“Do you know me?”  The American Express ads have been running for a couple of decades, showing famous folks; businessmen, movie stars, athletes, and others plying their crafts and then showing the face of the iconic green credit card with their name on it.  I’ve seen those ads for all of those years and have finally given up the dream that one will ever be made for me.  Oh, my shattered dream has nothing to do with not accomplishing anything noteworthy (although it hasn’t yet happened); it’s just that not many of the folks who know what I do also know what my name is.

I don’t make the trip as often as I once did, but when I go into any of the local schools, I walk through the halls with a number of the kids recognizing me and greeting me by name.  The problem is that not one of them calls me by the right name.  “Hello, Mr. Whitmore!”  “Hey guys look!  It’s Mr. Whitmore!”  I just grin and say, “Hello,” right back to each of them without correction.  A fella can only bang his hard head against the same brick wall so many times before realizing that it’s not going to give way.  I’ve run this music store with the Lovely Lady’s maiden name attached to it for over twenty-five years now, so I understand what it would take to fix the problem and it’s not going to happen.  In the business world, they call it “branding”.  In our little town, the name “Whitmore” has been synonymous with music for so many years that it would take a really poor head for business to change the store’s name now. 

It’s not just the school kids.  The phone calls come constantly, with the voice at the other end asking for me.  “May I speak with Mr. Whitmore?”  I used to tell them that I wasn’t sure there was any phone service where he is now, but currently, the stock answer is, “I’m as close as you get to a Mr. Whitmore in this place.  May I help you?”  I can joke about it now, because after all these years, I’ve finally come to grips with the fact that I’m never going to be known for who I am, but mostly for what I do.  It’s a small consolation that when a customer wants something late at night, my brother-in-law gets to field their call, since they look up his last name in the phone book, instead of mine.

As if the Whitmore confusion wasn’t enough, there are the folks who can’t remember my first name, either.  My name is “David” to one of my long time customers.  When I first met this gentleman thirty-four years ago, he had just come to the United States.  Jaime drove his green 1951 Ford pickup truck into a parking spot in front of our store downtown and came in. He spoke no English, so I had to use my minimal Spanish language skills to communicate.  My old friend came in the other day and we talked about the old days, his skill in English having improved exponentially; mine in Spanish, not at all.  “David, we’ve been friends a long time, haven’t we?” he asked.  I laughed with him, both about the thought of all the years gone by and inwardly, about the fact that he still calls me David.  I wouldn’t think about correcting him.

The proprietors at one of the local take-out restaurants knew me simply as “Larry” for several years before someone corrected them.  I hadn’t thought it important, as long as they continued to feed me, but they were a little upset that I failed to set them straight myself.  I laughed with them and told them that I wasn’t picky about what I was called, relating my predicament with my last name, so they felt better about their very slight faux pas.  Every once in awhile, I get called “Larry” when I step through the door of that establishment, even now.

Mr. Shakespeare, a few hundred years ago had the lovely Juliet say it in these words, “What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose, by any other name would still smell as sweet.”  Titles and names are nothing more than words.  Our lives give meaning to those words.  In the music store, I’m happy to be called by another name, as long as I know that I have accomplished what it takes to gain my customer’s confidence and trust.  In the larger context of my life, I will be content to know that my love for my God, the Lovely Lady and my family, and for my neighbor defines me.  Whether we like it or not, the aroma of our lives takes precedence over any name by which we’re known. 

So, there’ll be no American Express ad to remind you of my famous name, but maybe, just maybe, I’ll come out smelling like a rose anyway. 

“Not everything has a name.  Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.”
(Alexander Solzhenitsyn~Russian novelist)

“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.”
(Lily Tomlin~American comic)

“But, we like water, Grandpa!”  The young man stomping through the lake of water in the backyard looked up at me, eyes twinkling as he spoke the words.  And, I had to laugh.  The sky was raining still more liquid unhappiness and this wet Grandpa was standing with a shovel in his hand, digging a trench.  Up the hill a few feet, my daughter’s home was in danger of filling with water as nearly a foot of water stood against the side of the brick structure.  The ground, saturated from the last several days of precipitation, was no longer allowing water to permeate the top soil, so the excess sought a place to rest.  Another few inches earlier that morning had flowed down from the neighbor’s, filling the low spot beside the house to overflowing, before continuing its journey down the hillside.  Some time during the morning, the water began to seep into the house, soaking the carpet.  With forecasts for more rain to come, the pooling had to be relieved, so the trench was the immediate solution.

I worked alongside my son-in-law and his father, but we weren’t having fun.  This was serious work, with potential for serious consequences if we failed.  The five year old and his younger brother (along with their two sisters when they could sneak out) couldn’t resist the water.  What five and four year old boys could?  Mom had given up on trying to keep them out of the water, but Grandpa was determined that they should understand the seriousness of the problem.  Why?  I couldn’t tell you, but that’s how grumpy old men are.  The happy-go-lucky attitude of the youngsters was annoying.  Anyone can tell you that misery loves company…and there’s no one more miserable than an aging man laboring in the rain at a job that seems like it may all be for nought.  As the boy replied to my reproach with unbridled joy at being able to play in the water on the ground, and more potential fun poured down from the heavens, I couldn’t help but see myself almost fifty years ago –  in the aftermath of a serious hurricane, digging little play trenches in the mud, floating sticks on the rushing current, and stomping along in the puddles; unconcerned about floods and damage to homes, or even dirty, muddy clothes.  And, I laughed with him and began to enjoy the process also.  The water flowed where we wanted, faster and faster, as the lake up by the house drained little by little.

But, our concern for the house was driven by the threat of more rain to come, so we left our playing in the water and began to move sandbags against the side of the building.  I carried my first one to the location in which it was to be placed and leaned over, dropping it into the water from a height of about three feet.  In hindsight this was not a good idea.  The resulting deluge hit me full in the face, drenching my whole body!  I had been damp before, but this was a real dousing, splashing against me with a force that was shocking for about two seconds.  Oh, but I had to laugh!  Actually, the laughter rolled from me in waves, no less profuse than the water that had hit me full force a moment ago.  I could still hear my grandson saying, “But, we like water, Grandpa!”  Still laughing, we set the remaining sandbags in place, praying as we did that they would protect against a subsequent flood, knowing that it was really out of our hands.

As we finished the job and we said our goodbyes, I slid into my car, which I had parked in the yard.  It had been backed in to reduce the distance we had to carry the sixty-pound bags as we moved them into place.  Starting the car, I put it into gear and edged forward…six inches.  The front tires began to spin immediately and the saturated ground claimed another victim.  I managed to bury the front end of the car nearly to the bumper as I attempted to move either backward or forward.  We finally got a little forward movement and my daughter and her father-in-law shoved from behind as I powered my way out of the yard, leaving two deep trenches and an amazingly muddy father-in-law behind me.  I took one look at him and myself and…you guessed it; I had to laugh!  What had started out as a ho-hum day working in the music store, had progressed to playing in the water, getting showered in the process, and ended up with us playing in the mud.  What’s not funny about that?

How’s your sense of humor?  I know many people who go through life seeing the negative side of everything.  I’m actually one of them frequently.  And, as I mentioned earlier, I’m a firm believer in sharing the misery.  If I can’t be happy, I don’t want anyone to have a good time.  But, sometimes it takes the child in us being awakened a bit to help us realize that things aren’t quite as bad as we imagine them to be.  So, lighten up and have a good laugh.  It won’t make the bad stuff go away, but it sure helps to pass the time better.  One way or another, the job can get done; either miserably or joyfully.  For those of you with real problems, it’s not easy to be joyful, but I’m reminded of the proverb that always encourages:  “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.”

I haven’t talked with him yet, but I’m hoping that my son-in-law has a good sense of humor about the huge ruts in his front yard.  Maybe I could get my grandson to cheer him up…

“Life is like a blanket too short.  You pull it up and your toes rebel: you yank it down and shivers meander about your shoulders, but cheerful folks manage to draw their knees up and pass a very comfortable night.”
(Marion Howard)

“…and justice for all.”   How many times have I repeated those words?  As a child, it was a daily ritual to stand and face the American flag, placing my right hand over the general locale of my heart and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  I thought about those last three words the other day for awhile and I’ve about decided that I’m not in favor of that.  Okay…hear me out before you go ballistic on me.  I know it’s un-American to not fight for justice.  But, I’m coming to believe that there may be a better way.  Let’s just say that justice is not what I hope to receive myself.  Let me give you a bit of background for my thought process. 

One of my many money-raising ventures as a boy was to deliver papers.  When I say papers, I don’t mean the daily kind with news in them; the ones for which the customer paid and for which the delivery boy received the princely profit of ten cents per paper.  I mean the “Town Crier”.  This weekly advertising circular was delivered across my hometown by an army of children, boys mostly, for the meager price of one-half of a cent per paper (probably more as time went by).  In addition, the paper could not be thrown from the comfortable seat of a bicycle, as with the daily, but had to be walked to every single door.  We weren’t even allowed to drop it on the porch.  It had to be placed on the door latch or knob.  This meant that the youth delivering this particular paper had to roll each one and then walk his/her entire route, going up to every single door and leaving the paper.  All of that to earn one cent for every two delivered.  We were trusted to deliver all of the papers we picked up from the printing office, as well as following the delivery instructions to the letter.  The reputation of the publisher depended on us.

I will never forget the day the boy delivering the papers on the adjacent route to mine was fired.  It seems that, while I and many others across town were trudging along, delivering the papers one to a house, on the door latch, exactly as directed (250 times for me!), Skip figured out that this wasn’t working out for him.  Halfway through his route, the Free Methodist Church sat empty every week as he went by.  Cutting through the church’s yard one afternoon, he noticed an opening in the foundation.  Curious, he squatted down and peered into the darkness.  It was dark under the building, but suddenly there was a light burning brightly in his brain!  Every week thereafter (until he was fired), he delivered a few strategic papers to their destinations and then turned his feet toward the church, pausing as he passed to throw half or more of his bag’s contents in the crawl space under the old brick structure.  For weeks, the young charlatan was paid for papers he never delivered, until one day a plumber was called to take care of a problem at the church.  This required a trek under the building right through the opening which was now full of stashed circulars!  A call was made to the publisher and the day of reckoning arrived.  Skip was now unemployed, having stolen numerous dollars of Mr.Offerman’s money and deprived his advertisers of the benefits they should have received from the exposure the papers afforded them.

Some of the rest of us who had done our jobs by the book for the pittance we received in remuneration were angry.  We wanted justice!  This cheater should have to give back the money he was paid for delivering those papers.  They had the evidence!  Just count the papers he had discarded and make him pay that back!  Firing him wasn’t justice; it just freed him from future labor and allowed him to keep the profit from his past fraud.

As I contemplated the meaning of justice the other day, another scene was brought to memory.  Around the same time frame, it involved two young men, one of whom shall remain anonymous.  These young men wandered around the neighborhood one afternoon, curious about the rumblings and vibrations caused by earth being moved, and the emissions of diesel smoke from an old vacant field nearby.  They had played there many times over the years and it appeared that some unknown landowner had decided to capitalize on his property.  The graders and backhoes were hard at it, knocking down trees, skimming the dirt off the high spots and filling the low-lying areas.  In short, the boys’ playground was soon to become a housing development.  And, they weren’t happy.  That evening, after the work site had been vacated by the machine operators, the boys returned.  A pocket knife cut a gas line or two, oil dipsticks were removed and thrown into the grass, perhaps even a little dirt found its way into the oil fill tube.  And, as one of the young men broke out a taillight with a large rock, a neighbor appeared at his door to investigate the noise.  The jig was up!  Police reports were filed and the two boys were picked up after school a day or two later to answer some questions down at the police station.  Those of us on the seedier side have a phrase for what we did there.  We sang like canaries.

The owner of the equipment declined to file charges, only requesting that his repair expenses be reimbursed.  I don’t know about the other young man, but I spent the next two years delivering papers and mowing lawns to pay back that debt.  I’ll never forget my Dad’s reaction.  I expected the worst.  Dad could ply the belt with the best of them and this one was bound to be a doozy!  But as I sat on the edge of the bed in his bedroom, he just sat beside me and looked at me.  The hurt written in his eyes and on his face was a worse punishment than any spanking I had ever received.  But, no remonstration came, just his sad voice telling me about the financial agreement we were making and then, it was over.

Mercy.  Not justice; but mercy.  Mercy from a stranger whose property was put out of commission by my shenanigans.  Mercy from a father who was devastated by my actions.  Justice would have been fair, would have been equitable.  But they chose mercy.  I was grateful beyond words.

I must admit that I have not always remembered that lesson well.  As an adult, one day my father and I sat listening to a news story about some young men who had committed a crime.  “They should try them as adults and throw the book at them!” I exclaimed disgustedly.  The quiet answer came from across the room,  “I’m glad there was a man who didn’t think that way when you were a boy.”  His answer has remained with me to this day.  We who have been forgiven have an obligation to forgive, but frequently are the first to demand justice.

Am I preaching again?  I guess I am.  Have you gotten the point yet?  Okay then, one more thought and the sermon is over.  In God’s system, justice is the standard, but mercy gets the last word.  It’s not a bad example for us to follow in our personal lives.  I’ll leave the reader to figure out how to apply the principle.  

And, I’m pretty sure that I won’t be able to run for president now that I’ve admitted to my sordid and lawless past.  My disappointment is profound.

“Mercy there was great and grace was free.
Pardon there was multiplied to me.
There my burdened soul found liberty,
At Calvary.”
(William Newell~ American hymn writer~1868-1956)

“Reason to rule, but mercy to forgive; the first is law; the last, prerogative.”
(John Dryden~English poet and dramatist~1631-1700)

The rain just won’t quit.  It’s Easter Sunday and you can be pretty sure that no child within 50 miles of here hunted eggs outside today.  For 4 days, the ground has been soaked by rain and now it’s saturated and the water is piling up in the creeks and rivers around the areas.  Oh, I forgot…the basements, too.

Yes, I sit in the den and hear the sump pump running and stopping, running and stopping; the cycle continuing most of the afternoon.  You would think that I would be annoyed, but actually, I’m pleased.  Annoyed would happen if the pump wasn’t working.  I remember a time when it didn’t.  There’s not much to tell really, but I don’t ever want to have it happen again.

It was about a year after we bought the house.  Actually, we purchased the entire property that the music store sits on and the house came with it, including the tenant who was leasing the house for a food service business.  I got the call early one morning from the lady.  “Paul, you’ve got to get over here and replace the pump in the cellar.  There’s a lot of water down there and it’s not working.”  Pump in the cellar?  What’s that for?  Water?  Why would there be water under the house?  You see, I had never had a building with a cellar before and I didn’t know what happened when it rained and saturated the ground around a cellar.  Additionally, this cellar is not finished and has been under the house for over a century, so water-proofing is non-existent down there.

I went down the steep cement steps into the cellar.  Whew!  The stench hit me, causing my stomach to churn.  There’s nothing worse than water that’s accumulated over time.  Well, nothing worse, unless it’s actually having to get into the water that’s standing and stinking.  But, that’s just what I did.  No boots on (who has rubber boots in Arkansas?), I just stepped down into a foot of filthy water, flashlight in hand, hoping against hope that no snakes had taken up residence or that there was no electrical short in the wiring to the pump.  After a bit of exploration, I found the deceased sump pump and removed it without getting shocked or bitten.  A trip to the hardware store and a hundred dollars or so later, I returned to climb back into the stagnant water down below, shuddering again as I did.  The pump was installed and at last came the most satisfying part of the job.  It was turned on and the water rapidly receded below my ankles and then my feet, disappearing finally altogether with a gurgling sound as the pump automatically shut off, to await the next deluge. I couldn’t get home and out of those clothes fast enough!

Given my unpleasant experience with that pump twelve or more years ago, I have kept an ear out for its operation every time the rains have come with any frequency.  Once more, a few years later, the pump was silent for more days than was expected, so I made the trek down to investigate.  Sure enough, the water was collecting, this time, not enough yet to soak my entire shoe.  Repairs quickly made, it continues to function to this day.  The humming, vibrating noise will cause us to sleep a little restlessly tonight, but just to know that the electric sentinel stands guard down below makes it easier to relax and be content that all is well.

A trifling matter to write so much about, you may suggest.  Possibly so, but the pump protects the entire house from serious damage, besides sharing the basement with the central unit for heating and air conditioning the house.  A flood unchecked would necessitate a major outlay for repair or even replacement of that very important system.  There is also the small matter of mold growth and even damage to the foundation which could occur.  A small thing; that little sump pump, but what a heroic job it accomplishes, even when I’m not watching and supervising. 

Sometimes, right beneath our noses, things are not as they should be.  Ignorance may be bliss, but it is ignorant bliss and will almost certainly lead to cognizant misery.  Give me the minor inconveniences of preparedness over the disasters that accompany negligence, any day.  You may well imagine that I’m not just speaking of house repairs either.  All parts of our lives, both physical and spiritual, need constant monitoring to assure proper function.

It is possible, though, that if the current weather pattern continues, this principle might demand ship-building skills.  I’m pretty sure I’m not really prepared for that.  Oh, well!  It could be that it really is better not to know some things…

“The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”
(Matthew 7:25)

“It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow.”
(Aesop~Ancient Greek author~620 BC-560 BC)

“She can’t play this guitar you sold us.”  The young father stood at the counter and held the pretty blue 3/4 size guitar out to me, the anxious little girl looking on.  I glanced at the guitar, but saw no obvious defect.  Turning my eyes back with a quizzical expression on my face, I started to ask for an explanation, but he spoke before I could.  “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with the guitar.  It’s just that my little girl is left-handed and you sold us a right-handed guitar.”  The light came on for me and I began to talk a bit more intelligently, as I explained the options available to rectify the problem.  It’s not the first time this has happened.

Before I go any further, I’m wondering…have you ever been in a situation where you felt like you didn’t belong?  I’ve felt like that more times than I care to admit.  I grew up being socially backward in many ways.  There’s no blame to place; it’s just that we didn’t have opportunity to experience a lot of situations that many others of my generation did.  Because of that, many times even as an adult, I have felt like a fish out of water.  As I prepared to write this post, I spent a little while researching the various phrases we use to express the idea of being different, or being odd.  We use them all the time in conversation and you’ll see them in quotes throughout this little essay.  “Fish out of water” was one of those phrases, with the picture of a small marine animal lying on the banks of a river gasping for oxyg…no…gasping for water.  For the poor fish, the life giving gaseous material all around us on dry land is deadly; his breathing apparatus poorly suited for our environment.  I wonder if the fish have a saying about humans out of air?  Well, you get the picture.  And, you’ve probably been there, gasping for the chance to be somewhere else, as you suffer through a situation in which you’re extremely uncomfortable.

For various reasons, some people go through life like that, dealing with being the “odd man out“, the “fifth wheel“.  The little left-handed girl reminded me of that today.  She will deal with that handicap (yeah I know; it’s not politically correct to call it a handicap) for all of her life.  Scissors will not fit her hand; she may write in a backhand to be able to read what she’s writing, since we form our letters the  wrong direction for a southpaw; salespersons (like me) will hand her a pen to sign a receipt, aiming it for her right hand out of habit; the car she drives will have controls on the right side of the steering wheel…the list will go on for all of her life.

The sad thought that also occurs to me is this:  She doesn’t need to be the “oddball” in this particular situation.  When it comes to playing the guitar, this young lady has the advantage of all the right-handed folks who ever aspired to play the six-string music box.  You see, the guitar is ideally suited for a left-handed player just the way it’s designed.  For most players, the process of learning to play a guitar is torture, making them learn motor skills that have never been demanded of their non-dominant paw before.  The reason is that most of the dexterity demanded to play the guitar is in the left hand, which is the hand that rests on the neck of the guitar, forming chords, moving quickly through scale patterns, or sliding from fret to fret in hammer-ons and pull-offs.  The left hand.  I’ve had this discussion time and time again, finally giving up when faced with the emotional student or helpful parent, knowing that it’s an argument I’m destined to lose, every time.  I’ve searched for an answer to the questions this raises, but to no avail.  It appears that the mind of the left-handed person had been conditioned to assume that all activities will have to be accomplished in a mirror-image to those in the majority in this world.  Therefore, when the lefty sees a guitar being played by most players slung to the left side and being fingered with the left hand, they assume that they will have to play it the opposite way.  The difficulty they encounter in learning to play chords and scales (a difficulty all students will have, incidentally) only reinforces the belief that they cannot learn to play the “right-handed” instrument.  Any arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, they won’t learn to play the instrument unless it’s set up the opposite way.

I made the necessary changes to the guitar for the little girl.  She was excited and grateful when she came in with her daddy to pick up the transformed instrument.  Once again, I was struck with the lesson of how our brains and emotions work against us.  If we are taught, either by words or by repetition of action, that we don’t fit, it’s amazingly difficult for us to buck the conditioning.  As I experience frequently, it will always feel wrong to be in those situations  and we’ll be as “awkward as a bull in a china shop”.  The bright spot in facing this issue is that as adults, we can make a conscious choice.  We can retreat and stay out of uncomfortable settings, or we can make a decision to overcome those false fears and enjoy being a part of the culture in which we live.

As I write, I’m struck with one more thought.  In some ways, we are the “odd man out”, if we’re followers of the ultimate non-conformist.  He told us that we are not of this world, that He has chosen us.  I’m pretty sure there are some situations in which we are uncomfortable because we don’t belong there.  You know the ones I mean.  Try as you might, if you belong to Him, you’ll never fit in there.  Sometimes, being the one “left out in the cold” isn’t such a bad thing.

So, swim in the water, if you’re a fish.  We don’t have to live life “out of our element”.  Just make sure that what we think are circumstances beyond our control aren’t really opportunities to grow instead.  Sometimes, being “out of our comfort zone” actually makes us better human beings.