aging

Essential Humor

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

The old fellow apologized as he handed me the check he had just signed.  I had noticed as he wrote that his hand wasn’t as steady as most, but what was on the page was a little surprising.  The spidery signature was perfectly formed, the letters completely legible.  It was in fact almost a beautiful signature, a testament to penmanship lessons well learned.  Upon closer examination, though, I could see the jagged edges of little waves along the surfaces of every single letter.  Instead of the signature sweeping smoothly up and around and over and back, the letters bore the evidence a tiny, consistent shake throughout.  Every single aspect of these letters was influenced by the most regular and, until examined closely, almost imperceptible shakiness from the first upstroke to the final flourish.

The old gentleman looked at me, now wearing a wry grin and said, with a twinkle in his eye, “The doctor says I have an ‘essential tremor’…”  Then, leaning across the counter almost conspiratorially, he continued in a stage whisper, “…but I think I could do without it.”  I couldn’t help the smile that flashed across my face as he said it, any more than I can help the one that forms even as I write this.  What a great gift…the gift of humor in the face of affliction.  This octogenarian wasn’t fazed emotionally by the ravages of the years on his body, but welcomed the challenge, never losing his sense of humor and self-deprecating wit.

You know that I am a lifelong teller of jokes and puns, having brought groans to the lips of scores of friends, acquaintances, and innocent passers-by with my repertoire (mostly gleaned from others).  I have recently become aware of something else, though.  I don’t tell jokes when I’m unhappy, or when I’m under stress.  If some unfortunate event (or even a series of them) has stolen my joy, I loath humor; preferring instead to wallow in the feelings of self-pity, or anger, or even bitterness.  As a child, I can even remember becoming angry with my mother if she would attempt to cheer me up with levity while I was sulking.   Maybe someday, I’ll expound on the value of a good sulk.  Today, I’m thinking about the astounding ability of humor to raise spirits, to deflect anguish and discouragement…and my stubborn resistance to its effects.

I’m looking forward to the day when I am able, as my distinguished friend, to lighten a potentially awkward moment with humor which both calls attention to, and lessens the importance of an infirmity.  An infirmity, by the by, which could not have been hidden anyway.  I have a tendency to try to hide my weaknesses, my defects, for fear that someone will comment on them; might even tease about them.  A case in point:  Several years ago, I realized that, much like this old gentleman, I had a spot of shakiness myself.  One Sunday as I led worship at church, I discovered that I had a tremor in my right hand if I held the microphone in that hand as I sang.  Not in my left hand, just my right.  I was embarrassed by it and have never talked about it before today with anyone but the Lovely Lady.  It may have been a temporary issue, caused by too much caffeine (a distinct possibility) or a medication (less likely).  Nonetheless, I am always careful to hold a microphone in my left hand, so I have never chanced revealing the problem to anyone since that day.  I think I’m ready to face the issue now.  Besides that, I am realizing the potential for little jokes should the problem continue.  Think of the killer vibrato which could result! I realize that I’m on shaky ground here, but we might even work a version of Elvis’s “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” into the repertoire.

Shared by a friend on facebook.  Simple but effective.

They call it “gallows humor”.  Laughter in the face of a hopeless situation.  The man is led to the the electric chair and asks the warden as he enters, “Are you quite sure this thing is safe?”  Some would describe it as denial, the inability to believe that something bad is unavoidable.  Other would call it bravado, a false pride or even arrogance…not giving adversaries the satisfaction of victory.  It can be those things and if so, it is not really humorous and possibly even hurtful to those listening.  Thankfully, it can also be the desire to lessen the hurt, the mental anguish, of others looking on.  This is what I see when I remember my friend, along with others I know who do the same thing.  The hardship is not nearly as important to them as the desire to ease the pain of others, so they lighten the mood, effectively saying, “It is real, but nothing to be anxious about.”  I want to be able to do that.  In the midst of suffering, of mental pain, I want to think about those around me who love me.  I just haven’t gotten to that point yet.

I’m going to keep trying.  I’ll keep kicking myself when I realize how selfish I’ve been.  Hopefully, surrounding myself with people like my elderly friend above will yield the desired result in time.  Someday, you may even hear quips from me about my aches and pains (e.g., “My back goes out more often now than the Lovely Lady and I do”) and perhaps a bald joke or two.  I’m certainly not ready for the latter yet, though.

I may not have all my marbles, but I’ve still got most of my hair…so far.

“Don’t worry.  Be happy.”
(Bobby McFerrin~American singer/songwriter)

“No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.”
(Mercutio, asked if a knife wound was painful~from “Romeo & Juliet”~William Shakespeare)

Fall turns over a new leaf

~ Paul Phillips ~ 2 Comments

Fall isn’t my favorite season of the year.  I’m guessing that right about now, that’s tantamount to heresy around here, but I cannot live a falsehood.  For all its colorful beauty, Autumn is simply prelude to the dreary, depressing Winter that is invariably nipping at its heels, like a cold, vicious hound that can’t wait to see the backside of the warmth and comfort of the preceding seasons. 

When I was a naive young man, growing up in the tropics of south Texas, I believed that any winter which included a deep white blanket of snow that had fallen to cover the ugly brown earth, had to be better than those I experienced all those years.  Of course, “the grass is always greener”, as we all know, but I thought that experiencing four distinct seasons would have to be an improvement on the two we had there.  We always described the two seasons as Hot and Hotter…

The Rio Grande Valley in far south Texas is a primary winter destination for thousands of retired northern folks, most of whom maintain a second home there or else bring one with them in the form of the popular RV (we just called them travel trailers).  The Chamber of Commerce wanted us to call these folks “Winter Texans”, as if coming to their little refugee camps made them citizens, but we just called them “snowbirds.”   We, as kids, couldn’t for the life of us understand why anyone would leave the glory of snow-covered lawns, houses, and roads to come to the dry, hot realm of eternal summer.  Besides that, they clogged the roads, slowing down constantly to look at orange groves and palm trees, to say nothing of the long lines at the cafeterias like Luby’s and Furr’s.

Ah, the foolishness of youth!  I look back now and understand those old geezers (boy, somebody should look in the mirror!) much better than ever.  If my business allowed it, I’d be packing an RV right now to head down Interstate 35 for a few months myself.  Every year, I look forward to winter with much less zeal than the year before, simply because I have found that the gray days that are coming will leave me in a blue mood for weeks at a time.  I’m confident that it’s not real depression, but I will certainly not be as jovial, nor lighthearted as I am during Spring and Summer.  There are an infinite number of suggestions that friends and family have to cure this blue mood, ranging from listening to upbeat music, to going to the tanning booths, to buying a “natural sunlight” reading lamp.  I’d do the last one, except for the fact that all the designs look like they came right out of a nursing home and I’m not quite ready for that yet.  But you get the point…I don’t think much of winter and therefore, don’t have much use for the preparatory season that we are in now.  The Fall just reminds me constantly that everything around us is going to sleep, so it doesn’t have to endure the cold, dark season that is bearing down on us inexorably.

Having said all that (and I’m sure I’ll get emails), I have to add that the Fall is beautiful in the Ozarks right now.  The Lovely Lady and I took the weekend just ended to drive through some of the prettiest woodland you have ever seen.  The road to Devil’s Den is glorious with color, as is the highway to and from Eureka Springs.  Even with the niggling thoughts of the approaching Winter that came unbidden as we gazed on the scenery, the amazing show that nature puts on each Fall is in a category all its own.  We stood on Inspiration Point, viewing the White River valley and each direction we turned brought a new and marvelous vista.  Even I, with my cynical point of view, can’t avoid the obvious truth; God’s Glory is exposed with each new season, and in this one, this Autumn, with all it’s implications for the future, no less than any other and possibly in some respects, more than the others.  What a show!

So, I will grudgingly acknowledge that there are aspects of Autumn that make it a not entirely dreadful season.  My vote is still for Spring and I believe that the writer of the Psalms agrees with me.  After all, he did write about the man who follows God with these words, “… he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters, which brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither…”  So, eternal Spring is the appointed order for things and we’ll enjoy that in heaven, I’m sure.  The reader is free to disagree, but I’m fairly confident that I’m right.  Until that day, make the best of it, tough it out, and get outside into the glorious colors with which God has painted the world.

Autumn wins you best by this, its mute
Appeal to sympathy for its decay.
(Robert Browning)

Dinner is Served!

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

A gentle nudge is sometimes all it takes.  Other times, more drastic measures have to be resorted to, but we eventually get to the car to head home.  I can’t help it.  I’m a last minute conversation guy.  We’ve been at the church since before 9:00 AM, but now it’s noon and there are still people to talk with.  I’ll never understand the folks who dash out the door immediately after the last “Amen”.  I understand that not everybody is put together like I am (thank goodness!), but these visits with friends are some of the best moments of the week.  We catch up on children and jobs, even exchange a short joke or two, but we love spending time together.  However, the lovely lady is nudging again, so we say our last goodbye and head out.  Oh, one or two more conversations along the sidewalk crop up, but we have to keep moving.

What’s the hurry?  It’s just another Sunday afternoon, after all!  You say that and think you mean it, but you must not understand the meaning of Sunday Dinner.  We don’t eat “lunch” after church.  We have Dinner!  There are important people coming to share our table with us today and we have to get ready.  The list of dishes was made earlier this week before the visit to the grocery store yesterday.  Roast chicken and dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and spinach salad are on the menu today, among other things.  The lovely lady was up well before I was this morning, making the dessert and preparing the meat for the oven.  Important events like this take planning  and preparation!

We spend the last hour working feverishly.  I arrange the dining room and set the table, making sure that everything is just so for our VIPs.  She puts together the salad while making gravy, rolls, and the vegetables.  You understand that her role is much more difficult.  I do one thing at a time, while she multi-tasks, stirring this pot, cutting up that salad green, mixing a bowl of ingredients for another dish.  She knows better than to push me.  I’m hard pressed to remember which side of the plate the fork goes on, much less, not to forget the homemade peach jam. But, we get the work done; me, step by lumbering step; her, gracefully and efficiently.

As the last push comes to get dinner on the table, the important guests begin to arrive.  The lovely lady’s mother, accompanied by her brother, comes in first.  Great-Grandma lives at the local rehab/nursing center, but she is sharp as ever, noticing a different piano in the living room right away.  Brother-in-law plays a few chords on it for her and then, I’m back to the kitchen for some more last minute jobs. Then the doorbell rings again and in come the grandchildren, all calling out “Hi Grandma!  Hi Grandpa!”, with varying success in forming the words, but still entirely successful in letting us know they’ve arrived.  They are, not coincidentally, accompanied by our daughter and her husband.  Bringing up the end of the procession is our son, who also lives in town.  His arrival is met with cries of “Steben!” by the kids, who all adore him, although he pretends to be aloof. 

With much ado, and very little organization, the dinner commences.  Arguments about seating arrangements are par for the course, with the coveted position being the one adjacent to the lovely lady.  Those differences settled and drinks having been distributed, we ask the blessing, holding hands around the table.  When I was a child, the blessing was a prolonged affair, taking into account the leaders of the country, our missionaries, the heathen in darkest Africa, and various and sundry incidental requests, but, knowing the attention span of those in attendance, we keep ours confined to thanks for the food, and a quick request for showing love to each other.  Even with the abbreviated blessing, the next to the youngest manages to get a loud “Amen” out before I can finish, much to the amusement of all at the table.

Dinner is a boisterous affair, with conversations going on at all points of the compass, jokes told, and a few severe instructions issued (“Eat your green beans or no dessert!”, “No, you can’t get up.  You haven’t been excused yet!”).  Since Great-Grandma is a little hard of hearing, we have to speak up when addressing her and this doesn’t help the level of the din much.  Still, good food and good conversation are the order of the hour.  Most of this time is spent sharing the events of the week, both trivial and momentous.  We laugh, we cry, and the time speeds past.  After it’s all done, one by one, the groups of visitors head out, goodbyes and last-minute conversations finished as we stand at the door, with Uncle Steben leaving last after we’ve shared a bit of football time in front of the TV.  After some cleanup (not an insignificant task), peace reigns again.

That’s it?  That’s what your great Sunday Dinner was all about?  Your VIPs were just some family members getting together and eating food?   You bet!  When we can, we include other family members and friends from church.  This is a sacred time.  Oh, we don’t spend a lot of our time discussing theology (although that enters into most conversations), but the time spent with family, both old and young, is priceless.  Memories are being made.  Young minds are learning the respect that is due to those advanced in age by seeing it in practice and they are discovering how we interact with other people.  These are occasions that every single one of us will keep in our memories for years to come and treasure for all of our lives.  Some of my best memories from childhood are the times when we got together for meals with grandparents, with cousins and aunts and uncles.  They were more rare in my experience than they have been for my children and grandchildren, but that doesn’t make them any less cherished.

Family traditions don’t always just happen.  Some traditions you have to nourish and labor for.  We make this important, because we need this. Our parents, our children, and grandchildren need it.  Would it be easier to chuck it and go get dinner at KFC or some local restaurant?  You bet, much easier!  But, the time we spend nurturing each other and our memories will one day be the subject of the “remember whens?” and even some “when I was young” conversations for their children and grandchildren.  All the work (and even leaving church earlier than I want) is a small price to pay for the dividends all along the road.

Oh, and after the hub-bub and cacophony of dinner is finished, the lovely lady and I get to settle into the den for some “down time” (nap for me, stitching for her).  It seems that there are other family traditions besides Sunday Dinner that are just about as important.

“After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
(Oscar Wilde~American poet)

Something’s rotten in the den, Mark!

~ Paul Phillips ~ 1 Comment

I’m fascinated by odors.  Wow!  Is that a strange thing to admit or what?  I hope you won’t get the wrong idea and think that I go around sniffing the air all the time.  I do have some odd habits, but the Gollum act is not included in the panoply of weird symptoms you will observe in me.  It’s just that I seem to notice aromas even more now than I used to.  Perhaps it’s because odors have such an evocative effect on the brain.

I smell bacon and eggs, and I’m back in the breakfast nook at Grandma’s, waiting for an early morning meal after a Friday night spent at her house.  I catch a whiff of Pine Sol and I can still see the bathrooms at Crockett Elementary School where long ago, I spent 6 long years (in the school, not the bathrooms).  I know, that number of years just speeds by for us as adults, but honestly, don’t you remember waiting for the final bell at 3:30 every day?  The last five minutes were as interminable as any hour that came before in the day.

One of the most vivid odors I smell on a regular basis is that of burning bone.  I frequently have to cut bone pieces for guitar parts, such as bridge saddles and fingerboard nuts.  As the Dremel cutting wheel spins along the surface, the odor emanates in billows from the material, filling the atmosphere in the music store.  Along with it’s completely obnoxious stench, which is suffocating in its nature, I have to suffer with the image of sitting in the dentist’s chair while he drills in preparation for a filling.  You folks who’ve had cavities, you know what I’m talking about.  It’s all peppermint and flavored rinses until, BOOM!, that stench fills your mouth, throat, and nasal passages and you start to think that maybe a pureed diet wouldn’t be so bad after all.  My better half has requested that the bone cutting take place after business hours, when I’m working by myself.  Unfortunately, in my situation, although “misery loves company”, apparently that company doesn’t have much of an urge to consort with misery.

I’ll leave some of the other odors to your imagination, just to be sure that we don’t get a PG rating for this missive.  Suffice it to say that I don’t work in a sterile atmosphere.  Evidently, varying opinions exist regarding the satisfactory standard for cleanliness in public, so the levels of pungency also vary greatly from time to time.  Sometimes, I find it difficult to even concentrate on the task at hand, much less to remember that all of God’s creatures deserve respect, but that’s what has to be accomplished.  Odd, isn’t it, when you really consider the idea?  I’m fairly certain that we assault God’s nostrils with our stench continuously, yet He tolerates the smell and even calls us His sons and daughters and holds us close.  So, I work on, careful to show respect and honor, even as I recoil from the emissions!  If He can stand it for all time, I figure I can deal with it for a few minutes.

As I consider all these aromas, while there are some that I think I could do without, I’m struck by how amazing is the world we’ve been given to live in.  Some odors warn us of danger, like solvents, or natural gas, and burning food (never happens at my house!).  Others lure us into situations we should avoid.  No I’m not thinking about perfumes and scented candles (although that could be problematic, too).  I’m thinking about the delightful aroma of baking cookies, a perfectly cooked roast beef, or any number of foods that, while quite pleasant to experience, leave their manifestation for years of discomfort to come.  What an amazing assortment of signals and informative details are brought to mind by the simplest of smells wafted gently (or not so gently) to our noses everyday.  And, what a drab and dangerous world this would be without this very simple gift.

I’m still fascinated by odors…

But for tonight, I’m headed home and going to bed very soon.  I think I’ll be careful to take my shoes off in the bathroom…

“Best way to get rid of kitchen odors?  Eat out!
(Phyllis Diller)

Baby Steps and Split Lips

~ Paul Phillips ~ Leave a comment

Smack!  The baseball hit the six-year old boy right in the mouth and it took all the fortitude his young dad could muster to keep from running onto the field.  The lad was at his first ever tee-ball practice and he was used to people lobbing softer balls toward him.  This one had been thrown by another kid whose aim was a bit errant, so the sphere skimmed the hard dirt surface in front of him, bouncing up to batter a target it wasn’t intended for.  But the dad stood where he was behind the fence and let the boy’s coach run out to check him.  A little blood and a little more wounded pride, but he tearfully assured the coach that he would stay where he was and keep on with the practice.

On the way home later, the conversation went something like, “That ball hit you pretty hard out there.”  “Yeah, and look at it now!” (Said with a split, puffy lip stuck out.)  “You know, you can quit if you want to…”  “Quit?  I’m going to play baseball!”  And play baseball, he did.  It was about 9 years later that he finally put away the cleats and glove, after many different teams and All-Star games.  He turned into a really good baseball player, but more than that, he became a young man who knew what it was to tough it out and go for his goals.

It’s been a few years since that young man showed the doggedness it took to stick through the pain and effort, but the early lessons keep bearing fruit 20 years later.  Those lessons aren’t lost on the dad either, now a little older and a very small amount wiser.  Of course, one of the things he’s learned is that these lessons are neither rare, nor remarkable.  But sometimes, the reminder still helps to keep life in perspective.

This week, his youngest granddaughter took her first steps on her own.  She turns one in another week or so, and her frame of reference is widening at an amazing rate (not that this is unusual, either).  As we all do, she started out aware of only the most basic needs, food, sleep, a mother’s touch.  As she’s grown, her scope has expanded also.  Still very much self-absorbed, she realizes that she wants other things; brightly colored toys, different food than she usually has (even hot coffee), certain people (Grandma’s the best!).  She even wants more mobility, but she herself is perfectly willing to leave the transportation to anyone who will carry her.  She started crawling only out of the most dire need (Mama has 4 kids and was thoughtless enough to leave her on the floor!).  And now, even though crawling is good enough, these adults around her keep standing her up and having her walk on the bottom of her feet.

And still today, she doesn’t really want to walk.  She has to be put upright on her feet and have someone in front of her for whom she is motivated enough to put out the effort.  She even fusses about it.  But parents and grandparents understand that this is the next achievement in the natural progression.  Yes, she’s going to fall down a time or two.  She may even split her lip open, but this is how life moves along.  We try new things even when we are frightened of the effort and the possibilities.  And, the result is a complete person, one who has taken their fair share of licks and won their fair share of victories.

For today, she knows she’s done something really good.  Everyone praises her and Grandpa sweeps her up in his arms, telling her how smart she is.  It’s a picture that’s been seen millions of times before and will be repeated that many more times, but for right now, all she knows is that she’s done something stupendous, and the smile on her face is living proof.

Sometimes we forget that our lives are supposed to be spent learning and the pop-quizzes should come along fairly regularly.  It is possible to become a drop-out.  We just decide we’ve gotten the degree we want in the school of hard knocks and we’re done.  Sit tight, do the same things every day, and no one will ever hit us in the mouth with anything.  We figure we’ve learned everything that we need for our profession and just mark time.  But we were never intended to be done, never intended to quit learning, never intended to sit on the sidelines watching.  For many of us today, it’s confusing to see friends who refuse to learn about new technologies, refuse to contemplate and discuss current events, and refuse to take an active part in any unfamiliar activity.    We live in an exciting time, when information is at our fingertips, facts are verified with the push of a few buttons, and new experiences await us at every turn.  We were meant to live ’til we die! 

You’d better be careful, little girl!  One step leads to another all through your life!  And watch out for those wild pitches…



The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet, 
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then?  I cannot say.
(From “The Hobbit” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien)


“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the Faith.” 
(The Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7)