Tag Archives: Florida

Showing Up

Spring training is underway, the start of another magical baseball season.  The boys of summer are assembling once again to ply their athletic gifts, and to amaze us with their exploits on the diamond.

And every spring, their gathering reminds me of those happy days—more than just a couple of years ago—when the annual softball season opened in our Florida retirement community.  A mob of aging, erstwhile ballplayers would converge on the local park for the opening games of the season.

Most of us had spent a good part of our lives playing ball.  Others, newly retired, had taken it up only recently.  But we all shared the same enthusiasm for the game.

We enjoyed swinging the bat with wistfully-remembered power in the on-deck circle; we relished the anticipation of our turn at bat while waiting in the batter’s box; and we cherished the elusive base hits we sometimes might stroke.  There was always an exhilarating feeling of freedom in running ‘round the bases at top speed, or in chasing full-tilt after a long fly ball in the outfield—the wind rushing in our ears, visions of grace and glory flickering in our mind’s eye.  At such moments, nothing else mattered in the world but the game.

The game was the thing, and we wished it could last forever.

But it couldn’t, of course.  Even back then, we could see the end approaching—still hazy on the far horizon, perhaps, but in sight, nonetheless.

The signs were small at first, but the start of each successive season brought more of them.  The bats seemed heavier, the balls smaller, the bases farther apart.  There appeared to be more holes in the infield for opponents’ ground balls to skip through.  The throws in from the outfield lacked some of the crispness that was seen in other years.

In fact, I discovered to my chagrin that I’d become a centre-fielder with a second-baseman’s arm!

The most significant sign of all was the constant aching in our legs, our arms, our backs—lasting just a little longer than it ever used to.  We feared for the day when it would linger all the way into next week’s game.

I suppose that’s why we eventually switched to a tamer version of the game, limited to those sixty years of age or older.  Gone were the young, aggressive Turks who had overtaken us on the base paths.  Gone, too, were the strong-armed pitchers who could overpower us in the batter’s box.

And gone with them, unlamented, was the notion that winning was the only satisfactory outcome.

Our game morphed into slo-pitch.  The ball would float in from the mound to the waiting batter, crouching, bat-cocked, in gleeful eagerness.  When he hit it, more often than not it was to one of the waiting fielders—of whom there were ten (in deference to our declining ability to cover the whole field).

Many of the old softball rules were changed, or at least modified for our game. For example, a team’s turn at bat still ended when three players were tagged Out!, but no team could go through its batting lineup more than once, even if everyone batted safely.

The best part, though, was that no one seemed to worry too much about winning. At the end of every game, the players would file past each other across the middle of the infield, laughing, slapping high-fives, and complimenting each other on a game well-played.  When asked later (perhaps after a brew or two) about the outcome of the game, we often had trouble remembering the final score.

Most of us always loved playing ball, and were awfully glad there was still a game for us to play. Because playing, far more than winning or losing, was the elusive reward for our efforts.

My playing days, alas, are far behind me now, but I remember them fondly.  And I’m glad that, by the time I was through, it wasn’t who won the game that counted—it was who showed up to play!

I wish I still could.

‘Til It’s Gone

Since the turn of the century, my wife and I have been blessed to spend six months a year in Florida.  During that period, we’ve lived under four American presidents—George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.

In that same timeframe in Canada, we’ve lived under four prime ministers—Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, and Justin Trudeau.

In Florida, we’ve made dozens of friends over that period, both fellow-Canadians and Americans, most of them snowbirds like us.  Given the constraints of time and distance, and the vicissitudes of age, we no longer see many of them as often as once we did, alas; but we have never stopped considering them friends.

The majority, not all, are similar to us in the ideas we espouse, the values we cherish.  My wife and I consider ourselves socially progressive, left-leaning, but close to the centre—more Liberal than PC in Canadian political terms, more Democrat than GOP in the American context.  We instinctively distrust the fringe elements at both ends of the spectrum.

Some of our friends, though, are not so like-minded, being decidedly more right-of-centre than we.  With them we generally avoid politically-fraught conversations, preferring amity and camaraderie to confrontation and unpleasantness.  And it is indisputably true that all of them, regardless of viewpoint, are generous and kind in their dealings with us.

In the wider context, however—especially in the USA, but also in Canada to a lesser extent—we are currently witnessing an increasing divergence of opinion across social and political lines, accompanied by mistrust and hostility on both sides.  Socially, the divergence is epitomized by the divide between the privileged few at the top of the socio-economic ladder and the huddled masses near the bottom.  Politically, it is portrayed as the struggle between radical leftists (vilified by their foes as socialists) and ultra-right zealots (pilloried by their foes as fascists).

I must confess, my own political leanings are more socialist than fascist, more democratic than autocratic.

The struggle plays out across a large number of issues, a small sample of which includes: racism; LGBTQ2S+trans rights; reproductive rights; healthcare; voting rights; climate change; role and size of government; and religion.  It is the first and last on this list that I deem most problematic in both countries.

Racism is a persistent concern.  For many people in the USA, slavery is the unforgivable sin, the ineradicable stain on the national fabric, a transgression for which amends and restitution must be made.  For some, it is a part of history best left forgotten, as if all is right with the world—see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.  With good will on both sides, however, these two groups could likely find common ground at some point. 

But for others, a minority but a vocal one in both countries, racism remains a part of their ethos to this day—a deliberate allegiance to the notion of white supremacy.  There is a great fear among such folk that they are being dispossessed of their rightful place, that their privilege is being taken from them.  And they decry immigration policies that, in their opinion, indiscriminately admit people of colour.

Many of these people—perhaps too many—turn to demagogues to promote their cause, and those demagogues shamelessly court them to advance their own objectives.

Religion is another major problem.  The separation of church and state, the partition between religious and civil authority, is a fundamental tenet in the governance of both the USA and Canada.  Whether founded as democratic republic or parliamentary democracy, neither nation was envisaged by its founders to be a theocracy, ruled (or unduly influenced) by religious leaders.

Iran is a theocracy, as are Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, even Vatican City.  But neither the USA nor Canada was intended to be one.

Yet today, in both countries, an ugly, religious fundamentalism has reared its head—a fundamentalism of a warped Christian persuasion, a fundamentalism, it must be said, distant from the teachings of the Christ regarding love, tolerance, repentance, forgiveness, and peace—all of which, mind you, are universal tenets found in the gospels of other major religions.   

This fundamentalism preaches adherence to a narrow interpretation of biblical scripture, and seems (at least to this man) unduly restrictive of the rights of women.  It is as if a pseudo-godly Godzilla has arisen to guide us to the Gilead foreseen by Margaret Atwood.  I see the movement as an obscene fundamentalism that, in the words of the poet William Butler Yeats, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.

I do not, of course, deny the freedom enjoyed by citizens of either country to freely practice their religions of choice, whether Christian or otherwise; I do, however, strongly decry all attempts by any group to foist their beliefs upon others for whom those beliefs do not apply.

And I do not for one moment believe that such religious fundamentalism should have any role at all in the governance of either of the countries in which I reside.  But whether or not that will come to pass depends upon us.

In 2016, in the American presidential election, a large number of voters declined to cast a ballot.  Whether that was through ignorance, through a belief their one vote would not make a difference, or because of a visceral, irrational hatred of Hillary Clinton, I do not know.  Perhaps all of the above.  But I do know what resulted from that election.  And I do fear what might happen again in 2024 if ignorance, apathy, and hatred govern people’s actions.

Likewise in Canada, I fear ignorance, a belief one vote will not make a difference, or a visceral, irrational hatred of our current PM will yield a similar, catastrophic result in 2025.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said in one of his speeches, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.  It is up to each of us, I suppose, to determine what constitutes justice and where it might best be found, both socially and politically.  But whatever it is, and wherever it is, I believe it is forward, not backward; upward, not downward; toward the light, not into the darkness.

As Joni Mitchell famously sang, …don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone!

Until It Isn’t

They were twenty years old, two houses across the road from one another in the Florida golf community where my wife and I live for six months of the year.  Identical models—two bedrooms, two bathrooms, den, double-car garage, large screened-in lanai—the stucco walls of one were painted mist-green, the other taupe.

I was surprised one day to see the green house completely shrouded in plastic sheeting, two large hoses snaking from a truck parked in the driveway to the house.  A neighbour told me the owners had discovered termites and had promptly called in the exterminators to ‘tent’ the house for fumigation.  It was a week or more before the residents could move back in, by which time we had gone back north.

Six months later, after arriving back in the community, I drove down the same street, only to discover the taupe house was completely gone.  All that was left was a starkly-white concrete pad between the adjacent houses, the paving-stone driveway leading to where the garage had been.  Weeds were sprouting between the pavers, and the scene was sadly incongruous, like a missing tooth in an otherwise-gorgeous smile.

The same neighbour told me that during the summer, the roof over the spare bedroom had collapsed.  No one was home at the time, fortunately, but an inspection of the house led to its being deemed inhabitable.

“Termites!” the neighbour said.  “All through the place.  Little buggers had likely been gnawin’ away for years, accordin’ to the insurance adjuster.  When the studs couldn’t support the roof any longer, down she came.”

I had long known of the perils of termite infestation, and was conscientious about looking for signs in our own house.  But they are hard to find—windows or doors that jam unexpectedly, mud tubes around the outside foundation, tiny pinholes in the painted drywall indoors, small piles of sawdust.  An awareness of the prospective danger is needed, and diligence.

The neighbour shrugged when I asked him if the owners were planning to rebuild their home. “Eventually, I guess, if’n they get the insurance money to cover it.  Otherwise, somebody else will prob’ly buy ‘em out an’ put up a brand new place.”

It seemed so unfair to me that those two lovely homes, both of which had steadfastly withstood numerous external threats for years—blistering sun, torrential rain, flooding, hurricane-force winds—had been attacked by stealth from within.  And only one had been saved, perhaps providentially, while the other had been destroyed.

I’ve been reflecting on that lately, considering how the scenario might be analogous to the state of our democratic form of governance.  In both Canada and the U.S., most of us appreciate the freedoms we enjoy—although some of us might too often take them for granted. But fewer of us, it seems, recognize the responsibilities that accompany those freedoms.

A partial list of such rights might include the right to elect those who govern us, to assemble peacefully, to speak freely, to enjoy an unencumbered press, to worship according to our conscience, to receive equal treatment under the law, and to be safe in the privacy of our homes.

Alas, in both countries, our history shows that not everyone has benefited from an equal application of those rights, although as Martin Luther King, Jr. declared, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Our two democracies have, so far, successfully repelled all attacks on us launched directly or indirectly by malign forces from abroad.  We are aware of, and perhaps readying to defend ourselves against, future existential threats like climate change and pandemic diseases.  Despite our individual differences, we have always rallied together to defeat external foes.

But what of the stealthy foe from inside the house, the metaphorical termite gnawing away at the foundations of our democracy?  Are we ready for that fight?

Even in hitherto strong democracies such as ours, there seems to be a growing threat of authoritarianism, a drift toward mis- and disinformation, a widening chasm between people of different political persuasions, a greater tendency to hurl insult and vitriol at one another, rather than listening to each other’s respective points of view.

Too many of us appear to be increasingly adopting and promulgating viewpoints that reflect our preconceived notions—confirmation bias—instead of keeping our minds open to alternative opinions that might modify our thinking and help us to learn and grow—and most importantly, to understand one another better.

So many are becoming increasingly tribal in our affiliations, whether based on race, religion, politics, or culture.  We are growing ever more selfish about, and protective of, what we deem our rights, too often without an acceptance of the responsibilities we bear in the exercise of those rights.  Too many of us seem willing to violate the rights of others in pursuit of our own self-centred aims.

For too many of us, the distinction between fact and falsehood, between integrity and mendacity, has become blurred to the point where we begin to declare the only truth is ‘my truth’.

The choice our countries are facing, in my opinion, is threefold:  1) we blithely allow ourselves to be attacked from within by those who would dissuade us from our most precious assumptions about democratic governance; 2) we choose to ignore, despite the signs, that the attack is occurring; or 3) we acknowledge the attack and take appropriate measures to deal with it.  

As Abraham Lincoln said in 1858, drawing from the Bible, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  The enemy from within is always the more dangerous, and the termites certainly proved the truth of that in the destruction of the taupe house in my community.  I cannot imagine that the owners of those two houses blithely allowed such an attack, but it is clear the owners of the green house took effective action as soon as they became aware of the problem.

With similar due diligence and swift measures by its owners, the collapse of the taupe house could have been stopped.  But it was not.

And in the same way, the insidious attack on our democratic form of governance from within is preventable. 

Until it isn’t.

My Helping Tree

Here in Florida, the holiday season is full upon us with the advent of American Thanksgiving.  In keeping with the spirit of the occasion, I have set up my Wonderful Life Tree of Help once again, something I have been doing during every Christmas season since childhood. 

My helping tree is festooned with ornaments celebrating the many ways I have helped people throughout my life.  With all the modesty you have come to expect from me, I must tell you it is a magnificent display, and I am still adding to it.

Each ornament speaks to a person or group of folks whom I have helped along their way.  Some asked for my assistance, others were the unknowing beneficiaries of my kindness, and although things did not always pan out as intended, I’m pretty sure every one of them would have been appreciative of my good intentions.

Mind you, the ornaments are the reason I think that, as no one has ever actually bothered to thank me directly.

That aside, I have a beautiful ornament commemorating the first time I realized I had this compelling need to be of assistance to others.  In grade seven or eight, I saw two kids beating up another kid in the schoolyard, so I immediately stepped in to help.  The kid never had a chance against the three of us.

Another ornament celebrates the time I helped one of my friends who was really upset because, rather than kissing him during spin-the-bottle games, the girls always preferred to give him the nickel penalty and go on to the next boy.  I showed him how to open a bank account.

I have ornaments from my teenage years, too.  Once, when I was re-stocking shelves in a supermarket, a woman asked me which brand of toilet-tissue was best.  I was very helpful and told her on the whole, they’re all pretty good.

On another occasion, I was dragooned into helping my boss at a formal reception for his important suppliers.  My job was to stand at the entrance to the ballroom, like a doorman, and call the guests’ names as they arrived in all their finery.  They were quite astonished at the names I called them, and I awarded myself a beautiful ornament celebrating that occasion.  Lost my job, though.

Later, as a young married man, I was hiking a wilderness trail with my first wife when we saw a huge grizzly ahead of us in the path.  Although I knew I couldn’t outrun an angry bear, I was sure I could outrun my wife, so I told her I was going for help.  She’s not with me anymore, but there’s a lovely ornament on my helping tree to remember her by.

Around that same period, I offered two pieces of advice to a friend having marital troubles of his own.  With typical male smugness, I advised that the secret to a happy marriage was, first, to always let his wife think she was having her own way.  The second bit, I told him, was even more important—always let her have her own way.

Eventually, I became a father, and that’s when my propensity to help others really bloomed.  There’s a particularly lovely ornament on my tree marking the time I counselled a friend debating if he wanted to have children.  I reminded him of how he used to wonder why his parents were always in a bad mood.

I also have an ornament on my tree in honour of the time I told a particularly harried father that it’s not enough to put a loving note in his kids’ lunchboxes—he has to put food in there, too.

Lest you think I neglected my own parental responsibilities, let me assure you that I helped myself become a better parent by always finding out in advance what my daughters wanted to do, then advising them to do that exact same thing.  I earned so many ornaments for my tree by doing that simple thing.

– by Vickie Wade

All in all, my helping tree is a splendid sight, festooned with so many brilliant ornaments.  My favourite might be the one celebrating all the lost strangers who have asked me for directions over the years, directions I made up on the spot.  I wonder where they ever ended up?

Or perhaps it’s the ornament marking the time I helped my second wife with typing capital letters when she had her broken arm in a sling—I called it shift work.

Even now, at my advanced age, I find I’m still trying to help people, and I’m forever creating new ornaments to adorn my helping tree.  For example, I’ve lately been counselling aspiring writers who get frustrated when they run into blocks by telling them they’re not good enough to get mad.

More recently, I explained to a younger friend despairing about his lack of success in life that the two things holding him back are an abundance of witlessness and a justified dearth of confidence.  I’m not sure that cheered him, but I gave myself props for trying—and another ornament.

And just this morning, I earned my latest ornament by listening to a friend ramble on about his crackpot political leanings, then telling him I’d agree with him except that would make both of us wrong.

I confess it has become more difficult as I’ve gotten older to be of assistance to others.  I’m finding that most folks tend to look away when I approach, or even scurry away in unseemly haste.  To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it seems I now bring happiness and support to people, not wherever I go, but whenever I go.

Nevertheless, I persist in my relentless efforts to help whomever I can.  And to that end, may I suggest to you, dear reader, that if you find my advice tiresome and irrelevant, just stop reading!

No, no, wait…I mean…

Assailed from Within

For six months of the year, I am blessed to live in a beautiful home in the south of Florida.  The house is nestled up against a golf course, fronting on a safe street in a lovely, gated community.  Granted, it is not among the grandest of homes in size and extravagance, but it is certainly more than I might expect to have.

Despite its safe, secure location, the house is subject to various threats from time to time, almost all due to the whims of nature.  It sits in the path taken by a number of hurricanes over the past few years—Charley, Wilma, and Irma since the house was built in 2004.  Only minor damage was inflicted by each of those, fortunately, but the risk remains.

Flooding, loss of power, and compromises to safe drinking water are other external hazards, usually as a side-effect of those hurricanes.

However, the most insidious threats to the integrity of the house come not from outside, but from within.  The greatest danger is from mould, whose major causes are humidity and condensation, which can arise from leaks, poor ventilation, and general dampness.  Once it gains a foothold, it spreads rapidly.

Almost as bad is the threat from termites.  Working from the inside out, they can do a great deal of damage before they are ever detected.  The signs are there, of course—stiff windows and warped doors, papery or hollow-sounding wood, termite droppings, small piles of sawdust—but these are easy to miss in the early stages of an infestation.

Both mould and termites can destroy the structural integrity of a home from the inside more surely than any external threat.  Vigilance is required.

I find this analogous to the situation faced today by the remarkable nation of which Florida is a part.  This grand experiment in democracy, self-proclaimed as the greatest nation on the face of the earth, does face threats from outside its borders.  It has engaged in two wars with foreign adversaries on its home turf (1775-1781 and 1812-1815, plus a civil war from 1861-1865), but recent attacks have come mainly from terrorists, both foreign and domestic.

With what is widely assumed to be the strongest military capability in the world, it seems safe to say the country will not likely suffer an invasion from any foe.

But what of the threats from within?  The nation proudly touts itself as the leader of the free world, based on the pillars of its foundation.  What are those, and where might they be found?

The US Constitution of 1789 begins with these words—

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,

establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common

defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty

to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution…

us-constitution

It has been amended and revised many times since then, but its basic premise has never altered.  Among its most important pillars are: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, the right to bear arms, freedom from unwarranted search and seizure, the right to due process of law, and voting rights.

Its whole purpose was famously summed up in 1863 as ensuring that… government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

No foreign threat has been successful, so far, in efforts to thwart the intent of the framers.  The greatest reason for this is that generations of elected representatives from both legislative and executive branches have honourably carried out their sworn oath to…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic… [and] well and faithfully discharge the duties of [their] office…

It’s called integrity.

Is that changing, I wonder, in front of our eyes?  Has personal interest—whether political or financial—become more important to some than defence of the Constitution?  Has political partisanship on the part of some trumped the notion of duty to country?  Has the job of some elected officials become, not to carry out the will of the majority of the people, but to curry favour with wealthy lobbyists and sponsors so as to ensure re-election?

lobbying

The answers are for each American to decide for her- or himself, I suppose.  But it is worth noting that, although some of these threats are being mounted by foreign interests, they are being encouraged and implemented by some from inside the nation.

Even the strongest tree rots from the inside out.

Benjamin Franklin, when asked by citizens what sort of government the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had created, answered, A republic, if you can keep it.

We shall see.

One More Time

A few years ago, we sold our home in Florida and I retired from playing ball.  Once the decision was taken, it didn’t seem like such a big deal.  There was no special celebration or ritual ceremony to mark the occasion.  After all, several of my friends had already made the same decision before me.  And furthermore, when it came right down to it, nobody really cared.

PP home

However, last spring we purchased another Florida home, and as this past autumn approached, I began to have second thoughts about that retirement.  I began to question if I could actually carry through with the decision.  I mean, how would I weather another winter in Florida without playing ball?

As September gave way to October, the sunshine state beckoned us again, and, with a sense of quiet desperation, I began to search ‘midst the debris of a sporting life for my trusty old ball glove.

glove

My wife (whose university degree dealt with biology, physiology, kinesiology, and other -ologies having to do with the human body) tells me that the average male person attains his physical peak around the age of twenty-six years.  If she’s right, that would mean I am fifty years beyond my glorious prime.

These days, I can’t remember what I was even doing when I was twenty-six, let alone how well I might have been doing it.  But I’m pretty sure I was somewhere playing softball, for somebody.

Now I have to admit that, with my level of athletic prowess, it’s difficult to tell if I ever actually reached a peak!  Regardless, I’m long past the point where even I could think of myself as a player ‘on the way up’, a kid ‘with a future’!

A few winters ago, before my decision to retire, several little things occurred on the playing field that, by themselves, weren’t especially significant.  Taken together, though, they presented a pattern which had led to my giving up the game.

First was the change in the distance between the bases; it got longer!  Either that, or I began to slow down.  And, for a ballplayer who couldn’t hit his weight, who threw three-bouncers from centre field to the infield, speed on the base paths was a commodity I sorely needed.

turtle

I also noticed I had stopped caring who won the game.  What mattered more to me was that I got to play my innings.  I don’t think my teammates knew, because nothing changed outwardly in my approach to the game.  But I knew, and I worried about it.  I mean, who wants to be on a ball team with someone who isn’t even competitive anymore?

The clincher, however, was a fall I took in the outfield, after [ahem] catching a long fly ball.  It was similar to dozens of such falls in the past, except this time I tore some ligaments in my shoulder.  Surgery was required twice—once to insert two screws, and again to remove them.  Those were not fun.

Consequently, when we sold our home, I retired.  Hung up the cleats.

However, upon my recent return to Florida this fall, I heard about the first meeting of the new season, to organize teams for winter ball.  I wandered over to the ballpark, just to see who might be coming back.  And I took my ball glove with me for moral support.

Once there, of course, my crumbling resolve to be retired collapsed completely.  Surrounded by past teammates—and wondering how they all got so old—I joyously entered my name and signed on the dotted line.

teammates2

I’m back! the boy inside me cried.

I probably still can’t hit for average, and my speed in the outfield will be tragically reduced on my gimpy knees, but I can still spit in the dirt and pound my glove.  So, sometime within the next couple of days, under a warm, winter sun, with all the other erstwhile boys of summer, I’ll trot—or totter—on to that field of dreams again.

One more time.

Five Cousins

Longer ago than I care to think, the final one of our five grandchildren made her entrance into the family.  She joined an older sister and brother, and two cousins, both girls.  Because the five of them live close to each other in the same town, they’ve spent a lot of time together and have grown quite close.

Ranging in age from seventeen to eleven, Ainsley, David, Alana, Naomi, and Abbey were the subjects of a book I published some years ago, a collection of poetry for and about them.  Titled Five Cousins, the book spun tales of their adventures at the various stages of life they had by then attained.

3 Cousins cover

Each of them received a copy from me one long-ago Christmas—signed, of course, with a suitable inscription.  At the time, the younger ones enjoyed having the poems read to them more than reading them themselves, but either way, their peals of laughter warmed the author’s heart.

Each of them had a section of the book, titled with their name, containing half-a-dozen or so poems with such titles as:  Ainsley Starting School; It’s David’s Day; Alana’s in Florida; Oh, Naomi, You’re the One; and Little Abbey’s Walking Now.

Over the years, these five cousins have seen a good deal of us, their Nana and Grandpa, often at our retirement home in Florida.  In one of life’s everlasting mysteries, they have grown older by leaps and bounds each year, while we elders have hardly aged at all!

[pause for muffled snickers of disbelief from amused grandchildren]

Regardless, it is a fact that three of them are now taller than we are; the eldest is off to university this fall; the second one will join her next year; the next two are halfway through high school; the youngest will soon enter junior high; and every one of them eats gobs more than we do!

As they have grown, their lives have gravitated less toward us and more to their friends; their interests have shifted away from us to their myriad interests and activities; the time we spend with them now is less than it used to be.  They face their futures now, rather than focusing back on what has been.

IMG_3292

Happily for us, they visited us in Florida this year—perhaps for the last time all together, as their lives will increasingly take them along paths diverging from ours.

That is natural, of course, and as it should be.  But their inexorable journey to their own destiny has me thinking I must write another collection of poems about them, and for them, before they leave the sanctuary of childhood for the last time.

I could do it for each of them separately, beginning with the eldest, and follow up for each succeeding one as they reach the age she is now.  Or I could do it as I did the first time, with poems about all of them, suitable to the stage each finds her- or himself at right now.

I think I favour the second option, given my own age.  Time, I increasingly find, is not to be taken for granted.

Anyway, here are five short pieces I have already written about them, collectively rather than individually, in haiku form.  The poems attempt to express my love for these five cousins, my hopes for them, and my unabashed pride in them.

smiling photographs

on the refrigerator—

loving grandchildren

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

grandchildren, our hope

for the future—as we were

once upon a time

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

free your grandchildren,

hug them close, then let them go—

they’ll e’er be with you

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

more yesterdays now

than tomorrows, but it’s the

tomorrows that count

grandchildren

Five Cousins e-book – http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/precept

On Etiquette

A decade or so ago, after almost forty years of marriage, my wife left me.  Oh, it was nothing permanent, thank goodness—just a weekend excursion she took with one of our daughters, who was visiting us in Florida with her two girls.  They left me to look after our grandchildren.

I was delighted, of course, not only because I love the girls, but because I knew it would give me an opportunity to put into practice all those theories about dealing with children that I’m forever espousing to my wife.

 Hah!  So much for that plan!

It wasn’t that my theories were without merit.  They were based on an assumption that children—and adults, for that matter—are responsible for their own behaviour, and should be held accountable for the consequences of that behaviour.  Pretty simple, really.  Our world might well be a better place if more people subscribed to that thinking.

consequences3

Now, before I go any further, please don’t get the impression that I ever told my wife how to raise our own two daughters.  Far from it!  She always brought her own common-sense approach into play during the many hours she spent with them.

But I couldn’t resist the opportunity—after I’d been away from fatherhood for so long—to put my theories into practice, dispassionately and all-knowingly, with my granddaughters.

However, I didn’t reckon on the fact that my daughter had learned the lessons of effective parenting only-too-well from my wife.  And the extent to which she’d been successful was brought home to me that weekend.

Right from the get-go, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find any fault with my grandchildren.  On both mornings, they got up and made their beds, got themselves washed and dressed, and then wakened me.  Gently, with a kiss.

After breakfast, which they helped me make, they cleaned off the table without being reminded.  Then off they went, outside to play until it was time to walk to the pool—their favourite pastime.  The closest we got to a confrontation was when they asked if they could go barefoot.  I told them about fire-ants, and they readily dropped the subject.

pool

It was quite frustrating, because I wasn’t getting any opportunities to practice my pet theories.  Finally, however, I figured my chance had come.  We went out for dinner that first night, to a local place offering bbq ribs as the house specialty, and that’s what we ordered.  It was the perfect moment to direct the girls in the proper etiquette for dining out.

I tried to begin when the salads arrived, but I wasn’t fast enough.

“Use the small fork for your salad, Gramps,” offered the youngest before I could tell her the same thing.  I nodded obediently.

When I tried to say something else a few moments later, the oldest said, “Gramps, you shouldn’t talk with food in your mouth, remember?”  I nodded again, in guilty agreement.

Then, a minute or so later, while I was still watching for some breach of etiquette from them, the youngest piped up again.  “Please don’t let the fork scrape against your teeth, Gramps.  And your napkin should be on your lap in case you drop something.”  I hastily complied.

When the platter of ribs arrived, I received more advice from the oldest—even before I had done anything wrong.  “It’s okay to pick up the ribs in your hands, Gramps, but don’t lick your fingers.  Just wipe them on your napkin.”

ribs

“Gramps, don’t eat so fast,” said the youngest a few minutes later, “or you’ll get a tummy-ache.”

This went on through the entire meal.  I was lectured to, scolded, and encouraged, all at the same time, by my own grandchildren.  Worst of all, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.  Probably because, eating so fast, my mouth was always full.

But then, at long last, I found a way to seize the upper hand.  It was time to pay the bill, and I was the only one with money!  Confidently, I marched with the kids up to the cashier, flashing a broad smile at her as I pulled out my wallet with a flourish.  Rather than returning my smile, she merely looked at me—somewhat curiously, I thought.

Nevertheless, I paid the bill masterfully, adding just the right amount for a gratuity.  As we left, I bestowed one final, beaming smile on the cashier.  And again, she didn’t return it.

After we climbed back into our car, I turned to the two girls.

“There!” I said.  “That’s how you settle up after a good meal.”  I just knew they’d be impressed, and I smiled condescendingly at the two of them.

“Ewww, Gramps!” they chorused in unison.  “You’ve got a big piece of meat stuck between your front teeth!”

Alas, being a grandpa isn’t always easy!

food 4

The Pickup

During the years we owned a home in Florida, we used to comment on how fortunate we were to live in a retirement community where so many services were close at hand.  It truly was remarkable.

We benefited from facilities and utilities that we could have taken for granted.  We had running water, electric power, telephone and cable service, and internet availability.  We were close to medical and dental services, supermarkets and convenience stores, a volunteer emergency corps, and a fire department.

We had ready access to libraries, recreational facilities, and churches.  We were served by a thriving post office, a conscientious sheriff’s department, and many other organizations too numerous to mention.

We lived near five golf courses, all of which we could drive to in our own golf cart.

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We were, indeed, very fortunate.

However—there’s always a ‘however’ in these cases—there was one public service that caused me a great deal of difficulty.  It probably wasn’t their fault; in fact, it likely wasn’t anybody’s fault.  But it was one of those little vexations of life that seemed, at first, to be beyond fixing.

I’m speaking of the problems I had with my garbage.  The pickup never worked for me.  It used to be terrific to drop the plastic bags at the end of my driveway every Friday morning and forget about them.  A short time later, a big truck would crawl slowly and noisily down the street, swallowing the assorted bags that were tossed into its churning maw.  And the whole thing would be over for another week.

But then things changed, and I began to have a lot of trouble.  It started when the pickup service was moved to an earlier time of day for my street.  That truck began to show up before I woke up!

To solve that issue, I hit upon the idea of putting the bags out the night before.  That, I figured, would solve my dilemma with the early hour.  To my chagrin, it was just the beginning of a whole host of problems.

Whenever I put the garbage out the night before pickup, the scavengers got into it.  Four-legged critters, like coons and possum; two-legged critters, such as crows and seagulls.  When I would saunter to the street the next morning, after the truck had been and gone, I’d find remnants of the week’s malodorous garbage strewn across my grass.

worlds-cutest-raccoons-22

I tried all manner of schemes to put a stop to this.  It was amazing how ingenious, and devious, an old guy like me could become when I had to stoop over to scoop up garbage that I had already packed up for pickup!

In order to foil the two-legged critters, I began to wait until just before my bedtime to put out the garbage, after they were safely in their nests.  To prevent the four-legged critters from continuing their raids, I scattered pellets, sprayed foam, and sprinkled red pepper around the bags—but all to no avail.

Once, to my undying shame, and well after dark, I even resorted to putting my garbage bags across the street, on my neighbour’s driveway.  The next morning, there was half the load, spread across his grass.

And it didn’t really change anything, anyway, because when I went over to clean it up, I encountered him in the middle of the street.  He was on his way to pick up the spillage from the bags he had left on my driveway!  The bounder.

After a bothersome few months, I reached the stage where I realized I wasn’t putting out garbage; rather, I was making an offering to the critters from hell!

But, wonder of wonders, I eventually solved the riddle.  Looking back on it, I can’t believe it took me so long to come up with such a creative solution.  It certainly would have relieved me of a bunch of worry.

It finally dawned on me that on every warm, Florida Friday morning, garage sales and yard sales were endemic to our community—every neighbourhood, every street.  And hundreds of people—rich, poor, young, old, women, men—prowled the area in their vans and station wagons.

garage sale

So, from that point on, I would clamber out of bed every Friday at a reasonable hour, tie off my garbage bags with pretty, colorful ribbons, and drop them at the end of my driveway, with a big sign on them: FREE.

The bags were gone before I could finish my first cup of coffee!

 

 

Tracks in the Sand

One long-ago February, when winter’s white enveloped the north, one of our daughters came with her family to visit us in Florida.  The favourite activity for our grandson and granddaughter (the third of the clan being still an infant, unable to express her opinion) was going to the ocean, to the beach.

Our usual routines were fairly standard.  We’d park and unpack the car, each of us carrying the beach necessities according to our age and abilities.  We’d trudge the access path, through the dunes adorned with sea oats, pass through the rickety snow fence, and pick a spot that suited us all.

In short order, the umbrellas would be unfurled, the chairs unfolded, the blankets spread, and the toys strewn across the sand.  Peace would reign for Nana and Grandpa, watching the sleeping baby while her parents and older siblings hit the water.

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On one such occasion, a small incident occurred which didn’t have much significance at the time.  In retrospect, however, it has become quite meaningful for me.

My daughter, my wife, and I embarked on a walk along the beach after the kids had finished splashing in the ocean.  Their dad stayed with them, helping build grand castles in the sand.

We decided to hike through the dunes on the way out, and come back along the shoreline.  I led off, sinking ankle-deep into the soft sand, feet clad in sandals to protect from the heat and the sandspurs.  After a few minutes, we came upon tracks in the sand, apparently made by some small creature, perhaps a mole.

What made the discovery unusual was that they suddenly stopped in a small depression in the sand, as if the mole had simply vanished.  The tracks ended without a trace.

My daughter suggested what might have happened.  The mole, she reckoned, had been taken by a predator, likely one of the falcons that frequent the area.  Indeed, on closer inspection, we could detect brush-marks in the sand, caused by the beating of a bird’s powerful wings.

We wended our way slowly, backtracking along the poor victim’s trail.  It occurred to me that, a scant few yards before the depression in the sand, the mole would have had no inkling it was about to die.  It was alive until it wasn’t.

Apparently, though, it knew it was under attack, for we found another, earlier depression in the sand where the bird had struck unsuccessfully.  The mole had jumped sideways, scurried under the protection of some sea-oats, then emerged again to flee along the sand.

Our backtracking ended when the trail curled away from the beach, into dense, long grasses, whence the mole had come.  We soon forgot about it as we continued our stroll, eventually heading back along the water’s edge to our grandchildren.

A few days later, I chanced to hear someone on the radio airily proclaiming that, if we all discovered the world was to end tomorrow, telephone lines everywhere would be jammed by people calling home to say all those things they had forgotten to say while there was still time.  Social media sites on the internet would crash from the traffic.  It made me think again of the mole whose tracks we had seen in the sand.

When it left its burrow for that final time, did it have its life in order?  Had it said all those things that matter to those who matter?  Or were there things it had left undone that should have been looked to sooner?

And I thought of myself.  Does my journey through life leave tracks in the sand for some other eye to see?  Am I subject to a mortal strike from some hidden foe?  And if, or when, it happens, am I prepared and at peace with those who care about me?

When I got right down to it, I didn’t see much difference between that mole and me.  Except one.  I’m still making tracks in the sand.  I still have time to ready myself for whatever is to come, and to be at peace with all who matter.

Such are the thoughts that arose as a result of a stroll along a sunny beach in Florida.