Believin' in Orchids

Oh, I been here a long time, yes sir. Lived here all my life. I know ever’body and ever’body’s daddy in these parts. Naw, I get along with most folks here but I admit there’s a few I had my run-ins with.

See that young feller there? No, right there, that one in the striped bibs over there at the corner of the bar talkin’ loud with all his buddies.

That young feller there likes to say, “I won’t go ‘round believin’ in God until I sees some proof!”

He all’ys says stuff like that when he’s had a few like he’s lookin’ for a good fight, ye know? When I hears people talkin’ like that I admit I tend to get a bit consternated. And people ‘round here knows I’ll say what I want when I want and I don’t give a damn what they think about that.

One time I says to him, after he went on and on about that stuff agin at the bar, I says, “Then I reckon you’ll be goin’ ‘round ‘til kingdom come! ’Cuz if you ain’t seen no proof of God by now, then you ain’t been lookin’ too hard, have ye?”

Ha!

Well, that flustered him a bit, I guess. And then he turns my way and he says, “What you mean?” all serious like.

So I says to him, I says, “Well, just think of ye orchids out yonder in yer pasture! Are they not the most beautiful things ye ever seed in yer life? Where in the hell do ye think they came from and how do ye think they got forever in yer fields?”

And he says, just as dumb as a two dollar mule, he says, “Well, they just blew in on the wind, settled down in there somewheres, I ain’t got no recollection of who planted ‘em.”

“God!” I says!

“Aw, now yer talkin’ like the fool ye really be” said he.

Now, Joe, there, the bartender, was getting’ ready to have a good laugh at that since he could see what was comin’ and he knows I ain’t no fool. Hell, I know’d his daddy when he was just a tadpole and I know’d his daddy, too.

But then that boy in the bibs over there went to flappin’ his gums even more.

“Let me tell YOU sumpin’, Mister,” he says all fired up. “I ‘magine ye ain’t seen them there orchids more’n once ner twice in yer whole dern life. Yer most likely conjurin’ up memberances of what you saw of them things last summer, as I recall. I’s out there jest this week and they’s all shriveled up and died, aint’ nothin’ like they was. Is that yer God’s beauty for ye?”

I sharpened my eyes but smiled at Joe who knew what I’s up to and I said, “That there’s the beauty and the mystery of God’s ways, my friend!”

Now, that shoulda shut him up but it didn’t. Young snappers like him jest don’t know when to quit.

“You don’t know nuthin’,” the young feller shot back at me.

“Yes, I does,” I said.

And then he says, “Well, you fer sure didn’t know them orchids all dried up by now. Fer all you knew, they’s still bloomin’ in the pasture!”

And I thought to myself, I thought, goddamn, who is this kid trying to tell me what he thinks I know? I was farmin’ the fields around here a’fore he was even swimmin’ in his daddy’s sack. Like he’s gonna tell me sumpin’ diff’rent than I already been through! Why … I tended crops, sorghum and beans, and cut bales of hay like he’d never even ‘magined, raised my own damn horses for years and years … if I’s jest a few years younger I’d a given him a ass whumpin’ he’d never ferget.

“They’ll be back, laddy,” I says, “they come back each and ev’ry year. I do ‘member how beautiful they were and I know how they got to where they be and I musta seed this a hunert times when them orchids died out and then in the spring, jest when you’d think they’d be gone forever, when they all a sudden popped right back up through the dirt like nobody’s bizness.”

“Yeah, that’s fer sure nobody’s bizness,” he laughed, “specially the part about you seein’ anything a hunert times, much lest once in yer dern life, you old blind fart. Ye say ye know all that about them orchids and I say ye don’t know squat, that’s what I say.”

That there was jest about more than my old ears could stand, ye know?

“Well,” I told him, “I guess I may not know much but I damn sure do believe they’ll return.”

An’ I slammed my hand down on the bar just like that! Lookin’ back now, I guessed I was lettin’ him get my dander up too much. I shoulda let him be right then and there.

“Oh, looky here,” he puffed up to those who by then was’t listenin’ in at the bar, “Old man’s changin’ his story now, ain’t he?”

And I said, “What you mean?” all serious like.

Then he stands up and starts to really fussin’ about.

“Yer all fer sure about God and orchids and things one minute and then yer all a’guessin’ about Gods and orchids and things the next! First ye says ye know and then ye says ye jest believe! Call me too young or whatever you want but I don’t think believin’ is the same or nearly as good as really knowin’. So, which is it gonna be old man?”

Now, I could tell by the way that young feller was jumpin’ up and confrontin’ me with this line of talk that he really din’t wanna hear what I had to say, he was just a pontificatin’ in front of his friends and all but, you know me, I went ahead and said what I said anyway.

“I’m gonna tell YOU sumpin’,” I said, “There’ll come a time in yer life young feller when believin’ in things is all ye got. There’ll be times when all the things ye thought ye knew run away from ye like wild horses from a barn fire and leave ye with nuthin’ but burnt ashes and foggy mem’ries. And maybe there’ll be time or two when what ye once seed and what ye once ‘sperienced all of a sudden consternate what ye see happenin’ right in front of yer own damn eyes. And when it comes down to those hard times, then trust me on this one laddy, believin’ is better than knowin’.”

Now, Joe looked at me like he thought I might be ‘bout to have one of them cardiac episodes, like I was gettin’ too hot or sumpin’, but that there done shut the young feller up for a second or two. That boy pondered what I said, with that dumb mule look a’ his and those squinty little eyes goin’ side to side, and then he comes up to me and says some more.

“Mister,” he says, “I reckon this is one more bunch of horses that done got away from ye. See, here, among the many things ye claim ye obviously don’t know, now you can add another. This past week I done plowed that pasture of mine and yer samples of God’s beauty and mystery was in my way. So, I dug them bulbs up and took ‘em over to my momma’s house so she could tend to ‘em. Now, ye can go on believin’ whatever fool thing ye want to believe, but I’m here to tell you them orchids ain’t even in the same county any more, they’s already moved on like you shoulda done years ago. Ye guess yer God planted them things, decidin’ what ground they’d grow in forever, but I’m tellin’ ye I know I done dug ‘em up. That jest goes to provin’ that what I know trumps yer believin’ no doubt.”

“No, it don’t,” I said.

“Yes, it does,” said he.

Well, I got a tad perturbed with him right about then, so I says to him, “Youngster, it don’t matter none if those orchid bulbs is in yer field, in yer momma’s garden, or comin’ out yer ass, they’s still gonna pop up through the dirt next spring jest like they all’ys does with or without yer help ‘cuz that there’s the way God done tended it to be!”

“An’ besides,” I says to him, “I seed how ye go a’farmin’ yer fields and I know what kinds of details ‘casionally miss yer practiced attention. I ‘spect there’s still two or three of them bulbs out there no matter what ye THINK ye did ‘er not did. I gotta dollar says them orchids come back up in yer field next year all the same.”

See, that’s one thing he didn’t know I knew, that being what a poor farmer he really was. His daddy had told me on ‘casions where the boy’s faults were on that matter.

“Yer on!” said he and I said, “Fine!”

Oh, he was just so full o’ piss after all that. I seed it a’fore, ye know, why … I was probably more like him when I was younger than he’d ever realize. Now, I didn’t really know if he dug up all those orchid bulbs or not but me and him, I tell ye, me and him jest would not have got along at all when I was a boy, not at all! I could tell he was jest tryin’ to act like the big man in front of all his friends that day, and let me tell ye I had my ways of bringin’ a lot bigger men than him down to my way of seein’ things long a’fore he ever showed up. He was jest all wrong about damn near ever thing he ever said and I was boun’ determined to make him do a sight more believin’ in what he believed and do a lot less believin’ in what he seed.

Now, then, see here, weeks went by after that an’ I ran into his daddy sittin’ right there where yer sittin’ now and his daddy says to me, he says, “Bub, ye should see what the boy’s been up to. He’s been out there in that field day and night searchin’ for orchid bulbs. He says he’s gonna prove ye wrong one way t’other. I think,” he says to me, he says, “I think ye done skeert him pretty good!”

And his daddy laughed, oh, he laughed and then he bought me a beer. Ha! Ain’t that sumpin’? Dumb old man like me skeerin’ a young feller like that.

Mmm-hmm.

Ehh, what? Huh? Oh! Did those orchids come back in his field like I said they was the next year?

Well, I be goddamned if they didn’t, laddy, I’ll be goddamned if they didn’t!

Cheers,

Mb

The Crying Game

Frogs and birds all have very small brains.

The brain of a frog or a bird is so small that practically the only functions it can manage are eating and defecating, flapping and jumping, balancing heart-beating and breathing.

If we were to magically strip the outer layers of the human brain away, taking all the extra folds which enable us to remember, reason, dream and love, I think we would be left with something that would resemble the brain of a bird or a frog.

If we were to breathe life into a man who had a brain the size of a bird or a frog then I think that man would have a vocabulary similar to what we know of birds and frogs today.

That is to say, this frog-brained-bird-man would probably eat whatever he could urge his fingers to grasp and spend most of his days sitting naked in the woods while singing out to an unrecognized presence, “I am here! I am here! I am here!”

I can imagine ancient men, the first to stand upright, often moaning to the moon in the middle of the night in this same way and not knowing why. It’s easy for me to think that this lonely self-centered existence is at the core of our knowledge no matter how hard we may try to dress it up.

When our fragile bodies are conceived, we may look remarkably a lot like frogs, birds, or even mice. It appears at first that we all came from the same original seed. But as our tiny tissues double, double and double again we grow into far more formidable creatures.

As we take our first breath, we may rely on that ancient program in our brain to cry out for food and warmth and rest. We cry, much like a bird in the tree or a frog in the night, “I am here! I am here! I am here!” not knowing why or if anyone else can hear us. But if our faculties and our environment are healthy, then at some imprecise moment, sooner for some, later for others, we realize our cries have an effect.

Rather than just singing for the simple sake of singing or calling out to an unknown presence in the darkness, our song suddenly takes on a different purpose. We cry out to touch others like us. And if our newly developed brain functions well, collecting the bits and pieces of early experience in the proper folds and places, we soon learn that our cries result in an even greater sensation. Then we cry out to be touched by others, as well.

We can laugh about it now but when we were young this crying game was all we had.

And when we look back later, we may come to realize how important this game was to our growth. From this we may have learned to not only better observe our surroundings but to instigate certain patterns of behavior and reason their probable outcomes. We can see now how it was all so finely meshed, so intricately designed, and how one small slip could have changed our course, altered our desires or brought our precarious existence tumbling down like the flimsy house of cards in which it resides.

Perhaps by playing this game we eventually come to believe that we have an inbred power over our environment, unmatched by the likes of mere birds or frogs. Perhaps because of this we come to put more trust in our compulsions than we should. And perhaps because of this, following our practiced path of reasoning, we come to believe that we deserve more than we get from the loneliness of just crying out in the middle night.

And soon we may come to suppose our behavior has a higher purpose than simple birds and frogs, that we are created in the likeness of something bigger and better than they are and because of that we are owed something more than just a similar existence. Then we may start to judge the actions of those around us, comparing them to our own standards and individual understanding of that purpose. We can remember when too much or too little, the improper proportion of crying out loud brought undesired results, effects which may have defiled or defused the intent of that lofty rationale. Rather than just touch others, our communication may then be designed to influence and may start to take the form of counseling and preaching the need for a more disciplined approach. From the confusion and chaos of everyone crying out loud all at the same time, we may try to bring some order to it, cataloging each complaint as if they were injuries of emergency room victims, quickly justifying those cries as obvious necessities, basic rights or harmful luxury, carefully characterizing each resulting affliction as sin or virtue.

And all that thinking and remembering, screaming and crying, perfectly fluffing up the purpose of human compulsions, following the circular path of cause and effect of our own making, conveniently masking the ancient truth that we are all just lonely individuals in a large dark universe who once all looked the same, all of that may bring us occasionally back to the simple case of the birds and the frogs and, rather than just accept their song gratefully we may ask ourselves in our own pretentious way, who or what do we think these silly little creatures sing for?

“I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted - if I could hit 'em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird. Well, I reckon because mockingbirds don't do anything but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat people's gardens, don't nest in the corncrib, they don't do one thing but just sing their hearts out for us.”

To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Cheers,

Mb

Justice for All

We’ve been through a lot in the last 40 or 50 years together. We’ve witnessed some significant changes in our landscape and in our environment. All those changes didn‘t just take place around us. They altered and reformed us internally as well and quite possibly were set in motion to lead us to a bigger moment.

As members of a great world, in order to understand what makes it great, it is important for us to realize what has remained steadfast throughout this time of change.

Within the limitations of a fair and reasonable society, we remain free to choose our own paths and speak our own minds. Our thoughts and beliefs, no matter how silly or inappropriate, may be displayed publicly even in a form such as this where intent may be so easily misconstrued and content may be so easily inspected and misjudged.

But when speaking of our rights today, in the midst of relentless change, we must remind ourselves what the almost foreign and antique word “unalienable” really means. It was written so long ago that now we may take for granted that it has endured some change as well.

In truth, the meaning of that word has not changed. It still means our rights are undeniable, absolute and impossible to forfeit.

Even if you accept that, we’ve learned that every now and then we still have to demand our rights from those who find the opportunity to deny them. We are now reminded of that fact every year as we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I know we are reminded of a few other things as well. I did not know King other than through his celebrity but I suffered his death along with so many.

I understand he was no saint but was an imperfect man as prone to error, misperception and addiction as we all are. Unfortunately, once a man has a national holiday named after him, the myths have a tendency to become legend and the human truth is packed away. In spite of this distraction, as significant to his life story as it may be, he did teach us a lot about our rights and left us a perfect legacy to contemplate.

Unwittingly, perhaps, he also taught us what it means to be a true martyr for a cause. It is not news that the many odd people in this world who desire fame and martyrdom could learn from King’s example. As it turned out, from him we learned martyrdom is not earned by a fleeting human whim and a martyr is not selected by his or her desire to be one, no matter how passionate that desire may be. In fact, a true martyr is like a genius savant or exceptional athlete, chosen from the wide display of humanity for reasons unknown to us all, doomed by their own unique gift and elevated not by their cause or ability alone but by the perfect reason and justness of their actions.

And, to me at least, the utter beauty of King’s non-violent protest can’t be denied.

King’s cause was a simple yet powerful demand that if we are to say all men are created equals then we must constantly and without deviation put that concept into common practice. Yes, if not practiced, needless and painful human tragedy is the result. Our government, our society and our culture must all support this notion otherwise suffer the disease of hypocrisy.

And as all heavy thinkers know, hypocrisy is the mother of all evils.

Hypocrisy is usually well hidden and often curiously justified. The document used by King as a basis for his demand for equality was our Declaration of Independence.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.”

MLK, Jr, Address at March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963

The Declaration does say all men are created equal and our founders signed off on that. After those words were written, King pointed out that the only unusual and curious part is how the same men who were once comforted by that document spent the next 150 years or so ignoring it.

There is evidence today which suggests at least some people listened when King pointed this out to us. Then again, there is evidence that any progress on that matter has been all too slow and incredibly reluctant.

For me, I prefer to believe the words “on this earth” are written after the word “men”. I don’t think that’s an unrealistic alteration. Honestly, if that document were written again today, I’m sure the word “men” would be changed to “mankind” or some other similarly sweeping term. I think it’s reasonable to assume the original idea was about all people, everywhere, not just in our country alone.

In fact, some organizations have tried to restate the meaning of that document a time or two. Perhaps the most significant attempt was with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) ratified by the United Nations in 1948.

In order to be somewhat politically acceptable to most everyone at the time, the UDHR is not established as a rule of international law but only described as an “obligation” for nations of the world to observe and consider. It does go a bit further than the American declaration by defining certain rights such as freedom of opinion and expression, freedom from torture and inhumane treatment, and the right to an education.

“Taken as a whole, the Delegation of the United States believes that this (UDHR) is a good document – even a great document – and we propose to give it our full support.”

Eleanor Roosevelt, 1948

Well, perhaps what Eleanor meant to say was that we propose to give it our full support in the same manner as our own declaration. Like our own declaration, we tend to only recognize human rights causes which meet the test of our own self-interests.

The truth is that the American law of the land today is rooted not in wordy declarations to protect individual people but in the pure sense of National Interests. Our money, our time, our lives are all subjugated to this singular concern. We may talk the talk of inalienable rights, but the de facto practice is to deny those rights to both our brothers within our borders and our cousins from without when it meets the needs of our nation.

I’ve often wondered what National Interests we serve every day. Our government leaders love to issue a sort of blanket clause by saying we direct our national resources, military forces or diplomatic influences only in the service of National Interests. Rarely do they go on to describe exactly what constitutes those interests and that is more than just a shame.

For example, I think it would be refreshing to hear a talking head say we only commit the overwhelming weight of American military forces when American lives are directly threatened. Then the burden of proof would be on the government to show how that condition exists. It seems natural to me for such strict guidelines to be established when pondering the use of lethal force and the ultimate sacrifice of our sons and daughters.

Instead, the words “National Interests” are tossed around to reserve the government’s right to use our most precious resources for all mysterious purposes under the sun, not necessarily to protect our own individual rights.

Of course, America is not alone as all nations of the world follow suit. But what we do, the way we offer our “full support” to human rights does influence others. I am one of those people who say only our actions prove what we truly believe. I say the day we place the rights of individuals from around the world above the needs of our “corporate citizens”, above the needs of our “national ego” and above our need to win every confrontation is the day we can say the lofty dream of equality was not murdered in Memphis in 1968. Only then will people have no choice but to honor our words.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, 1776

Self-evident … undeniable … really? There are philosophers who argue that no one can claim unalienable rights since no proof exists that they were ever “endowed by their Creator”. I admit this is a confounding problem for me. Well, modern philosophy as whole confounds me. If nothing else, I am pleased that Mr. Jefferson took the time to try and explain his philosophy and where he thought these rights came from anyway.

Years apart, Jefferson and King both pointed us in the same direction using similar methods, using tools surely fashioned by their upbringing. They both suggested our rights are self-evident and undeniable based on the gifts of an unseen Creator and bequeathed in traditional Christian scripture.

If we were to leave the justification for human rights at the doorstep of an indescribable “Creator”, then I’m afraid we will have nothing but argument on this subject to the end of time. Not everyone around this world, much less our own country, can agree on what our Creator was or is or even what might have possibly motivated our own existence.

But, based on my experiences, I think most everyone agrees that our common purpose is not found in the alternative. Nobody I’ve met seems to feel we were created to live under the abject tyranny of another man. Nobody I’ve met seems to think we were bred to serve oppressive dictatorships or monarchies of any kind. Nobody I’ve met believes we grow to enjoy individual minds and free voices just to have them hammered shut by agents of any self-serving government.

Perhaps only those who are practiced in the art of tyranny, dictatorship and self-serving government believe any of that.

Unlike Jefferson or King, I can’t plant my flag of undeniable rights in the holy ground of scripture. On the contrary, I think the proof of their self-evidence is found in something far more natural and worldly, something else that Jefferson and King liked to preach about.

To me, our rights are unalienable based on a common understanding held in the breast of every person, every monarch and every peasant who ever walked this earth. It is pure justice in its most simplistic form.

There may be a day in the not-too-distant future when the world-wide soul is finally realized and laid bare, when we all communicate on a global scale and fully understand what we all already knew. When that happens, I think we may be surprised to learn just how common our belief in justice really is.

When justice rules our days and our actions both at home and abroad instead of selfish and greedy interests of wealth and power … well, then it will be a bigger moment and we can all say we are equals and that we are truly free.

"Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."

MLK, Jr, Letter from a Birmingham jail, 1963

Cheers,

Mb

Auto-Eulogy

Thankfully, the holiday season in my house has become less of an exercise in materialistic desires than it once was. Maybe we are becoming more compassionately conservative around here but fiscal restraint is our prime motivation. No longer do we mortgage the future to offset the price of temporary luxury. Christmas, in particular, is for the kiddies and when they grow up, well, things settle down quite a bit.

So, when people go on and on about the mad rush and the busy interlude of family, feasts and friends at this time of year, I am now immediately reminded of Rick Sutcliffe’s infamous and intoxicated radio interview of a few months ago when he was quoted during a Padres game in part slurring, “It’s not that bizzy, man … it’s not that bizzy.”

Ah, yes, that was good.

Now, instead of focusing on what we wish for, it’s more of a time to consider what we already have under the tree. Maybe more importantly, there is a subtle yet pervasive interest in what we may have somehow lost or certain gifts that we may have forgot to even open. And as one who is obsessed with defying anything that resembles circular Cartesian logic, I find a strategic accounting of what is misplaced necessary to the process of deducing what in fact remains.

In reverse order, at the top of the list, we confess we lost a lot of good people this past year.

Well, alright, let’s just say we lost a lot of people. The subjective reference to their “goodness” or “badness” is rather pointless at this stage in the game. Suffice to say, independent of their distinctly admirable or disdainful personal qualities, whatever the cause or by whose hand they eventually succumbed, they are all gone just the same. In spite of their perceived human status, momentary failures or fleeting successes, I would like to believe their spirits left this earth as pristine equals, just as they were once born unto it. Still, some left a lot of excess baggage scattered about the loading dock, making it a bit difficult for numbed passengers like myself to push aside or even step over and ignore.

A consideration that constantly comes to mind is whether all the dearly departed made their exit too early or too late. I hear this complaint a lot and it often leads to some argument. Only the good die young while so many are said to live past their prime and so on. It is all about the timing, you see.

To some, the timing of these things is persistently annoying. Nothing ever seems to decay when it should and all losses occur at the worst possible moment. To others, examples of the common peach tree suggest that most successful fruit will bear off only at a precise day and time of ripeness. Peaches that fall off the tree too early or too late are easy to spot. The delayed and the premature are not tasty and perhaps dangerous to ingest.

Whatever true relationship the peach tree may hide regarding the timing of our human existence, my own observations hint that the annual harvest must take into account the total of the production, the mushy, hard and rotten typically, naturally, and overwhelmingly leveled out by all the juicy, the sweet and the delicious.

Grand-ma-ma recently harassed me for not paying more attention to recent funeral ceremonies for the dearly departed, late or early as they may be, especially the ones of our most prominent folks. She assumed that since I didn’t stay focused to events on the tube like she was, intently noting each speaker and each practiced word of praise, that I was disregarding their honored place in our history.

She will never understand just how foolish and selfish I find all of that. I tried to explain but she didn’t hear my words. The hypocrisy of grand human ceremony may escape her but it smothers me like sticky warm dew on a humid August morning, envelopes me in an uncomfortable pressure, confronts my experience and constricts my tired lungs into short and labored breath. Maybe if I could be less ethereal and more earthly in my description then she would understand me better. Her mind, like her hand, is weathered and tanned by the dedicated trials of a bright shining life while mine may be withered and pale from years of wandering in a dark and pointless cosmos.

I admit the purposeful beating of the drums, the haunting waves of fifes and bugles performed in honor of our departed are all intensely inspirational. Maybe it’s just me, though. Maybe I am the only who is inspired by regalia in such an unpredictable and clearly undesirable direction.

When this illogical man was just a dumbass 10 year old kid, he was dragged to Uncle Harold’s funeral at a small Baptist church in the hills of southern Missouri. The minister did his best that day. He presented the eulogy in a way that he understood. The praise was muted, it seemed somewhat forced to the 10 year old, but it was there nonetheless presumably to soothe the fears of the guests in attendance. The dumbass kid couldn’t imagine what it was those guests were really afraid of but he listened to the prayers and the eloquent oratory, engaged in the hymns and made note of the procession. He fought the apparent lesson but soon it struck him like the blow of Nietzsche’s ball peen hammer up against the head.

“This was not the man I knew,” the kid thought the thought that changed him forever.

The kid, who had probably spent more idle time with Uncle Harold in the previous two years than any of the well-wishers on the rough wooden pews that day, knew who and what Uncle Harold really was and refused to accept any fanciful or spiritual charade.

Uncle Harold was a good hunter, a dead eye shot with a twelve-gage shotgun. He spent his life in pursuit of liberty and Wild Turkey, ravaging scores of the ignorant winged beasts in the Ozark woods and hundreds of the identically branded pint bottles he always found at the near and ready. Other than the usual weapons of destruction, he was most passionate about big, boaty Chrysler automobiles, white or silver the preferred colors, with lots of chrome and red leather interiors. When the summer heat was hottest, Uncle Harold would leave work early to go swimming in a cool nearby ford, taking aimless 10 year old kids with him to watch and explain the harmless water dance of once frightening dragon flies. He rarely spoke a harsh word or complaint. And he never warned the passengers in his Chrysler but would chuckle quietly to himself when he would veer off sharply into the oncoming lane while speeding along one of deadliest curves of a winding Ozark highway to casually deposit his empty pint bottle in a roadside ditch on a moonless and starless night, seemingly without worry of who or what danger may be hidden over the hill, just around the curve, speeding carelessly right back at him.

He died childless and without ever owning his own home. He thoughtlessly spent every dime he ever made on his personal pursuits. He never asked anyone for anything and he came and went without leaving much of a contribution to the few who knew him. By all accounts, Uncle Harold was a simple man, thrilling and a lot of fun in the eyes of a dumbass 10 year old kid, but he was definitely not who the preacher said he was.

A few months ago, a week or so before Thanksgiving Day, my buddy JK went hunting near a corn field on a cool Saturday morning. Without warning, only an hour or so into the hunt, JK was found motionless on the ground. A fellow hunter tried to revive him but it was too late. JK’s heart gave up and he died naturally at the age of 41 under an old elm tree at the edge of a corn field while deer hunting.

JK was a member of a large, loving family in a small town where his death was quite a shock to everyone. It was definitely considered untimely. As far as times go, he and I briefly shared some good ones. Like the others in these parts, I knew him to be funny and compassionate with a wonderful personality. He was an attractive and strong man who had everything going for him. And, I can attest, he was a hell of a good dart thrower.

Days later down in the Ville, the huge crowd at JK’s funeral ceremony spilled into the streets. The small funeral home wasn’t built to hold that many people. At the last minute, I decided I would give it another try and go to this one. I don’t know why but I felt like I needed to be seen there by the others who knew JK.

Standing outside, I listened to several good natured folks in the crowd suggest that his early death should be a lesson to us all. It should make us think, they said, about how short our own lives may be. I thought that was a perception we should take care to remember ever day.

“Young folks always have a lot of people at the ceremony,” Grand-ma-ma advised me in a hushed tone as we waited in line to enter the chapel. Rather than an experienced revelation, I took her words as an early explanation as to why so few would show up at her own ceremony. Most of her friends would already be gone by then. I had never thought of it that way and I didn’t comment on that but she was correct, of course.

I shook the somber hand of Bill, the Director and mortician, inside the chapel. I had met Bill before. He stops in the Tavern every now and then, occasionally popping in for a quick beer to clear his mind before returning to his late night duties. Owing to his proclivity to talk so much about his work, I’ve noticed most of the Tavern patrons are happier when he leaves the bar than when he enters.

The pews were full, he apologized, so I stood in the ante-room while Grand-ma-ma gladly took Bill’s offer of a lonely bench seat near the desk in his back office. Standing and trying not to notice any of the weeping guests too directly there in the ante-room, I listened to the ceremony over a loudspeaker and tried to imagine what the crowded scene must have looked like further inside the chapel.

The first speaker was an older gentleman, I presumed to be JK’s uncle. In the course of twenty minutes or so, the old man ripped off five different prayers from the Bible word for word. I know because when he got to the third consecutive prayer, I began counting them just to make sure. All of the prayers begged God to accept JK’s soul into heaven.

How needless, I thought. JK had a great soul. He’d be perfect up there. God would have to be a fool not to accept him into heaven and from what I hear God can’t be considered a fool. Besides, I thought, JK had left days ago and these requests all seemed a bit belated to me. But the prayers went on for several minutes presumably not to help remember or describe what a good man JK was among us but as a solicitation to God for his soul and to comfort his grieving family.

That done, I wiped my brow and noticed most of the standing people in the ante-room were, like me, intently eyeing the ceiling tiles.

A young woman’s voice then echoed from the loud speaker. I guessed it was JK’s niece.

The young woman described her uncle as a warm, loving man. She told how he liked to give everyone special pet names and how he loved to get drunk and dance like a wild man at family gatherings. She told us how much he enjoyed hunting, bike riding and how his favorite phrase was “Head On!” urging everyone around him to not wait for sunnier days but to do exactly what they wanted to do at that very moment. One could tell by the way she talked that her uncle’s life had a strong influence on her. Some of those in attendance laughed quietly and smiled at what she had to say.

Once the young woman was done, I heard a younger boy step up to the microphone. He was there to close up the ceremony but he didn’t really know what to say. Just then, Grand-ma-ma tugged me on the arm and said we should leave now before the crowded chapel entryway got all jammed up with people. OK, I said, as the young boy could be heard asking if someone should do the rosary.

“Shit!” Grand-ma-ma whispered as she dragged me out into the street, “Don’t they know they can’t do the rosary without a damn priest?”

Well, no matter. In spite of Grand-ma-ma’s misgivings and my own irritation at the overt and pointless tone of the ceremony, as we walked out I felt touched by the truth in the story told by the young woman. She had at least tried to make some sense of JK’s short life. Still, I was disheartened that nobody had said a word about what a good dart thrower he really was.

All of that got me to thinking over the past couple months. I’ve started to wonder what my own funeral will be like. I hate to think that folks will be forced to fill up time in a stuffy ceremony with pointless requests and time-late prayers on my behalf. I know they’ll find some nice things to say, nobody will dwell on the bad stuff. I wonder, which of my weaker qualities will they choose to gloss over? Which of my extra bags will they force me to leave behind in honor of my memory? How will they know what to emphasize and what to stay quiet about and, in the end, who is in the best position to make such critical decisions?

So, I’ve decided to write my own eulogy. I want to make sure there’s at least some truth to it. I don’t want a picture painted of a man who didn’t exist.

It’s a work in progress and it’s not easy, let me tell you. Editing your life story is painful. Bottomless sorrow fills the empty space every time a needless word is cut or a mishandled phrase is shortened. After several rewrites I can see now why this job is probably best left for someone who is not so close to the main character.

One thing is for sure, though, when we boil our life down into a paragraph or two, we suddenly realize things weren’t nearly as hectic or busy as we thought they were at the time. Perhaps plenty of misguided activity scattered about but, nope, just not that busy. And like any good PR person will admit the trick seems to stay focused on what we gathered and what we built, even though the tendency is to home in on all the missed opportunities and everything that we lost along the way.

The most difficult part of this process is to imagine who we may have influenced over the years. That may be the biggest piece of excess baggage left behind, a surprising holiday gift that is best left wrapped securely, only to be opened after we’ve gone.

Cheers,

Mb