Grace in Seat 19C (2008)

Grace in Seat 19C

            “If you are talking to me, please look at my face and speak clearly.  I am deaf in that ear and my hearing aid is in the aisle ear.”   “I am on my way to see my niece in Texas,” she said.  “It will be for the last time.  She has cancer in her lungs and in her liver.  But it will be a very good Thanksgiving.”

            All of these words came tumbling from the mouth of Dolores Small within the first two minutes of our short airplane trip together.  I knew she was not a seasoned traveler when she asked for help in unbuckling her seat belt to let me in to my window seat.  We watched together as the man across the aisle struggled in vain to put his bulky bag under the seat.

            “I thought we weren’t allowed to take our bags on-board,” said Dolores.  “I checked my bag at the gate.  Do you think that was alright?”  I turned slightly in my seat so that she could see my mouth and repeated what I had muttered before.  “He should have checked his bag at the gate.  What you did was right.  Your bag will be waiting for you when you leave the plane.”  She seemed to hear what I said and I am sure many others did as well, perhaps including the man with the big bag.  Though she seemed to understand, she tugged at the flight attendant who was helping the man in 18B deal with his big bag.  The flight attendant assured her that her bag would be waiting.

            I turned away. I took out my pen and my notepad and started to write.

            “Excuse me for being so bold,” she said, “but are you a teacher?” 

            “I was but I am not now.  Why do you ask?”

            “I don’t know.  You just have that look.  I don’t know anything, but I thought you were a teacher.”

            I put down my pen.  She seemed both sad and scared, or at least apprehensive about flying.  “You know lots of things, I am sure,” I said. “Please tell me about your niece.”

            “We were very close.  You see, I was an aunt before I was born.”  My mother had me late in her life—she was in her forties.  Her oldest daughter—my sister—got pregnant at the same time.  My sister had her baby first, so I was an aunt before I was born.”

            “My mother had nowhere to live.  It was just the two of us, you see.  So we lived with my sister and my niece.  That’s why we were very close. “  “Well, actually she’s more like a sister to me.  Later we lived with my brother.  There were two others, another brother and sister, but they both died.”

            “Did you have children of your own?” I asked.  “We have six,” she said.  “I loved them all dearly, but it was a challenge raising them.  It seemed like when one was just coming out of a stage, another one was entering a stage.  It got so I wanted to take a stage—right out of town.”

            Pointing to the writing on the seat back, she asked, “What does that mean?”  KEEP SEAT BELT FASTENED AT ALL TIMES.  SEAT BOTTOM MAY BE USED AS A FLOTATION DEVICE.   I explained what it meant and told her that the flight attendant would explain many things.  I agreed to explain to her afterwards what the flight attendant had said and what it meant.

            The plane took off and we continued our conversation.  “I know we will have a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of laughter because we have so much to be thankful for.”  “Why, I am thankful that my family gave me the money for my flight.  This is only the second time I have been on a plane.”

            She told me she lived on a small farm south of Roseburg, Oregon.  She had left her husband on the farm to deal with the chickens and the pig.  “We don’t travel much.  Just keep going with Social Security and the farm.”  “I do trust in the Lord, but sometimes that trust is sorely tried.”

            “My ten-year old grandson died.  No one knows exactly what happened.  He was standing by the side of the road when a pick-up truck came by.  Something sticking out from the truck caught his clothes.  The kids said he was just twisted round and round.”  She paused and added in a soft voice, “Just like a rag-doll.”

            “I got the call and went driving in my car to the hospital.  I went to the wrong one, but all the way there, I kept thinking Billy would be alright.  Then I said out loud, “I trust you, Lord.”  When I got to the right hospital, Billy was gone.  When they told me, I fainted.”

            The flight attendant came down the aisle, offering juice, coffee or water.  She asked for a glass of juice.  I helped her open her snack pack.  Then she continued.  “I was sore-sick with grief for many months. Then one day when I was sitting thinking about Billy, I heard a voice, clear as a bell.”

            “Dolores, did you not say you trusted me?”

            “That was all I heard.  I thought about it and then I got better.” “I remembered that voice two years later when my 12-year-old grand-daughter died in a car crash.”   

            The pilot came on the air.  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are encountering some turbulence.  The seat belt sign has been illuminated.  Please return to your seat and make sure your seat belt is securely fastened.”

            “I can hear the sounds and the words, but I can’t make out what he is saying, “ she said.  I explained what the pilot had meant and checked her seat belt.  I noticed she was still wearing her purse, the strap around her neck, and the purse securely fastened by her seat belt.  She had a cell phone, tucked in a purse pouch, right in the front.  I returned to my notes.

            “Excuse me for asking, but you seem like such a nice man, what are you writing?  That is, if you don’t mind telling me.”

            I explained that I had just been visiting my 89-year old father and was taking notes for my report to my brothers and sisters about the trip, his health and the conditions at his assisted living facility.  I told her that on each of these trips, I also tried to take notes on stories and memories that my father shared with me.  I exclaimed that he was blind and could not read as he used to.  When people asked him what he did all day, he would reply that he would sit in his chair in his room and remember.  They would ask, “Don’t you get bored?”  My father would answer, “I have a store house of memories in many rooms.  I never tire of visiting and going to another room and seeing what it is there.”  “Some of those memories he shares with me when I come to town,” I explained to Dolores.  “This one is called Trust the Sun.  If you would like, I can read it to you.”  I turned a little more in my chair.  Her eyes focused on me intently.

Trust the Sun

            At Nausika in the Washington Cascades, one valley over from Mt. St. Helens, we lived near the woods.  When I was four or five, I generally went into the woods with my older brother or sister, but I also went on my own since the road to school went through the woods.  The man in the woods warned me, “Trust the sun.  It will never lie to you.”

            One day, walking home from school, I stopped and went into the woods to collect ferns for my older brother to sell.  We would tie wood ferns, fifty to the bundle, and then sell them.  You stripped off the lower portion to provide a place to hold the ferns and to tie them up.  I only went in 40-50 feet, but the woods turn dark and deep very fast.

            After I had collected my bunch, I started back to the road.  I looked up and saw the sun, but it was in the wrong place of the sky.  Why?  I did not know.  I sat down on a log to think about it.  You may think it fair strange that a boy of six or seven would stop to think, but I did.  Then I remembered the words of the man in the woods.  “Trust the Sun.  It will never lie to you.”  Even though I wanted to go where I knew the road was, I trusted the Sun.  After walking only 40 or 50 feet, I came out of the dark woods and onto the road that took me home.

            I never saw the man in the woods again.  He died when Mt. St. Helens blew its top.

When I finished reading, Dolores said, “I know who the man in the woods was.  He was an angel.”  She then stared into space, like a sightless seer.  She murmured, almost to herself.  “Trust the Sun.  Trust the Son.”

            Though I did not ask her age, I could tell that Dolores had lived a long time;  perhaps as long as my father.  Her face was lined, her hair was gray and she had age spots on the backs of her hands. She seemed at the same time so alive and so at peace.  So I asked, “Your rules for living a good life?”

            “Live,” she said.  “Be active. Be cheerful.  Eat sensibly and do the crossword puzzle every day.”

            I reached into her seat pocket for the airline magazine.  When I opened it to the crossword puzzle, I noticed it had already been started.  “This one has been started.  I will get you mine.”  I took out the magazine from my seat pocket.  “Oh my, this one has been started too.”  Then the person sitting in front of us handed back a brand new copy of the airline magazine.  “Here, use this one,” he said.  Dolores thanked him and thanked me.  She started on her crossword puzzle and I went back to writing.

            When the plane landed, we left together.  I helped her find her gate-checked bag.  We entered the terminal and found the gate assignment for her flight to Houston.  As we walked through the concourse to her gate, we passed through the airport shopping mall.  I told her she could stop and shop before her flight.  Dolores said, “I have no need to shop.  I have everything.”

James E. McGuire

November 26, 2008

Sam and Andy Quotable quotes (2009)

The following comments were picked up during my first week home from China.  Sam and Andy were 3 1/2 years old.

November 20, 2009

Random question:

Sam:  “If water makes wet mud, what makes dry mud?

Me:  “What do you think?

Sam:  “I don’t know, but I think maybe the wind . . . and the Sun?

Bath time:

Me:  “Sam, time to get out of the tub.”

Sam:   “Five more minutes, Pee-Paw.  It will take me forever to shampoo my hair and wash my ear and my toes and my legs and my body and my shark and the octopus and the drinking cup and . . . . “  naming every object in the tub.

In the living room:

S:  With blocks, making circles on the floor.

A:  Stomping on Sam’s circles

S:  “Don’t ruin my art—I am working so hard!” 

Driving in the car:

A:  What do you call a baby goat?

S: A kid

A:  You are right!  What do call a baby cow?

S:  A calf.

A:  You are right!

Me:  What do you call a baby cat?

A:  A mistake!

 Thanksgiving:

Parent:  “Sam, what are you thankful for?”

Sam:  “Balmex and body lotion.”

Parent:  “Andy, what are you thankful for?”

Andy:  “Abby’s smile.”

Golf and Religion (More Frank McGuire Stories June 2004)

Golf and Religion

June 2004

Frank McGuire Stories

“You wouldn’t think it would be possible to lose a golf club in broad daylight in your home, “ Frank said after hitting a very serviceable drive down the center of the fairway. 

“No, you wouldn’t,” I replied.

“I had just taken it out of the bag to see I if could still swing it.  I could.”  “I put it down and then it was gone.”

“I looked down and I couldn't see it, so I started looking around.”  “I looked on the grass and under the carport.  I even looked in the wood shed, though I knew I hadn't gone out there and I don’t believe that golf clubs can fly.”

Frank walked back to the golf cart, put away his club, sat down on the passenger’s side and continued.  “Well, maybe they can, but I haven’t seen them do it . . .   at least not since I was younger and helped them fly.”  “I used to get mad when I couldn't make the shots, swear and even throw clubs after a particularly bad shot.  Then one day I decided I wasn't good enough to get mad at the game.”  “I haven’t thrown a club since.”

It was a sunny June morning. We were playing golf at RiverRidge, a fine 18 hole course near Eugene. Pop had known for a month that I was coming and had called a couple of times to make sure that he had the dates right.  I had called on my cell phone that morning on my drive down from Portland. We agreed to meet at the golf course.  This was one of my quick 24 hour trips to check up on him. Pop is 85 and is gradually going blind from macular degeneration. 

He still cuts fire wood in the National Forest in eastern Oregon.  He cuts dead trees.  It helps prevent uncontrollable forest fires and provides firewood for his customers. He drives over the Cascades to eastern Oregon, leaving home at 3 am to avoid having the morning sun in his eyes as he crosses mountain tops. 

“Which club was it?,” I asked as we drove down the path to our balls.  Playing from the forward tees, he had managed to out-drive me again.

“The Callaway Big Bertha driver,” he said.  “The one you boys got me.”

 He continued, “I really haven’t played since last October.”  It’s not much fun playing in the rain, even on a par 3 course, if you can’t see the ball.  Clancy doesn’t much like being a seeing eye dog, so I haven’t played recently.”

“Well,” I said, “you don’t get any more strokes just because you don’t have that club, especially after that drive.”

“I looked for it again.  I looked in the truck and in the house.  I even looked in the cupboards, though I knew a golf club couldn't actually fit in the cupboard, especially a driver.”  “It was gone.”

“I even invoked the aid of the Church,” he said, reaching for a sip of his coffee from his scarred plastic coffee mug.   “What?,” I asked.  “How did you do that?”

 “I have this friend Vi who is Catholic and I asked her, ‘Don’t you have a Saint who is in charge of things that are lost?  What’s his name?”

“She said, ‘St. Anthony.’” 

“So I asked her, ‘how does it work?’  “What do you say?”

“She told me. I said to her, ‘Well, would you mind saying it?  I’m not a Catholic and I’m not sure it would work as well if you’re not.’”

She agreed.

“What did she say? “ I asked.

In a stage voice, Pop chanted:

            “St. Anthony, St. Anthony, come around.”

            “Something is lost and must be found.”

Then he said, “I thanked her for help. I told her that if the golf club came back, I probably have to convert.”  

I stood behind him as he addressed his ball.  He swung.  “Good shot,” I said.  The ball started right and curved back into the fairway, following the familiar path of one of his patented hook shots. 

I called out the path of the ball.  “Started right.  Coming back. Landed short.  Still rolling.  In the fairway, just short of the green.  Chip and a putt.” 

“Why did you say it was a good shot,” he asked.  “If it had been a good shot, it would have been on the green.”

We drove up to the green.  I handed him his pitching wedge and his putter.  He walked over to his ball and looked at the pin.  He was wearing his Stevie Wonder big frame sunglasses to help his pale blue eyes from the bright sunlight.  He had told me earlier, “The left eye is gone.  It just sees light.  The dark glasses to seem to help some, when the sun is bright or after the drive home from the woods.  My eyes get tired after two hundred miles.”

“ Well, it wasn’t a bad shot,” he said.  With the wedge, he made his next shot from thirty yards out. Soft touch, quick release.  With a high loft, it landed firm, rolled a bit and stopped. 

“Below the cup, four feet, slight break, right to left, about a cup’s width,” I called out.

He walked up.  I took his wedge and hand him his putter. He lined up his putt and then stopped.  Cupping his hands around his eyes, he looked toward down on the green toward the pin, as if to see the line and the break. 

”I don’t see it, but I believe you,” he said.  “You wouldn't lie just to win . . . or would you?”

He stroked the putt and listened for that satisfying rattle when the ball rolls into the cup.

He leaned over the cup, pulled out the ball, and walked to the cart.  I replaced the flag and caught up with him.

“Well?,” I asked.

“Well, you were right this time, even though you are a lawyer.”

“Yes I was and I am,”  I said. “But what about the golf club and religion?”

“Well, it didn't show up and I didn't convert,” he said, as he sat down in the cart, ready to be driven to the next hole. 

Reflections on my father (2002)

Reflections on My Father

November 2002

James E. McGuire

            Frank is now 83.  He is probably legally blind.  He still drives and he stills cuts wood in the national forests which he sells as firewood.  Occasionally, he gives it away to old ladies who need it and can’t afford it.  His mind and his body are still intact.  He is, in his words, “a tough old bird.”

            Every trip or visit in the last twenty years creates new stories and memories.  Family and friends always say, “You really must write these things down.”  I will try.

            Frank knew about this trip more than one month ago.  As I always do, I let him know that I was coming to town to see him, if it was convenient and if he would be in town.  As always, he said, “Sure. That would work.” 

I said, “I am coming to town the week of my birthday.  “We should celebrate by playing golf.  Since it will be my birthday, I should win.”  

“Well, golf would be great,” he said.

            On the East Coast, Frank is legendary for his sayings and his stories.  My wife Claire remembers him from their first meeting at Frank’s home with Ann in Springfield.  His first words to his new daughter-in-law:   “Well . . . welcome.  If you spit on the floor at home, spit on the floor here.”  My son Josh remembers him for the three rules of drinking.  “Never play catch-up.  Never drink because it is free.  Never feel obliged to finish a drink.”  My daughter Julie remembers him because he always tells stories about fishing and golf.

Julie’s high school boyfriend earned legendary fame in the family by asking Frank, in the middle of a golf story, “Excuse me sir, how many games of golf do you think you have played in a lifetime?  Frank thought about it and answered.  Not missing a beat, he continued with his golf story, telling us about a game played earlier that year, why his second shot on the eighth hole went awry.  “I was a trifle too forward in my stance.”  David interrupted him again, “Excuse me sir, how many games do you think you played during the Reagan administration?”  This time Pop knew that some one was pulling his leg.  He laughed. We all laughed.  I laughed so hard I had to pull our van to the side of the road.

Dreaming Golf

On this trip, I met Pop at my sister JoAn’s home.  JoAn and her husband John and I had agreed to meet there and to go out to dinner.  Pop wrangled an invitation to join us.  With good grace, JoAn understood that when it comes to golf and seeing his boys, Pop gets quite excited and is likely to stay up past his usual bedtime. 

Shortly after Pop was served his martini, he interrupted the conversation to observe that he had dreamed about playing golf last night. 

“It was a challenging par five.  When I looked down the fairway, I saw that it was totally blocked by trees and blown-downs.  It must have been a helluva storm.  I was about to give up on the hole when a course ranger signaled that I should hit up toward the highway.  I hit a serviceable drive up to the road, but it rolled past and down the ditch.  I kicked it out of the ditch and hit my second shot down the hill, near where the ladies were at the picnic table.  I remember thinking it was strange that they would allow picnicking on the golf course, but they were very nice about it and let me play through.  I was as surprised as you are when my third shot hit green.  It was a tough lie, just at the far end of table underneath the sitting bench.” 

Knowing that he was left-handed, I could visualize the shot.  It would be hard to swing with the ball under the bench; harder to maintain your composure with old ladies in lawn dresses and straw hats watching this curious game.  Even though I could figure that the distance to the green was 150 yards, after allowing for the detour up to the road and the second shot downhill to the picnic table, it was hard to visualize Frank’s four iron actually making the green from that lie.

He told me, however, that it did make the green and he finished the hole with a fairly standard two putt.  “My first putt didn’t even come close to the lip, but I made the second putt fairly handily and was happy to get away with a par.”

I listened to the story and thought about the hole.  I then said, “Did you count a stroke for the foot wedgie?”  Frank thought about it for a bit and then said, “Well actually, I hadn’t.  But a six was still a good score on that hole considering the blown-downs!” 

I agreed and then I realized we had reached a new event horizon.  For all who enjoy hearing Frank’s golfing stories, it is now not enough to remember the games he played in the 70’s or in the Reagan administration or even in a lifetime, you now need to know and remember (or at least listen to) the games he has played in his dreams.

Playing pool

We went to dinner at a local sport bar. JoAn immediately challenged Pop to a game of pool.  He graciously agreed.  He played gamely and I watched out of the corner of my eye. I wondered how painful it would be to play the game at his age with his vision when we could both remember how he shot when he was younger. 

I first played pool with Frank in 1962, forty years ago, when Dave was at the University of Oregon.  Pop had played pool in his youth and still had the same stroke that he had learned thirty years earlier.  He shot hard, harder than he needed to, but most the time, he shot true.  He had given up the game after he was married.  He had also given up smoking and drinking and poker. Those games of his youth were a closed chapter when he married a Norwegian Lutheran and became a family man, father of six.

I asked JoAn, “Who was ahead?”  She answered, “We don’t keep score.  It is just a game and he is on his feet, willing to play.” Though I did not doubt her thoughts, I doubted that they were shared by Pop.  “Just a game?  We don’t keep score?”

Later, I asked Pop, “How was pool?”  He said, “It was alright, but I don’t understand JoAn.”  “She just hits the cue ball, doesn’t watch where it goes and doesn’t seem to care who wins.”

Playing Golf

We had agreed to play golf in Sutherlin, Oregon, more than an hour south of Eugene and near my sister Jan’s home, where Lillian, my mother and Frank’s first wife, now lived.

Frank made the tee time for 8:20 am and figured that if I picked him up at 6:00 am, we would have time to have breakfast before golf.

Though he had been logging on just two days earlier, had been home late from that trip (six hours of work; two hours up; two hours back from the Oregon Cascades), had his golfing dream that night, was up late with Jo and John shooting pool past his bedtime, I knew when I pulled into his driveway at 6:00 am, he would be at the door, dressed for the day, with his golf clubs, ready to go.  He was.

We drove to Sutherlin in the fog.  I suggested stopping for breakfast just south of Eugene.  Frank demurred.  He said, “Well, we do have my thermos of coffee, fresh made this morning and we would not want to miss our tee time.” 

On the way, we talked.  He said, “It looks like you will winter well.”  I agreed and told him that I was intent on losing weight. [For family on the East Coast and others not familiar with farming, one of the great dangers for cattle was starvation in the winter.  Even with proper hay and good silage, there was always the risk that by March or April some thinner weaker cows, calves, sheep or lambs would succumb to winter conditions. In the Spring, Pop would change his comment to me to observe, “It looks like you have wintered well.”]  I asked, “What do you weigh?”  He answered, “Well, it varies.  About 192, some times 193.”  On his six foot frame, that sounded pretty good to me.

I asked, “What songs do you sing when you are driving?  Do you remember the songs of your youth?”  He looked at me a little quizzically and said, “Of course, I remember songs.”  “How could anyone forget?”  “What songs?” I asked.   “Some sad, some glad.”  “Generally, I don’t sing much anymore because the songs make me sad, but when I am tired and driving down the mountain, I will sing to stay awake.  Gilbert and Sullivan, I think it was the Pirates of Pinzance.  ‘Oh, polish up the handle of the big brass door and never go to sea and you will be an Admiral of the King’s navy.’  “I performed in those plays when I was in high school.” [HMS Pinafore, “I polished up that handle so carefullee; That now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navee!”]

We had breakfast.  As usual, Pop flirted with the waitress a little. We played golf.

It was very foggy and a bit on the cool side.  Pop had on long johns, added an extra layer of shirt and a jacket.  He lamented that he had forgotten his gloves. 

Even without the fog, I was accustomed to spotting Pop’s golf ball since he could never (in last several years) see where his ball had landed.  He played all 18 holes, in the fog, though it lifted by the time we were done.

A Writing Adventure (first post) (January 2014)

Family Essays

A Writing Adventure

This is my first post on my first blog site.  I decided that it would be fun to share some of my essays with anyone who might be interested in reading them.

My plan is to post some of the essays that I have written, starting first with some essays about family (grand-father essays and essays about my family of origin). Then I plan to post more general essays about topics of interest to me, mostly about the business of living and not about sports or politics.

I don't know much about blog sites and whether people that read any article can comment.  Assuming there is some way to do that, I welcome comments. There should be some way to find out whether any of these writings are of interest to anyone other than me.  

Jim