Thursday, September 24, 2009

Family Tree

Last Saturday I helped my friend Mark trim some of the trees at his family’s home. He didn’t need me, just my saw. I know very little about the horticultural reasons to prune a tree. I once asked my Dad when the best time to trim a tree was. “The wind doesn’t care what season it is,” he said.

I understand if pruning is done properly it can improve the health of the tree, protect the branch structure, and in fruit trees it can enhance the size and quality of the crop. But our task wasn’t for that purpose.

We removed a few branches that were bothering the shingles on the roof of his house, and we sawed off a dead limb or two, but mostly it was an exercise in improving the aesthetics of the place. You see his daughter is getting married this Saturday and he wants the place to look nice.

In our 35-plus years together Mark has done just about everything before me – he is seven months older, stronger and better looking - so it is only natural that he leads the way here. Mark knows I have been watching him for signs, for clues on how a man should act when his daughter gets engaged to be married.

Mark was there in 1970 to welcome me - “the new kid,” when I walked into Mr. Peterson’s sixth-grade class. Because of him my school years became fun. Because he is older than me and grew up in the country he learned to drive before me. Back in those days one learned to drive before driver’s training class. One Saturday afternoon Mark taught me how operate a stick-shift.

We were at his dad’s gravel pit when I climbed into the driver’s seat of a mid-60’s Chevrolet pickup (he’ll clue me in on the correct model year later). It was a three speed - “three on the tree.” I’m sure neither one of us had our driver’s license yet, but Mark was committed to show me how to use a clutch in the safety of a gravel pit.

When learning any thing new the first lesson doesn’t always go well, and on that particular summer day the lesson went rather badly. As I let out the clutch with the truck in first gear we hit a large pot hole in the road. The sudden jolt threw both of us violently forward in the cab.

Bracing my legs against the floor of the truck I pressed the gas pedal all the way down while leaving the brake and clutch untouched. I panicked and froze while the truck took off for the moon. Bouncing and screaming through space the truck drove right through a fish house, knocked the blade off of a road-grader and crash landed on a large pile of sand.

We walked away without a bump or a bruise. Other than the need to maintain control while driving I’m afraid that the only thing we learned that day was as long as you could walk away everything was going to be OK. It would be many years until life’s lessons started to stick.

This Saturday Mark will go through yet another door before me. He will walk up the aisle with his daughter Erin, and then from his place of honor he will watch as she walks back down with her husband.

So last weekend when we were trimming trees at his house it may have served a larger purpose. Mark was getting ready to make room for some new growth on the family tree.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Keeping Good Company

There is an old saying that has been loosely translated from the ancient Greeks: “A man is known by the company he keeps,” or if you’d rather “birds of a feather, gather together.” My mother and father were keenly interested in knowing who my friends were. They knew that “running with the wrong crowd,” would influence my behavior, or perhaps even be a reflection or an indicator of whom I wanted to be.

They were right of course. My dreams, desires and goals of whom I hoped to be, and what I wanted to accomplish guided me in my selection of companions. Even in a small town there were options. There were the “good boys,” - law abiding, studious types. Their close cousins were the fun-loving, trouble-makers - nice guys, but with a glint and a grin. The next group was the juvenile delinquents; Mom closed the confirmation hearings there.

According to my Mom these boys were headed for prison, or at least reform school. Dad had driven me by these brick and stone structures enough times for me to know that I did not want to end up inside. But just to make sure that the point wasn’t missed Dad would remind me that “unless you shape up that’s where you’ll be.”

My choice of friends, confirmed by my parents, was a good predictor of how an evening and even the rest of my life was going to turn out. Even as an adult it is my friends that I rely on for support and guidance. These are the people I turn to when I am in trouble, or when I need help with something. They share similar values and beliefs. They are my trusted advisors.

Nepotism is the granting of favors to friends and relatives. It is a word to describe what everyone realizes and accepts: It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know. President Obama is doing what everyone does when they are elected to office – surrounding himself with his friends and comrades, people he trusts who have similar values and beliefs. But he is taking it a mile further than the inch given him.

He has appointed Czars. Czars are special advisors to the President chosen by the President. They are paid positions with authority given only by the President. It also appears that they are answerable only to the President.

The past four Presidents have appointed czars as well. Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush each appointed one, Bill Clinton three, and George W. Bush appointed four. But so far President Obama has appointed over thirty czars – some with very radical views, and there are indications that his czar appointments will exceed forty. But these are not just advisors; these czars have power and truckloads of cash to spend.

Even among Democrats there is concern over this grab for power. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va), the most senior member of the Senate serving continuously since 1959, wrote President Obama to express his strong objection.

"The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”

The framers of the Constitution guarded against placing too much power in any one branch. President Obama is upsetting the delicate balance between the three branches of government by purposely surpassing the confirmation process held by Congress. But with or without confirmation hearings for his czars, President Obama shall be known by the company he keeps.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Pendulum Swings

It’s that time of year when I fall asleep at night listening to the crickets. According to The Farmer’s Almanac you can determine the temperature by counting the number of chirps in 14 seconds (I always thought it was 15) and then add 40 (again I was wrong - I had that number at 45).

To accomplish this you need another person to count or have a stopwatch for this scientific experiment. You should also verify your findings with a reliable source – a weather channel or Web site, even a thermometer should do the trick – but by then the whole house is awake and everyone wonders what you are up to when you should be sleeping. Oh yeah - the hotter it is the faster you have to count.

Sometimes it’s too hot to sleep without the air conditioner on. Usually though a fan can do the trick. I like the cool breeze and the dull hum it emits. Growing up in a house without air conditioning meant a fan or two was usually spinning during the summer time.

Mom would have a fan moving the air around so we didn’t choke. We only had two fans (a large floor model that could change your voice when you spoke into it, and a smaller table top model). My sisters got the small one for their room; the other sat in the hallway between the room I shared with my brothers and my parent’s room.

We had the back end of the fan because Mom said it would pull the hot air out of our room. I guess she forgot about the windows being open and all of that hot air just waiting outside to stifle us as it was dragged across our beds. I think that either she wanted Dad to be cooler so he could sleep, or she was trying to amplify our voices with the fan so she could learn all of our secrets. Either way we were hot.

Now when I am having a restless night’s sleep I turn the chime off on the grandfather clock – otherwise my sleep is interrupted four times an hour – or I find myself counting the bells when the clock rings on the hour. As I ponder the pendulum which is kept swinging by gravity’s pull on the weights in the clock I think of Isaac Newton (not really – but humor me).

Newton was the guy who thought of gravity when he observed an apple fall from a tree (or being dropped on his head if you prefer the cartoon version). He also developed his three laws of motion. Maybe Newton was also kept awake by a clock.

In his book “Inventions and Discoveries,” Rodney Carlisle wrote that Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch mathematician, “…had published a study of the pendulum clock … upon which Newton later formulated the complete laws of motion.” Newton’s Third Law of Motion states: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

On October 30th, 2008 just a few days before he was elected President, Sen. Barack Obama said at Missouri University in Columbia. “We are five days from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Missouri is “The show-me state,” and President Obama has showed Missouri and the rest of the country that he does indeed mean to change our country.

But when things are pushed too far, the pendulum swings back the other way hard and fast. I think this is what is happening in this country. The citizens are sensing that things are getting out of balance and are pushing back. It’s time.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Leave A Wake To Support Others

Sunday my family and I spent the day at my wife’s brother’s home on Sugar Lake. Well, technically his house is not on the lake, it sits near the shore where the waves created by the wake of boats lap irregularly – but why go through all of that fuss explaining it when most people know what you mean.

I guess that most everyone in Minnesota knows somebody who lives on the lake where they are welcome to hang out on a beautiful summer day. Sunday was one of those days. The weather was almost perfect – partly cloudy with temperatures in the high 60’s.

One of my favorite summer activities is to ride on a boat and cruise the shoreline looking at the lake homes and cabins. I try to arrange my social calendar so that this happens more than once a summer. I am struck by the immense variety of dwellings. They range from the seasonal campers and rustic sixty-year old cabins, to the estates of the very wealthy.

The variety of boats also catches my attention. But instead of embarrassing myself by attempting to impress you with my limited knowledge of the many styles of watercraft, allow me to do so with just one particular type of boat: Wakeboard boats.

Wakeboard boats are designed to displace large amounts of water which results in a very large wake behind the boat. So instead of being strapped into skis, the person being pulled stands or kneels on a “board.” This combination of boat and board allows for tricks and stunts not easily accomplished with a typical ski boat. Sunday I watched a guy “surfing” behind a boat. What I found amazing was that this guy was keeping up to the boat without the use of a rope. I have to get out more.

I have been going up to Sugar Lake for about thirty years. My first time was with my girlfriend to visit her grandparents at their lake cabin. Over those thirty years the ownership of that cabin, which has grown and changed to a year-round home, has passed from father to son twice. During that time my girlfriend became my wife.

Thirty years ago I was in college at St. Cloud State University when I shook Ted Kennedy’s hand. He had just finished delivering a speech to an audience of college students. The next day in my Speech Communication’s class most of us could not recall what the Senator had said, but we defended our shortcomings by saying “the delivery was amazing.”

By now we all know that Ted Kennedy passed away recently. Last week there was an article in Politico titled “The wide wake left by Ted Kennedy’s legacy.” This serious article pointed out the void that will be felt by the passing of a man with forty-seven years in the U.S. senate.

But I think that his sister’s passing is just as significant. Eunice Kennedy Shriver also died this past August. She is credited with founding The Special Olympics in 1968, the same year her brother Robert was killed. The Special Olympics now has over 3 million athletes in 150 countries.

The Kennedys, with John, Bobby, Camelot and all of that were America’s royalty. I think my Mom saved every Life and Look magazine that had a Kennedy on the cover. But now with two more of the family gone that era is slipping away.

Our lives are like boats that create waves which role and roil across the water with an ever-increasing span. We should try to leave a wake that supports others by our presence.