Dyin’ Right
March 31, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 35 Comments
Four days ago:
Sitting Down
March 29, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 14 Comments
Long day at work. Much to do and get done that, thankfully, did. My reward? Thirty minutes on the sofa with a good book (has anyone read Walden since high school? Trust me, it’s better the second time around). With dinner consumed and family gathered, I grabbed my book, turned around, and sat.
And as I did, I grunted.
It was a low grunt, more of an “Aaah” than an “Oooh”, but the proper pronunciation didn’t matter. I had never made a sound like that before, and it bothered me.
My children kept playing, oblivious to the noise I had just made. My wife, however, did offer a sideways glance from the recliner beside me. What was that? the look said. I ignored her because I didn’t have an answer.
I wasn’t tired, wasn’t sore, and wasn’t sick. I was just ready to sit down for a while. Nothing more than that.
Or was there?
The fact that I am thirty-six going on forty crossed my mind. I normally don’t consider my age, really. How I feel physically has always been more important than any number. Lately, however, my thoughts have drifted once or twice to the fact that I may very well be nearing the halfway point of my life. It’s a point that was driven home by a recent email from a high school classmate: “Can you believe it’s been nineteen years?” she said. No, I couldn’t. I knew it’d been a while, but I didn’t know it had been that long.
Time is an elusive thing. It creeps while we watch over it, yet seems to speed by when we have other things on our minds. Our days, too, can easily be transformed from individual periods of twenty-four hours to one lump of events that have no distinct beginning or end. Don’t pay attention to your life, and things tend to unravel. That’s how you can be changing your children’s diapers one day and attending their wedding the next. Or how nineteen years of post-high school life can seem like mere months.
I suppose that the realities of life dictate that at some point certain things begin to happen. Experience breeds truthfulness, a scraping away of the illusions that you’ve spent years carefully crafting for yourself. You take stock, a mental inventory of where you’ve been and where you happen to be going. Not where you want to be going, mind you. Where you are. And it’s only when you figure out where you are that you can figure out where you want to go.
That was what my grunt was all about. It was a signal, whether given by God or my own physiology, that the clock that keeps the time of my life never runs slow. That it keeps chiming whether I hear it or not.
I see my children and their abundant energy, their unquenchable desire for much and more. They play and wonder and explore without tiring, unlike me. I honor that part of them. I encourage it. But I have found a peace in where I am, and do not envy them.
I will take my grunts instead. I consider them to be a preamble of sorts rather than a coda; a beginning rather than an end. And though there is still plenty of play left in me, I will be sure to take some extra time to sit. I will let my children “Oooh” at life and relish in what they will one day know. And I will let myself “Aaah” and relish in what I never will.
Nightandloveyou
March 26, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 37 Comments
I hear it through a thick blanket of sleep, soft at first then clearer and stronger. Not the sort of noise one fears at night. Not a crack or a thump or a ring from the telephone. But the sort of noise that makes you wonder where it’s coming from and what in the world it means.
“Free credit report dot com, tell your friends tell your dad tell your mom.”
I grab the remote control and point it in the general direction of the television, thinking that I had dozed off in the middle of whatever I had been watching three hours earlier. I wave it blindly, pushing the ON/OFF button and then smacking the whole thing against my hand because the batteries must be dead. And then I realize that the television isn’t on. The noise, however, still is:
“Free credit report dot com, tell your friends tell your dad tell your mom.”
My head raises, using what can only be described as the human equivalent to sonar to identify the source.
It’s coming from my son’s bedroom.
I pull back the blankets, schlep into the hallway, and stand at his door. The soft red light from his Lightning McQueen lamp illuminates him in his bed. He is staring at the ceiling with his arms raised and his fingers doing some sort of magical dance.
“Hey,” I say.
He jerks and spins and stares at me with a look of terror. He has been worried of monsters under his bed lately, and ghosts in his closet, and the bad guy from Toy Story. I just may be all three.
“Just me,” I promise.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I am.”
“No, you’re singing.”
“Sorry, Daddy.”
“Let’s get some sleep, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy. Nightandloveyou.”
“Nightandloveyoutoo.”
Back through the hallway, back into bed. I pull the blankets over me and roll to my side. Then, just as I close my eyes:
“Free credit report dot com, tell your friends tell your dad tell your mom.”
Sigh.
Back out of bed, back into the hallway, back to his door.
“Hey, bud,” I say.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Quit singing and go to sleep.”
“Okay, Daddy. Nightandloveyou.”
I turn to leave, satisfied that my tone of voice has said what my words did not: don’t wake me again.
“Daddy?” he says, more to the shadow I cast against the wall than to me.
“Yeah, bud?”
“Mommy says to sing when you’re scared.”
Uh-oh.
I move into his room and onto his bed. “Mommy’s a smart girl,” I say. “Maybe the smartest.”
“She says singing makes the shadows brighter.”
“It does,” I tell him. But I don’t think she meant to sing a song from a commercial, and I’m fairly sure she didn’t mean to sing in the middle of the night.”
“Do you get scared, Daddy?”
I mull that one over, biding a few precious seconds by rearranging his covers and pillow. This is a murky question, one best considered in the light of day when I’m alert rather than the dark of night when I’m-not-so-much.
I weigh my options. Tell him that I am scared sometimes, and that may make things much worse. Because if Daddy’s scared, then there must really be some bad things out there. Things worse than monsters. Don’t tell him, though, and I risk much worse. I risk lying to my son.
Because I do get scared. A lot.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “Sometimes.”
“What do you do when you’re scared?”
“Pray, usually.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s even better than singing.”“Does it make the shadows brighter?”
“Better,” I say. “It makes the shadows go away.”
So we pray that the angels will chase away all the monsters. He speaks of the ones in his room, and I think of the ones in this world. Because I know the truth: the ones in the world are real.
We sit alone in the quiet stillness of his room, two people determined to find peace and rest regardless of the shadows that surround us. “It’s not so dark with a father here,” he observes. With me there beside him, rest comes easier. “Nightandloveyou,” he says, and then is asleep.
Back in my own bed, I stop to consider the shadows in our world. I am aware of many more than my son, and thankfully so. I worry about my family sometimes. I worry what will happen next. Tomorrow used to be a word of hope for people. Things would be better then. But I think that too many would rather cling to the present or even the past now. For a lot of us, tomorrow’s just too scary.
“Nightandloveyou,” I say to my Father, and then am asleep.
Eleanor’s Story
March 24, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 24 Comments
When you see a UPS man, you get out of his way. This is for your own safety. UPS men (and women, of course) are in a hurry. They have to be. They have a truck full of packages that must be delivered before their day can be considered done. No exceptions.
So when on a morning walk I spotted a UPS man delivering a package to a lady in the neighborhood, and when I saw him actually stop and talk to said lady in a conversation, I paid attention.
Older woman, smartly dressed. She smiled and laughed and touched his arm in a motherly sort of way, and he nodded and smiled and tipped his cap as he left.
Funny thing about that house: I didn’t recall ever noticing it. Our neighborhood, though rural and against the mountain, is still a pretty big place. Very likely a few hundred houses in all. I supposed that with so many homes, misplacing one or two in my memory was bound to happen.
My kids did not trick-or-treat there. I was sure of that. And I was equally sure there were no Christmas decorations there last December. I would remember.
I passed by just as the UPS man paused at his truck to type something into his electronic clipboard.
“How ya doin’?” I called.
“Good,” he answered. “You?”
“Good. Busy today?”
He laughed. “Always busy, my man. Especially here.”
“Oh yeah?”“Oh yeah. I’m here every day.”
So began a rather lengthy conversation about the unseen woman in the unseen house. Eleanor, whom I had neither met nor seen in all my years in the neighborhood. Which was, according to the UPS man, a forgivable offense. No one else had really met or seen her either.
She was alone. No family. No children. She spent her life inside for the most part, venturing out for groceries rarely and only when the needs outweighed the trip. She wasn’t a recluse, he said. She was just shy and didn’t want to be a bother.
“Nothing wrong with that, right?” he asked.
“Not a thing.”
He turned and stared at the house. I did likewise. A corner of the living room curtain waved, as if someone was peeking out.
“But she’s lonely. Real lonely. I drop off something for her most every day. She gets these catalogs in the mail, see. Every catalog you can think of. She’ll call and order stuff all day long.”
“Guess everyone needs a hobby,” I offered.
“Ain’t a hobby,” he said. “Like I said, she’s lonely. She orders stuff just to have someone to talk to. Knows all those operators by name, mostly. Talks about ‘em like they’re her family. Which I guess they kinda are.”
“Shut up,” I said.
“Seriously. Told me so herself. I guess they don’t mind. They get her money, she gets some company. She started talking to me because I always delivered the stuff. I always hustle on my other stops because I know she’ll want to sit and talk a while.”
The curtain moved again.
“Gotta go, my man. Take it easy, huh?”
“Yeah,” I answered, still looking at the house. “You, too.”
He left. I stood. Staring at the house.
The curtain moved again.
I could imagine Eleanor in her living room, scared to death and wondering what the strange man by the driveway was doing. She probably had the phone in her hand, ready to call for help. Not 911, though. Given what I’d learned, it was more likely Pottery Barn.
I always considered the forgotten among us to be confined to some faraway city street, huddled beneath park benches or in soup kitchens. That many resided here in my peaceful town was unthinkable. That one resided just down the road from me was heartbreaking.
I walked up the driveway and rang her doorbell. The curtain moved again. There was silence.
Then the door opened.
***
Eleanor passed on recently. I can say that we had many a good visit with one another. I can also say, however, that loneliness is one of those things that doesn’t disappear at once. It takes time. Time she didn’t have.
If I have one consolation, it’s that I’ve learned the company she lacked in this life was found in the next.
Because according to the nurses at the hospital, her last words were these:“I see angels everywhere.”
The Fruit Salad
March 22, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 25 Comments
I peered down into the large bowl of Jell-O and fruit, unsure of what to do. I’d never been faced with this sort of situation before.
At six, I felt I was though I was well on my way to adulthood. I could tie my shoes, count to ten, and say most of my ABCs. I no longer slept with the night light on, and I no longer harbored any fanciful misgivings of monsters in my closet.
But more than that, more than all of that, I had been recently indoctrinated into a language used by adults only, the sort of words that were only bandied about far from innocent ears.
I’d learned to cuss. And very well, I might add.
I knew them all courtesy of my next door neighbor, a ten-year-old boy who as far as I can imagine is now either incarcerated or worse. But he was cool back then, cooler than anyone I knew, and I wanted to be just like him. Told him so, too. Cussing was part of my education, and it was powerful stuff.
I kept my secret knowledge safely tucked in the back of my brain until one of the words escaped my lips in the worst place possible: my grandparents’ house. There are a lot of things you don’t do when you’re in the company of your grandmother, and there are a lot more you don’t do when your grandmother happens to also be Amish. Cussing, I found, ranked just above killing kittens and just below denying the reality of an Almighty God.
The exact situation escapes me, though I remember it was an argument in which she told me to do something, I said I didn’t want to, she said she would tell my mother, and I said, to quote, “I don’t give a $@!#.”
To make matters worse, the word I had chosen to employ was the mother of all curse words, the one my next door neighbor had dubbed “the Big One.” Guaranteed to provoke a reaction.
And there was a reaction.
Grandma stood dumbstruck for three full seconds, upon which she bent down, grabbed my ear, and drug me across the kitchen floor and into the corner, where I remained for most of the day.
I dared not turn around, either. Not when the pots and pans were crashing, not when she began pleading for my eternal soul. Only when lunch was ready hours later did she tell me to sit.
“Enjoy your food,” she said, and nothing more.
Jell-O salad. Yes! My favorite. As smooth as glass on the top and bottom, with fruit defying gravity in the middle, suspended in an ocean of transparent red. Maybe she wasn’t so mad after all. Maybe she would let bygones be bygones and we could put the whole thing behind us.
But no.
Because there amidst the bananas and pears and pineapples, there were prunes. And everyone knew I hated prunes.
“Grandma?” I said.
“Yes?”
“Why did you put prunes in there?”
“Oh my,” she said, feigning shock. “You don’t like prunes?”
“I don’t like prunes, Granmda.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ll tell you what. You can still eat it. Just take the prunes out.”
“It won’t do any good,” I answered, sniffing the bowl. “The whole bowl smells like prunes. Even if I took them all out, it would still stink.”
“Hmm. “You’re right. What a shame. I know how you like your Jell-O salad.”
We sat there, silent. Then she said, “Where did you learn that word?”
“From a friend.”
“Friends don’t teach you things like that,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you know what you said was wrong?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you know why?”
“No,” I said. “It’s just a word. What can be so bad about just a word?”
She tapped the bowl in front of us. “Because you’re like this Jell-O salad.”
“How?”
“Whatever goes into your heart goes in there and settles. It stays. You can take good things into your heart, like the bananas and pears and pineapples. Or you can take bad things into it, like the prunes. The problem is, the good can’t make the bad better, but the bad can spoil the good. You can scoop out all the prunes, but the rest would still be messy.”
“And it would smell bad, too,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Don’t forget it,” she said.
I did though, for a while. I said and did plenty of things I had no business in saying and doing. But I know better now. Grandma was right. Once you let something into your heart, it’s there for good. Whether that thing is destined to be a joyful remembrance or an unbearable regret, we commit our very souls to the choices we make every day. And there they will remain, for good or ill, as a record of the worthiness of our lives.
Facing the Truth
March 19, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 16 Comments
The radio is on in the background right now. Not music, though. Talk.
Talk radio can be a very informative thing so long as you accept the fact that whatever is being said is much like what you’ll get on television. It’s not news per se, just someone else’s opinion of the news. The downside is that you tend to get the impression that the only person in the entire world who knows the truth is the person who happens to be in front of the microphone. The upside is that sometimes you get a little something to write about. Like this time, for instance.
The gentleman on the radio at the moment happens to be one of the most listened-to people in America. Though I don’t listen every day and don’t agree with everything he says, I will admit he has quite a way of saying it. His voice and his opinions have earned him a lot of money and a lot of power.
Though he enjoys much more success and influence than most of us ever will, there is always a little room for improvement. A poll was taken recently that showed his audience consisted of many m ore men than women. The reasons for this gap between male and female intrigued him. What faults did women find in him? What was it they didn’t like? Was it a personality thing? Worse?
So today, he is in the midst of what he has called a Female Summit. All calls coming in must fit two specific criteria—they must be women, and they must articulate exactly what it is about him they find so offensive.
This has been going on for about an hour now, and I think this poor man has gotten more than he bargained. There have been calls regarding his abundance of coarseness to those whose opinions differ from his own. And his abundance of pride. And his abundance of self-satisfaction. And just to even things out a bit, there have also been plenty of calls about what he is lacking. Consideration, for instance. And manners. Self-control, too.
Never let it be said that women will not offer hard and uncompromising truthfulness when asked to do so.
In theory, the Female Summit has been a rousing success. In application, though, maybe not so much. Because rather than take the honest criticism, the man on the radio has spent the vast majority of his time defending himself. It’s not his fault, you see. It’s the media or his enemies or the fact that he’s been battling a cold lately.
Which as gotten me thinking: would I want to do this? Would I really want to what other people think of me? On the surface, yes. Having the truth of how others really see me would be very informative. It would highlight whatever good points I might have that I may be unaware of, and it would allow me to work on those rough parts of me that I, for whatever reason, either gloss over or ignore.
Sounds good in theory. But in application? Not so much.
Because like this very intelligent and successful man on the radio, I’d probably spend a lot more time defending myself than humbly accepting criticism. Because deep down, no matter how much I might want to know the truth about me, I want to believe the lies I tell myself more. Like how I’m just fine, thank you. And how there is nothing I really need to change about me, but there sure is a lot everyone else needs to change about them. I’m okay. It’s the rest of humanity that’s messed up.
Do I really believe this? No. Just the opposite, in fact. But like the smart man on the radio, my pride gets in the way of me being a better me sometimes.
We could all improve ourselves, I think. We could all be better. But changing who you are, even if it’s for the better, is a painful process. Someone once told me that no one ever changes until the pain of changing becomes less than the pain of staying the same. Those are wise words.
I don’t know if this radio show will have a Female Summit next year. Right now, the odds seem pretty small. No one wants to spend three hours in front of a national audience rationalizing the things they do and say. I think this man wanted to change, I really do. And I think he believes he can change. But change won’t come just because we think we can. It comes only when we believe we must.
Trying Again
March 17, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 14 Comments
Sitting beside me as I write this is a robin’s nest. Dislodged by a recent gust of wind, it tumbled from the oak tree in my backyard and was caught in a pillowy blanket of fresh snow, where it was picked up by me.
The finding of the nest did not catch me by surprise. I knew the nest was there and that it would soon not be. I am generally well educated on the goings on of the winged and furred creatures who inhabit my tiny bit of Earth. We coexist well, them and I. Their job as tenants is to remind me of the world I sometimes neglect to consider. My job as caretaker is to feed and water them as best I can. And, as a side benefit, to name them whatever I think is most fitting.
The robin who resided in my oak tree was named Harriet. How I arrived at that particular moniker escapes me and I suppose doesn’t matter. What does matter, however, is that Harriet was my favorite. The rabbits and squirrels and blue jays and cardinals were all fine in their own way, of course. But Harriet was my bud.
She was my security system in the event the neighbor’s cat decided to snoop around for a quick meal. She was the perfect mother to the four robinettes she hatched. And she sang. Every morning and every evening, regardless of weather. Even after the worst of storms, when the rains poured and the thunder cracked and the winds whipped, she sang.
I envied Harriet and her penchant for singing regardless. And when the weather turned cold and she sought her refuge in warmer climates, I missed her too.
And now all I have left is this nest to ponder.
An amazing piece of workmanship, this nest. Bits of string, feathers, dead flowers, twigs, and dried grass woven into a perfect circle, with a smooth layer of dried mud on the inside.
The resulting combination is protective, comfortable, and a wonder to behold. Harriet likely took between two and six days to construct her home and made about a hundred and eighty trips to gather the necessary materials. She may live up to a dozen years and build two dozen nests. I like to think this one was among her finest.
Scientists have taken much interest in this facet of bird behavior. They’ve even come up with a fancy name for it: Caliology, the study of birds’ nests. Artists and poets have found bird nests to be a fertile subject matter. During last year’s Olympic games, when the Chinese erected the largest steel structure in the world to serve as center stage, it was built in the shape of a bird nest.
Why all this interest? Maybe because of its inherent perfection. You cannot make a better bird nest. The form and function cannot be improved upon. Even more astounding is that Harriet built this nest without any education. Where to build it and with what and how were all pre-programmed into her brain. No experience was necessary. And though my brain protests the possibility, I know that this flawless creation of half craftsmanship and half art is not unique. It is instead replicated exactly in every other robin’s nest in every other tree.
Instinct, the scientists say.
We humans are lacking in the instinct area, at least as far as building things goes. In fact, some sociologists claim that we have no instincts at all. I’m not so sure that’s true. I am sure, however, that things do not come so natural to me. I must learn through an abundance of trials and many errors. My education comes through doing and failing and doing again, whether it be as simple as fixing the sink or as complicated as living my life. Little seems to be pre-programmed into my brain. When it comes to many things, I am blind and deaf and plenty dumb.
I said I envied Harriet for her singing. The truth, though, is that I am tempted to envy much more. How nice it would be to find perfection at the first try. To know beforehand that success is a given.
That I am destined to struggle and stumble and fail sometimes prods me into thinking I am less.
Maybe.
What do you think? Would you rather be a Harriet and get it right every time? Or is there much to be said for trying and failing and trying again?
Bread and Milk
March 15, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 10 Comments
Tonight’s weather forecast has gotten me thinking about the grocery store.
March is the most unpredictable of months, when winter still seems determined to hang around for a while and spring urges it not to fight the inevitable. The result is a mishmash of weather designed to both lift us up from the doldrums of the cold and the bleak yet remind us that we’re not quite there yet. Robins and flowers are appearing in my small town, yet everyone is well aware of the fact that some of our biggest snowstorms have occurred closer to Easter than Christmas.
So when the smiley weatherman said there was a chance of snow showers after midnight, everyone (and likely the weatherman included) knew deep down that a “chance of snow showers” often results in a blizzard and the complete shutdown of civilization for a few days.
I responded the same way everyone around here does when preparing for the possibility of a storm. I inventoried the kitchen.
Not for food and drink, per se. Not for soda or coffee or tea or eggs or cereal or meat. No. In a storm, those things don’t matter. What matters above all else, what guarantees survival in the midst of chaos, is bread and milk.
Though well-educated and very bright, the weatherman on the television is not always accurate when it comes to predicting nature’s mood swings. If you want to know what’s going to happen and when and how bad, you go to the Food Lion on Main Street. You walk through the doors and take an immediate left to the last two aisles, and you see how many people are scrambling for bread and milk. If there are only a few shoppers milling about, chances are good that everything will be fine. If it’s a mob, however, you’d better join in. Because trouble’s coming.
Never mind the fact that even in the worst of snowstorms, the good folks at the Department of Transportation will likely have the main roads cleared within a day. And never mind the fact that even if they didn’t, the four-wheel-drive in your driveway will still likely get you where you need to go. Those things don’t matter. What matters is that you can walk into your kitchen and find milk in your refrigerator and bread on your countertop.
We are living in the modern age. We have the benefit of a plethora of choices when it comes to food and drink. A simple trip to the store can get you bananas from Brazil, Pineapples from Hawaii, corn from Iowa, beef from Texas, and fish from Alaska. There is fancy coffee, plain tea, and more varieties of soda than I can count. Still, it’s the bread and milk.
The reason why this is so has escaped me for years. But now, whether through wisdom or experience or a little of both, I think I’ve found the answer.
Extravagance doesn’t offer us the comfort we need when the storms hit. The exotic and fancy loses their appeal. Instead we crave the very things that have gotten untold generations through the tough times and weathered untold tempests.
The basics. The essentials.
Bread and milk.
I see this every day now. We’re all caught in the storm. While politicians debate and economists theorize and the media search for answers, solutions seem few and fleeting. The old doesn’t work anymore, they say. The tried and true has been attempted and found wanting. So it’s time for the exotic and fancy.
Me, I’m not so sure.
Because the very things that have seen this country through the hard times in the past can see us through the hard times now. Things like faith and charity. Family and community. Holiness and commitment.
Most are now considered outdated. Some are under direct attack. That’s a shame, I think. Because a home without the basics is at the mercy of a storm. And so are we.
Earl’s Beans
March 12, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 16 Comments
The Frisbie family over at Frisbie Family Fun Forever wrote a post the other day about how their family has been thinking a lot about the Depression lately. Not the one now, mind you. Things aren’t that far gone. Not yet, anyway. No, they were talking about the one in the 1930s. Quite possibly the toughest times in our country’s history. They were marveling at the sense of determination and self-reliance that people had to display back then. Not just to get ahead, but to stay alive.
Which got me thinking about a guy down at the gas station named Earl. Not that the gas station is his place of employment, mind you. As Earl’s pushing ninety-six and can’t get around as well as once upon a time, the gas station is just his hangout. It’s the one place in town where he can sit in a booth all day and watch most everyone pass by sooner or later.
Part down historian and part town gossip, he is the self-imposed high mayor and town council, and his booth is his throne. Like Sinatra’s table at Jilly’s, you don’t sit at Earl’s table. Not if you want to stay alive. Earl might be pushing the century mark, but he’s still a pretty tough guy. I’m not sure what he’d do if he caught some unassuming stranger occupying his seat. It’s never happened.
Earl has seen a lot in his ninety-six years: two world wars, four American ones, cars and computers and televisions and telephones. He’s endured the losses of his wife and all five of their children, countless recessions, and one big, nasty Depression.
You might think that all of this would make Earl a little long for this world. That he’d be worn out from all of his years. You’d be wrong, though. There’s no one in this world happier than him. No one.
With all that living, Earl has the advantage of perspective when it comes to the events of these days. He’s seen it all. And since he’s seen it all, there really isn’t much that catches him off guard. Take this current financial mess, for instance.
Me: “How bad’s it going to get, Earl?”
Earl: “Not bad enough that you’ll have to worry.”
Me: “I’m worrying about it now.”
Earl: “Well, you shouldn’t.”
Me: “Why?”
His answer was not framed in financial statistics or a keep-your-chin-up inspirational speech. It was instead four one-syllable words:
“’Cause of the beans.”
The beans, you ask? Yes. Allow me to explain.
Earl was twenty years old in 1932 when he married his wife, Anna. Their first child followed shortly, and their second was born not long afterward. Trying to raise a family in the middle of the Depression was about as easy as it sounds. Work was sparse, pay was sporadic, and hope was nonexistent.
But God always provided what Earl’s family needed. They were poor, yes, but they were not destitute. They all had clothes to wear, a roof over their heads, and beans in the cupboard.
Lots of beans. Beans were cheap back then, Earl says. And since they were so affordable, that’s what was incorporated into every meal. Earl’s family lived off beans for years. According to him, everybody’s family did.
Which maybe wasn’t so bad. I like beans. And Earls says he liked them fine, too. But after eating beans for two meals a day for ten years or so, you start to get a little sick of them. You start to hate them. Earl swore that one day his family wouldn’t have to eat beans anymore, and that would be a fine day indeed.
That day did come. World War II brought work again for our country, and the prosperity afterwards ensured that the tough times were over.
People think the Depression was bad, Earl says. That’s true. But they also think there wasn’t any good in it. That’s not true. Families were strengthened. Faith was strengthened. People were strengthened.
According to Earl, tough times make tough people. And those times made maybe the toughest people we’ve ever had. People who saved the world from the Nazis and the Communists, who landed on the Moon and fought for civil rights.
Hurting might be bad for the body, but it’s good for the soul.
And losing what means much can reveal what means more.
Maybe he’s right.
I’ve read where people are predicting riots in this country. Bloody revolutions. Mass crime. The breakdown of society and the extinction of Christianity. Not me. Not Earl, either. We both think that the sort of people made seventy years ago are the same sort that can be made now. People who won’t be broken by life, but made tougher by it.
How You Wear Your Hat
March 10, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 12 Comments
(My thanks to Tina Dee for spotlighting me on Bustles and Spurs. If you’d like to read her post, go here.)
Now, about that hat…
I come from a long line of hat-wearers, which has little to do with the fact that all the men in my family are…uh…follically challenged. My grandfather wore a hat every day of his life. Never went out the door without one. So, too, does my father, who carries on the tradition with an array of ball caps that pronounces his allegiance to everything from the University of Virginia football team to Callaway golf clubs.
Ball caps have become my choice of head garment as well, and I own many. But I have always wanted a fedora like my grandfather’s. He loved his hat. Always made a point to lambaste me for thinking my Yankee hat was the proper equivalent to his, too. “Comparing your hat to mine,” he would say, “is like comparing Tom Cruise to Gary Cooper.”
Point taken.
When my favorite ball cap recently began to show a little excess wear, I thought it might finally be time to buy a proper hat.
Then, after the UPS man dropped it on the porch and I tried it on, I had another thought:
Maybe it’s not.
Not because I didn’t like it (I did), and not because my wife did not give her approval (she did). No, it was because of the peculiar sensation I was getting that even though I was a fedora guy on the inside, maybe I wasn’t ready to be one on the outside.
Yes, I am thirty-six. And yes, peer pressure shouldn’t matter so much anymore. Yet here I am nearly twenty years out of high school, and I have yet to rid myself of the overwhelming need to fit in. Walking around all day hearing chuckles and a chorus of “Hey Indiana”? Not fitting in.
***
I kept the hat. I suppose I could say that I did so because I loved it and decided that meant more than what anyone else would say. That would be partly true. The other part of the truth was that returning the hat would require filling out paperwork, a trip to the UPS store, and more time than I could spare. Sad, I know. But true. Which left only one other option: I could keep the hat on the shelf in my closet, hidden away from the world, and bring it out only within the safe confines of my family.
But that didn’t sound right. I am a great pretender. Adept at not revealing those aspects of myself that run contrary to the perceived norm. The real me is masqueraded daily in elaborate costumes designed to both hide and reveal depending upon my immediate surroundings. I am rarely me in public. Not wholly, anyway.
And I’m not just talking about my love for fedoras. My desire to not cause waves, to go with the flow, extends to other things. Things like my faith.
How many times have I sat with a group of friends laughing at jokes I should not be laughing at? And how many times have I been silent when I should have spoken, and spoken when I should have been silent? How many times should I have said “I’ll pray for you” rather than “It’ll be okay”? How many opportunities have I missed to point the way to Christ?
When judgment comes and the sheep are separated, how many of the condemned will shout my name and say, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I was about to put my hat where I often put my faith. On a shelf in the closet of my life. Visible only among those close to me, where it’s safe.
Those parts of us that we hide for fear of chuckles and snorts, whether as incongruous a the love for a hat or as serious as the faith we hold true, are us. Who we are. To live any other way is to live a lie. And I for one was tired of the costumes.
***
I’ve worn both my hat and my faith the same way since: out in the open, for all to see. I’m wearing them now as a matter of fact, sitting beneath the shade of an oak at work. People pass. They smile and wave and say to those with them, “Now that’s a hat.” People like my hat. And I’m glad they do.
It’s a good start, I think. But I hope it won’t end there. Maybe soon they’ll smile and wave and say to those with them, “Now that’s a Christian.”
I’m a writer whose first novel, Snow Day, will be published by FaithWords in 2010.
But don’t let that fool you. I’m just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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