...the sounds of the earth are like music...

I've written and rewritten this several times over the years. It was on the Window in February of 2018 during what must have been very bad week. I grieve for the bad weeks we've had since then and for the ones that are probably in front of us. But there is joy, too. There is joy. Thank you again to those who give it. Thanks for reading this again. Have a good week. Be safe. Be nice to somebody. - Liz

Oh the sounds of the earth are like music

The breeze is so busy, it don't miss a tree

An' a ol' weepin' willer is laughin' at me -

Richard Rodgers

I’m not a movie person, but the quote above is from Oklahoma. I used it because I love what he was able to do with a few words that give voice to how I feel. But, about movies--I have trouble sitting in one place for two hours and the truth is, I don't like very many new movies--although there are some exceptions to that. I don't like violence, I don't think sex is a spectator sport, and I still flinch at four-letter words, especially when there are a dozen of them in a sentence. I’m not crazy about animation and I hate stupid, so it really cuts down on things to watch.

I am a theatre person. If it’s on stage, I’m probably going to like it. Worse than that for anyone around me, if it’s a musical, I’m going to sing with it.
I can't quote many things from movies and plays I have seen, beyond the obvious. "My dear, I don't give a damn" and "I see dead people" come to mind. But I can remember scenes and how they made me feel. Especially that—how they made me feel.

I remember when Old Yeller died. When Sally Field stood on a conveyer belt and held up a sign saying UNION in Norma Rae. When Chamberlain and his Mainers charged Little Round Top for the third time with nothing more than bayonets and heart in Gettysburg. When Rick Nelson and Dean Martin sang in Rio Bravo. When black soldiers got boots in Glory. When Jimmy Stewart filibustered in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. (Is anyone with me on thinking that should be required viewing for all members of Congress and they can’t swear in until they get it?) The eight times I saw A Hard Day’s Night in the theater. Seeing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” being sung on Broadway. There are so many I can’t begin to think of them all.

In 1994, I made my daughter’s wedding dress. Also the matron of honor’s, three bridesmaids’, and two flower girls’ dresses. (I bought the Mother of the Bride one--I was tired.) From March until August, I didn’t venture too far from the sewing machine. Over and over, while I sewed, I watched Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, the ones with Megan Follows and the late Jonathan Crombie playing Anne and Gilbert.

  

I loved how they made me feel while I sewed. They got me over the crying-over-attaching-lace and the many times I said, “I can’t do this,” and all the days I was much too tired to thread the needle one more time.

 

Duane and I went to see The Dixie Swim Club at the Ole Olsen Memorial Theater. While I admit to some bias, I think Peru, Indiana’s local theater group is full of outstanding talent, and it’s never been showcased any better than it is in this play. I laughed so hard I nearly cried, and then there was a brilliant, aching point where I was crying. Several years later I talked to Laura Stroud, one of the stars of the play, and when I tried to talk to her about that one line she had delivered with so much perfection it sliced my heart right in two, I got sniffly again and, oh, it felt so good.
It’s always nice when readers say something that makes you goofy-smile and happy-dance all day. Or when they let you know you got them through something that would have been harder otherwise. It means that even though they may forget your name, the title of the book, or even its protagonists, they’ll still remember how you made them feel. It doesn’t get any better than that.

It’s been a rough week for virtually everyone. Finding this column and changing it made me think of lines from Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You”:

Did you turn off that violent old movie you're watchin'

And turn on I Love Lucy reruns?

I remember doing that during that awful September, when the news became unbearable. Not I Love Lucy per se, but other reruns. Shows that didn’t hurt. Shows made us feel better, as if we could get through the day.

My niece, Sara Nider Biggs, is a teacher with two children. This week, she said on Facebook, “Every day, be sure to tell somebody Thank You.” Sara was starting with her children’s teachers, who keep them safe every day.

 
I join her in that, thanking everyone who does all they can to keep children safe. I also thank all those people who did and do write, direct, and act in movies and plays, and who sing songs and write books that I can’t quote lines from. Because no matter how hard or sad or impossible times are, you make us feel. You make us feel wonderful.

Have a good week. Be nice to somebody.

1993 to 2022 - some things stay the same...

I apologize. Again. Saturday morning slipped up on me and I don't have time to write a new one, so I hope you don't mind having this again. This is from sometime in 1993 and was repeated in 2017. The green carpet's long gone. A flower bed is where the hydrant used to be. Chris's feet eventually stopped growing. There are things I wrote back then that I look at and say, "What was I thinking?" But then there are others like this one, when I actually got it right. Thanks for stopping by. Don't sweat the grape juice.

Close your eyes

Listen to the skies

All is calm, all is well

- Roger Miller

There's this spot in our back yard near the porch. It's a rectangle, about four feet by ten feet or so. The grass grows really thick and nice there, probably because the hydrant, with the garden hose hanging from it, is there, too, and our garden hoses always leak.

It didn't used to look like that. It used to be all dirt--or mud, depending on if anyone was using the hose--and littered with Tonka trucks and little green army men and Weebles and Fisher-Price people. There was usually a filthy little boy sitting in the middle of it. It drove me crazy.

So now there's no more mud, and the filthy little boy is 19 and in college and a lot bigger than I am. Like I said, the grass grows thick and nice there.

I hate it.

Several years back, some of my in-laws were coming for a weekend visit. They were coming on Saturday morning. Well, there was a basketball game on Friday night and my husband and I both had to work Saturday morning. To make a long story short, the house was a disaster from top to bottom and there was no time to clean it. So I cringed and worried and left a note for my kids when I left for work on Saturday morning. "Please," I wrote, "just mow a path through the living room."

As kids often do, they surprised me. When I got home, you could smell the Pine-Sol from the back yard. They gave me a guided tour of all they'd done.

"We swept and dusted and made beds," they said, gesturing at all the splendor. "Here are the dishes done, the stove wiped off, the grape juices spilled on the carpet, all the newspapers picked up."

Grape juice on the carpet? I picked up on that right away. Sure enough, right in the middle of the doorway between the kitchen and living room was a splattery purplespot on the green carpet. It was not, need I tell you, a pretty combination.

"Oh, well, get me a rag," I said. "It's a new stain. It'll come up."

"No, Mom. We tried."

"You just need to use a little elbow grease," I argued.

"It won't come up, Mom."

It wouldn't.

Until we cut that carpet away last year to enlarge the kitchen, we had a purple-on-green spot that leaped out at me as soon as I entered the room. I noticed it every time and it never bothered me the least bit. Because when I saw the purple spot, I remembered how hard the kids had worked that morning.

It more than equaled out.

The first time our older son went to basketball camp, since his feet were growing

at the rate of a full size every couple of days--at least, that's what it seemed like--I bought him a new pair of basketball shoes. They were really, really cheap, but they looked just like the ones that cost a whole lot. With what camp cost, I explained to Chris, there was no way we could buy expensive shoes, too. No problem, he lied. When he came home a week later, his feet were raw and bleeding where they had blistered and re-blistered.

A few years later, I was bemoaning our financial status when Chris walked through the room wearing his basketball shoes, ones that had cost that "whole lot" I mentioned above. Duane pointed at his feet. "There it goes," he said. "Do you really mind that?"

Well, no. No, I didn't mind.

When your kids grow up, which they do really fast no matter how you try to slow the process, sometimes people express envy that you have your child-raising days behind you. If only for the purpose of making you feel wise, they ask for your advice. You try to abstain from giving that advice, because no two children are alike, so you can't treat them as if they are.

But I can say this much. Buy them good shoes so they'll grow straight and sturdy. Let them play in mud so they'll learn about building up and tearing down. And most of all, whatever you do, don't sweat the grape juice.

Have a great week. Be nice to somebody. 

Come Rejoicing by Liz Flaherty

Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,
Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve;
Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

I have nothing to say today. Actually, I do. I have plenty. There are times, I admit, that I wish I wrote a political column--not one where I just get political sometimes, but a real political one.

But that's not going to happen. I don't know enough--and yes, that should be a stopper--and my skin is way too thin--and wrinkled--to survive the backlash. 

So, let's just talk.

Has that moon the past few days not been the most beautiful thing? We were coming home last night and I'm almost sure I saw the man in it!

Jan and Gary Wooten

We listen to music a lot. (One of us plays it, too.) Last night we got to listen to old, familiar songs at a friend's house on Lake Manitou. Tonight, Second Saturday, we will listen at Gallery 15. One day this week, while searching out the lyrics to an old hymn, I sang "Bringing In the Sheaves" to no one in particular while I wrote. (I take the term "joyful noise" very seriously.) 

I wouldn't be me if I didn't offer advice. If you don't do lunch with friends, you should. It's so much cheaper than therapy, you can pack a boatload of memories into an hour around a table, no one cares at all about your thin and wrinkled skin, and there isn't time for grudges. (Actually, there should never be time for grudges, but that's another column where I might need to have a teeny bit of focus to offer the subject.)

Are you planning a trip? Where are you going? My idea of travel is a new place every month and Duane's is an old place every four or five years, so you can see why I'm curious. It's called traveling vicariously. Although my friend Nan and I are going to Michigan for a few days soon and it will be so much fun, I have an itch for a new place. Where do you suggest?

I love trees. Just saying. And flowers. I want some of those "naked lady" lilies, some ditch lilies, and every purple flower that grows wild. The ones in this picture were included in my birthday bouquet. The roses are long gone, but these are still brightening up my desk. Other than kids and kittens, I don't grow things well, but if I did, I'd have those lilies and purple flowers. 

We've had the windows open this week. Although, as a survivor of hundreds of hot flashes over the years, I'd never give up central air conditioning, I have enjoyed the reminder of how much I love to hear the birds. 

So that's how I'll leave this one. I hope you've seen the moon, heard the birds, and enjoyed the flowers this week. Oh, and experienced lots of joyful noises, too. Until next time, have a good week, watch out for kids walking to school and school buses stopping--that means you're supposed to stop, too--and take the detours out there; you might see something new. Thank a teacher, hug somebody, and donate to a worthy cause. It'll not only make someone else's day, but your own as well. Be nice to somebody. 

 

Relevancy and Diet Cherry Coke by Liz Flaherty

I use skim milk. I like to buy it in half-gallons because I don't use that much of it and I don't like to throw it away. 

I use sugar-free hazelnut coffee creamer. Yes, I know this grosses a lot of people out, but I really like it. The sugar-free part makes me feel righteous.

When I am watching what I eat, which is fifty percent of the time--the other fifty, I just eat without watching--I use Land O Lakes spreadable light butter. No, it's not as good as the real thing, but, as I said above, it makes me feel righteous. Don't I look thinner to you?

While I'm on that subject, I'm also fond of Kraft fat-free shredded cheese and Diet Cherry Coke. 

My husband likes Folger's Special Roast coffee. He will drink other coffee cheerfully, but this is his favorite. Before this, he drank Maxwell House's Slow Roast. 

I have a favorite kind of underwear. Not expensive. Nice colors. Always available at Walmart so I didn't have to look high and low to find them. I used to have a favorite bra, too, that was expensive, came in colors I loved, and was fairly available at a couple of places. 

Well, guess what. All the things I mentioned above--with the possible exception of the skim milk, although that has happened, too--have become either difficult or impossible to find. In some sad cases, they have been discontinued or...heaven forbid...improved.

What all this boils down to is that I might be an influencer (on my most hated word of the year list, and yet I'm using it--go figure) who has subliminally coerced everyone to like the same things I do so they're never in stock. However, the more likely scenario is that the things I like aren't popular enough with marketing and public opinion polls to keep them available to the general public. 

Because...you know...that demographic thing. I already know I'm not in the age group marketing experts consult or care about pleasing. I am, after all, over 49--well over 49 Does this tick me off? Oh, yes. The same thing happens with books. While I have more money to spend on books now, there are fewer that fit within the parameters of what I want to read because those "in the know" don't realize that ones outside the lines in their coloring books don't deserve being recognized. In their minds and their playbooks, we lack relevancy. 

It kind of reminds me of the DOT running roughshod all over the place because people who don't live in large cities are merely incidental and don't need convenience. Oh, but that's another column for another day. 

Do I have a solution for my soliloquy of complaints up there? No. We will just find things we like almost as well to replace those we can't find and life will go on. 

But the marketers and the advertisers and the corporations are wrong about one thing. They've been wrong about it all along. Everyone's relevant, whether they want to recognize it or not. 

Have a good week. Be nice to somebody. 

Keep Hunting by Liz Flaherty

Sometimes you just have nice things happen. Isn't it great when they do? Yeah, I'm going to do the Pollyanna thing again. And, please, feel free to join in. I've read recently that blogs are dead--please, no!--and I don't think they are, but commenting isn't very healthy anymore. I miss that. But, anyway...Pollyanna...

On Thursday night, we went to Ole Olsen and saw Drinking Habits in the dinner theater performance. We got to sit with friends, catch up with friends we hadn't seen for a long time, eat a delicious meal from Club 14 and laugh so hard that my stomach hurt. (That could have been the turtle cheesecake on top of that delicious meal I just mentioned, but I'm not going to admit that.) 

The play will be on tomorrow and next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (matinee). If you don't have your tickets yet, call 765-472-3690 and leave a message or go to https://www.onthestage.tickets/ole-olsen-memorial-theatre Don't miss it...don't even be late. I was singing that right there--did you hear me? No? You're welcome.

Then, last night, my daughter Kari and I went to Beef & Boards in Indianapolis and saw Hello, Dolly. Even without me singing along (I think they were okay with that--what is it with people and my singing?), the cast did a great job. Once again, the food was good and the service was great. We made new friends at the table next to us and someone thought Kari and I were sisters. I mean, maybe they didn't really think that, but I accepted it gracefully anyway.

One day this week, it was 70-some degrees, the kind of warmth that sits gently on your skin and lets hope dance around your soul. Admittedly, the wind blew that warmth all over the place, but it still felt good. Still smelled good. Still made me think spring really is here somewhere, greening up the grass and inviting color to pop joyfully out of the ground. 

Three of our grandkids have had birthdays in the past 10 days--one of them is today. Their birthdays always make me think of them when they were little--Tierney only a few weeks old napping on Duane's chest and them snoring together; Fionnegan at five in Ireland, laughing so hard when he and his dad jumped out from behind a post; Eamon not yet old enough to walk, solemn-faced, bobbing his head with the music. The joy of those memories makes my eyes a little leaky but my heart so glad.

On Facebook, I saw where two scared little boys knocked on someone's door and received the kind of help frightened children everywhere should get without even asking. It would be better if children weren't frightened at all, but when they are...when they are...we need to fix it. My thanks as a nana to the person who protected them.

Sunrise was orange this morning. The colors in the sky are so amazing this year. I think I probably say that every spring, but this time, I really mean it. And next time, I will mean it even more.  

There is much to mourn in the world, much to generate anger (and many to proliferate it avidly), much to create the sadness that does its best to squash that dancing hope. 

But there's still the orange, still glorious music, still stomach-wrenching laughter, still people who protect children. As Eleanor H. Porter wrote in Pollyanna, “... there is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.”

Be glad this week. Seek out the orange, thank the givers and the doers, sing along (it's Brandi Carlile and me this morning--I think she's probably a little better), laugh hard, find the joy. Be nice to somebody.

I Don't Talk Funny--You Talk Funny by Liz Flaherty

Let's talk about traveling. Want to? 

It's one of my very favorite things, from the first trip in my memory--Pennsylvania--to the one I just came home from: Nashville, Indiana. 

Honestly? I don't remember much about the trip to Pennsylvania--I was only five, I think. I remember sleeping in a chair that stretched out flat in a motel room, that my cousins had cool tricycles, and that there were sidewalks all over the place on Jones Street in Hollidaysburg that made riding them so much fun. I remember my grandpa advising me to watch my step at Horseshoe Curve right before he tripped and that the adults talked a lot. Why would they talk when there were so many things to do? (I came to understand this later...)

A trip with my friend Shirley and her parents to Washington, DC in 1965 deepened my love for this country and its traditions. Many, many years later, I still remember how it felt to stand in front of Mr. Lincoln in his memorial, the powerful sense of sacrifice that came with visiting Arlington National Cemetery, the pride that came along with being inside the capitol building. At the national fireworks on July 4, there were several hundred thousand people in attendance, well beyond anything I'd ever seen, much less been part of. 

There have been other trips that remain vivid in my mind. Back to DC with our kids, to Ireland in 2009, to Vermont when the sense of homecoming went so deep I still feel it, to the Blue Ridge and the coast of Maine, to Florida's white sand beaches. I have loved everywhere I've been, although a few times the only things I really loved were the people we were there to see. Texas, anyone? 

Writing retreats are some of my favorite excursions. Something about sitting in a house on the side of a mountain with laptops and glasses of local wine and/or endless cups of coffee just brings out the best words in writers. I can't explain it, but there you go. 

While home is my favorite place to be, I'm so grateful to have seen the places I have. I hope I get to see a lot more. I want to hear the accents--I don't talk funny; you talk funny--feel the social vibrations that differ from place to place, and crane my neck to look at wonders both natural and man-made. I want to sleep on beds I don't have to make and use towels I don't have to launder (even though they're always white; have I ever mentioned that I don't like white?) and eat lots and lots of food that tastes different from what I'm accustomed to and--most importantly--I don't have to cook or clean up after. 

I guess there hasn't been much point to this column. Are you surprised? But I'd love to hear how you feel about travel. About your favorite places or even about your Texas. Any advice on where I should go next or how I can talk Duane into it? 

God, I love traveling.

Have a good week. Go somewhere. Be nice to somebody. 

Needs, Wants, and Precedence

Last night, I dreamed about buying a new car, but the area was flooded and we had to go through water to do everything. Not in boats, just in water. It felt warm and I wasn't especially scared, but...water? I AM scared of water. When I got into my kids' hot tub, I didn't take a deep breath until I was in there and seated, and then I had to worry about getting out. (The half hour in between made it all worthwhile, believe me.)

This was an idiotic dream. To begin with, my car is only two years old and I love it to pieces--I have no wish for a new one. To go on with, I am scared of water. I would cheerfully wear a life preserver in the hot tub if one were offered. I've always said I'm afraid of bridges, too, but I'm not--it's the water underneath them. 

What I am taking the long way to get to is the word need. I love being around water, especially beaches in the Carolinas or the Panhandle in Florida, but I need to not go in that water any deeper than my knees. Ankles are better, but I don't want to be extreme. 

My husband and I, although we've been together over half a century, don't share the same values system on numerous things. We used to cancel each other out voting, have glaring conversations about labor-management situations, and stare at each other in disbelief that...you know...how could we possibly have been that mistaken when we chose a life partner?

We have learned, though, that while we will never agree on some pretty basic things, when we need the other one to stay on the side of marriage's slippery slope that they might not prefer, that need takes precedence over preference. When one of us--not naming names--needs to not have potato chips in the house, the other one has to suffer salt deprivation in response to that need. 

Which brings us to social media and politics. Yeah, I know, I'm sorry, but both of them really interest me and they definitely lend a cesspool consistency to our understanding of each other.

We need to respect opinions other than our own, we need to always tell the truth, we need to stop the name-calling. 

Did I say we? Well, yeah, I did. I have to remind myself daily to use the delete key! I don't play the whataboutism game, but I am a great one for posting opposing views and statistics that I have researched. While I believe strongly in what I present, the ones I say it to aren't going to change their minds any more than I am. So if I'm on their FB page, the delete key is a really good idea. Not calling anyone names or saying things that aren't wholly true (am I repeating myself?) is an even better one. 

Those things are like decency, kindness, love for others, and things to laugh at. They're things we need, and if they cost us something. that's okay, too.

Have a great week. Be nice to somebody. Even if you don't agree with what they say. 

At the end of the day...

I'm sorry-not sorry to repeat this yet again, but it's a favorite. And Tuesday would be my parents' anniversary. Maybe it's a favorite because it reminds me of not only the goods in a long relationship, but the bads as well--and that we can get...not over them, but through them. Thanks for reading this again. 

In 2012. I had a book out called A Soft Place to Fall, about a marriage gone wrong and how two people found ways to make it right. I still have a soft spot for that book and for long marriages. I regret that I sometimes get a little too glib when I talk about it--I make it all sound easy when it's not at all. At the end of the day, though, marriage is private and what goes on within it is not to be shared. No one really understands anyone else's. Looking back on this, my feelings toward my parents' marriage haven't changed, but I have come to realize that--at the end of that day I just mentioned--it wasn't really any of my business.

“A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.” ― Dave Meurer

On September 28, 1935, my parents went to a minister’s house and got married. My dad wore a double-breasted suit and my mom had on a hat. They stayed married through the rest of the Great Depression and three wars, through the births of six children and the death of one at the age of three, through failing health and the loss of all their parents and some of my father’s siblings. Dad died in 1981, Mom in 1982. They were still married.

From the viewpoint of their youngest child, who was born in their early 40s when they thought they were finished with all that, it was the marriage from hell. I never saw them as a loving couple, never saw them laugh together or show affection or even hold hands. They didn’t buy each other gifts, sit on the couch together, or bring each other cups of coffee. The only thing I was sure they shared was that—unlike my husband and me—they didn’t cancel out each other’s vote on Election Day.

“Why on earth,” I asked my sister once, “did they stay together all those years? Mom could have gone home to her family, even if she did have to take a whole litter of kids. Heaven knows Dad could have.” (He was the adored youngest son and brother—he could do no wrong.)

Nancy gave me the look all youngest siblings know, the one that says, “Are you stupid?” When you’re grown up, it replaces the look that says, “You’re a nasty little brat.” But I regress.

“Don’t you get it?” my sister asked. Her blue eyes softened. So did her voice. “They loved each other. Always. They just didn’t do it the way you wanted them to.”

Oh.

I remembered then. When they stopped for ice cream because Mom loved ice cream. How they sat at the kitchen table across from each other drinking coffee. How thin my dad got during Mom’s long illness because “I can’t eat if she can’t.” When they watched Lawrence Welk reruns together and loud because—although neither would admit it—their hearing was seriously compromised.

And the letters. The account of their courtship. We found them after Mom’s death, kept in neat stacks. They wrote each other, in those days of multiple daily mail deliveries, at least once a day and sometimes twice. When I read those letters, I cried because I’d never known the people who wrote them.

I have to admit, my parents’ lives had nothing to do with why I chose to write romantic fiction. I got my staunch belief in Happily Ever After from my own marriage, not theirs. But how you feel about things and what you know—those change over the years.

As much as I hated my parents’ marriage—and I truly did hate it—I admire how they stuck with it. I’ve never appreciated the love they had for each other, but I’ve come to understand that it never ended. I still feel sorry sometimes for the little girl I was, whose childhood was so far from storybook that she wrote her own, but I’m so grateful to have become the adult I am. The one who still writes her own stories.

But—and this is the good part—these are the things I know.

Saying “I love you” doesn’t always require words. Sometimes it’s being unable to eat because someone else isn’t. Sometimes it’s stopping for ice cream. Sometimes—and I realized this the other day when my husband and I were bellowing “Footloose” in the car—it’s hearing music the same way, regardless of how it sounds to anyone else.

Marriage is different for different people. So is love. So is Happily Ever After.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad.

About the time change...and other things

 

There is little I like less than the biannual time change. It takes me two weeks to get used to it and a good deal longer than that to stop complaining about it. I have asked many times over the years for legitimate documentation that demonstrates that the change is good for the majority. Or that the majority wants the time change. I have pleaded with lawmakers to explain its reasoning and to at least take some kind of poll to see how their constituency feels about having their lives upended by a tyrannical clock twice a year.

No documentation has been forthcoming. Ever. If lawmakers do bother answering my requests, it is with form replies that appear to address a multitude of possible situations that have never affected any Hoosier in the 200-plus years of our statehood. None of which have anything to do with changing time.

Since the time change isn’t scheduled until November, you may wonder why I’m starting my complaints so early. Do I really intend to keep going on about this until Thanksgiving, when my mind turns to more important things like food and family? Did I just hear mumbles of Get over it already! wafting through cyberspace?

Well, maybe, but I’m talking about it now because of how the sky looked when I came out to my office at six-something this morning. It was so beautiful I stopped in the driveway with the cats and just enjoyed it. Watching the changes that had nothing to do with legislation and taking a picture that isn’t a hundredth as good as the real thing was.

Now I’m at the point—perhaps you recognize it, since it happens almost every week—where I realize I don’t know where I’m going with this.

I think I’ll go this way.

Although the lawmakers have seen fit to legislate the clock, they haven’t yet found a way to shut down or charge for the ongoing and ever-changing beauty of the sky. I’m fairly certain they’ll find a way to tax it or perhaps put a bounty on people who’ve watched too many sunrises and sunsets to suit them, but we’re not there yet.

I’d just about bet it ticks them off that even though they’re able to make six o’clock into five o’clock come November, they can’t make the sky change its stripes accordingly. The days will still have only 24 hours in them and just as many of those hours will be dark as before.

Think about it. Government can mandate how we set our clocks and what women do with their bodies, but they won’t insist people wear masks as a safety measure. They permit all kinds of chemicals and endless fossil fuel emissions to permeate the air we all breathe, but understate the importance of a vaccine.

At the same time, they’ll encourage the use of an unapproved mostly-for-animals medication. Not just for themselves, which would be fine with me, but for others who will take their medical advice because they almost certainly know more than medical personnel and other scientists, don’t they?

Sometimes I wish they’d just leave things alone when they don’t know what they’re talking about, don’t you?

And while they’re at it, getting rid of the time change would be nice, too.

Have a great week. Stay safe. Be nice to somebody.  

Make A New Plan by Liz Flaherty

It's Christmas morning as I write this. The TV's on, although I'm not sure why. My little battery candle is flickering against the darkness of the window. I'm the only one up, which is what happens when a morning person shares life with a night owl. I've loved seeing the Christmas messages on Facebook this morning, just as I've enjoyed opening each day's deposit of Christmas cards. 

Earlier, someone politicized It's A Wonderful Life in a comment. I did my usual thing--I wrote a reply to the comment, then deleted my reply and scrolled on. It was her page she commented on, after all, and her right to do so. 

But I wonder why she wanted to, on this morning of all mornings when we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace. It's two hours since I first saw it, and I still wonder why she wanted to.

A few months ago, when I was forcing Duane into a conversation that involved...yes, I'll say it...feelings, I asked him what he would change about me. Just one thing, because I wasn't going to start dusting AND remembering to lock the door. What he said, though, and I'm paraphrasing here, was that he wished I was able to let things go. He didn't say, "Holy s***, Liz, you dwell on everything," although the truth is that he would be entitled to say that after nearly 50 years of me...dwelling. (And not dusting in a timely manner or locking doors ever, but we're not going there today.)

I've written about dwelling on things before. Let's be real, I'm old--I've written about everything before, including most of my shortcomings. I have accepted that I'm a dweller.

The day has deepened, a different kind of Christmas but decorated and defined with laughter and good food and "just what I wanted" gifts. I'm once again sitting in front of a computer, and I'm thinking about it again. About the Facebook post I found unnecessarily divisive and rude. I'm not upset about it now, although it disappoints me. But how much time have I given to it by this time? 

Way too much, and what a waste. Maybe I'm wrong about accepting me as I am. As I've always been. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I...

December 26. Candle flickering again. The Keurig is producing my morning sustenance. I read over what I wrote yesterday and shake my head.

I need to be a grownup, I acknowledge. I was right the second time yesterday--accepting myself as I am means I'm more limited than I care to be. So I need to make a plan. I need to work on changing the things about myself that I don't like or that might be hurtful to someone else. (Picking on one's son-in-law isn't always funny, but I love you, Jim.)

But I can't change others. I can't control how they think or communicate. I can only accept. Which is much harder than it sounds. I will work on it. If only I can get to that point, maybe giving up dwelling on what I can't change as a way of life will be possible. 

I don't do New Year's resolutions and I always forget the word of the year by sometime in March. I'm almost certain I'll blow this New Year's plan, too, but I'm going to give letting things go my best shot in 2021. 

I hope you and yours had a splendid Christmas. Happy New Year. Make a plan. 

Have a great week. Be nice to somebody.

***

Thanks to everyone for their response to Window Over the Sink, the book. As soon as I know how long it will take me to get the books, I will offer them for sale as my friend Joe DeRozier does Heck, I Don't Know...I Just Make Donuts. Signed copies for $8 (if you pick them up) plus an extra $4 if you want them mailed to you. 

They're the parents of a player...

I wrote this in August of 1991, when my years on bleachers were winding down, and it's probably been my most repeated essay ever--especially since I drag it out from "under the bed" every year about this time. It's a little dated, I guess, because it's been a long time, but I still think there's very little that's better than watching your kids be engaged, whether it's in sports, drama, debate, or anything else. There are things I'm sorry for from my active parenting days, things I wish I'd said or done and things I wish I hadn't. But I don't regret one minute of being a spectator. 

They're the parents of a player. You'll recognize them because they're the ones carrying umbrellas, rain ponchos, winter coats, a big Thirty-One bag full of blankets, and enough money for the entire family to stuff themselves on popcorn and Spanish hot dogs and nachos because there wasn't enough time for supper before the game.

They bring the weather gear even on a clear night, you'll notice, because although clouds may burst with bucketfuls of rain or snow or both, the parents won't have the option of going home or even to the car. It doesn't matter if everyone else leaves the stands--as long as the players are on the field, their parents are in the bleachers.

She's the mother of a player. You'll recognize her because she's the one whose chin wobbles and whose eyes get big when someone screams at the player she belongs to. She's the one who only claps politely when her son's name is called in the team lineup because she doesn't want anyone teasing her about being unduly biased.

She's the one who, when her son does something wonderful on the field, comes completely unglued and spills popcorn and extra blankets all over the people below her on the bleachers as she jumps up and down and screams, "Way to go, honey!"

She's the mother of a player. You'll recognize her because when a player is down, regardless of who it is, she grows silent and covers her mouth with her hand and swallows hard. She's the one who says, "Is he all right? Is he getting up?" in a whisper heard all around. She's the one who, when he gets up and is fine, is first to clap her hands and laugh breathlessly and shake the fearful moisture from her eyes.

She's the mother of a player. You'll recognize her at the grocery store at five in the morning in her sweats buying food so her son can eat in that twilight time between school and game that is is own. She's the one who has washed uniforms 10,000 times and would cheerfully wash them 10,000 more if it will only keep the player safe.

He's the father of a player. You'll recognize him by his hat. It will have his son's team name on the front above the bill and a number stitched somewhere over his ear. It's a silent advertisement that says, "I'm his dad."

He's the father of a player. You'll recognize him because he's the guy working in the concession stand and craning his neck to see over the customers' heads. He will interrupt his "Can I help you?" spiel with a banshee yell of, "THAT'S IT! THAT'S IT!" and then go on as if nothing had happened. But he'll be smiling real hard.

He's the father of a player. You'll recognize him as the man in the bleachers who doesn't yell very much and never criticizes a player who is not his own. Mistakes make him angry, but someone else drawing attention to those mistakes makes him angrier.

He's the father of a player. You'll recognize him by the blaze of fierce pride that crosses his face and by the look of pain when the kid blows it. Every parent knows that expression of agony--it's the one you wear when you'd like to draw all your child's pain into yourself so he wouldn't have to feel it. Ever.

They're the parents of a player. On Senior Night, she'll be the one with a rose and he'll be the one with his chest puffed out. And their good cheer and enthusiasm on Senior Night will seem a little quiet, a little forced, because they know it's nearly over.

They know they'll soon be able to eat regular meals on Friday nights. That they'll no longer have to spend money on things like football packages and special shoes and funny gloves. That they won't have to sit on wobbly bleachers at away games and listen to announcers who can't pronounce their son's name.

They know the extra blankets and weather gear can go way to the back of the closet and they've probably bought the last bottle of rubber cement necessary for the scrapbook.

Pretty soon, they won't be reading Saturday morning's newspaper before the ink has completely dried and sitting at the kitchen table to listen to "Coach's Corner" on the radio. And they'll be envying the parents of underclassmen who play the game because they get to do it all again next year and maybe the year after.

They're the parents of a player. You'll recognize them because they're always there. Always.

"...out with the crowd..."

This post is old--really old--but I haven't used it for a couple of years, so I hope its reappearance will be forgiven. This summer, as we know, is vastly different from any most of us remember, but down the road a piece, the baseball fields are busy again. There are lots of cars there. Lots of people. Lots of interaction. I hope and pray everyone is safe and being as careful as they can. And I'm thankful to open my car window and hear those voices, those special voices of summer. 

***

In the town closest to us--Denver, Indiana; population in the area of 500--there are two fields in the town park. Players range from knee-high to adult-size and the parking lot is always full-to-bursting. Kids are on the playground and conversations going on in the picnic pavilion. People are lined up for candy, drinks, and popcorn at the concession stand or up the street just a little piece, for ice cream, sandwiches, or pizza at D'Angelo's. 

There are a lot of things that epitomize rural and small-town living, and some of those things are hard to deal with. Conveniences are...well...inconvenient. The politics can be polarizing. We worry a lot about our public schools because they're small and they're in the cross-hairs of the guns of change. 

But these ball fields on sunny summer days, where "everybody knows your name" and, when it comes right down to it, everyone has everyone else's back--these are the essence of this life we've chosen here in North Central Nowhere. 

In baseball, there' s always the next day. - Ryne Sandberg

They're back.

I don’t mean spring flowers or myriad shades of green or much-needed rain or too much wind, though they’re here, too. I’m talking about the boys and girls of summer who dot baseball diamonds and softball fields like the brightest flowers of all.

They all wear caps and they all chew massive wads of gum or something worse. They swing their bats around above their heads and scuff up the dirt at the bases so they can get their uniform pants good and dirty. Then they slide into base a few times to grind that dirt in so that it doesn’t ever come completely out. That’s what they’re supposed to do; they’re ballplayers.

The players’ parents sit in the stands. They eat popcorn and swig on Coca Cola and talk to each other about what they should be doing but can’t because Johnny has a game tonight and Jimmy has a game tomorrow night and Lucy plays on Friday nights and Sundays. They really get tired of sitting at baseball games, they tell each other, but wait a minute! Johnny’s up to bat. The conversation changes, gets louder and more urgent. Good swing. Just get a piece of it. You can do it. Good eye, Johnny. It’s okay, just do the best you can. 

But parents do more than talk at ballgames. They knit, do paperwork, fall asleep in their cars if the day’s started too early and gone on too long. They work in the concession stand and hand out ice packs and free drinks after the game. They dig into their pockets when a kid really wants a Blow Pop but only has a nickel. Then they go home and wash uniforms and talk about how glad they’ll be when it’s all over for the year and they’ll have time to do what the really should have been doing all along.

One summer, when my two sons were playing on separate leagues, I logged the number of baseball games I attended. Forty-two. That was 42 afternoons and evenings I could never get back. Good heavens, I had kids in baseball for 13 years. How many games was that?

To be honest, I do have some regrets about the raising of my kids. I’m sorry I worried about how they wore their hair, that they wore high-tops with dress pants, that their rooms weren’t clean. I’m sorry for the times I was unfair, the times I defended them when I shouldn’t have and didn’t when I should. I wish I’d been a smarter parent and a better example. I regret opportunities missed: when I should have shut up and listened or when I should have said encouraging words instead of their cruel opposite.

But I don’t regret any of those 42 evenings and afternoons a year sitting at baseball games. Buying hot dogs and nachos for the family and calling it supper. Washing uniforms and handing them back to the kids before they were completely dry because it was time to leave for the next game. Talking and laughing with other parents and working in the concession stand when I’d already spent eight hours on my feet that day. I’ve never once been sorry for calling Good eye, Just get a piece of it, Good job.

Life stays rich when your kids are grown. You get to do things you haven’t done in far too long. You can make travel arrangements for two, buy milk and bread once a week, and cook dinner with the surety no one’s going to say, “I don’t like that,” and eat Cheerios instead. You can call your car your own, do laundry a couple of times a week instead of every day, and go for weeks on end without yelling, “turn that thing down,” even once. You don’t have to share your makeup, the bathroom, or your clothes. You can spend money on yourself without lying awake suffering from guilt. No doubt about it; it’s nice.

But sometimes it’s too quiet. Sometimes there’s too much alone time. Sometimes you’d like to sit on bleachers and yell Good swing, Just do your best. Because those are words you never regret saying and your kids always need to hear.

And because when it’s over, when the fat lady of parenthood sings, neither baseball nor summer are ever the same again.

Enjoy every minute.

The best things

From July, 2018:

“…Bluebirds sing for nothing—and the shade comes free with a tree…” – Troy Jones & Shane Decker

I like money. I used to like working with it in my job. I liked paying bills and working out the best way to do it so that we’d have as much money as we had month—well, most of the time. Having more of it would be nice, I guess, but since we don’t really need more, that doesn’t really matter. I like what money can do, but not what it often does do.

Even though I like it, I don’t want it to become important. At least, I don’t want it to become more important than things that are free. When I wrote that, I thought it was sort of profound. I also thought some people reading it would just think it was goofy. And I’m good with that.

But this afternoon on Facebook, I saw pictures of some of our kids and grandkids on different beaches. The sky and the waters of Lake Michigan and the Atlantic Ocean were brilliant blue behind them. The sand was sparkling white. Another of the kids told me about a bicycle ride down the Virginia Creeper Trail. Seventeen miles almost all down-hill. I’m not sure I’ll ever make the ride, but it’s been fun thinking about it, visualizing our son and daughter-in-law riding it, remembering the conversation.

Oh, yes, conversation. Conversation with friends and family is free and priceless at the same time. And sometimes it doesn’t have to be friends or family. In 1973, I waited in line at Disney World behind a couple from Massachusetts who had moved to Georgia. Their accents were a hilarious mash-up, and I still remember the conversation.

Ditch lilies. I like lilies anyway—they’re pretty. We have a yellow day lily that blooms like sunshine day after day. But those orange ones in the ditches all over the place—they light up everything, especially when they’re sharing space with a rainbow of other wildflowers.

Speaking of lighting up, the Big Dipper and all those other star formations (I only know two, so I’m not going to try to sound smart here) give a free light show every night the clouds don’t cover them up. The moon is another extravaganza that doesn’t have a cover charge and is worth a crick in your neck to watch in every presentation from full to the slender quarter known as God’s Thumbnail. Sunrises and sunsets are amazing and awesome. Although I think both those words are overused, they’re also fitting at every dawn and every dusk.

Jokes are free and funny and good for you because they make you laugh. The more laughter you use, the more you want to use, and it never runs out. It’s not fattening, either.

Music is a balm to the spirit. I think live music is best, and it’s easy to find a place to go and listen. But when I look back to the endless years of my adolescence, I’m pretty sure the only reason I survived was that it was the Sixties and I got to listen to the best music ever on WLS and WABC (at night when it came in on the radio) and WOWO.

No one charges you for crying when you’re sad, and sometimes tears are the best salve for emotional pain.

If you are able, nothing is better exercise than walking. Reading is endless entertainment. Watching a bird and a squirrel have a conversation, kids playing baseball, or babies laughing out loud can be day-makers.

Beauty is free. Artists in galleries are always happy to see you come in. To show you the pieces of their hearts that are on display there. To explain the things about art that you might not understand. The feelings you get in those places don’t have a price on them. They are like music only you can hear.

Libraries are windows on the world—yes, I know that’s not an original thought. I admit a lot of people have to pay for cards, but the truth is there is no charge to use the resources inside the building and often the programs offered are free and open to all. These include movies, music, crafts, story-time, study rooms, and great discussion groups.

Kindness is free. Holding doors for people, smiling even if it makes your cheeks hurt because you don’t feel like it, or going through the express lane with only as many purchases as the sign allows. Remembering, when a kid is screaming, that sometimes it’s just hard being two, three, or four, and hard being the mom or dad, too. Calling and saying, “Are you okay? I miss you.”

The smell of flowers. Of sheets fresh off the clothesline. Of new-plowed earth or just-cut grass or hay or the sweetness of a baby’s neck. The sounds of birds. Of laughing. Of “hey, batter, batter…” Of “I love you, too”—always a good answer.

When I started this, I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it long enough, and now I don’t know how to stop. I just went to see my sister, took her a book and shared sciatica stories. We hugged each other, said we loved each other. It was free.

So, yeah, I still like money, but once you get past the food, clothing, shelter, and health care, it’s not nearly as important as the things it can’t buy.

Have a great week. Hug somebody—it’s free.

The sounds of the earth by Liz Flaherty

This is from last year sometime. It's been a week of feeling puny and being behind, so my apologies if you've read this too lately to enjoy it again. The sun's shining today and I'm feeling blessed. Hope you are, too.

Oh the sounds of the earth are like music

The breeze is so busy, it don't miss a tree

An' a ol' weepin' willer is laughin' at me - 

Richard Rodgers

I’m not a movie person, but the quote above is from Oklahoma. I used it because I love what he was able to do with a few words that give voice to how I feel. But, about movies--I have trouble sitting in one place for two hours and the truth is, I don't like very many new movies--although there are some exceptions to that. I don't like violence, I don't think sex is a spectator sport, and I still flinch at four-letter words, especially when there are a dozen of them in a sentence. I’m not crazy about animation and I hate stupid, so it really cuts down on things to watch.

I am a theatre person. If it’s on stage, I’m probably going to like it. Worse than that for anyone around me, if it’s a musical, I’m going to sing with it.

I can't quote many things from movies and plays I have seen, beyond the obvious. "My dear, I don't give a damn" and "I see dead people" come to mind. But I can remember scenes and how they made me feel. Especially that—how they made me feel.

Sally Field in Norma Rae

I remember when Old Yeller died. When Sally Field stood on a conveyer belt and held up a sign saying UNION in Norma Rae. When Chamberlain and his Mainers charged Little Round Top for the third time with nothing more than bayonets and heart in Gettysburg. When Rick Nelson and Dean Martin sang in Rio Bravo. When black soldiers got boots in Glory. When Jimmy Stewart filibustered in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. (Is anyone with me on thinking that should be required viewing for all members of Congress and they can’t swear in until they get it?) The eight times I saw A Hard Day’s Night in the theater. Seeing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” being sung on Broadway. There are so many I can’t begin to think of them all.

          In 1994, I made my daughter’s wedding dress. Also the matron of honor’s, three bridesmaids’, and two flower girls’ dresses. (I bought the Mother of the Bride one--I was tired.) From March until August, I didn’t venture too far from the sewing machine. Over and over, while I sewed, I watched Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, the ones with Megan Follows and the late Jonathan Crombie playing Anne and Gilbert.

          I loved how they made me feel while I sewed. They got me over the crying-over-beading and the many times I said, “I can’t do this,” and all the days I was much too tired to thread the needle one more time.

          Duane and I went to see The Dixie Swim Club at the Ole Olsen Memorial Theater. While I admit to some bias, I think Peru, Indiana’s local theater group is full of outstanding talent, and it’s never been showcased any better than it is in this play. I laughed so hard I nearly cried, and then there was a brilliant, aching point where I was crying. Several years later I talked to Laura Stroud, one of the stars of the play, and when I tried to talk to her about that one line she had delivered with so much perfection it sliced my heart right in two, I got sniffly again and, oh, it felt so good. (Note from 2019. We saw this again a few weeks ago at Kokomo Civic Theatre, with our friend Teresa Hershberger reprising the role of Jeri Neal. I think it's still my favorite show.)

          It’s always nice when readers say something that makes you goofy-smile and happy-dance all day. Or when they let you know you got them through something that would have been harder otherwise. It means that even though they may forget your name, the title of the book, or even its protagonists, they’ll still remember how you made them feel. It doesn’t get any better than that.

          It’s been a rough week for virtually everyone. Finding this column and changing it made me think of lines from Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You”:

“Did you turn off that violent old movie you're watchin'
And turn on I Love Lucy reruns?”

           

I remember doing that during that awful September, when the news became unbearable. Not I Love Lucy per se, but other reruns. Shows that didn’t hurt. Shows made us feel better, as if we could get through the day.

My niece, Sara Nider Biggs, is a teacher with two children. This week, she said on Facebook, “Every day, be sure to tell somebody Thank You.” Sara was starting with her children’s teachers, who keep them safe every day.

I join her in that, thanking everyone who does all they can to keep children safe. I also thank all those people who did and do write, direct, and act in movies and plays, and who sing songs and write books that I can’t quote lines from. Because no matter how hard or sad or impossible times are, you make us feel. You make us feel wonderful.