From the Clutter

April 30, 2016.2

At the Indianapolis Public Library for the afternoon. The capitol city of Indiana is one of our favorite cities. A great sports town (NCAA tournaments, Big Ten Championships, and Pro Teams), it has an active downtown, numerous good restaurants, and walkable downtown. Today, we took our niece to study at the main branch of their library, and decided to stay to write, read, and browse.

We came to the Hoosier state yesterday to see our great niece and great nephew have major roles in their school’s production of Anything Goes, an old Broadway musical. Both of the teens have considerable talent, and displayed it with their performances last night. What makes the visits so special, is that the kids and their mom are positive and pleasant people who are a joy to be around.

Late April, Indianapolis is a couple weeks ahead of Lansing in the blossoming of spring. Sitting on the second floor, we have an overview of green lawns and trees, bustling streets, and skyscrapers only blocks away. In the middle of the city surrounded by books, learning, and Saturday’s families, we have found a quiet spot to observe and bask in the warmth of knowledge.

I’ve always liked libraries. With little reading material in the farmhouse, the set of encyclopedias more than doubled the family stockpile of books. What came before the nineteen-fifty-seven World Books consisted of my father’s old eighth grade textbooks, an ancient dictionary, and the family Bible.

The small one-room library at Trinity Lutheran thrilled me, once I learned to read (only in 1^st grade, but I picked it up with ease). A few years later, from hearing someone at school, I learned about the Bay City Sage Library, and after some youthful cajoling, got my mother to drop me off their while she shopped. Three stories of books, magazines, and newspapers! I understood what heaven might be like.

Reading proved to be the best way to discover the world. With my parents mired in old ways (their church did not allow women to vote in church elections until 1957) my life without reading materials would have been limited to church, school, and euchre. Television, certainly, brought an element of the outside world. During the early years, limited choices and a father’s control of what we watched kept the walls high and the exploration limited.

Novels didn’t have those shortcomings. I read (devoured) The Three Musketeers, Black Beauty, Kidnapped, Grimm’s Fairy Tales (at least the junior editions), and more. By seventh grade I read adult works by Lloyd C. Douglas, Thomas B. Costain, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Samuel Sheelabarger, and Alexander Dumas among others. My imagination soared, and I even started writing my own fiction. Characters created in my head became part of my circle. (A fellow writer has a tee-shirt emblazoned with a saying appropriate for me, then and now. “Some of my best friends are fictional.)

In high school I discovered The Lord of the Rings trilogy and fell even more in love with story-telling. Frodo and Sam, Bilbo and the rest lived inside of me. Even rereading the books in my fifties, and again in my sixties, I thrilled at the adventures and the challenges the intrepid hobbits and friends faced. The creativity of the tale amazed me, as the author wove life lessons into the saga.

I also worked through War and Peace, after failing to be able to finish it in eighth grade (the complexity of the story and the multitude of characters overwhelmed me). Tolstoi stood as a virtuoso, deserving a spot on the Mount Rushmore of writers.

The love affair with reading has continued. One college instructor described Fitzgerald as brilliant, Hemingway as a genius, and Faulkner as god. Their books lifted me, taught me, and changed me. Over the last few years John Irving, Wally Lamb, Jane Smiley, Margaret Attwood and Scott Turow have taken turns as my favorites. I don’t know if I have one now, there are so many I need to explore.

We live in transitional times. Over the last years, bookstores, video stores, and other traditional places have decreased or all but died. Libraries exist that have no physical books in them! I am getting old.

But the idea behind libraries will only cease when we end these beings called human. It is in our DNA to seek knowledge, to explore, to discover. In whatever way one carries on the quest for understanding, it is vital that we continue to absorb ideas and knowledge. Life is about learning, and growth, and becoming the best we can be. Let us all move forward into the wonderful worlds of tomorrows yet unknown.

 

 

Rafeal Sabatinni opened his 1921 historical novel, Scaramouche, with a sentence I have never forgotten: “He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” I read his swashbuckler sometime in my teens, and have always wished I could have penned those words. It’s a wonderful way to look at existence. Life is often so hard to understand, it is best if we can participate in it with a good sense of humor and a positive outlook.

As a dreaded optimist, I see the glass—while the whole issue would be settled if they chose a smaller tumbler—as half full. Possibilities surround us, if we seek them out. Sure, bad things happen all the time. My life has had a plentiful share of health issues, money problems, family drama, stupid politics, and idiotic self-directed decisions. At times, life fit Richard Farina’s 1961 book, Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up to Me, a title I’d have liked to have written. (If you’re counting, that’s two admitted cases of foolish jealousy marring my reputation as Mr. Doesn’t-Know-When-Not-to-Smile. Also, isn’t it impressive to make two literary references in the opening paragraphs? It isn’t, damn.)

Crap happens to all of us. At times, life drops it from the clouds. Fortunately, being a country kid, both my wife and I grew up on dairy farms, I learned early that manure made good fertilizer. Bad things make us stronger—unless of course they kill us, and if you’re dead, you probably aren’t reading this.

Numerous clichés promote perseverance as a key attribute in success. “Tough times never last, tough people do.” The little train believed “I think I can,” and did. Rocky Balboa, the icon of never quitting, said it’s not the number of times you get knocked down, it’s about the number of times you get up.

Words like those come easy; the trick, though, is in the doing. It’s not easy bouncing back from adversity. When terrible things hit, the inclination for many is to hunker down, build walls, and avoid people. I saw my Mother do something like that. She lived in the safest cocoon she could, wanting to stay in her circle, hating travel, and not wanting to know about the world out there. Distress as a young girl handicapped her, and she never got past it, like most of her siblings did.

She lived in fear, a terrible way to live. Always greeting guests with kindness, she maintained a veneer of smiles around others, but deep inside she trembled at changes, shrank from stepping outside her comfort zone, and wanted her children to avoid challenges. I went to college and forever after, even though being only eighty miles away, heard about being “the one who left us.”

I loved Mother, but early on I realized living in dread restricted life too much. Her example scared me into developing a different outlook. I did not want to stay within the walls of no-risk, which happens to many when bad things in life happen. I wanted to be like Scaramouche.

A lot of others do not like seeing other people be upbeat. It irritates many. As a world-class annoyer, I accept being a bad singer and worse dancer, doing both activities as if no one listened or watched. A multitude of former students will attest that my gyrating and honking fell far short of artistic efforts, but they remember they laughed, and I did, too.

Robert Fulgham wrote, All I Really Know I learned in Kindergarten. That’s true of me—and I never went to kindergarten. Never. Explains a lot, doesn’t it? But he also wrote an essay about how children change from ages six until their teen years. He asked little ones if they could sing, dance, draw, make up stories. All the little kids raised their hands and acted excited about doing these things. When, he asked a group of teens, none of them indicated they could do those things. How sad. We limit ourselves. I can draw stick figures, I can sing off-key, and I can dance—I call it dance—to the sounds of music in my ear or in my head. Doing those things may not be artistic to most, but thy make me feel good about life. My dancing and singing also proved wonderful threats for non-cooperative students. (Not willing to work, okay, how about I sing to you, dance too. No, J.R., I’ll do my assignment. Worked every time.)

Life is full of challenges some call obstacles. I could fret about it all, wring my hands in despair. Frankly, when I worry my stomach hurts. When I don’t, life is happier. And, I like to be feeling good. Despite all the wrong things in the world, I hold out hope that we can overcome, and make things better. I believe in the possibilities instead of fearing the worst. It works for me.

And please know as motivational speaker, Larry Bell, told an audience of teachers, “Remember, even on your very worst day, you are somebody’s best hope.” You are.