Finding Contentment with a Square Wheel?

Posted on September 23, 2012 by enthusiasmiscontagious

My life has an inexplicable truth about it. If I shop at any department store, 9-times out of 10, I’ll get a cart (buggy) that has one flat wheel. Nothing improves the shopping experience like having your forearms shaken like your jack hammering a sidewalk in Queens.  On the tenth outing, I may be spared the former, but now I’ll get a cart with such a high pitched squeak when pushed, everyone will think I’m a Goober. Don’t bother going faster, WD-40 can’t fix this train wreck. These occurrences happen so often to me, I can’t tell whether it’s a celestial patience prank or my ever present pebble in the shoe of life.

When I do have a moment to reflect, despite these nuisances, I know I have a good life. Sometimes I think God allows little things to chaff me so I won’t get too comfortable. I remember the story my Dad always told me about the man who had such bad luck, that when he bought a jacket, he additionally purchased an extra pair of pants just in case he damaged one pair. The day after he brought the suit home, he burnt a hole in the jacket.

I know we all have our own definition of the term mixed emotions? Mine would be getting a gift card to a steakhouse right after all my teeth were pulled. Yet some have even gone so far as say the best definition of mixed emotions is seeing your brand new sports car go off a cliff with your mother-in-law inside. Nope, I’m not going to touch that one!

You know, the Good Lord has blessed all of us with many things. So why is it we still want our life to have just a little bit more comfort? We want everything to go our way. No flat tires, no difficult relationships, no sour milk.

Recently the lottery surpassed $300 million dollars. The advertisement boldly stated, “Just Imagine”. I did. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I won, everyone would think I was cool and try to be my best friend. The truth is my newest friends wouldn’t like me because I was more handsome or debonair, it would be solely because I had become rich. My reality is if I had won and given all my  true friends a million dollars, I’d still have $299 million left. Okay that’s a joke.

Like in the movie Ground Hog Day where the same day is played over and over again for a hapless weatherman, I can honestly say I  understand the central actor. After one glorious day out after many repeats, he tells his love interest that no matter what happens tomorrow or next week, it’s irrelevant because he says, “Today, I’m happy now.”

For me, the lottery holds no importance?  I don’t have to win anything to “imagine” happiness, I’ve got it now! Besides, the only gambling I do anymore is when I eat at Taco Bell. So there world, bring on your mutant grocery carts, I feel lucky today.

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Lessons from a man named Walt

Posted on September 21, 2012 by enthusiasmiscontagious

I do believe God in His wisdom sends individuals at the most important junctures in our lives to help us see more clearly things we might otherwise miss.

His name was Walt Colteryahn; a no nonsense New Englander who knew how to draw out the best qualities in anyone. We found each other by way of a church choir. Though I was not Methodist, mutual friends had told me a small church was in need of a natural tenor. My own church had little to offer musically so I readily accepted their invitation. The little white church with granite accents was one of the central edifices in the town square of this picturesque Vermont village. Gas lights that had been electrified 80 years before hung over the sanctuary like a picture frozen in time. The imposing velvet laden white pulpit stood majestic like a monument to beloved pastors who had preached The Word over it for over 100 years.

As I descended the dark staircase to my first practice in the basement, I wondered if I would like this group. I shouldn’t have worried, just one evening with my new friends, I was hooked. I found the spiritual family and camaraderie I was sorely missing. The music was fun and challenging.

I was the youngest member in the group. I was all of 26 years old with a wife and only our first born having arrived. Walt sensed that evening that I needed a hand at getting to know everyone, so he introduced himself with a hearty hello and slap on the back. He promptly took me around to introduce me to the all other choir members as if he’d known me for years. We became fast friends. Bald with a self deprecating sense of humor, you couldn’t help but love him because he was so warm and genuine. His laugh was so infectious and his personality soothing, he was like hot apple cider on a frosty autumn day. You felt warm and content with him!

I was working for a small radio station at the time and despite my best efforts to provide for my family and remodel an 1864 farmhouse, Walt seemed to know just when the stresses of my life warranted a personal visit. He’d bring a baked item that his “bride” cooked and he’d stay long enough to listen and give us encouragement and hope from the “Good Book”. One day I asked him how long had he been married? He told me almost 50 years. Since I had only been married three years, I asked naively, “you still call her your bride?” With a broad grin he said, “I promised to cherish and love her the day we got married and since I always have, it made her my bride for life.”

I thought about those words carefully long after Walt had driven off in his old Chevy and headed home. He taught me something extremely valuable. A well placed word makes all the difference in the world, in a relationship. By his example I too have called my wife “my bride” since he taught me his secret in 1987.

I lost track of Walt after we moved away, but I continue to do the things he taught me, make new friends and offer encouraging words to everyone I meet. I’m sure if he knew this groom and “bride” continue to be happy after 28 years, he would be proud indeed.

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My Political Breaking Point

Posted on September 19, 2012 by enthusiasmiscontagious

If I hear one more political speech or political ad, I’m going to scream! No, not just the kind of scream a child might make on the playground, I’m talking about a real Tarzan scream that will petrify the wildlife in my neighborhood. November 6th, election day, can’t come soon enough.

I am convinced politics is a beauty pageant for ugly people. Each day while watching the evening news, I have to listen to reporters interviewing legislators with the charisma of a toad stool.  I see our elected officials spout daily how they’re frustrated at the other side, the other side lies, or “my esteemed colleague is misguided.” None of us have fallen off a turnip truck recently and I think all of us can smell a rat. The problem is, we’re losing count of all the rats. Members of Congress remind me of young children. One child will hit or poke the other and cause major mayhem, yet moments later stand in front of you and deny with the picture of angelic innocence. “Who me, they ask? No that’s impossible, I would never do anything wrong!” “I take my difficult job seriously.”

When I was in my teens I worked in a furniture plant. I ran the shipping line. I’d pack pine furniture and send it down rollers to a waiting cart for delivery to the loading docks. It seemed each hour, the foreman would love to come and yell at us, “Speed it up, get to work”. I don’t think I could have made him happy if I had as many hands as an octopus has tentacles.

Americans for decades have been the most productive workers on the planet. Proof is in the amount of McDonalds restaurants dotting the landscape. People are so busy they don’t even have time to boil water for macaroni when they get home. The typical day for most of us, is we wake up before our eyes do and we return home like a salmon. Uphill battle all day swimming against the forces until we drop our load and die. So imagine my anger when I learned recently that our “hardworking legislators get 23 1/2 weeks of vacation per year. Yes you heard me right, 23 1/2 weeks! Yet even in comparison with past legislative bodies, our present Senate has proven to be (no surprise) the least productive in history.

Take the $174,000 a year each legislator makes (notice I didn’t say earn), divide it over their 28 1/2 weeks of legislative work and it represents an average of $6,105.26 for every week of work.  That’s the equivalent of $317,460 for full time production.  Adding insult to injury, the above numbers don’t even include the full health benefits and retirement benefits they “earn” even after serving for as little as one term. If there isn’t a cleaning of the so-called rats in Congress at this next election, I’m making a phone call. “Hello Terminex, you’re Pest Control specialists right? Good, I found a House that needs your attention, and it’s a doozy.”

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Driver Education

Posted on September 17, 2012 by enthusiasmiscontagious

Once in a while I feel a duty to educate a few people on an important discovery. I am now ensconced in my new home and I need to get this off my chest, CAR DIRECTIONAL SIGNALS ARE NOT OPTIONAL EQUIPMENT!

There is nothing more frustrating than to wait (for what seems to be an eternity) for a car to drive by, only to have them turn a few feet in front of you. Now I know why the biblical Apostles walked everywhere, it’s almost impossible to to drive nowadays without losing your Christianity. In the past ten years of driving, I have been yelled at,  run off the road, given the Audubon salute, and stared down like a communist insurgent. I’d buy a horse but I’d probably experience road rage from an Amish farmer yelling, “Up they butter churn, Yoder”!

Don’t you just love parking and getting in and out at the grocery store? The last time I experienced something so harrowing, I was on a ride at the State Fair strapped into my seat and it was called the Merry Mix-up. I can’t count how many times I have backed out only to be scared back into submission by drivers as determined as kamikaze pilots to get to the free parking space beyond me.

The post office is no different. Wouldn’t you love in the near future to have the postal service install air tubes like at the bank drive-thru that shoots your mail out to you so you never have to leave the car? Am I the only one who laboriously plods through the long process of getting my mail only to find I have but one piece of mail in the box that gets my name wrong and says, “Yes Fern Woodbine, you might be a millionaire!”

You see, drivers are educated in safety and alcohol impairment today but what each state really needs to do is mandate a course in driver civility. The course could be taught with virtual reality headsets. Just like a Gameboy or Nintendo Wii video game, in your mind you could drive through the streets of your town and be cut off by a driver. You could be distracted by a pretty woman or hunky guy, or have naughty words hurled at you by an irate driver. Your test results would depend on how you acted during each distraction.

If you waved at the old lady walking slowly in the crosswalk, you’d get 20 points. When being cut off by an inconsiderate bum, if you remain calm and sing church hymns, you get 50 points. But if you mutter aloud a colorful metaphor at the thoughtless driver and/or couple it with a hand motion that signifies your love of winged creatures, you have to take the course over again. The one positive benefit however is you get to keep the bar of soap that was placed in your mouth by the motor vehicle agent.

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