Leveraged Intelligence

I Did Some Honest Labor

I’m back in Kansas at the Folks’ homestead.  And, I dug three holes by hand for new fence posts in 96 degree Fahrenheit heat.  That’s 35.5 degrees Celsius for the rest of the world who have not yet successfully converted America to logic.  I will tell you about the details later – and, if you think my tavelogues have been boring … you just wait.

Oh, and did I tell you that Mom and Grannymar talked together on Skype for about an hour or more?  I have video of GM talking with the Queen, but I reckon I’ll have to get a release from both before showing that to you!

As George Costanza said in one episode (for our Seinfeld fans), “Worlds are colliding here!”

Voices I Recall

This is another in the Friday series of topics shared by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a list of whom is available with clickable links on the left side of this blog page.  The Magpie served up today’s topic and each of us will have posted simultaneously on the subject by the time you are reading this.  Well, maybe some won’t.  Don’t sweat it if you go to a site and don’t see it, because many members are busy with life and that is what loose is all about!

When I was a boy, Mom calling me to dinner was the sweetest sound you could hear.  Coming from her mouth, it didn’t sound like a chore, it sounded like she really wanted to feed you.  Maybe tonight would be “snoots,” macaroni noodles with tomato sauce and ground beef!

Sometimes, we kids would play a game on the floor while our moms shared the day over coffee.  We didn’t listen to what they said, but it was reassuring that they were there, at ease, gently radiating security without even thinking about it.

Later, stepping off the baseball mound at the end of a winning game, grinning ear-to-ear, it was my dad’s voice that was the icing on the cake, because it was filled with a genuine enthusiasm, a sharing of joy, the first voice I wanted to hear.  If it didn’t go so well, a losing effort, he didn’t insult me with any lies about my performance, but somehow he made me less concerned about defeat and ready take another shot at it tomorrow.  He spoke and it gave a sense of a world that was right and worth the effort, even when everything else said it was senseless.

I remember the speeches of JFK when I was a boy and how they made me feel encouraged and determined.  Or the voice of Cronkite that just seemed somehow honest and unadorned, trustworthy.   Even the voices of actors satisfied to stick with their craft working to perfect it, like Jimmy Stewart or Gregory Peck or Ingrid Bergman or Henry Fonda, somehow communicating integrity that stuck to your ribs like steak and potatoes.

The voices of parents, the voices of teachers, the voices of leaders during challenging times – the voices of my memory are the voices of those bigger than me at the time, the voices of those who could see what I couldn’t.  They spoke to my ideals and engendered new ones in me.  That is our calling, to listen to worthy voices – and to speak up when it comes our time.

These are times badly in need of those voices, those memorable voices of reason, voices worthy of trust, voices that generate passion for creation and achievement, voices that replace fear with focus and determination.  The voices that you remember won’t necessarily be the ones I remember, but they will have qualities in common.  They won’t be hysterical, but they will be passionate.  They are voices that will speak higher truth.

They are the voices that cut through the crap.

The Son of a Good Father’s Dilemma

Yesterday, as you know, was my father’s birthday and we had a great time on the phone discussing whatever came to our minds.  But, what I didn’t bring up to him is just how difficult it is to be the son of a fine man:

Religion and Spirituality

Part of the continuing Blogger’s Consortium series with simultaneous posts on the topic being done by Ashok, Grannymar and Ramana – in alphabetical order.  Ashok came up with this topic … ambitious fellow that he is.  I mean, this is a WHOLE LOTTA TOPIC!

Non-free media use rationale for Elmer Gantry (film)

Gantry was a hard living salesman and he consorted with drunks and whores.  But, he had a passion for life and he had an abiding belief in God.  A genuine belief in God.  The nature of that belief was tested and fleshed out when he became a revivalist preacher in the American Midwest of the early Twentieth Century, became a revivalist preacher because he was mightily attracted to Sister Sharon Falconer.  The problem was that Sister Sharon kind of was deluded that she was God’s chosen messenger while Gantry thought she would do just fine as a real human being sharing life and passion with him!  Ultimately, Gantry’s very real faith grounded in life was what carried him through while Sister Sharon’s delusions did her in!

I’ve always loved that movie, REALLY loved it.  And part of that is because it evokes so many of the forces of life’s spirituality that has formed my underlying beliefs.  Let me show you a picture of my father taken during World War II:

He was AWOL in Vancouver at the time.  If it didn’t endanger any men or hurt the war effort, he wasn’t really what you would call a fan of the rules!  Let’s face it, he could have walked straight out of Casablanca looking like that.  Later, he lost his older brother over Germany in that war and he was on the first wave assault ship heading across the Pacific to attack Japan when the bombs were dropped.  They were estimating with his guys 90 – 100% casualties, if you can imagine that!

He came back from that war hardened, really hardened.  A lot of soldiers return from war more than a little lost as human beings.  They can still live hard, but something is missing in their souls.  Then, along comes love:

Sister Sharon, step aside for the real thing!!  No delusions for this young woman, shown in a picture from Christmas 1945.  I say young woman, even though she was only 14 when the picture was taken.  Somehow, hard times grow you up fast and she was no stranger to hard times.  Very bright and quite beautiful – as is obvious – she took care of business!  Both feet were always planted squarely on the ground.

So, now God goes to work and places this ex-soldier in a diner with some friends, a diner where my Mom was a waitress.  She waited on their table, of course.  And, when one of the guys asked if she would go out with him, she told him flat out, “No … but I’ll go out with him!” pointing to Dad.

So, two good-looking bright people have now met.  The young woman raised as a Nazarene Christian – and, trust me, Gantry and his delivery had NOTHING on the Nazarene Christians! – and a young man who has just been molded in the crucible of Hell needing to find his way back home.  To make a long story short – because I intend to do some further work on parts of it in later posts about our family – Dad went back to college on the GI Bill to get a degree in Business and a Minor in Philosophy of Religion.  He had to reclaim his soul – and he had to do it his way, part of it in the classroom, part of it with Mom and part of it in bars on the tough side of town with his new in-laws!  I’d be hard put to judge which place brings you closest to God; the sanctuary, the Comparative Religion classroom, or the bar!  But, one thing is for sure, it is the love that ties it all together.

So, he studied and drank and fought and loved, and they shared life and had me and my sister.  Some of my favorite memories of my youth are sitting with Dad discussing religious ideas.  It was no holds barred.  As much as he was in love with Jesus, Dad was never a Holy Roller.  He behaved toward the Church a whole lot like he did toward the Army.  A lot of the rules were irrelevant as far as he was concerned and that was what he taught his boy.  But – and this was key – it wasn’t because he didn’t believe.  It was because he always felt the package presented was short of the truth.  And the truth he saw was earned in discussions with some really fine theologians; in studying other religions besides the one with which he was raised; in figuring out his own truths of life with his wife that he loved, with the kids that he taught and with the herculean task of reclaiming that which was rightfully his, his own loving spirit.

The Church and religions in general like to control and offer rewards and punishments.  Many are quite happy to peddle hysteria and snake oil like Gantry often did, but a life like my folks had inoculates you against their power grabs in such a way that you can separate the wheat from the chaff and feast spiritually from what religious giants offer.  But, it takes life’s forge to get you ready for that and sometimes it is earned with a black eye or a split lip or a philosophical discussion on a bar stool.

How did my folks win?  They put the truths of life, the love of people and their own spirituality first.  They had to.  It was survival for them.  But, note the important distinction here: they did not approach spirituality through religious understanding – they approached religious understanding through their spirituality.  And they threw something else out the window, the idea that being human is somehow bad, something to be escaped.  They embraced their humanity and celebrated life – and found God right in the middle!

Happy Father’s Day!

You ever look for a photo that catches a person’s real-life essence in one photo, the way you always see them, the way they look through your own eyes?  Well, this photo is it.  And, how often do you get a bonus two-for-one?

This is my father letting my brand-new bride in on some secret at our wedding!  The crime occurred in October of 1982 – not the wedding, the secret sharing! – and the reason this is the perfect picture is because he’s always known secrets that no one else quite got!  Until he explained it to them, that is.

Let me tell you what I mean by that.  My father has a perpetual twinkle in his eye.  Lots of people have that, but many are either irresponsible, uncommitted, deceitful or shallow.  My father is the opposite of every one of those.  Perhaps the best educator I’ve ever seen in action, married for 61 years now, one of the best thinkers you will find, he is definitely not a vapid character.  But, the qualities I listed above often go with a dry, pedantic person of little creativity.  Again, no fit.  No, this is a guy with a lust for life!

What you have before you is a unique individual with an extremely good sense of what he is about and who he is, combined with a fighter’s spirit.  He’s overcome more health issues than can be recounted here, starting with premature birth at home in the middle of a harsh Kansas winter, weighing in at under three pounds, with an open oven door for an incubator as his introduction to life.  Eighty-three and one half years later, Kansas and life still haven’t beaten him.  And both Kansas and life have done their best and know they’ve been in a scrap!

Dad will color within any lines that make sense.  It just happens that a lot of them don’t!  You see, that is the key that makes him unique.  Many people follow the rules as a way of life.  Many people rebel against rules as a way of life.  Dad never has cared about either approach.  He’s always believed and acted in a way that made sense to him in the situation.  Some decisions and actions had tough consequences.  Some stands were totally unpopular.  He was against the Viet Nam war by 1965!  Not the stance you would expect from a highly successful Kansas public school principal.  But, he already knew it didn’t make sense.

But, what always saves the day in the end, is his huge heart, his love of people and life – and a fantastic sense of humor.  Somehow, once he reveals the secret…it only makes sense!

Happy Father’s Day, Dad, to you and any other dads reading this message!!  Ya know I love ya!!

Addendum: My father wanted you to know that his opposition to the Viet Nam war was not because he isn’t a patriot.  He served three years in the Army in World War II and was a member of the first assault wave headed to Japan when the bombs were dropped.  That makes his awareness all the more remarkable.

Manchester: The Apartment – The Rest of the Story!

Hang with this story, gang.  It has more nuggets than a California gold mine!  You not only get to hear about Manchester living, you get to meet my mother more fully.  Imagine yourself sitting in the living room as she tells the story…  Both of my folks are a lot of fun!!

Get ready because you are going to hear more about "The Apartment", lol

I had to quit working the other night because my head was starting to ache……I’ve been having small cancers removed from my face (I think the doc doesn’t like my face because for the past 30 years he has been taking off small pieces of it) and this last time he had to take some skin from the left side (he called it my "laugh line" and we all know it is a wrinkle) to graft over a hole he made in the right side of my nose. The bandage on my nose makes it hard to see through my glasses unless I twist my head around a lot. I wish I had known when I was young what I know now about the sun and the problems you can have from having a fantastic tan….blonde hair and tan skin makes you a female "hunk",lol, and since my husband likes a little diversity now and then I decided that the only place he was going to get it was at home….hence the blond hair and brown skin that has caused me much pain. It was probably in vain tho’ because one time I had a red rinse put on my hair and he didn’t notice that he was living with a redhead for two weeks and then only because the sun was shining right on my head and he had to notice it or admit he was blind. The real story is that my beauty operator was doing weird things with my hair because it was easy to work with and I was nuts enough to let her use me as a model to show what you could have done to your hair if you only had the nerve (one time she picked up the wrong bottle and I had to work (I was a reporter-photographer for a newspaper at the time) with cotton candy pink hair. My poor husband never knows what to expect…..most of our 63 years together, lol.

Now, since I’ve bored you nearly to death, we’ll get back to early living.

I think I neglected to mention that our apartment in Manchester had beautiful mahogany woodwork and the ceilings were made up of embossed metal squares. Those squares would probably be worth a lot of money now and they had sense enough to keep them and the woodwork natural…..no paint on any of it. They did paint the doors tho’ and I’m sure they were mahogany, too, because they were really thick and heavy. A gust of good Kansas wind against them would really send you flying…..either in or out, depending on the way you were going. We had to climb 22 steps to reach the porch that took you to the doors and it was really fun to go to one of the bigger towns to shop and come home and make several trips up and down to unload the car filled with kids, groceries and whatever else I could manage to afford. In those days we did not have credit cards so we were very careful to spend only what we could pay for with cash. We had a bank account but only wrote checks to pay for "large purchases" or for items that were paid by mail (utilities; rent; doctor, etc.).

When we moved to Manchester I was 22 ; Joe was 27; Con was 3 1/2; and, Viki was 6 mo. old. We would spend the week days in Manchester and the weekends in Salina with one or the other of our parents…at first. After we became acquainted with some of the younger couples we would spend the whole week there and go to church on Sunday. On Sunday I would get up early and put the beef roast in the oven, surrounded with vegetables, set the timer so everything would be cooked by the time we came home after services and the whole downtown area smelled like roast beef because I cooked enough to have leftovers for half the week. One weekend we went to my parent’s home and they had bought a 17" TV set……I thought maybe I had died and gone to heaven.

We could see Elvis and the Ed Sullivan show plus everything else that happened to be on the one channel they could get. After we went home we talked it over and decided that there was no reason in the world why we couldn’t have a TV set too……the lack of money came into it somewhere but we ignored that and figured out a way to do it by scrimping on this or that and saving money on gas because we would be entertained in our own home. We bought a set and they installed the antenna on our roof (nearly in the clouds) and we really had the monkey by the tail!! We had the first one in town and it was quite the conversation piece for awhile. We never had very good reception until we moved but ignorance is bliss I guess and we nearly always enjoyed whatever we had…….as long as we had each other and a roof over our heads.

I don’t think that I mentioned that stone buildings (and every other building) in Kansas are infested in the spring and summer with Box Elder bugs. They are little black and red bugs that don’t do anything that I know of. They don’t bite you; don’t eat your clothes like crickets do; don’t make any noise; or, leave a trail or anything. However, they were very prolific (lot’s more so than rabbits, lol) in our building and when Viki started to crawl she decided that they would be good to eat. She would take off just like a shot to catch one and Con would come running like crazy yelling, "Come quick, Sissie is eating bugs." I would go to wherever he had come from and find her sitting on the floor chomping away on what she soon learned to call "Bocky Bugs". I guess I should have left her alone, I never have heard of anyone dying …or even getting sick….from eating the darned things but it just seemed so gross to have her eating bugs that I tried every way I could possibly try to get rid of the things…..but I never did get rid of them and she finally quit (Con was pretty good at putting his finger in her mouth and scooping the bug out). I was always afraid she might eat a spider or something but I guess if she did, it didn’t do her any damage because she grew into a fine looking and smart lady. I don’t think Con could have very much luck at scooping anything out of her mouth now…..if she really wanted to eat it. She probably still has a scar on the under side of her chin from holding onto the window sill and jumping up and down on her bed…….she had been told time and again not to do that because she might fall out the window. Instead of falling out of the window she fell down behind the bed and split her chin. We had to make a quick trip to Abilene to the ER and get her stitched up……I nearly died but she couldn’t wait to show daddy what had happened to her. He always got a report as soon as he came through the door plus he got to eat whatever she had cooked with her Betty Crocker Cook Set That day……that stuff probably tasted worse than Bocky Bugs but he always ate whatever she had. One day we surprised daddy with a puppy that the man that ran the gas station across the street from our building had given us. He told me that it was a cross between a toy cocker spaniel and a Chihuahua. He was coal black and we thought we had a real prize…..we even had named him Pedro. Joe took one look at him and said, "Cork", he always calls me Cork unless he says CORKY then I know I’m in trouble, have you looked at that dogs feet? He said that dog will be big as a horse….by the time he was 6 months old he weighed 65 lbs., was still growing and we had to give him to a farmer. Our next dog was a terrier but that is another story.

It was shortly after that that we decided to see if we could find a place to live on the ground floor. Viki was trying to fly out the window and I had an occasional nightmare (Joe made me sleep next to the wall and I had to get permission to go to the bathroom during the night) because he didn’t want me flying off the porch in my nightgown like I did in Salina one time. I woke up the neighbors and told them someone was trying to cut off my head…….when they sent me home, I know Joe would like to have done just that, lol). Just like the time I decided to clean Tweetie’s cage out on the high porch; opened the door and out he went into the park next door where they showed the movies (free, all you had to do was bring a chair or blanket to sit on).

Joe announced at school that our bird was loose and if any of the kids saw him to let him know. It wasn’t long and one of first graders found the bird and brought him home…..he got to watch TV and eat popcorn for a thank you treat. Poor Tweetie, he froze because we left him at home over Thanksgiving weekend and it got too cold in the apartment. Heartbreaker!!!!

When I learn how, I’ll answer y’all individually……now I’ll just say bye till next time.

Corky

Manchester: The First Apartment

by Corky Hake

The following story is one that only Mom could tell.  I plan to have more contributions from her – and from Viki – about our Manchester days.  These were GOOD days for us.

The following picture is not of Manchester, but kind of catches the flavor.  The apartment Mom is describing looked a little like the brown two-story stone building with a store front below.  Imagine it without all the other store fronts surrounding it.  Our apartment was above the grocery store in just this manner and was brown stone.  Now…I leave the narrative to Mom.  And, when she says “you” in the story, it is this blogmeister she is referring to.

Leading up to our move to Manchester……While I was in the hospital (after giving quick birth to Viki) your father came up and said that he had something he wanted to talk about. I immediately thought there was something wrong with you or our new baby (I had developed a clot in my leg and it was propped up on a zillion pillows and I was not to move without help from a nurse) and I wanted to just get up and run out of there. Then, he told me that he had not been happy in his job at Manhattan and he was thinking about teaching school if it was OK with me and he could find an opening someplace. Needless to say I told him that whatever he could find that would make him happy I was all for it. We stopped in Abilene and he went in and talked to the County Superintendent. Then, he came out and told me that there was an opening in MANCHESTER and after we got back to Manhattan; settled in for six weeks; talked about moving, etc., we made an appointment with the school board to look at the school and talk to them. They gave him directions and said it was the only big building in town so we couldn’t miss it. We drove into town from the south and the first big building we saw was the old blacksmith’s shop (now an artist’s home and gallery) and your dad said, “My God, you don’t suppose that is the school do you?” That was our introduction to MANCHESTER and I didn’t know what to say!!

Needless to say, that was not the school; we found the school board; he was interviewed; and, hired with a drop in pay, lol. They told us about the apartment that was above the store and was being redecorated and ready for us to move into in August if we were interested in talking to the owner. We met the owner; looked at the apartment (it had seven rooms and two baths) and your dad asked him what the rent would be. He said twenty five dollars a month and your dad’s mouth fell open and before he could get it closed the man said he would drop the rent to twenty dollars…..your dad found his voice (we had been paying $65 a month for three rooms in a basement close to the K-State Campus) and said twenty sounded fine and we’d move in August first. I didn’t ask him what color he was going to paint the walls, etc., but the whole thing was a pale kind of sickly green and it didn’t bother me a bit because I could finally look out the window and see more than just dirt or snow (we had a long snowy winter in Manhattan that year).

My dad, uncle and a friend of his that had a big truck moved us from Manhattan to Manchester. Fortunately dad was driving behind the other two because they hadn’t tied some of the furniture down too well and one of my tables that we had received for a wedding gift flew off and dad had to stop and pick up all the pieces. I later glued it all back together and have it in the family room yet (61 years later). We did not know it but the two in the truck were having a fine time and by the time they arrived at their destination were drunk as skunks…..I thought your dad and my dad would like to have killed the both of them. Not only were they drunk, they were hungry so opened up some sardine cans that I had packed in a box and were sitting on top of the truck eating. After dad got through with them, it didn’t take long to get that truck unloaded and on it’s way. People were standing around watching but I don’t think any of them knew what was going on because had they known, we would have been fired before we could move in.

It was really hot but we moved the furniture around and set up the beds and spent our first night in our new place being very careful not to walk in front of the windows because we had no curtains yet……we had blinds but the were pulled up to the top and you couldn’t see them. When I could get around to it I bought a bolt of brown corduroy and made drapes and from the top of the window to the window sill they measured nine feet long. I never did really know how high those ceilings were. The floors were all tiled with black and white squares which you kids had fun jumping around on after Viki got big enough to walk (and jump). One day I was taking a bath and the landlord came up to check on a water leak in the other bathroom and you went to the door and told him that I couldn’t come to the door but he could come on in and talk to me……fortunately he heard the loud screams coming from the bathroom and didn’t come in…..the poor man would never have been the same, lol.

The apartment was over the store and built of stone so it was not really so hot in the summer (we invested in two or three fans) but it was cold, cold, cold in the winter. We heated with oil and had a really big oil stove with a fan on it but I always worried that you kids were not going to be warm enough. Consequently you looked like little Eskimos when I put you to bed at night and probably sweat all night long. My mother worried about me having tonsil problems and bought us an electric blanket to keep us warm. I put it on the bed and mixed up the controls…..I turned your dad’s heat up as high as it would go and he turned my side up as low as it would go until we finally figured out that the blanket was not defective…..we were.

To be continued………..

LOL!!!  Added note: it WAS cold in the winter in that apartment.  We came back from a weekend at Grandma’s in Salina one Sunday evening to find our bird frozen stiff!  Literally!