Tragedy, Imagination And Lessons Learned

FOREWORD:

I have thought much about my personal history this last week. My life's history as well as my fallible, old and weak mind is able to recall. I was going to begin writing about some of my life's funnier memories this past Friday, when tragedy struck an elementary school. I was paralyzed like many others upon hearing the news. My heart goes out to all those affected, whether directly or indirectly, by this shameful waste of our most precious commodities; our children. Children who were innocent, their minds full of wonder and with a future as bright as each child could achieve. Let us not forget these gifts to the world. We should also remember all the thousands of other children who are battling terrible, terminal diseases. Those who are dying from their illnesses and those who have already been removed from this world far too early and suffer no more. I ask if you are a “religious” person, remember all our children, alive, suffering and deceased, in your prayers. If you are not then simply take a moment to reflect on what these innocent minds may have brought to our futures. Thank you!

Some of my most favorite memories are the times I spent exploring my yard or the woods across the street. I would spend hours just walking around carrying a stick to poke things. I would poke the end of the stick into this hole in the ground then another and so on. One day I was hole poking with a long, narrow oak twig that had been my best stick for about a week. I stuck the end of the twig into a new hole I'd found after shooing away a few yellow jackets from near the hole. I poked and twisted the stick in and out of the hole several times when I noticed a bee was climbing up through the fresh dirt now filling the hole. My Mother treated my learning experience with several pieces of saliva-soaked cigarettes which seemed to calm the extreme burning cause by the many stings I received. Lesson learned!

At some point around this time I learned about electricity. A fascinating thing that made the lights and television work! One night I made the decision to find out what this “E-LEC-TRICITY” looked like. I searched around the house and found one of my Daddy's small screwdrivers. I sat down in the hallway near the plastic thing in the wall where Mother put the cord from the vacuum every week to pull out the power to run it. I began tediously inserting the screwdriver into one of the openings where that electricity was waiting in the wall. Nothing! I decided to try a different plastic thingy in the living room. I sat down and began to poke into one of the slitted holes again. Mother screamed so loud I almost peed myself. Daddy looked at her and said to leave me alone and that I would learn shortly why I shouldn't be doing that. I smiled and turned back to my task and decided to try the other hole because the first one there just must be empty. My Dad was laughing hysterically when I came to my senses halfway across the floor, hand and arm aching. I noticed a strange taste in my mouth. Metal! It was metal I tasted. I didn't remember seeing the electricity jump out and hit my arm as it climbed up and into my mouth but I knew to never again try pulling it out of the wall. Lesson learned again!

I used to love helping Daddy work on things. After raising two boys and enjoying over a year raising a Grandson, I discovered that I never really helped Daddy. He assigned me tasks that would make it appear as though I were helping but served only to keep me out of his way. After I had grown a little, my Dad wanted me to help him bleed the brakes on Mother's Rambler American. He wanted me to pump the brake pedal while he bled the brake lines. I couldn't quite get it right so he asked me to crawl under the car with him. I did and he began to explain to me what he was doing and showed me how it should be done. OK. This was going to be easy! Daddy climbed behind the steering wheel and I could hear him pumping the brakes. He yelled for me to go ahead, which meant loosen then tighten the fitting. The fitting wouldn't move. I pulled and yanked then brake fluid came squirting out. After Mother got me cleaned up and as much of the brake fluid out of my eyes as she could, she went outside and finished helping Daddy. One more lesson filed into memory.

Some memorable times were spent with my Mother in her later years walking the shoreline of Lake Hartwell. Mother was one of the very first women in South Carolina to have a quadruple by-pass done on her heart. The doctors informed her about a year after her surgery that she should expect to live roughly three years from the date of her surgery. She was devastated! She had only two more years at that point. Eight years after surgery, she was still kicking! My parents had a house on the lake and Mother enjoyed early morning and late afternoon walks along the shore searching for arrow heads and pottery shards. I followed behind her and walked beside her until I thought I knew what I was doing. She would always begin to hang back behind me and find things I simply walked over. Mother would snicker and chuckle to herself as she reached down and picked up the arrow heads I missed. Each time she did so I turned to see her wonderful smile. Mother had learned to appreciate the more simple things and she passed this knowledge over to me. A very important life's lesson learned and treasured!

Daddy is fairly old now and his health is rather poor. He still runs his business which is open five days a week. I love going to visit with him as he works. I carefully watch him dealing with his customers and marvel as much today as I did years ago when watching him. Daddy could have been an Attorney or even a Doctor had he been able to finish school and go on to college. He instead quit school to support his Mother, brothers and sisters which was not all that uncommon in his day. He instead became a rather savvy businessman who can read his customers like a book. He is extremely mechanically inclined. What he was not blessed with in “book-smarts”, as he calls it, he was gifted in other areas. He has the ability to understand how anything with moving parts works and how to make them work better. He has been known to figure out ways to make things run better and has fabricated the parts needed to do so. My mechanical skills come from Daddy as well as my business smarts and so called people skills. More cherished lessons taken to heart and successfully put into practice during my years on this world.

I trust everyone is having a wonderful holiday-time of year. Take time to really enjoy the little things. Ignore the things which you cannot affect as they truly do not matter. Hug your Parents. Hug your children as much as you can. Hug your friend and tell them you love them. Pull your significant other close to you and say, “Let's just cuddle for a while”. These are the most important moments and they will never come around again. You may be fortunate enough to have more of them but that particular instance is lost to time forever! That said. Have a most wonderful Christmas!

Post Script: With waning health and much more time on my hands these days, I contemplate all the “what ifs” along my life's journey. It seems to me the best times I've had are the moments I am still able to share with those who would spend time with me. I enjoy making them think! I suppose I'm trying to bring people back to the activity of thinking and using their endless imaginations.

Imagination is the fountain from which all reality is born.