Greatness: The Common Lot of Man and Woman

Greatness: The Common Lot of Man and Woman

Some are afraid of knowing
too much, perhaps too little.
Some shrink away, afraid
of what others might think
about them.
Others do nothing, hoping
that life will not touch them.
Many shine in school,
on the playing field, in the bright lights
of the world, think
that greatness has enveloped them,
allowed them to become someone.

What we don’t know
Because, perhaps,
We do not want to know
is others shine, too—
In the confines of their own rooms,
laden with microscopes,
computers, shelves of used books,
and brothers or sisters.
They help the poor, the needy,
read to neighbors,
take food to shut ins, write letters
to those who need words of comfort.
We read in the scriptures
about lights under a bushel basket,
talents hidden low in the dirt,
withdrawing within ourselves.

We can fill ourselves with knowledge
of what we really can become,
of who we need to become
in this life to prepare for another life,
of whose we really are,
for we are truly His….

Once we know who we really are,
no longer will our talents be hidden.
We will reach out to others.
Our lights will shine forth.
Then we shall see afar off,
knowing what He knows,
seeing what He sees,
feeling what He feels,
being what He is.
Truly then, and only then,
We will be great.

Why Winter Was Created!

Whatever happened to shouts of glee and over anxiousness that accompanied the coming of winter and the snow? It snowed again last night, and the snow continues its descent onto our parched high mountain plains of Wyoming. Yes, the weather people predicted this stuff. Some said 7-8 inches; others, perfunctorily, said a few inches. Whatever they said or meant to say, we knew the snows would still come.

Whatever happened to the feeling of being able to go outside and play in the snow, build snow forts in the backyard along the west fence by the Hewards, create human chains and tube the massive sand dunes by St. Anthony, or go snowmobiling with Carey and Laura in Charlie Hunting’s fields down by the slough? All that fades, now that the cold and the snows continue harassing us.

Although Punxsatawney Phil did not see his shadow, meaning, ostensibly, an early spring, winter still blusters around us, spewing snow and unseasonably cold weather everywhere in America. And I am not happy about it. I guess age somehow deadens the naïve senses of youth and the good old days and causes blinders to shut out the looking forward to the white stuff.

When I was younger, I loved peeking out the curtains when my mother wasn’t looking—she hated them parted once they were closed—and watching the huge flakes float daintily to the ground, covering the blotching brown with soft whiteness. Before street lights in Menan, the outside porch light created a funnel that welcomed the white flakes, kissing each one with sprays of 60 watts of light.

Often at night, my brothers and I anticipated what the morning would bring, hoping our alarms would wake us to so much snow that we wouldn’t have to go to school. Finally, we dropped off to sleep, knowing, praying, the snows would pile high enough for us to make paths in the new snow in the soft glow of the morning.

Come morning around 6:15 a.m., we donned blue or gray hooded sweatshirts, our new snowmobile suits, yellow fuzzy gloves, knit stocking cap with face masks, and our green snow Pacs. All bundled up, we were finally ready for the deep drifts, leading to the barn. Like sled dogs breaking trail, we sloshed through the snow toward the barn and corrals where the pigs, cows, chickens, and horses waited for us, anxious for their morning breakfast. As soon as the milking and other chores were done, we had time to play in the snow before we had to get ready for school and a dismal day inside.

Usually our first order of business in the newly converted yard was making snow angels. We fell backwards and began making snow angels, arms and legs outstretched and moving them side to side, ever so carefully out and away from our bodies, touching our gloved hands to our thighs, creating perfect angel wings.

Trying to rise from our angelic pose and not ruining the perfectness of the snow angels proved to be the most difficult task. Carefully, we inched our bodies now thick with clothes and clotted snow to our elbows, then to our hands; then using our hands, we pushed our bodies up and onto our feet and leaped clear of our angels. We stood, congratulating ourselves that we had not plopped back into the crevices of our angels, thus preserving the angelic sculptures in the snow.

Once the angels were completed, we grabbed the shovels and tossed snow until we could see the driveway and the sidewalks. Finished shoveling out our side of the world, we shuffled over to Basil and Freda Heward’s place and began shoveling them out. We tried to be quiet so we wouldn’t wake them. With two or three of us, it did not take very long to uncover their walks and single car driveway.

Just before we slipped back into our house to warm up, drink a cup of hot chocolate, chuck full of miniature Marshmallows, and have breakfast, we trundled to the backyard where we oogled the snow drifts, now fence high, that beckoned us to come partake. Tempting as it was, we knew they would still be there, maybe even be bigger, when we returned home that afternoon from school. For just a brief moment, we planned how we were going to build the snow fort, carefully this time, together, not like last time when the snow was just right for snow balls and all else was forgotten in an onslaught of fist-packed snow. Somehow boys possess a sense of quitting everything when being bombarded by snowballs. Snowballing fights were war, and we couldn’t lose.

Only quiet memories still linger in the minds of adults, now too old or too lethargic to climb from their soft, leather chairs to shuffle outside to taste winter the way it was supposed to be: to sling snowballs; make perfect forts in deep drifts; and create snow angels in the soft, perfect snow, made especially for little boys with imaginations, warm blood surging through their young veins, and no sense of cold or wetness seeping through their clothes.

A Scratch

A Scratch

I thought about Mercutio the other day,
out of the blue.
Perhaps, it was the paper cut,
ever so slight, when
Mercutio’s fatal words dipped
from nowhere, “A scratch…but tis enough.”

I wasn’t hurting that bad. Truly it was
a mere scratch, nothing
that would set off a revolution
among my family and the family next door.
Perhaps, I was thinking
about how dismal life can be,
all bottled up inside
like my mother’s peaches she canned
in August of every year—
tight and placed one by one
until they ached for space and light,
room to breath.
Then the gooey juice dribbled over them,
creating air pockets
that mother squished out
with a regular table knife, moving
from side to side, pressing ever so gently,
until all the bubbles pushed their way
to surface and out.

I was amazed
how a mere table knife
could coax air pockets to dissipate.
Perhaps, for others, this mere table knife
could be used for more
than just squeezing out life’s bubbles.
Perhaps, we could use it
to spread the jams of the world,
across the wheat and rye breads
of confrontation, those quiet ones
or maybe even the loud ones
we hear about through CNN.com
and the rest of world that thrives on news bits,
scrolling surreptitiously
at the bottom of newscasts on television
and headers on the Internet.
Perhaps, my mother knew
the simplicity of peach making
and that’s why she did it only in August,
knowing full well
that if she did in other months,
her life, too, would surreptitiously scroll
along the bottom of somebody’s journal,
and she didn’t want that to happen,
just because it was her life and no one else’s.

Intellectual Aristocracy

Want to be part of the new aristocracy? 

The new aristocracy is called the intellectual aristocracy, filled with people who have invested in acquiring knowledge. Some years ago, Jaime Escalante, whose life was depicted in the movie Stand and Deliver, spoke about a poster hanging on a wall in his classroom. It read: “Free, free, free—knowledge. Bring your own containers.” How apropos for high school students on the brink of entering college and transitioning to the new world economy. 

Knowledge is abundant in the new economy, but we have to be willing to obtain it. Since the knowledge-based economy has engulfed us, we must prepare ourselves to not only to survive but to thrive. Unfortunately, mom and dad are not always going to support your habits. 

Soon—for some, sooner than you think—the responsibility will fall to you. Are you ready? At eighteen, I knew I wasn’t ready. After two years in southern Chile and a year of work, I was ready to enter college to gain knowledge. Had I heard about Escalante’s admonition, I would have brought along more containers. 

Consider these suggestions: 

One, understand that going to college should not be an option. It is a must, a prerequisite to being a part of the new intellectual aristocracy. Our family has always focused on the phrase: “Not if you are going to college but where.” 

Two, while in high school, take a rigorous set of courses. If you can, take those that count for dual-credit, credit for high school and college. You will be further ahead when you enroll in college. In fact, some students in other states earn their high school diploma one day, and the next day they receive their associate degree in other states. Invest now in obtaining the best grades and being involved, thus enhancing your chances to earn scholarships. 

Three, when you go to college, take advantage of the most affordable one you can attend, even if it is close to home. Because most college programs require two years of general education, it is more affordable to attend a two-year college. Community colleges offer a wonderful array of core courses taught by extremely gifted professors. 

Four, take a variety of courses, particularly those that require hard work and critical thinking skills. In the global market, most employers seek talented people who can think, adapt to change, and maneuver within the organization. Possessing good skill sets will enable you to succeed. 

And five, think of your education as an investment that should be replenished often. If you don’t reinvest in yourself and upgrade your skills along the way, you will succumb to the plight of dinosaurs who couldn’t adapt to change. Graduating from high school is truly a huge step. But begin strategizing now how you are going to maneuver successfully through our knowledge-based economy. The best part of being part of your lifelong educational investment is that you become part of the new intellectual aristocracy. 

Remember to bring lots of containers.

Prying Eyes

Prying Eyes

Her little brothers were intrusive in a quiet subtle way.
Out of fear of their father or mother, mostly their father,
or just plain not wanting to get caught,
they did things under the wire,

quietly, surreptitiously, almost phantom-like
until their sister began dating me.
Instead of chasing rabbits out among acres of sagebrush
in pickups, zigzagging along bumpy terrain,

their spotlight emerged from their basement bedroom,
long after their parents had gone to bed, tucked snugly
beneath homemade quilts, impervious to their sons’ shenanigans.
Only after we had driven up in my 1970 Chevy Impala

(or was it the 1972 Monte Carlo?), parked for mere minutes,
it began, like a burst of hail pounding hard on dry ground.
The spotlight zoomed from the basement, zigzagging along the car,
into the windows, focusing intensely on the passenger side.

Often, we would pretend they weren’t there, just ducked
down so they thought we had gone into the house.
They weren’t fooled; they were young boys who knew
the difference between someone upstairs and outside in a Chevy.

You could almost hear them, snickering like old maids
watching David Cassidy. We ignored them at first,
thinking they would go away, the spotlight would lose its power,
or their father would suddenly appear in doorway of the room.

Perhaps, though, it was for the best, kept us out of trouble,
drove us into the house into the warm confines of the living room
or the kitchen where we made cookies or just eyes at each other.
But that’s all gone, long gone; she fled off to college, then a mission,

then to Arizona, I think, married with kids and a husband.
Sometimes in the dark, I contemplate what it would had been like
if we had truly ignored the spotlights, the pressures
of others who thought it best to spotlight us, clamor about

our destiny to be together, before and after mission.
But the spotlight—hers and mine—is now focused
on other things, other lives, far away from basement windows
and prying eyes of brothers.

Nothing is sacred at our house

Nothing is sacred at our house

My mother hides chocolate chip cookies
in the freezer, her hidden cache
for snowy weekends

and long trips to the city.
She thinks no knows they are there.
She locks the freezer

and hides the long, thin key.
Little does she know
that we know

the key’s secret hiding place
beneath the charcoal lighter fluid can.
Our small hands borrow cookies,

some frozen and some still warm,
from the carefully stashed plastic bags
and Tupperware containers.

The cookies disappear
much like the potato chips
and marshmallows did last month.

Sometimes she asks us why
we do not eat much
breakfast or lunch or dinner.

We look at each other,
knowing our cookies thaw
beneath our beds.

Trapping

When I was younger, Tom R. and I trapped muskrats one winter on Spring Creek just behind my Uncle Milt's house. It was a very interesting winter. This poem emerged from those memories:

Trapping

When snows first whiten
the fall straw stubble
and barren potato fields,
I pull my muskrat traps
from the 16 penny nails, half buried
in the side of the old barn.
I place the traps side by side
on a 4" x 6" pine plank.
I turn them over and over,
fingering each one with leather-gloved hand,
like pictures in an album
until I remember where
I placed them last season:
under the tall cottonwood
in front of the half-hidden worn trail,
leading into the brush-covered mud bank.
I press each lever with my right heel,
holding tightly, and gently
locking the spring in place.
The jaws gape open at my feet
while I step back to test
their strength and quickness.
I reach into my goose-down jacket,
pull out a creek pebble,
the size of a cat-eyed marble.
From three feet above the trap,
I drop the pebble.
The jaws snap shut before I can
draw another breath.
I test the jaws twice more
until they are ready
for the murky waters
that run beneath the weeping willows,
through the giant cottonwoods
while the muskrats roam up and down
the creek like Titania dancing
under a full Moon,
not heeding where they step.