“Good fences make good neighbors,” according to Robert Frost. I’m not here to dispute that. I have observed, however, that the addition of a gate may make even better neighbors.
When I was growing up, our backyard connected to the backyard of another house. That backyard was completely enclosed by a fence, protecting the flower gardens and other landscaping.
The people who lived there put a lot of work into it, and it was a pleasure to see. They were nice people who exchanged pleasantries across the fence and were fine with visitors. You just had to walk all the way around to the front door (through the yard of either of their next-door neighbors, neither of whom seemed to mind). We rarely if ever did, but we knew we could.
After I had left home, they moved away. My father, often out in his vegetable gardens, got to be good friends with the new owner, who maintained the flower gardens on his side of the fence.
They would talk about mutual interests and point out individual horticultural sources of pride. Sometimes, a closer look was warranted. This involved one or the other walking around the fence on a route that went through our neighbor’s house and his neighbors’ yard.
Eventually, my father told his friend, “If you’ll put a gate in, I’ll pay for it.” I have no trouble imagining a big smile on the neighbor’s face. Soon the gate was there. (I think the neighbor gladly paid for it himself.)
Good fences may indeed make good neighbors, but a gate makes even better neighbors. Or rather, better neighbors add a gate.
A new adventure: Entering the workforce
What do you remember about your first job? How did you get it? In my case, it was because the boss went to my church.
Dotson Wright ran his own bakery. He had been one of my youth leaders and was a friend of our family. I went to work in Rollin’ Pin Bakery early in 1964, when I was a junior in high school. I worked after school and a long day each Saturday, then full-time that summer. “Full-time” meant six long days per week that began at 6:30 a.m.
I was called a “baker’s helper,” which meant doing anything that someone not trained as a baker could do. I started with cleaning: washing pots, pans and other tools of the trade in a large sink, and cleaning tables, counters, etc. Other tasks were added as needed, including helping prepare some of the products. Each new assignment was a new adventure and added variety. With donuts, I started out glazing them as Dotson deep fried them. Eventually, I did the frying and glazing. I also added “delivery-truck driver” to my resume.
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Driving the truck presented its own challenges. It was a panel truck on a chassis the size of that of a three-quarter-ton pickup. I had been driving for about a year at that point, my only experience being with cars. I was used to relying on a rearview mirror hanging above the windshield. The truck had only external mirrors.
Just getting the vehicle and its payload from point A to point B was taxing — physically, somewhat; mentally, very.
But sometimes there was an additional assignment. The boss’s elementary-school aged daughter often was at the bakery that summer. Many times, when I would head out for a delivery run, he’d quietly say to take her along.
First of all, this meant he was getting two jobs — worker and babysitter — for the price of one (at minimum wage). More significantly, it put a lot of responsibility on a 17-year-old. It was stressful to navigate this vehicle, much more so when there also was a child to transport safely. I took the responsibility seriously, trying to interact while also concentrating on driving the big machine. All for 85 cents an hour.
One day I was sent out with no word about taking the girl with me. Outside, I found her playing in the truck. I told her she needed to get out, because I needed to make some deliveries. She got out quietly and I left. Apparently, she had been told she could go, but no one told me this. Then as now, I would never drive off anywhere with someone’s child without their knowledge and permission. Nonetheless, I was the bad guy. Her parents laughed off the whole situation, including her anger, all directed at me. I have no idea how long she held a grudge.
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During the school year, I worked 2-3 hours on weekdays, depending on what needed to be done. I guess Dotson wrote down my hours sometime after I left. The hours shown on each week’s (hand-written) pay stub seemed reasonable. Dotson was always still working, alone, when I left. Sometimes we’d chat a couple of minutes while he decorated cakes. At some point, I wondered if this social time counted as work time.
So, I did an experiment. One week, I left promptly each day, saying no more than “Bye” or “See you tomorrow.” The next week, I lingered each day, following his lead in friendly conversation. My pay stub showed more time worked the second week. After completing the experiment, I never exploited what I’d learned from it.
During the summer, I had not only the very-full-time job at the bakery but also an active musical career (and what I could muster for a social life). I performed a good bit as a soloist and with a group that was cutting a record. I got a half-hour lunch break, which I spent in my car, parked behind the bakery. I ate my lunch in ten minutes and took a 20-minute nap.
It was hard work for very little money but not without a sense of fulfillment. Before the summer was over, though, I felt a need to stop. I was burned out. I quit two weeks before school started, to have a small summer break. We were usually short-staffed, which is a reason I got duties added. That nurtured my sense of loyalty, seeing how hard Dotson worked and appreciating his trust in me. So, when I gave notice, I hedged a bit and said he could call me in the future if he got in a jam and needed my help.
The first time he called was two weeks after I stopped working. Honestly, I was glad a family commitment kept me from being able to go in. Yet I was glad when he called again in December for help during the Christmas rush. One summer in college, having extra time beyond a full-time summer job and wanting extra money, I stopped by to see Dotson and said I could work a few hours if he needed me any time that summer. He replied, “See you tomorrow.”
During my original stint there, I was micromanaged. At first that was necessary, because I had no way of knowing what needed to be done or how it needed be done. I think as time went on, I wished for a little less supervision. But on all returns, when I came in to help out as needed, Dotson never once said anything at all about what he wanted me to do. I just went to work and did what needed to be done.
What was your best boss like?
Most of us spend our work lives somewhere below the very top of the flow chart. Thus, there’s always someone to whom we report — i.e., a boss. For many of us, there have been a number of different people in that role over the years.
The best boss I ever had was Joe Sigler, then director of medical center public relations at Duke. I was on his staff in the late ‘70s. I enjoyed being around him, while admiring and learning from his skill as a public relations professional. He was friendly, had a good sense of humor and cared about other people.
I felt validated as a person and as an early-career professional. He had a knack for coming up with the best approach to just about any situation, sometimes on the spur of the moment. When he offered guidance, it was never in a patronizing way, but rather as a mentor.
Many mornings he would ask me, “Are you ready for a cup?” and we would go over to the hospital cafeteria for coffee. There were at least two others — administrators in a clinical department — who met us there pretty much every time. There was a lot of friendly banter, though some picking of one another’s brains on the business we were in.
Sometimes we were joined by the man who was directing the planning of a new hospital building. The conversation then was no less friendly, but more work-oriented. The promotion of the new facility had its roots in these coffee sessions.
Joe was a runner and a significant influence on my decision to take up running seriously. He was a fellow dog lover. For one of our vacations, we were able to leave our dog at his house.
Joe led us to the national championship in 1978. Both the American Hospital Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges gave us their awards as the top public relations program in the country that year.
Among those taking notice was the University of Texas, which was establishing a public relations office at its medical center in Houston. With plenty of oil money, UT was able to lure Joe away. One staff member was willing to go with him. (The other professional on the staff and I didn’t want to leave the area but were both hired away by UNC.)
We’ve stayed in touch through the years. I visited Joe once on my way to a conference in Texas. I sent him a copy of my book of short stories, signing it and adding a note thanking him for helping me become a decent writer. He read it cover-to-cover and sent back his complimentary reactions to many of the stories.
Something I’d never worn to my home church before
A few years ago, I wrote about the changes in what people wear when they go to church. As I noted in that post (and as you likely know), when I was growing up, males always wore a coat and tie.
Our church building wasn’t fully air-conditioned in those days. As I recall, a system circulated air freely but didn’t cool it. Since we were in the mountains in a time when the Earth was less heated, this was not a problem except for a few Sundays in the summer.
I remember a congregational business meeting in which the possibility of upgrading the system to cool to full AC was debated. One woman said, “If the men would just leave off their coats in the summer, we wouldn’t need it.” I doubted I was the only one who agreed with her.
In fact, a number of my peers did agree. Eventually, we did something about it. The sermon took up most of the second half of the service. It was preceded by the offertory (passing the collection plates) and a congregational hymn. When I was in high school, some other guys and I decided that at the conclusion of that hymn, we would take off our coats and be more comfortable, sitting for the duration of the sermon.
We got some questioning and maybe less-than-approving looks from adult males. But, in time, many of them were doing the same.
I visited the church of my youth recently. I saw few coats and no ties. I wore my usual “Sunday-go-to-meeting” black jeans and open-neck shirt. That was quite different from how I’d dressed growing up, but I’d dressed similarly for visits in recent years.
I did, however, wear one thing I’d never worn there before. See, it’s been 60 years since I was an adolescent, daring to take off my coat. Thus, for this visit, I wore to that Sunday morning service something my adolescent self never even imagined wearing to church — hearing aids.
A sermon I won’t get to preach
One time, long ago, I was asked to preach at my church. It was a small church at the time with co-pastors, both of whom would be gone. Being the first Sunday of the month, the service normally would’ve included communion. But it was skipped because I was not ordained.
I had led communion in small-group situations a few times in the past without any lightning bolts reigning down, but the book would be followed on this occasion.
I’ll never get to preach a communion sermon, but sometimes I think about what I might say if I did. Several experiences, some more directly associated with the celebration of communion than others, come to mind. Here’s a draft of a communion homily.
As a young minister, I was helping plan a weekend retreat, along with a senior minister and a facilitator who was a graduate student in psychology at a nearby university. Though it would be consciously unchurchy, the other minister and I suggested we conclude the weekend with a communion service. The facilitator balked at this. A few minutes later, I suggested our last activity could be sitting in a circle, listening to music and passing around a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. He thought that was a great idea.
Sometimes words aren’t needed.
Yet often we do rely on words, and they can certainly get one’s attention. Another time when the bread and wine were passed from one person to the next — this time in what was consciously a religious observance — my seatmate went off script. We were to say some simple phrase about the body/blood being symbolized as we offered the cup and loaf. Most of us repeated familiar words. My neighbor, however, said, “This is the blood of Christ, who was murdered for your sake.” That surely got beyond the usual ritual and down to the nitty gritty.
The elements are powerful symbols.
But do they have to be bread and wine? At a communion service during a student retreat when I was in college, the minister leading it used potato chips and orange juice. He explained, “Jesus used what was on the table. This is what I found on the table today. Jesus took ordinary items and touched them with significance — just as He touches you and me with significance.”
For that matter, are they merely symbols?
At one time many years ago, I was a member of the same church as the well-known theologian Harvey Cox. Harvey preached one communion Sunday. He reminded us that as Protestants, we see the bread and wine as symbols, while Catholics believe Christ to be present, the elements literally becoming His body and blood. He suggested they were right that Christ is indeed present, though not in the bread and wine themselves, but rather in the act of sharing them with one another.
One last anecdote doesn’t come from a communion service, but from what was nonetheless a communion experience.
Our community and the world were reeling from the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A large auditorium on the University campus was packed for a memorial service. As I was leaving I spotted a friend through the crowd. He was one of two Black (a term a few of us were beginning to use at that time) students with whom I had lived in a house during the previous spring semester. My white guilt made me try to be invisible as I slipped away along the edge of the crowd.
He saw me and called out. It was a short hi-how’s-it-going exchange that concluded with his saying, “Well, stop by the house some time. We still have parties.”
I felt he was saying, You are welcome at the table.
If speaking from a pulpit, I would conclude with an invitation to the table, attempting to tie together themes drawn from these anecdotes. In other contexts, I would and do offer no liturgical words, as special people and I partake of whatever food is on the table and in our sharing of it are touched with significance.
Before offering the elements, I would share this story:
In 2010, my wife and I saw The Passion Play in the German town of Oberammergau, where it has been presented every 10 years for nearly 400 years. The dialogue, of course, was in German, and we were given English scripts to follow (and tiny flashlights to make this possible). I relied on the translation most of the time, though for longer soliloquies, taken from familiar Biblical passages, I just watched and listened. I knew what the character was saying without understanding the specific words. I just wanted to get the feel.
I had adjusted to the German dialogue by the time we got to the Last Supper scene. Then, as Jesus blessed the bread and wine, the words were familiar. Why did they suddenly insert English? No, wait, that’s Hebrew. The Last Supper was a Passover seder. The blessings Jesus offered were the same I’d heard at many seders over the years.
Of course, that’s what he would say. That’s what everyone says in a seder, regardless of their own language. Of course, that’s what it means when it says, “Jesus blessed the bread and the wine.” He didn’t wave his hand over the elements in some act of hocus pocus. He recited a blessing.
Then, when I said, “Jesus took the bread and blessed it,” I would pray:
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz.
In like manner with the wine:
Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha-alom bor-ay peri ha-gafen.
The English translations could be spoken then or could be in the bulletin:
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.
Blessed are You, God, Ruler of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.
Then we would be ready for the further words of institution — the symbolism of the body and blood of Christ, who would be present in our sharing of the elements.
We relied on the kindness of strangers
It would be our second-longest trip in our 16-year-old VW van. But only if we could complete it.
We — my wife, two daughters, aged 8 and 3, and I — were passing through Pennsylvania on our way to a family wedding in Toronto.
Outside Pittsburgh, we stopped for provisions. As we tried to leave, I had trouble getting the van into gear. After all the years and miles, it could be finicky, but it finally slipped into first and shifted easily as we returned to the highway.
A short hour later, we turned off Interstate 79 at the Lake Arthur exit, where we planned to spend that night. As I slowed to merge onto US 422, I attempted to downshift. The gear shift went to neutral and stayed there. We coasted onto the shoulder. I spent several frustrating minutes trying, without success, to engage any gear.
So, there we were, nearly 500 miles from home, not knowing how, when or if our vehicle would go again. This was not just our transportation. It provided accommodations. We had modified the interior for camping.
The first car we hailed stopped. It was a local couple who gave Nancy, my wife, a ride to the nearest public phone and back. They stopped, they said, because of our North Carolina license plate. They had been involved in an accident while driving through our state a year or so earlier. Several of our citizens had been so kind and helpful during that ordeal, they didn’t hesitate to return the favor.
Nancy checked the Yellow Pages for a tow truck that honored AAA membership. Fortunately, this service was available in nearby Portersville, which was not shown in our Rand McNally Road Atlas.
The owner-driver arrived shortly and hooked up the van. We all piled into his spacious cab. He ran one of two auto-repair shops in Portersville. His specialty was domestic cars. In the meantime, his wife was trying to contact the mechanic who handled the foreign market to see if we could drop the van off at his place. The latter mechanic and his wife were out for the evening, and the babysitter didn’t have the authority to accept the vehicle.
The van spent the night at the domestic-auto repair shop, across the road from the owner’s rural home. The owner’s wife gave us a ride to the local motel, which she had already called on our behalf. She would continue arranging to get the van over to the foreign-car garage.
We took the cooler and a few groceries from the van. Supper was an indoor picnic at the small motel, which sat behind its owners’ home. It was definitely economy class. The black and white TV picked up one channel. But it was adequate, and the charge was $20 for the four of us. Even in 1983, that wasn’t a lot for a motel room. The owners let us use the phone in their house freely the next morning as we talked with both mechanics and looked into the possibility of renting a vehicle to continue our journey.
We walked to a nearby diner for breakfast, after which the foreign-car mechanic’s wife, in their wrecker, picked up the van and then me and took us to their shop — beside their house. Nancy and the girls waited at the motel, unsure when they would see me or the van again. The motel operator graciously extended their stay well beyond check-out time. Nancy volunteered to change our beds in return.
I continued to wonder if we would be back on the road that day and, if so, whether we would be in our van or in a rented car. The foreign-car mechanic was cheerfully optimistic. It was probably just the clutch, he said. No big deal.
I had to wait while he and his son-in-law finished fixing a Datsun. Then I learned that to get to the clutch of a VW van, you have to pull the engine and transmission out. No big deal. They removed both in 10 minutes flat and showed me the pieces of what used to be the clutch. Of course, he had a clutch for a 1967 VW. (Who wouldn’t?) Within an hour, I was ready to roll.
The repair bill was $85, parts and labor. I had paid more than that for a tail pipe at home before the trip. My personal check was fine without accompanying identification.
We were back on I-79 by midafternoon. We decided to drive through to Toronto, no matter how late it got. A campsite awaited us. We wanted to put a lot of distance between us and the trying experience of the preceding 20 hours. Yet we left with warm feelings for all those we encountered. They treated us as guests rather than customers, friends rather than strangers. They were determined, one way or another, to make sure we got out of our predicament with as little distress as possible.
Physical benefits of communing with nature
Most people who know me know of my fondness for sunrises. (See https://johnbecton.blog/2019/11/13/five-days-of-beach-sunrises/ ) Watching the sun rise, as I do often, makes me feel good. I’ve recently been not surprised to learn that the benefits are not only emotional, but also physical.
For me and many others, a sunrise evokes a sense of awe. Experiences of awe, medical scientists tell us, significantly reduce unhealthy levels of cytokines, which are associated with disease, depression and ill health. Sources of awe are certainly not limited to nature (music and art, for example), but here I want to focus on nature.
I recently read about some of the ways experiences in nature have been shown to benefit us physically. There was a lot more to the article — “Rewilding Our Minds,” Lucy Jones, The American Scholar, Summer 2021 — but here are some points I gleaned.
–Exposure to certain chemicals emitted by trees and other plants significantly increases natural killer cell activity, which helps fight infection and cancer. “Even just looking at a natural scene can decrease levels of inflammatory cytokines.”
–Studies suggest that in natural areas, our parasympathetic nervous system is more likely to be activated. This slows the heart and helps us feel calm. It is associated with better sleep, feeling of contentment and safety, as well as high resting levels, enhanced emotional regulation, decreased risk of cardiovascular disease.
–You know how great the air smells after rain? You’re not just smelling the clean earth. Oil from soil and possibly plants is in the air, triggering brain activity associated with calmness and relaxation.
–Getting your hands dirty is also beneficial. When you dig in the dirt, you pick up microbes (mycobacteriun vaccae) that activate serotonin neurons, associated with mood and well-being. “The microorganism also increased stress resilience and could suppress inappropriate inflammation within cells.”
As I noted above the article deals with a lot more than the points I’ve listed here. This is just a brief summary of what I found especially interesting and useful. If you want to read the article itself, here’s a link: https://theamericanscholar.org/rewilding-our-minds/
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Blogger’s note:
The article writer’s source comprises “robust evidence based on countless studies from scientists in various disciplines from countries across the world,” some of which she cites specifically. Were it a scientific journal article, there would have been countless footnotes. Were I writing a graduate-school paper, I would dig down to primary sources, rather than relying only on this secondary source. I think, however, we’re fine in this context. I haven’t been graded for years on anything by anyone, other than myself. And my therapist suggests (and by “suggests,” I mean “insists”) that I stop doing so.
Trying to outrun a scary enemy
Back when I was still physically able to run, I did so. A lot. Sometimes I would describe that day’s run on Facebook. Once when I did, a friend jokingly asked, “Who was chasing you?” My answer: “The aging process.”
With another birthday upon me, I am thinking about how my celebration has changed. In my early 30s, I finally accepted that I’m not immortal and began to get serious about taking care of my health. My primary form of physical exercise was running. Soon, I started entering road races as incentives to run regularly. Over time, running regularly became its own incentive.
I decided I would mark my 33rd birthday by running a mile that day and I would add another mile each year to my 40th birthday, on which I would run eight miles. I knew it would take some work to increase the distance I could run, but surely I could get from one mile to eight miles, gradually building up my strength over that many years.
I ran two miles on my 34th birthday, three on my 35th and so on to eight miles on my 40th. Exactly as planned.
It didn’t take me eight years to work up to being able to run eight miles, though. In fact, I ran a half marathon a few months before my 36th birthday.
After 40, I did not keep adding miles to my birthday celebration. For my 41st, I ran for 41 minutes, then 42 minutes on my 42nd. I don’t remember how many years I continued this specific plan, but for a number of years I came up with something along these lines.
I also don’t remember when I began letting my birthday be a day of rest and relaxation. Probably around 60, which is when my knees began to complain. I still exercise regularly and at a level appropriate for a septuagenarian, but I take my birthday off now.
I’m continuing to run from aging, mostly via a bike in the gym, but certainly not from birthdays. Continuing to have — and enjoy — birthdays is kinda the point.
Faith of our fathers and mothers
Some time back, my kids asked me a series of questions, the answers to which were published in a book for them and their offspring. One of those questions was “How is your faith different from your parents’ faith?” Here’s my answer. As with all my personal reflections, I offer it here in hopes others might find something with which to relate.
My parents’ faith was simple, traditional and seemingly based on a literal reading of the Bible. They attended all activities at the church and had little social life otherwise. Sometimes this need to attend appeared to border on obsessive, though I’m sure they did get a lot from being there.
For 18 years, I bought into all this with little or no questioning. It worked for me. And then it didn’t.
In the journey that followed, I soon realized that music, poetry and other art forms affirmed for me that there is something beyond the physical world. I felt a connection with other people, a connection sometimes called “love.” There was something spiritual about that.
In the midst of all this, the musical “Hair” came along. In it, a character named Claude sang, “I believe in God, and I believe that God believes in Claude. . . .” I had never thought about that relationship in that way. The phrase played often in my head. I was struggling to understand the nature of that which we call “God,” but somehow — maybe because of the power of music and poetry through which the idea was presented to me — I couldn’t help thinking that “God” believed in me.
I spent years redefining virtually every Christian symbol and ritualistic phrase from my childhood. Eventually, not only could I affirm those symbols and say those phrases again, but also they took on deeper meaning. Or maybe, I could affirm and say because they took on deeper meaning.
It wasn’t about merely reading the Bible and mindlessly following it as a road map, never mind that the map was hundreds and thousands of years old. It was helpful to hear someone point out that the Bible is a book of Truth, not a book of facts.
It worked for my parents to view what they read in the Bible and heard at church fairly literally. If the Bible said it, there was no reason to question it, even if you don’t understand it. I think it’s all more complex than that. I want to understand. I don’t think trying to understand denigrates religion. Yet I’ve come to accept that it is not possible to understand everything, and I’ve learned to affirm and celebrate mystery.
I’ve also become able to accept that my parents’ faith was just as real for them as mine is for me.
Embarrassment — a legacy?
A number of years ago, a local classic rock radio station advised, “Turn the volume up and sing along loudly. Embarrass your kids.”
It’s probably in the nature of the job for parents occasionally to do or say something that their offspring find embarrassing. Some may do so more often than others. Usually, it is unintentional. Sometimes the purpose may not be to embarrass the son or daughter, but there’s no thought given to avoiding the embarrassment. I’ve been on both sides of this, as you likely have also.
Sometimes the embarrassment is delayed.
There were two times etched in my memory in which I was laughed at — to the point of mild embarrassment — for doing something I had learned from my parents.
They fixed fried eggs sunny-side up. They cooked them in bacon grease. To get the top sufficiently done before the bottom overcooked, they used the frying pan spatula to splash the hot grease up on the egg. It was a rapid, continuing motion for a few moments.
I was using this method, as I always did, one morning at their house. A visiting member of the extended family observed and said bemusedly, “You’re going to beat that egg to death.” Now, aside from the fact that I was not touching the egg at all, I was blindsided by a critique of my following what seemed a perfectly good way to get my eggs just so.
When my father stirred sugar into his coffee or tea, he rapidly moved the spoon back and forth, making a not-unpleasant ringing sound as the spoon rhythmically hit the sides of the cup or glass. I adopted this same method, it never occurring to me to stir any other way. Until . . . .
Late in my college years, I was about to enjoy a glass of iced tea with a couple of other people. I put in some sugar and stirred as I always had. I had never noticed any reaction from anyone up to that point. This time, however, a peer smirked as he watched (and listened).
After those two incidences, I never again fried an egg or sweetened a beverage using those methods. There have been times when I’ve repeated something my parents said or did something I learned from them that caused me embarrassment, and I’d wished they’d set a different example. Yet, in these instances, I didn’t, and still don’t blame my parents, from whom I picked up the techniques, for my embarrassment in these situations. My resentment is reserved for those who chose to react as they did.
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