The tree that almost wasn't

My favorite tree almost wasn't.  When a tornado ripped through the center of our farm in April, 2014, trees were the favorite targets.  Countless numbers were ripped from the earth, twisted at their roots like corkscrews, or broken in half by the F4 winds.  Hundreds of them, having thrived more than a century on this earth, were destroyed as easily as you would snap a toothpick in half.

One small tree at the edge of the yard was cracked in half by the winds, splintered a few feet from its base, the upper part  nearly destroying a hundred year old shed.  A track hoe removed the large upper half from the shed and I added to my to-do list taking my chainsaw and putting the pitiful remains out of their misery.

Fortunately, my to-do list fell a few items short of done.  And at some point weeks later, all tornado clean up work stopped and everyone just rested for awhile.

Days became weeks and weeks became months and so on.  Before you could turn around a year had passed, it was spring again and guess what?  That little piece of tree, left for dead and sentenced to a burn pile, started sprouting new limbs.  And weeks later, the buds on those limbs became leaves.  And then more limbs and more leaves.  Impossible, I thought.  I mean, that tree was a goner.  A splinter.  A hopeless shadow of what once it had been.

Now, over two years later, it's much more to me than a tree.  It's a reminder that nothing is done until it's done.  And our minds simply don't have the power to determine that.  We are limited to seeing through a glass darkly during our time here on this tiny planet and we are reminded to "set (our) minds on things above, not on earthly things."

It's also a reminder not to give up.  To have hope and to have faith.  And when that hope and faith blossoms, new worlds open up.

And, finally, that little tree continuously reminds me that regeneration is always possible.  Rejuvenation.  Redemption.  Resurrection on all levels.  Even at our lowest times, when winds of fortune have turned ugly and rendered disaster, tragedy, or devastation, there is hope.  Or even when there's just a malevolent breeze that blows us about from time to time, knocking us down, pushing us off course, there is recovery.  There is reinstatement of our more vibrant, more confident former selves.  There are new seasons and new beginnings.

Next spring I'm looking for my favorite tree to be even taller and fuller and stronger.  Who knows?  It might even have a nest of birds.

I think I would feel like a grandfather.

An open letter to Million Women's March on Washington

                                                           Getty Images Topical Press Agency

I deleted this blog because I know longer believe what I wrote.

On this Veterans Day

"These GIs could not be let down. This was neither the time nor the chance for tactical fencing. The "Lost Battalion" had to be rescued, the German threat to the Yank breakthrough smashed, at any cost.

Thus, on the bright, hot afternoon of August 10, 1944, with magnificent daring, doughboy-laden tanks spearheading the 320th Regiment's attack barreled up the road directly into the powerful positions of the Wehrmacht's elite.

Out of 55 tanks 31 were knocked out in a few hours of furious fighting.

But the Nazi grip on the Mortain redoubt was cracked.

In the bloody and confused struggle which continued on throughout the night and next day many units of the regiment themselves became lost or surrounded, the attack disorganized.

During the following night, under the flares of the Luftwaffe, the remaining men of the 1st and 3rd Battalions were reorganized, combined. At dawn the infantrymen, without the aid of armor, stormed Mortain and the crest of the ridge, seizing both. The Lost Battalion was rescued, its wounded cared for by all the medical resources of the regiment.

The Battle of Mortain, the most dramatic in the 320th's combat record, exemplifies the regiment's relentless style of fighting, the driving power that has been used with four armies in five countries and has been called upon continuously from Normandy through Bastogne to the east bank of the Elbe. The 320th and her superb comrade regiments, the 134th and 137th, form a division - the 35th (Santa Fe) Division - whose record of achievement in the European campaigns ranks with the best."

This is an excerpt from The History of the 320th Infantry Regiment, outlining a battle during WWII as US troops attempted to wrestle France out of the hands of the Germans.  My father, John Loyd Gray, was wounded and taken prisoner of war on August 11, 1944.  I always wondered what he was going through that day because he spoke so sparingly of it.  Except to say that the Germans intervened by taking his bleeding and broken body to a hospital in Paris where German doctors labored to save his limbs and his life.  

Irony at its best.

He was one of those doughboys on foot inches from the tracks of those huge, clamoring tanks, plodding  courageously forward, one foot in front of the other.  A small piece of ground at a time.  From one hedgerow to the next.  

Until a machine gun ripped his legs out from under him and he fell wounded into the mud and blood- thousands of miles from home.

Veterans Day couldn't have come at a better time.  While Americans are marching in the streets protesting the election process that defines our republic, while people are kneeling or sitting through our national anthem, while our country quivers and quakes in the throes of an enormous divide, Veterans Day provides a reminder of what it took to get here in the first place.

My father was a 19 year old rural American (we've heard about those rural Americans these last few days) when he volunteered to fight for his country.  By the time he was 21 he had two Bronze Stars, a Purple Heart, and battle scars.  About the age of so many of the youngsters marching in the streets of cities, towns, and on the campuses of universities around this country.  They can thank him and every other combat soldier, men and women, for giving them that right to march.  They can thank him and all soldiers of the past for sacrificing part, or in some cases all, of their lives for the right to protest the very thing that defines us as a free nation.  They can thank everyone who has spent their time or their blood in our military securing the greatness of this nation we call the United States.

I don't have any astute prose to offer here.  Just facts.  Just a piece of history.  And an undying sense of pride for one man in particular, my father, for having the courage to defend all that we hold sacred.

And I can't help but feel a little disgusted at those who disrespect those sacred things.  But my father would forgive you and my Father forgives you, so I guess that it will just have to be alright for me.

Thank you, Dad.  And believe me, I'm trying to do right by you.

Horizons

Horizons

I look out this morning to find a horizon drawn by God's straight-edge.  Put a level on it and the bubble would be right square in the middle...I'd bet on it.  Ocean horizons are defined and dependable.  They are predictable.  They are set and unchangeable.

No they're not.

It's estimated that a six foot tall person with his feet firmly planted in the sand will be able to see out to sea for three miles, and then the earth will rudely curve itself out of the picture.  Should he climb the lifeguard tower, the horizon moves out to around five miles.  From the patio of a Gulf front condo-say on the 10th floor-the ocean's horizon gets really gnarly, somewhere close to twelve miles out.

Where, pray tell, is this all going?  Well, we'll just keep poking at it and see what pops out.

Let's start with Robert Browning, a 19th century English poet, married to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a bit of a fox if I may say so.  And it was from inspiration of that foxy lady, I suppose, that spawned the lines:  "Grow old along with me!  The best is yet to be."  From another work, he gives us: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"

As I sit here immersed in the white noise of the waves, fifty yards from the slow boil of the tide in the Gulf of Mexico, perched some forty feet above the beach, my horizon teases me from a distance of eight miles.  When, last evening, I stood at ocean's edge, I was limited to a panorama of three miles.  (And, by the way, if you wondered why you had to suffer through the scribblings of Pythagoras in high school geometry, you can't get to these numbers without his theorem.)

But let's keep going.  In order to gain that extra five miles to the brink of the horizon, I had to do work.  I had to experience some level of accomplishment.  And that accomplishment came at some sacrifice.  In the most basic sense, I had to drag luggage and food and every Apple device ever created up a couple of flights of stairs and stow all of it in the condo.  I distinctly remember sweating.  Profusely.  Shouldn't be a big deal but when Bobby Browning invited us to grow old with him, I'm not sure that he was doing a ton of step climbing.  At a secondary level, I had to work for many years and do the correct things around planning for the future so that one day I would be able to meet the financial obligations of a week on the Gulf coast.  Not exactly up to the standard of challenges faced by Warren Buffet, but something beyond a Christmas savings account at the local bank.  Regardless, let's be honest...we're still at the most basic level of meeting obligations and being even remotely diligent.

I could stair-step us right along at this point, but I think I'll just get to it.  Our horizon is nothing more than our reach.  And no matter who we are, we do have the ability to reach as far as we possibly can.  Sometimes we choose to reach...I mean really stretch it out there...and sometimes we simply decide to go for only that which is within arm's length.  It's our choice.  That simple.

So the question is:  is there really a discernible difference between seeing three miles of emerald green and agate blue versus eight miles?  I mean, the sea is the sea, isn't it?

Well, my answer is yes.  The sea is the sea.  And, yes.  There is a difference.  You can continue to climb after your legs buckle, you can choose to reach higher and longer, you can fight harder, and you can maintain a death grip on every foot...every inch...that you attain.  Because that extended horizon means a few more precious seconds of that delicious sunset - that melting ice cream sundae overflowing with cherry and strawberry sky and whipped cream clouds.  It's being able to see that magnificent ship steaming eastwardly six miles from shore, the ship that's not even a figment of your imagination when you limit yourself to three miles of horizon.  You have another zillion gallons of emerald sea for your eyes to relish before it meets that bank of clouds along God's razor-fine straight-edge.  It's the opportunity for another drop of satisfaction, another small bite of life...one more verse of your favorite song.

In the end, when you find yourself blessed to have lived a life that has recognized the value of conscious, dedicated effort, that is a gift in itself.  The bonus is that prolonged reach being rewarded by an extraordinary grasp that we pray we will find a way to be worthy of.

I watch two seagulls breakfasting in the foam of the ebbing tide.  The breeze has picked up, ruffling the feathers of a persnickety blue heron.  The casual dining partners skitter back and forth devouring random treats.   Their horizon, according to Pythagoras, is less than a mile.  Poor birds.  Much less then a mile.  But, after a while, when they take wing with full stomachs and wet, sticky feet, they climb the currents of the sea breeze with amazing ease.  Higher and higher they go, until they are two indistinct dots against the blazing blue sky.  And I think, my God...they have the power to create an endless horizon - no limits, no ending!  And I believe it is just that, my friends, that Robert Browning was referring to when he said that the best is yet to be.  And, yes, yes, yes.  That is what a heaven's for.

Word of the Day

                                                          Photo from Audubon.com


This morning,  the Word of the Day on my Dictionary.com app buzzed its way into my life.  Just a tiny vibration and an almost inaudible purr.  But a word that sent my muse scurrying in demanding that I compose a few words.

My, but this word is unforgivably coincidental, if I believed in coincidences,  seeing that I'm sitting on a screened porch, listening to small waves breaking, breathing salty air, and watching seagulls line up for seafood brunch on the unapologetic white sands of the Gulf of Mexico.

The word?  Albatross.  Al-ba-tross.  And though I'm not sure of the shared DNA between said albatrosses and said gulls, they look pretty similar to a landlocked bloke such as I.

But as you know, we don't really conjure up the bird when we think of albatross.  Unless we picture it hanging around our  straining necks.

Dictionary.com tells us that an albatross is a noun that is "a seemingly inescapable moral or emotional burden, as of guilt or responsibility" or "something burdensome that impedes action or progress."

You know, we're in a day where "no news is good news" rings pretty darn true.  We have seemingly unbridled global terrorism.  We have civilians shooting civilians, police shooting civilians, and civilians shooting police.  We have a partisan divide unequalled in my memory and this partisan divide appears to be driven by mutual disgust and distaste for the "other party" candidate.  We are divided on so many fronts that we're going to have to invent new fronts upon which to be divided.  We have what is, in my opinion, a rip in our societal seam that threatens the entire garment of the republic.  We have hate, fear, and anger wrapped in one great big ball.

We have, folks, around our collective necks, an albatross of pterodactyl proportions.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes in "The Ancient Mariner:"

Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks
Had I from old and young !
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

"Instead of the cross...".  Things that make you go, "Hmmmm."


I'm not ashamed of my fellow Americans.  That would be prideful.  It's the whole "he who is without sin" thing.  If I am ashamed of my fellow Americans, that would mean that I stand in judgment of them.  And God help us if someone of my ilk were to stand in judgement of anyone or anything.  I have no business even picking up a stone, much less casting it.

What am I?   What are my feelings?  What are my emotions?

Well, I suppose that there is an exact word I could use, but I'm not sure that I can find exactness here.  I'm alarmed.  I'm disappointed.  I'm concerned.  And I'm a little scared.  Wait, strike that.  I'm too old to be scared.  I think a better word might be "anxious."

I don't like posing issues and concerns without remedies.  But I have none.  In today's familiar parlance, that's above my pay grade.  In fact, I have to question whether there is a solution.  I suppose that all problems, simply by being problems, have solutions, so my hope is that there is a person or people out there who can put us right again.  I'm thinking that whatever the solution is, it's going to take time.  Lots of time.  A couple of generations maybe.

I think of the seemingly endless plight of the Israelites.  About as soon as they had things figured out and found their way back to God, something was already percolating to shove them back into the same predicament they had just gotten out of.  Such a cyclical thing.  And, who knows?  Maybe our current societal ills have occurred before - perhaps many times before - and I'm just not a studious enough historian to know that.

What I do know is that I will pray everyday for America.  I will pray that we will mend our rips, sew up old wounds, stabilize the foundation this country was built on, dispel negative rhetoric and angry words, and find a way to symbolically join hands in the spirit of unity.

I will pray that we will find a way to remove that gargantuan albatross necklace from our stiff necks and walk unimpeded, unprejudiced, and with pride.

In another coincidental non-coincident, yesterday's Word of the Day was cackleberry.  Not nearly as compelling and thought-provoking as albatross, but certainly an honored member of our lexicon.  And it begs the question:  what came first, the albatross or the cackleberry.

Come on.  Look it up if you need to.  I did.  And, you know,  just maybe you'll have something to smile about today.  And that, just maybe, might be the start of something good.  Something really good.

Beware the Blob

The gang I ran with is on the seventy side of sixty.  Most of our dreams either came true, didn't quite make it, or split the difference.  And maybe the time is near to pull the plug on those that didn't.  While comfortably basking in those that did.  But age and dreams aside, I like to think about those freckled, sunburned, sweaty, jeans-clad years of my youth.   In fact, I have a friend that, every time we get together to chew on the past,  remarks how great it would be to have a do-over,  just one day, to relive a snapshot out of times gone by.  Just a day to go back and wallow in all that was, without a solitary thought of all that wasn't or would be.  One more visit to the old neighborhood and find ourselves astride bulky, single speed Schwin bikes, dodging the familiar cracks and faults in the sidewalks and maneuvering around the rare pedestrian.  Trudging one more time with bats and balls and gloves to the vacant lot that was the nexus of our neighborhood to deposit another pint or two of blood, sweat, and tears into the ragged soil of that hallowed ground.  Or gather in a gang after supper and choose sides for Kick the Can or Capture the Flag and dash between fireflies and clotheslines in the thick, watery air of a magical July evening.

It's okay to say that those were the "good old days" because they were our good old days.  Days when the 'hood was a town block, four quiet, small-town streets creating a perfect square of modest houses on tidy lawns.  Days when homes were slung open to drop-in company every morning and remained unlocked at night, screen doors slamming with the traffic of neighborhood living, and curtains dancing slowly to the breeze slipping through wide-open windows.  Days when all mothers were your mothers, all fathers were equally respected and feared, and friends were more like brothers and sisters than just...well...friends.

Days when calls to supper echoed across lawns and slipped through the shade of enormous elms and oaks and mulberries.  Days when dogs ran free and gobbled their meals at whichever house they found themselves at near mealtime.  Days when bike crashes and errant rocks brought mothers bustling out of houses and into streets armed with towels, bandaids, and mercurochrome.  Days when mile wide front porches were oases from the heat of the summer,  a sweaty glass of ice water was a indescribable delight, and heaven was sipping a chocolate milkshake at the drugstore counter the day the latest Superman comic came out.

And in these current times, these difficult times of division, polarization, and raging battles of differing preferences and perspectives,  I can't help but recall the odd excitement of the presidential election years of my youth.  When the candidates were both good, solid, trustworthy folks and they talked about what needed to be done to make sure that our country did the things that demonstrated and garnered respect nationally and internationally. Things that improved the lives of all Americans.  Things that manufactured hope for the future.  They kissed babies and shook hands, even with each other, and instilled a sense of safety, security, and prosperity even in us snotty nosed kids.  And when our parents and neighbors talked about their preferred candidate, they did it quietly and with respect.  Mock elections were held in school (I think Nixon finished slightly ahead of Kennedy at Robert E. Lee Elementary) and I don't remember a single case of yelling or screaming or fighting or even a modicum of anger, regardless of who came out on top.  Election nights were stay-up-late nights, black and white television coverage with totals written and erased and rewritten on chalkboards, truly unbiased anchors reporting the results of each state with a mixture of excitement and solemnity.  And the next morning, the sun rose, bottles of milk and cream appeared on back porches like magic, folks headed to their jobs, and we had a new president.  And everyone went back to living and working and striving to be good neighbors and upright citizens.

So when my friend talks about getting a do-over, just one more trip back down memory lane,  I nod and agree and say, yes, what a great thing that would be.  And we sit there with our own thoughts and remember those days and those things that still bring us great joy.  And make us smile.

Times were simpler.  Weren't they?

You know, they say that "the good old days" are constantly changing.  That all the past eventually becomes "the good old days."  And I can't completely disagree with that.  Or, at least, I couldn't until recently.  Until the last several months when it seemed you could hear the fabric of this great country of ours sickeningly rip.  When it became painfully evident how polarized we have become as a society.  How anger and hate has bubbled its way into our lives like the Blob did in that movie of the late fifties.  Some of you remember The Blob.   It starred a wall of disgusting gook that grew larger every time it consumed someone or something.  It ate houses and farms.  It devoured everything in its path.  At one point, it became such a huge mass of destructive gunk that it appeared it would eventually destroy the entire nation...maybe the entire world.   Thankfully for us wide-eye, popcorn-crunching and gum-popping adolescents, Steve McQueen discovered that cold stuff killed the Blob and a group of kids armed with fire extinguishers bravely faced it down and froze it. The Air Force flew it to the Arctic and dropped it in the middle of that icy wilderness.  The movie finished with a typical "The End," but, this time, it was followed by a question mark.  Leaving us all to wonder if it might, Lord forbid, one day return.

Is the Blob back?  And is it this universal accumulation of hate and rage that we see every time we turn on the television or boot up a social media site?  And is it again consuming everything in its path and growing to gargantuan proportions?  Were these movie makers actually prophets?  And, if the Blob was a prophetic warning, can we stop it?

Maybe.

If we can, it will take more than a group of kids with fire extinguishers, but I do believe that the end to the Blob begins with the kids.  Well, actually it begins with us adults ceasing to act less mature than kids and providing them with appropriate role modeling.  It starts with us taking charge of our individual lives and not being influenced by negativity.  It starts with us saying "no more" to each and every faction that wishes to influence us in such a way that is derogatory to a peaceful society and a great nation founded on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  It starts and ends with us refusing to be devoured.  Refusing to be sucked in by this ravenous monster that disguises itself as the "new norm."  And if we can do that, then maybe, just maybe, the current generation can overcome all the raging divisiveness that we are handing them and have a shot at  their "good old days."

And maybe that's what my friend's do-over is all about.  It's not about us being able to go back and live a day in that utopia we so fondly recall.  It's about doing what it takes for future generations to have their moments in the sun.  It's about giving them something equivalent to all the goodness of the days we were blessed with.  It's about giving them a chance.  It's about giving them something better than a frosty soda fountain milkshake and the latest edition of the Superman comic.

Hold on a minute, though.  That might be a little tough.  Because when I really think about it,  I'm pretty sure that there could never truly be anything better than that.

But we could certainly try.

Margie and the cows

Margie Gray loved animals.  I remember one of her brothers telling me a story many years ago about how when Margie was a little girl, for lack of anything else being available to adopt,  she would rummage and dig in the cool, mossy crevices of the spring above the family's cabin until she found a box turtle to make a pet of.  Not a lot of pet potential there I would think, but I suppose when you're a little girl in the middle of the country off Lee's Creek, you made do.

The photo at the beginning of this blog piece is my favorite of my mother.  Hands-down.  I don't know what touches me most:  her fashion magazine look against a backdrop of borderline poverty, the countenance of absolute rapture that emanates from the two pooches, or the other-worldly glow of my mother's face as she seems to divine the innocence and unconditional love from her pets, routing it up through her heart and out  her eyes.  Eyes that seem to have found something farther down the road.

No one has the perfect life but some fare better than others.  Margie Cashion was barely into her teens when her mother passed away after a long, tough illness.  The decade of the Great Depression colored her childhood in ways that I'll never know.  World War II found her moving to Louisville with her sister Hazel and finding employment at Bowman Field.  She met my dad on a blind date during a visit back home, fell in love with a recently discharged soldier, married and built a life.

Folks I knew always said that if there was reincarnation, they wanted to come back as one of Margie Gray's pets.

Fast-forward forty years and my mother found herself in the role of a farmer.  A cattle farmer of all things.  And there was the rub.  Being an unapologetic animal lover made life tougher than it had to be on a cattle farm.  It didn't help that she named each and every calf that was born.  Or that she bottle-fed all the calves that found themselves rejected by their mothers.  Or the innumerable nights that Margie Gray doctored and nurtured a sick cow or calf back to health.

Bonds are great until they must be severed.

So, you see, sale days were particularly tough.  Getting the calves loaded wasn't the problem.  When the truck and trailer arrived, she simply called up her babies.  I can still hear her voice:  "Come on, babies, let's go.  Come on babies."  And here they would come, crowding onto the trailer as calmly as if they were going on a field trip.

 No, the problem came when the trailer pulled away with a crunch of gravel and clouds of dust and rolled down the drive to begin the trip to the sale barn.  My mother grieved.  She grieved as deeply and as long as the cow mothers did.

My dad passed away in 2001 and my mother held on as long as she could.  But the time came that the herd had to go.  Geri and I came down from Nashville that morning, to lend moral and emotional support as much as anything else.  When the buyers arrived, the cattle were herded and loaded. It was a long, grueling process and my mother shed a tear for each animal as it was loaded on a trailer.  Unfortunately, it wasn't a clean sweep, and there were a handful that managed to slip away into the woods, and no matter how hard anyone tried, they couldn't be coaxed to load.

The next morning, the buyers arrived armed with more men...and horses...and ATVs.  And for twelve hours they tried to catch a half dozen head, four cows and two calves.  It was a loud and anguished day.  Lots of yelling, cursing, screaming.  ATVs tearing through the woods like giant hornets.  Men brandishing lariats on horses attempting to corner animals half as agile but twice as determined not to be cornered.  The whole sweaty crew left that evening with nothing but dusty clothes and sunburned necks to show for it.  Said they'd be back the next morning with more horses and more ATVs.

That evening, as the sun was setting behind the woods and filling the sky with a soft strawberry glow, my mother walked out to where the pasture met the woods and called. Her voice carried lightly on the breeze.

"Come on, babies, let's go.  Come on babies."

And, one by one, they ambled out of the woods and into the paddock she had readied with hay and water.  Once they were in, she closed the gate.

My mother always said the farm was never the same without cattle.  She said that they kept her company after Dad died.  And that it felt good to have something out there living and breathing on all those stretched-out acres.  She said she liked hearing them and being able to look out her windows or back door and see them.  They were really nice company, she claimed.

And I sometimes think maybe that was what that pretty, well-dressed young woman was seeing all those many years ago, in that rough scrabbly yard with the two pups pressed reverently against her.  I think maybe she was seeing her future and that her future would contain lots of creatures needing her.  Lots of innocent four-legged guys and gals needing a true and steady advocate.  Lots of creatures in search of a soothing voice, a kind touch, and a strong and loving heart.

If they were fortunate enough to cross paths with Margie Gray, they found all these things and more,  I believe.  And were happier and better for it.

As was I.