Nobody's Perfik

     It was a summer church service under the protection of a tent.  Days of great heat, uncomfortable humidity and frequent heavy rains had relented and given us an idyllic summer day for this annual event. 

     The tent protected us from the late morning sunshine and the tent also gave us a sense of community beneath its cover. 

     This was not what one would call a summer tent revival meeting that ends with a pile of discarded crutches, wheel chairs and walkers and folks dancing in the aisles…yet it did yield a residual effect of renewal.  It was very Presbyterian. In fact, it was Presbyterian – but with a designer’s touch. 

     The prosthetics left behind after this meeting was more in the metaphorical sense. For a moment we could cast aside our defenses of indifference and pretense and leave them in a heap out back.

     Designer/Pastor Linda K. stood before the gathering and connected the spoken and sung offerings of many. All seemed to point toward the idea of living in the moment…seeing and smelling proverbial and literal roses.  All the while, nurturing a sense of hope for the future as the path is lit for each of us in our own way.   �
     While contributions of members who volunteered verse lended to the theme, even more so, the venue itself – an Outdoor Education facility lent more.  Elk and deer sauntered over to observe the goings-on.  Birds fluttered about.  Flowers sprung from the ground, faced us and smiled. The cool, dry summer breeze wafted through the open-walled tent giving an assist to the brought-in flower arrangements, causing them to tumble over again and again. 

     Perhaps the breeze was telling us that for this one day at least, we could leave those greenhouse grown flowers in the greenhouse and take more notice at what was already provided on site. 

     Beech trees swayed in the background as Linda led the service.  Their small leaves fluttered, turning each tree in to a kinetic sculpture of green…and with every flutter of each leaf, the contrasting shades of green from opposite sides were randomly revealed.  One parishioner stood to read the poem, “Trees”.  It fit well.

    Then I remembered a trip to my wife’s home Austrian alpine town, Eisenerz.  It is a mountain valley town and everywhere one looks into the distance, huge snow capped mountains loom overhead. 

     Before we had gone there, I worried how I might become complacent and bored with the closed-in constancy of those mountains.  But when we were there, each mountain was in motion.  Each changed with every passing hour of daylight.  Colors changed, hues changed, air currents changed, shadows changed and even outline shapes of the alps changed with the comings and goings of clouds.  The mountains were as alive as those leaves on the beech trees.

     The light plays upon the forms of the ancient mountains. 

     The light plays upon the leaves of the trees that change from season to season.

     The light plays hide and seek on the ground amid the shadows of earthly things and the light plays upon something as fleeting as a ripple in a body of water.

     God gave us light…light gives us life and new ways to see things that God provides.

     It was a summer church service under the protection of a tent.        Days of great heat, uncomfortable humidity and frequent heavy rains had relented and given us an idyllic summer day for this annual event. 

     The tent protected us from the late morning sunshine and the tent also gave us a sense of community beneath its cover. 

     This was not what one would call a summer tent revival meeting that ends with a pile of discarded crutches, wheel chairs and walkers and folks dancing in the aisles…yet it did yield a residual effect of renewal.  It was very Presbyterian. In fact, it was Presbyterian – but with a designer’s touch. 

     The prosthetics left behind after this meeting was more in the metaphorical sense. For a moment we could cast aside our defenses of indifference and pretense and leave them in a heap out back.

     Designer/Pastor Linda K. stood before the gathering and connected the spoken and sung offerings of many. All seemed to point toward the idea of living in the moment…seeing and smelling proverbial and literal roses.  All the while, nurturing a sense of hope for the future as the path is lit for each of us in our own way.   �
     While contributions of members who volunteered verse lended to the theme, even more so, the venue itself – an Outdoor Education facility lent more.  Elk and deer sauntered over to observe the goings-on.  Birds fluttered about.  Flowers sprung from the ground, faced us and smiled. The cool, dry summer breeze wafted through the open-walled tent giving an assist to the brought-in flower arrangements, causing them to tumble over again and again. 

     Perhaps the breeze was telling us that for this one day, at least, we could leave those greenhouse grown flowers in the greenhouse and take more notice at what was already provided on site. 

     Beech trees swayed in the background as Linda led the service.  Their small leaves fluttered, turning each tree in to a kinetic sculpture of green…and with every flutter of each leaf, the contrasting shades of green from opposite sides were randomly revealed.  One parishioner stood to read the poem, “Trees”.  It fit well.

    Then I remembered a trip to my wife’s home Austrian alpine town, Eisenerz.  It is a mountain valley town and everywhere one looks into the distance, huge snow capped mountains loom overhead. 

     Before we had gone there, I worried how I might become complacent and bored with the closed-in constancy of those mountains.  But when we were there, each mountain was in motion.  Each changed with every passing hour of daylight.  Colors changed, hues changed, air currents changed, shadows changed and even outline shapes of the alps changed with the comings and goings of clouds.  The mountains were as alive as those leaves on the beech trees.

     The light plays upon the forms of the ancient mountains. 

     The light plays upon the leaves of the trees that change from season to season.

     The light plays hide and seek on the ground amid the shadows of earthly things and the light plays upon something as fleeting as a ripple in a body of water.

     God gave us light…light gives us life and new ways to see things that God provides.

     You have all probably heard these: If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one to hear it, does it still make a sound?  or…If a husband comes home with a new power tool and there is no one there to complain, is he still wrong?
     But here is another:  If a writer has no one to read what he’s written, is he/she still a writer?

     This week, there is one less reader of these posts than in the past. So in some way, I am now less of a writer.  

     This reader was special.  His place in my life was a primary reason why writing became an avocation.  And his place in my life was greater than that.

    Robert Graham “Bob” Kemper died last Monday.  He was Senior Minister of the First Congregational Church we love in Western Springs, IL and a primary reason we were drawn to that church.  He became much more after we were in the door and had taken the pledge of membership.

    Bob was a liberator. It amazes me that people with personal physical limitations (his was blindness via macular degeneration) have the inner strength and gifts of communication that help others transcend their own limitations.

     He freed me to develop a spiritual life of my own – without the guilt associated with the biblical illiteracy that remains with me.

     He freed a dramatic story of family life from my wife, Elsa. Shortly after we’d joined the church, he called and asked if she’d be willing to present the story of her family’s life in post-war (WWII) displaced persons camps and their immigration to the U.S.  That experience led us on a multi-faceted journey of exploration and presence among others that continues to this day.

     Bob was a teacher, deep thinker – philosopher and theologian. Yet he had a remarkable way of communicating his deep thoughts to others in a way that was understandable, practical and not intimidating.

     The church had formed a writer’s group under associate minister Leslie Ritter-Jenkins and I joined in.  Bob was not part of that group directly, but we met in the church library that was named in his honor after he retired. Books he had written rested on the shelves. Encouragement from the group and the aura of being in “his” library inspired me to continue writing. 

     At the time of the formation of the writer’s group, the concept of personal mentoring was popular and I sheepishly asked Bob if he’d serve as my writing mentor. 

     “Let’s go out to lunch and talk about it” was his response.  We went to one of his favorite restaurants in the Chicago ‘burbs – “Little Joe’s.”  In spite of his dear wife Margie’s concerns for his diet, Bob loved to find reasons to go there.  Little Joe’s is a greasy little hot dog and Italian Beef joint that caters to blue-collar, factory workers and other serious gastronomers, such as Bob and I.  Bob took to Little Joe’s like a little boy would take to a candy store.  He loved the Chicago style hot dogs and the greasy fries.  He was a fry dipper and so am I. 

     Bob tactfully declined to become my writing mentor yet, he remained interested in the path of cyberspace, paper and ink that lay ahead for me.

      Simply knowing Bob might read my offerings in the newspaper and/or on the website was inspiration to me.  He was a strong role model in many ways – he voice was clear in his writing and his message was concise.  I strove to find my voice in my writing in the same way.

     But most importantly, Bob was the quintessential Minister.  He was a conduit between me and the mysterious higher power to which mankind has assigned many names. He was a conduit between people – helping them connect.  He explained the church’s moniker that featured one blank quadrant representing “the truth of faith that will only come when we die.”

     Bob’s benediction continues to be an inspiration to me and countless others. 

     And now, Bob is filling-in that blank quadrant of the church’s moniker and I paraphrase his benediction for him:

Bob,

God go with you…

May He walk where you walk,

Guide where you must make choices,

Comfort where you hurt,

and Surprise you

by His continued love for you

and what you were

and what you did.

     Thank you, Bob Kemper, for all you have been, and will continue to be, for me.

     We just got home from a summer trip that included some fine educational opportunities.  For one, we visited the Cantigny Museum in Wheaton, IL.  There, I was motivated to learn all about Colonel Robert R. “Bob” McCormick. 

     Trying to be prepared, as always, I anticipated this stop along our route.  Just before we checked out of the previous night’s hotel, I went to the computer in the lobby to find out what I could about this guy.

     It had been a challenging stay at the Radisson Hotel in Moline, IL which featured “Sleep Number” beds.  With my characteristic senior citizen short-term memory loss, we had two number-related issues in that hotel – one was after breakfast we tried to return to our room.  After three hotels in three nights, when we got to our sixth floor (at least we remembered that), we forgot our room number.  We knew it was near the elevator, but which of those rooms was ours? 

     At 6:45 in the morning, we met some not so friendly people in various states of dress (or undress) as we tried each of the doors until our door lock card opened into a room where the luggage looked familiar and there was no one surprised by our visit.

     It was not room number 612 where the newlyweds were staying, or 613 where it was some businessman and his “secretary” obviously who’d been taking dictation all night, nor was it room numbers 614 or 615. 

     Our room was 618 and why hadn’t we been able to remember that?  I’ll tell you why…(second reason) it was because of those damn sleep number beds where I spent the whole night trying to find the number that would make my bed more comfortable than sleeping on a set of railroad tracks. 

     The bed was controlled by a remote device and every time I tried it, the TV would go on or off, change channels or the sound would mute.  Then I tried another remote and garage doors across the street began rising and lowering. Finally I tried the third remote and the bed instantly resembled the Great SanFrancisco earthquake before settling in to the South Dakota Badlands. When it got to the railroad tracks setting I resigned and gave the remote a flying lesson.

    So getting back to my original point…the next morning I was running on an empty tank with the windshield clouded over when I went to the computer in the lobby to “Goggle” (as they say) Colonel Bob McCormick.  

     On this Goggle (I think I had the right website that everyone always mentions, “Wanna know something?  Just Goggle it!”) website I learned that way back in the ancient times in which this McCormick guy lived, he was one of only two Colonels – for the sake of comparison, these days we have 32,746 of them -  you have to understand this was a long time ago. 

     One Colonel was, of course, McCormick, who later became the renowned pepper and ground clove magnate and the other Colonel went by the name of Sanders who later became very big in chickens. 

     The story goes that both were due for retirement from their Colonelship on the same fateful day in 18…something or other and showed up at the retirement place at the same time.  The processing line continued to get longer and more frustrating due to the retiring Generals who constantly cut in ahead of them. Even though waiting in line is one of the great skills one learns in the military, the wait was long and tough – in fact it was so long that Sanders grew a white beard as he waited. 

     In any event, the two Colonels spent their time in line talking about their plans after retirement. 

     McCormick was going to build himself and his family a great estate in the Chicago suburbs so his kids could go to good schools and breathe fresh air.  Sanders was returning to his ancestral home of Kentucky and had an idea for a new business – he’d wear a white suit and sell highly seasoned fried chicken with his secret blend of ten herbs and spices. 

     Ever the opportunist, McCormick listened intently while he fished around in the breast pocket of his perfectly pressed blue Colonel jacket.  Then he withdrew a red and white tin of his famous ground black pepper and presented it to Sanders – “Why don’t you make it eleven herbs and spices?  This final secret ingredient will be safe with me!”

    Colonel Sanders smiled and graciously accepted the offer and as we now know, the rest is history. 

     So with all that information swimming around in my head, I tucked my copy of the Chicago Sun-Times under my arm and turned down the offer of a tour of the McCormick mansion because I already knew all that stuff about its famous inhabitant.

     Travel is a great way to learn new things.

    To paraphrase a famous personality, “It was a less than quiet week in Chester, NJ, my hometown…”

     Things have changed in Chester over the years.  At one time, it was a pretty basic place.  There was no bank nor a need for one in town.  People had to spend all they earned.  There was no grocery store – folks had to grow their own or drive about 14 miles to Dover or Morristown to get their vittles. 

     If you owned a pair of socks, you were middle-class.  If the socks matched and were washed between wears, you were upper middle-class.  Kids who had to milk cows by hand each morning before school, were in the lower socioeconomic class but they had the strongest grips. Our classroom bully was four years older than the age norm for the group because of unrecognized dyslexia and a tough childhood.

     There was one school building with 9 rooms, one administrator, Principal Charles Williamson, and one janitor, LeRoy “Shorty” Nunn.

     But in the last 40 years, the economic base of town changed.  The average price of a home is now over $700,000 and those homes are occupied by professional types with lots of moolah and at least one crappy attitude.

     Regional newspaper, The Daily Record, reported a recent case involving a Doctor and a child. The Doctor was suing the child who also was his neighbor. 

     Doctor “P.T. Uitary”, 54, (I changed his name and avoided mentioning his area of specialization) sued fifteen-year-old, “Norma L. Child” because of an incident when he was 49 and she was eleven.   

     P.T. is an avid exerciser – I imagine the kind with the designer water bottle always at his side, the best high tech sporting equipment adorning his torso and that far away look of self-centered intensity on his face. 

    He plays tennis, runs, swims and one day, out on his bicycle was riding laps around the neighborhood when he came up behind young Norma who was in-line skating.  She noticed his rapid approach, his bell ringing and yelling for her to yield and she also noticed oncoming traffic.  So she stopped and stood to the side as he pedaled by. 

     Norma got back to her skating and shortly, along came P.T. on another lap but this time there was no other traffic. There was plenty of room for the good Doctor to easily steer his bike around her – or so she thought.  But the Doctor, exhibiting classic signs of a cognitively challenged person, (lack of adaptive behavior), rang his bell and yelled for young Norma to again move aside to let him pass.  In looking back at him, she veered slightly to her left.  Yet P.T. neither slowed down nor steered far enough around her.  He pedaled smack into young Norma and he fell off his bike.  Poor Dear. 

     Norma only had minor bumps and bruises but our unfortunate, arrogant, me-first doctor bumped his swelled head (no helmet?) and broke his collarbone. 

     Smirk justified.

     P.T. experienced pain and suffering and lost time at his lucrative practice- not to mention his exercise regimen.  So he filed a lawsuit against Norma. 

     The wheels of justice sometimes turn slowly and it finally came to court when she was a freshman in high school.  Norma’s parents dug deep into their pockets for the thousands of dollars to defend this suit that some equally bright judge refused to declare as frivolous.

     Accident reconstruction specialists were called in, most likely spray painted “X’s” marked the scene and some yellow tape was stretched around the ‘hood as testimony in the trial began. 

     Justice ultimately prevailed and the doctor lost his case.

     Our classroom bully grew up, married and became a solid citizen of the community.  Now his role has been assumed by one with a fancier education, an unwillingness to grow up and no excuse for his behavior.

     There is a new bully in town and he has a lawyer on his speed dial. I don’t think Fred Rogers ever lived in that neighborhood. If he had, his theme song would have been different.

      “It’s a litigious day in the neighborhood, a litigious day in the�
       neighborhood…see you in court…see you in court…”

      When WWII took us the final step from an agricultural society into an industrial one, leisure time became available to families everywhere. Nowadays, unemployment gives us lots of leisure time.  Camps, parks and recreation programs, and Little League help us meet the needs to fill that time.

      With all this going on, one Mortimer Gump, of Colts Mane, NJ, (it’s right next to Colt’s Neck) emerged from his basement workshop with his masterpiece, a giant inflatable beer bottle.  It took him four days before he discovered that deflating it was necessary to get it up the stairs and out the door.  He soon followed that up with life-sized inflatable dinosaurs.  His wife and kids promptly changed their names and moved away. Undaunted, he mused, “Where to use these wonderful new inventions?” 

     The answer appeared in an ephemeral haze from the neon lights of the Ferris wheel overlooking the Point Pleasant boardwalk.     �
     Summerfests were created.  And now every town seems to have one.  We have the Levittown Cookie Cutter Days, The U.P. Wood Tick Festival, Taste of Calumet City and Carp Boil and many others. Of course, Tulip Time is exempt from this critique because it is not one of those cut and paste events that is randomly dropped into a community.

     In this age of recycling, nostalgia acts from the edges of show business have found new life as they are being brought to our towns and cities.  Risers, borrowed from the schools are fitted to form a stage where one can see Chubby Checker lean his walker aside and do his Twist one more time.  “Edna, you can hardly tell he has an artificial hip…who IS his orthopedic man?” 

     People seem to love the idea of blocking off streets and paying outrageous prices for hot dogs and fries sold along an instant midway mere blocks from their own homes.  The puritan roots of our culture wane and our baser senses make us think it is fun to swill beer in the middle of a downtown street.  To help us behave ourselves, police auxiliary uniforms are distributed to every cop wannabe.    

     A big portable sign arches across the entrance announcing the presence of “Amusements”.   Carnival rides and games of chance are set up in the parking lot and run by people who didn’t eat their vegetables and never did their homework.

     But now we have come to the time and place where this genre needs to be taken one step further.  Not every community finds pleasure in these small town events.  Not every community delights in seeing faded rock and rollers or slugging down a Blatz in the middle of Main Street.  Some communities fancy themselves as a bit more special, and “above it all”.

     For this reason a new venture has been formed; “Sophisticated Summerfests, Inc.“  For a nominal fee, this company will come to your town and provide the following:

     Food enclaves; salads, bean sprouts, sushi, watercress sandwiches, and tofu for you. Beverage fountains offering Evian, Perrier, Energy Drinks, vegetable juices, cappuccino and frapacino. Center stage, hosted by Dick Cavett, will introduce acts such as; a Tony Randall impersonator singing “Winchester Cathedral”, The Emeril Epicurean Experience, panel discussions on British literature, The Frenchtown Sidewalk Ballet  (touring ensemble), The internationally renowned precision marching cellists from the Muscatel, Iowa Sim-fonic Orchestra, and for sports fans, the traveling exhibit titled “Ted Williams’ Head on Ice”

     Bemusement rides and games are brought in; including the ever-popular limerick activated water ride (sprays of spritzer are misted over you if your limerick is not bemusing enough), the Hall of Puns, and High Tea served in a Victorian carriage.

     Which will be the first of our local communities to upscale their summers?