Alex

The Quilt #5 - Alex

Alex has always been a delight to us. Our first grandbaby. And I guess we will always think of him that way no matter how much he grows up. 

He had a tiny little time-out chair in the hallway of our big old house on Robert Street and he loved it. Sometimes he would just stop by there and sit down for a visit. He never minded time outs. He would just turn loose his amazing imagination and let it soar. 

We have a picture on the wall here of him sitting in the kitchen window with the sheer window curtains pulled across him, just staring off into space. I have often wondered what is out there that he could see, and we could not.

He and his Granny snuck off to the attic one day to make me this t-shirt. Those are his handprints. On the back it said “World’s Best Grandpa” all spelled out in Granny’s handwriting.

I could write a whole book about Alex, and now that I think of it, I may do that someday. One of my favorite times with him was when the two of us took a road trip to Boone, North Carolina. On Robert Street, when he was about two, he fell in love with an audio tape I picked up in a specialty store in downtown St. Paul. It was Ladysmith Black Mambazo, still in the earliest days of their popularity.  

Several years later I learned that they were going to perform at Appalachian State University in Boone. It was 748 miles away, an eleven-hour drive, but we took off. He must have been about nine years old. It was a great concert and a delightful time. His arm was in a sling at the time. He had broken it in Minnesota before he came down to visit us for the summer. His last words before it broke were “Hey, watch this.”

On the way home we stopped by the Kennedy Space Center to watch them launch a manned satellite.

Alex is still a delight. His relatively new wife, Abigail, and his brand new daughter Ginny are his driving forces now and it suits him well. Dream on, Alex.

USMC

USMC

Quilt Part Six

Almost every time I write a resume, or a bio, I start off with the fact that I was a Marine Corps Captain with time in Viet Nam. That overshadows all the rest of my story. But I do know some former Marines, some Viet Nam vets, or both who let that fact become who they are. It has become their whole identify.

There is a bar on the East side that mid-afternoon, every afternoon, has a large pick up truck sitting outside with a Viet Nam vet sticker on the back. I want to meet the guy and probably will at some point. I am guessing that is who he is. Though I do have Viet Nam vet license plates on our van, there is a balance that needs to be maintained. If you get stuck in the past – who you were – it can keep you from moving on to who you want to become.

There is a ritual to two Viet Nam vets meeting. They are recognized by the ball caps, or less often the jackets. The one not self-labeled will identify himself. It may be in a grocery store or a restaurant, but he will make himself known to his brother in the ball cap. Then they will compare parts of the country where they were, what parts of the service they were in and the years they were there. There will be a brief reference to major battles and perhaps to the lingering effects of any injuries. If both were Marines the Marine Corps slogan “Semper Fi” will be exchanged, then as they part company each will say to the other “Welcome home.” That’s a recognition that during the Viet Nam war, service men were often not welcomed home. They were instead shouted at and ridiculed.

After they pulled me out of Viet Nam, they put me in a paper pushing job on an air base. It was part of the routine, established to ensure that all new officers got a balanced set of experiences, but I told them that if they had left me in the dirt and grease, I might have stayed in. I am glad I had that time in the Corps, but I am glad I got out when I did. Semper Fi.

"Not All Who Wander Are Lost"

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Favorite T-Shirt #4

Oldest Son, Michael gave me this one. It truly depicts the love of adventure Charlene and I have developed.

In the first eight years of our marriage we lived in nine houses in eight cities and towns in two states. That love has led us to Haiti, including residency there for two years, to Italy, on adventures to Africa and from Florida to Minnesota, back to Florida and back to Minnesota - and I suppose for me, to Viet Nam.

It caused us to adopt two older children, one seven and one ten – the ten-year-old after we were “empty nesters”. And now it is leading us from Eagan to Roseville. Our latest adventure is to take the message of Jesus to the refugees and immigrants living next door to the Roseville church building.

The expression comes from a poem left in a letter from Gandalf to Frodo. In that letter, it appears as part of a postscript reminding Frodo to make sure that the "Strider" he meets is "the real Strider". The poem thus appears in that context as a means of identifying Aragorn. Aragorn indeed later quotes the first two lines, not knowing the poem is in the letter, and this does help to confirm his identity.  – Wikipedia

The poem goes like this:

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.” 

-      J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring”

The shirt is symbolic of our sense of adventure. We wake up every morning wondering what new adventure God has prepared for us that day. By looking at life that way, we have avoided a lot of disappointments and have welcomed changes in our lives that others might have avoided or bemoaned.