitting the knife with a thwack that sent dry bark flying. The knife spun to the ground ten feet away. He raised the limb and swung down in a chopping motion that hit James shoulder, breaking the dried limb in two. With the shorter part still in his hand, he swung a glancing blow off James’s head that sent him spinning to the ground, arms wide in the grass.

Var stepped to his left to get the knife, then walked slowly toward James, who had managed to get up to his hands and knees. Two steps away Var hovered over James to relish the moment.

“The difference between you and me,” he said, raising the knife, “is…”

Var never finished his sentence. He did not see that in James’s right hand was the long empty portion of a nylon mesh laundry bag. Even if he’d seen the two feet of empty mesh, he would not have known what James knew of it contents, and in one fluid motion, like the first turns of an Olympic hammer throw, he rose and spun with all his strength and the centrifugal force of the stones going full circle and half-around again until they collided solidly with Var’s head.

A horrible simultaneous sound of jostled rock and cracking bone and the soft-tissue thud of a dropped watermelon filled the air and shook James’s body. In the same instant, Var twisted slightly in the direction of the blow, extended to his full height, and fell like a tree, rigid and lifeless, face down in the tall grass.

“The difference between you and me,” James growled in savage anger, “is…”

But he did not finish the thought, for in that moment, as the rage still bristled his neck hairs, the difference seemed blurred. The bag dropped to the ground beside him.

The knife was still loosely held in Var’s hand. James knelt to take it away, fully expecting Var to rise up on cue like a jump-scene in a movie, but as he pried the warm fingers back from the knife, the empty hand and body did not move. He rose to his feet as a sick feeling settled in his heart. It was then he saw the puddle of blood spreading slowly under Var’s head.

His legs felt weak.
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“Oh, God,” he said to his open hands. “Oh, God,” he said to the sky.

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To be concluded in Chapter15.

"Still Waters" Chapter 13

2010-08-05T07:01:00.030-05:00

A half-mile up the road from the riverside waiting park was an unpresuming parsonage owned by a church in town. In it lived a modestly gifted pastor, his wife, and their only daughter, Kara, who was barely sixteen. They had moved to Big Rapids ten months before, in time for the start of the school year.

Kara's mother had a twin sister, and each summer, in the various places they had lived through the years, her Aunt Maggie and her cousin Seth would come up from Kentucky to spend a couple days. In this way, the two cousins had grown up together in snapshots of time through the years, and their perceptions of each other were compressed in time the way scissor-cut school portraits can fit the fleeting years of childhood on the single page of a photo album. They once caculated the number of days they had spent together, and were sad to realize that they had actually shared less than two months of life. Yet if there was a person on earth that Kara considered a brother, it was Seth.
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Seth was eighteen, a year older than most of the seniors in his class that coming fall. He was a strapping young man who played wide receiver on his high school football team, but was of such a build that his coach often used him as a tackle on defense, a fact that Kara proudly mentioned to her friends at school.
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The second day of Seth’s visit was the very Saturday the Sinclair family was tubing on the river. After a morning of uneventful sight seeing with their mothers and a late lunch in town, Seth and Kara sat in the middle seats of a mini-van staring out their windows while the aunts were talking about garage sales until Seth hit Kara’s leg with the back of his hand.
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“What do y’all do for fun ‘round here?” he whispered.

“If it weren’t the weekend, we could go tubing. That’s fun.”

“No, I mean for real fun,” Seth scoffed, “—somethin’ those two won’t want to do.”

“Tubing is fun, but Dad doesn’t let me go on weekends.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

The gravel made a crunching sound as the tires turned into their driveway. A few minutes later, Seth and Kara had changed into their swimsuits and were laying out on the deck beside the small above-ground pool in the back yard. Kara spritzed water from a bottle onto her legs and arms.

“So why can’t you go tubing on weekends?” Seth asked again.

“Because a bunch of drunk jerks take the whole thing over,” she whispered.

“The whole river?”

“No just a place they call…well, it’s a swear word,” she said.

“What do they call it?” he begged.

“A-Hole Beach, but they don’t say ‘A’, they say the real word. Dad says it’s awful what goes on there. You should see the busses that go by at the end of the day. That’s why we eat supper out here on the back deck on weekends. I’ve seen kids puke out the windows of the bus as it goes by. It’s gross.”

Seth’s eyes widened. This was the very thing he meant when he asked about real fun. Kara had no way of knowing how different their lives had become in recent years, because if there was one girl on the face of the earth that Seth thought of as a sister, it was Kara. And knowing how she was, how her parents were—how her father was, being a preacher and all, Seth was hesitant to show her the side of him that began in high school, the side of him whose snapshots would not be put in their mother’s photo albums.

In spite of his newly professed compulsion for real fun, Seth made Kara feel safe and willing to observe adventure if not partake in it herself, and for that reason as her mother began making supper in the quiet of the afternoon, the cousins told their folks they were taking the truck into town to see some friends and not to worry; they’d be home way before suppertime.

With all the comfort of implicit, unbroken trust, the parents nodded while deep in their conversation, paying little attention to the fact that the two were still in bathing suits and not watching the truck as it backed down the driveway and turned left onto the dead-end gravel road. Town was to the right.

Kara and Seth did not need inner tubes. They just parked the truck in a shady niche beside the bus cul-de-sac, half-sprinted to the river, waded upstream toward the noise, and crossed the current at the river’s sandy bank to the crowded field whose name Kara would not say.

Even Seth had never seen anything quite like the spectacle of flesh that waited beyond the brow, but he could not hide a half smile as he looked at Kara.

“Madame, your father was right,” he said in a Groucho Marx voice, eye brows bouncing, imaginary cigar near his mouth, “This is precisely what preachers mean by ‘hell in a hand-basket.’”

“Let’s go,” Kara whispered loudly in his ear. “It’s past 4:30. Mom serves supper in an hour, and we need to at least drive to town to say we did.”

“That gives us plenty of time.” Seth smiled. “Come on. Just follow me.”

They meandered to the far side of the field. Seth joined in with the gyrations prompted by the various radios, trying his best to fit in and smile at girls that caught his eye. Kara looked down hoping not to see a single face she knew, which she did not. In fact, she was surprised how so many total strangers—most of whom where older than Seth—gathered in one place. The far side of the crowd had three radios set to the same country station. Seth nodded in approval.

“This is more like it,” he said, smiling Kara’s direction, who in spite of her uneasiness could not help but smile back. It was then she realized that he was not smiling at her but at an attractive girl approaching from behind her with a can of beer in each hand.

“Joining the party a little late, aren’t you?” She said, moving her hips in rhythm closer and closer to Seth’s swim suit.

“We’re actually just leaving,” said Kara.

“No, we’re not,” Seth protested, taking one of the beers.

The girl’s eyes remained on Seth’s with a pouty inviting smile as she held the other beer out toward Kara.

“No thanks,” said Kara, “I don’t drink, and like I said, we’re leaving. Look at your watch, Seth. It’s ten to five.”

Kara turned and began walking through the crowd toward the river. Seth took a deep breath, shrugged his shoulders, whispered loudly in the girl’s ear, “Maybe next time,” and followed after his cousin.

“Look, here, little ‘Goody-two-shoes’,” he said grabbing her by the arm, “What you did back there is rude. You don’t turn down a can of beer at a party.”

“I don’t drink, and this isn’t a party. It’s hell-in-a-hand-basket like you said.”

“You don’t have to drink it. Just hold it so you don’t stick out like a sore thumb. Try to blend in.”

“Why should I want to blend in to this mess?” she demanded.

“Fine! Look stupid. See if I care?” he said, and he broke through the crowd ahead of her.

He said the words without thinking, but he had said them. They were the first mean words she had ever heard him say to her without joking. More than ever before she felt like she looked stupid, and the further he walked away the more stupid and insecure she felt. She glanced around a the countless faces and bleary eyes looking her way, then back toward Seth, but he had disappeared in the shifting sea of flesh. Weaving and stopping and starting through the indifferent bodies, she hurried after him. About thirty feet from where they had come up from the river, she caught him by the arm.

“There you are,” she said, voice shaking, “Don’t want to be seen with your stupid cousin, eh?”

Before he could answer, an older guy with more swagger than stagger and a winsome smile plopped a cooler at their feet.

“Let’s get this party started,” he said, opening the lid, and offering them each a beer.

“I’m good,” Seth said, showing him his half-empty can.

“No, thanks,” shouted Kara above the noise, “We were actually just leaving.”

“Leaving?” the guy said, snapping open the can and holding it toward her face. “You can’t leave now. Me and my friends just got here.” He gestured toward some others who were already blending into the crowd. “Just stay for one more beer”

Seth shot a harsh coach’s glance her way and tilted his head toward the can of beer. Kara reached up with an obedient nod and took it.

“Thanks. I’m Seth. This is my cousin, Kara, and you’re?...”

“Floyd,” he smiled, “but forget that. Just call me Var.” He pointed to the tattoo on his right shoulder, and popped open another can from the cooler. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Var tilted his head back and poured the beer into his mouth. His Adam’s apple stroked the inside of his unshaven neck like a fishing bobber on a ten-pound line. Seth took a long gulp then looked at Kara expectantly.

For the first time in her life, Kara raised the can to her lips and took a sip of beer. Oh, she had been with friends who snuck in beer to a party before, but she always refused to drink it herself. Had she not been trying to impress her cousin, she would have avoided it then, but there was something about Var’s smile and the attention he was paying her that made her want to act much older than her age. The truth is: she hated the very smell of beer and tried not to let it show as she swallowed that first sip, and when she tipped the can the second time, she let none of it in her mouth.

Var noticed that the smooth perfect skin of her throat did not swallow. He could see in her eyes that she had not been drinking. He could see that the can was out-of-place in her hand. This was a charade, and he enjoyed peeking through her masked innocence. The girls who had joined him on the river held no such suspense. He liked that Kara was not one of them. He liked that she seemed nervous and that she could not look him in the eye.

He watched her throat as she pretended to sip again. This time his eyes continued down to the nape of her neck and beyond, and he licked the corner of his mouth.

“I really think we should be going, Seth,” Kara said to her cousin who was now a few steps away, laughing with Var’s friends.

“You go wait in the truck,” Seth shouted back without looking her way, “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Kara asked him again, but he didn’t answer. Her eyes watered a little, but she hid her disappointment with a smile, as she handed the beer back to Var and turned toward the river.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Var laughed.

“Go ahead and finish it,” Kara said.

“No. I mean your tube. Where’s your tube.”

“Oh, that. We walked here. My truck’s just across the river.”

She had said my truck as if it were her own and not her fathers, still trying hard not to look stupid, not to look sixteen, not to look like the goody-two-shoes Seth had called her. Without looking back, she played this part as she sauntered into the current and came up dripping on the other side.

A minute or so later, Seth looked back to where his cousin had been standing. Both Kara and Var were gone.

It was five o'clock.
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To be continued and concluded within a couple chapters. Caution: the remaining chapters may not be suitable for "general audiences."

"Still Waters" Chapter 12

2010-08-02T07:42:00.005-05:00

This chapter was posted Monday morning from a campground with limited wifi and revised after proof-reading Tuesday afternoon. =)

I still don’t see the bus,” Said Anna.

James turned her shoulders to aim her eyes.

“See that clump of pines? Keep looking toward that as you walk. You’ll see it. We’re cutting straight to the bus.”

“Lead the way, Tonto,” said Clair, pointing toward the pines. “You’re draggin’ your feet.”

“I’m just looking for poison ivy.”

“That’s all we need,” said Clair.

“I thought you said there’d be a path,” whined Kenzie. “My tube keeps hooking on branches.”

“Here let me carry your tube. You carry my rocks. Just stay close behind me.”

The family ducked and wove between the trees and undergrowth until they could see a grassy patch between them and the stand of pines. Beyond the cluster of evergreens was about a hundred feet of brush and sparse trees, then the gravel cul-de-sac where the bus sat. The driver was now loading tubes in the trailer he pulled.

“There’s easy walkin’ ahead, Ladies,” James said over his shoulder, “We’re almost there and the bus hasn’t left.”

He turned his head and was about to step into the small clearing, when a hand-like twig on a slender branch gently swiped across his face. The little finger of the twig hooked his glasses, gently plucked them from his face, and flung them to his right.

“Stop. Freeze, Everybody,” James said calmly. I just lost my glasses. They’re over there somewhere. I heard them land.”

“I see them,” said Kenzie. “This is the second time I’ve found your glasses today.” She kneeled down to pick them up. “You need to get one of those necklace thingies for glasses like our school librarian has.”

“Yeah, that would look great on a man,” James said sarcastically.

“Are you saying ‘Only women can wear them’?” said Anna indignantly.

“No. I’m saying…”

“Let’s just keep walking and save the fashion talk for later,” Clair said, plodding ahead.

“Uh, oh, Dad,” Kenzie said, still on her knees.

“Uh, oh, what?” said James.

“One of the lenses is missing,” she said, handing him the glasses.

He marked the spot of ground where Kenzie had been kneeling in his mind, dropped the tubes, and put on the glasses. It was the right lens that was missing. This was unfortunate, indeed, because for his entire life, James could only wink with his left eye. Try as he might to wink with his right eye, his brow, his cheeks, his lips, they all joined in the palsied contortions, but his right eye would never close alone. Had it been the left lens that was missing, he could have merely held a wink to use the remaining lens, but with the right lens gone, he had to hold his right index finger against his right eyelid to keep it closed as he began scouring the ground.

“Wait up, Mom,” shouted Anna, “Dad lost a lens to his glasses.”

“No. Don’t wait for me,” James insisted, “You guys go tell the bus I’m coming. Anna, take my tube. Kenzie, take yours. There’s less trees on the other side of these pines. Tell the driver I’ll be right there.”

The girls went ahead, and James kept looking in the undergrowth, patting the ground with his left hand (since his right was on “eyelid duty”). He worked in imaginary quadrants that he marked off in his mind. Nothing. “How could the lens not be where the glasses were?” he said aloud, and then in the distance, the bus began beeping its horn.

James scanned the ground again, and then, having no other options, he left his mesh bag of rocks to mark the place, and began jogging toward the bus. The driver was rolling slowly forward as if to hint that he ran a rigid schedule, but as James reached the double doors, the driver opened them and stepped on the brake.

There were about twenty people on the bus, most of them young adults who had bailed out on the party at Fools Hill. Clair and Kenzie sat on the front seat and Anna scooted sideways on the second.

“I saved you a seat, Dad.” Anna said, patting the hard vinyl.

But her father did not turn to thank her, his eyes, one seeing and the other a blur, were fixed on the young driver.

“Could you wait for another five minutes?” he asked. “I lost the lens of my glasses back there, and really need to find it.”

He poked his finger through the vacant frame to demonstrate his plight. The driver looked in the large rearview mirrors on both sides of his bus and shook his head.

“Sir, do you see all those people comin’ up from the river? This place is about to get crazy.”

“Just leave it, James,” pleaded Clair.

“If I wait another minute,” the driver said, “I’ll have to load another twenty tubes and this bus is going to get packed like sardines. All the busses from here on out are three to a seat and then some. I gotta go. On or off, sir?”

James looked at Clair, “I’ll catch the next bus. Just wait by the car.”

“Dad?” Kenzie whined the word as if it were a three syllables.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, stepping off the bus.

“Step back, Mister,” the driver said, stepping on the gas before the door was closed. Late arriving tubers began slapped on the back of the bus as it rolled away. They cursed with single digits shaking at the bus and flung their tubes against the caged-in trailer as it passed. More and more tubers came staggering up the bank from the river. James stepped into the bathroom on his way back to his search. Through the screened eves of the small building, he heard cheering outside. A moment later, he looked at the rusty sink and at the slimy conditions of the facility and decided he was much cleaner than anything he could touch in that place, so he wiped his hands on his pants and walked back out into the sunshine and saw what all the cheering was about.

The new arrivals had piled their tubes in stacks, put two picnic tables on top of each other like bunk beds, and were diving from the top table onto the stacks of tubes only to bounce off and land on the hard gravel road, stones sticking to their bare backs. It had to hurt, but James surmised they were feeling no pain. Everyone cheered as the leaps became more daring. One boy did a front flip but rather than landing flat on the tubes he disappeared inside them, toppling the tower and bursting out fist held high in defiance to the bleeding gouge in his back from one of the tube’s inflation stems. More and more tubers occupied the park. Two more tables were bunked up, and another pile of tubes was made. The few beers left in the many coolers strewn about were now being given as trophies for the dives that ended in most the painful landings onto the road.

Chants and cursing filled the air. Dr. Sinclair was very happy his wife and girls had gone on ahead, and yet, with his finger still holding his eye shut, he watched the utter foolishness from a distance for several minutes before beginning to walk back toward the blind of pines.
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To be continued and concluded within a couple chapters. Caution: the remaining chapters may not be suitable for "general audiences."