When An Apology is Just Too Much!!

  Warning:  This post contains the word "urinal."  If you are troubled by this word, do not continue reading!  Those who watch NCIS with some regularity will know that one of Jethro Gibbs' rules is, "Never say you are sorry.  It shows weakness."  I never really bought into that rule.  It seems to me if you run over your neighbor's cat or mailbox, you ought to apologize.  I do worry about over apologizing, though.  More than once, I've caught myself apologizing for just standing someplace.  A person walks up and says "excuse me," and as I step aside I say, "I'm sorry."  This is an apology for being there first.  I really shouldn't apologize for that.  
     There are other situations where one can apologize when one doesn't need to. I encountered one this morning at Panera in Fayetteville.  The Panera mens' room features the height of modesty.  The single urinal is in its own stall.  This morning I went to the restroom and found that the door to the urinal was closed.  I leaned against the wall and waited.  A moment later a man walked out, saw me, and said, "I'm sorry."  He took a step past me, nodding his head, and then said, "I'm sorry," again.  I was moderately alarmed.  What was this man sorry about?  Did something horrible await me at the urinal?
     Let me conclude by saying that nothing horrible awaited.  The man, who I'm sure is a great guy, has just taken to apologizing too much.  He was apologizing for existing at that point at that time.  He is a victim of over apologetic syndrome--OAS.  Hypothetical commercial:  "Hi!  I'm Steve, S-T-E-V-E, and I have O-A-S!"  Sorry, by the way, to anyone actually named Steve.  Not!

Chapter One in The Ellstrom Files: Stranger than Fiction?

     I need to precede this tale with an explanation.  I possess an extreme honesty gene.  I feel that, if undercharged at a checkout, I must point out the error to the cashier. Even if it's only a dime.  I consciously do this.  And other things like it.  My conscience requires it.  But what happened last week would suggest that somehow that gene has taken residence in my subconscious, and makes sure that I remain honest, even if I unaware of my crime.  We went to Lowe's in Oneida and purchased several things.  One was a piece of plastic lattice.  The sign next to it read "$3.97," and I said to myself, "good deal," and grabbed one.  We picked up a couple other small items and the last thing I took from the shelf was a plastic container of grass seed priced at $15.47, I think. We went to the counter, talked with the genial young man who checked us out, and paid $27 and some cents on my credit card.  This seemed logical as I had a purchased the lattice, the seed and a couple other little items.  Linda and I went to the parking lot and struggled a bit with loading the lattice.  In doing so, I left the grass seed sitting in the parking lot as we drove away.  Once home, I realized it and called Lowe's.  The young woman who answered, who I later discovered was a past student from Chittenango, said they had it and would hold it for us.

      Two days later I went to pick it up, and here is where the story becomes bizarre.  As I walked in the door, I was greeted by the 'nango grad, who smiled and said, "You know you didn't pay for that grass seed."  I said, "yes I did.  On my credit card."  "You only thought you did," she assured me and showed me a copy of my credit card slip.  No mention of grass seed.  But there was a piece of lattice priced at $15.97.  Damn, I thought that price had been awful good.

     Then she explained how she came to know about this strange happening.  When they first found the seed in the parking lot, they scanned it to see if they could find out who left it behind.  The scan revealed that it had never been purchased.  Weird!  Had someone stole it only to leave it in the parking lot?  Then my call came, and she, knowing my name, decided to figure out this mystery.  They videotape all the sales at the register.  She checked the tape, and sure enough, the genial clerk who scanned our purchases, somehow managed to totally miss the seed.
     So, I laughed, shook my head, and paid for the seed.  Now, if I hadn't left it sitting there, I would have taken it home and used it and never imagined that it was pilfered loot.  Coincidence? Or some subconscious pilfer-preventing-power I have developed over years of not stealing stuff?  You decide for yourself in this case of life being stranger than fiction!  Da-da-da-DA!!

Why I Couldn't Work at a Holiday Inn

Crouse, Lumpjaw, Moose, and Gruffy Guard the Pillows!

I just changed the bed.  Changed the sheets, redid the blanket and spread, put on the fresh pillow cases, and such rot.  I despise this job, and usually Linda and I do it together.  But today, she was off walking the treadmill at the physical therapy center, so I decided I would do the deed alone.  I make the bed virtually everyday.  We have a longtime rule in our house.  Whoever gets out of bed last, makes the bed, and seeing that on most days, Linda gets up first, and I follow a few minutes later, I usually make the bed.  Actually, it's fair to say it is always my task, because when Linda does get up after I do, she has a tendency to forget her duty.  (Purposely, I don't know?)  She just leaves the bed unmade and heads downstair, there to forget it forever!  Because, over the years I have become rather OCD about having the made bed in our bedroom, I end up making it even if I got up first.  Now don't think that my compulsion to make our bed means I like doing it.  I can think of few jobs I despise more than making a bed.  I hate how you have to walk from one side of the bed to the other, then back again, straightening and tightening and fluffing.  I cheat a lot.  Sometimes I leave the sheet 18 inches down one bed side and 2 inches down the other so it can't even be tucked in, rather than running and pulling and tucking.  If I were forced to work in housekeeping at a major motel chain, I would run screaming from the place by my third room.  I find the thought of such employment frightening.  Truly!

Good Cop/Bad Cop. . .I mean Scout!

A couple of weeks ago, we we were heading to Webster for my dad's 91st birthday, and we stopped at a Byrne Dairy in Baldwinsville for gas.  In front of the store was a Cub Scout selling popcorn.  He asked me if I would like to buy some, and I explained that I bought from the scouts in Chittenango.  This is true.  And that popcorn ain't cheap!  Back in the car, I remembered my own time in scouting as I drove toward the town of my youth.

The term "Good Scout" is part of our language.  I was not a good scout.  I was a rather bad scout.  Like in the song "Leader of the Pack," I think I was "good bad, but not evil."  To begin with, I never wanted to be a Cub Scout, but I did want one of the cool blue Cub Scout shirts with the patches and a cool yellow scarf because they looked like cavalry uniforms that the soldiers wore in "Rin Tin Tin," one of my favorite TV shows.  I was somewhat disappointed when I found out that my mom didn't think wearing the shirt to play in was a good idea, and that when I did wear it, I had to attend meetings .

My first Den Mother was Mrs. Tracy.  The Tracy's lived on Adams Road.  They had 2 kids, Albert, who was my age, and his younger sister, whose name I have surely forgotten.  (I remember her name as being Tracy, and I'm sure she wasn't named "Tracy Tracy.")  I do remember that she was a great tomboy and could swing on the vines down in the Big Woods better than any boy.  Mr. Tracy helped us with our Cub Scout project.  That year we built shoe shine boxes, which we could carry by a handle, and which contained polish and rags and brushes and such.  I'm sure mine was awful.  I could never do those wood shop projects with any degree of success, because I really didn't care what they came out looking like.  I wonder if the shine box project idea had been in the scout manual since the Great Depression when it had been a kind of occupational training.  The great thing about that year was that the Tracy's dog had puppies, and I got to take the last one home with me. We named her Mittens, and she was the greatest dog a kid could have.

In that first year of Cub Scouting, I was a Wolf.  A Wolf was a first year, a Bear was a second year, and a Lion was a third year, I think.  I understood the Wolf and the Bear, in that they were the kind of creatures we might meet on a scout camping trip, but I doubted our Cub Pack would go on safari.  I remember little of the Bear or Lion years, which shows just how not immersed I was in scouting.  There is the inkling of a memory about building an awful birdhouse, but I couldn't tell you a den mother, or list my fellow Bear/Lions, or anything else about those cub scout years when I was 9 and 10.  I do remember being a "Webelos," though, which was what you got to be at the end of cub scouting.  It came with a neat bent arrow patch that looked great on my cub scout/cavalry shirt.  I also remember Akila coming to a Webelos meeting.  Akila was the Indian spirit of good scouting (the term Native American had not been uttered then) dressed in full headdress and regalia.  We thought he was really cool, although, he was actually just Ron Mix's dad.

For a reason I can't begin to fathom, I decided to tthen become a Boy Scout.  I don't know why.  I had been a poor Cub and was thrilled that was over.  I figure it was probably that old demon "peer pressure," that made me join up.   I remember friends hanging the carrot of "going camping" in front of my nose.  Truth be told, I didn't want to go camping.  I liked sleeping in my own bed, in my own house, with my own family, not in a tent full of kids who probably couldn't protect me if a Wolf, Bear, or, god forbid, a Lion attacked.  Our first mini-camping adventure came shortly after I took my vow of Scouthood.  We marched into Webster Park, the end goal being to stop somewhere, build a fire, cook our food on it, and go home.  I brought a sandwich.  By far, my favorite activity that day was going home.  I should have quit right then, but I didn't.  I went to some meetings and reached the point where I was ready to be tested to become either a "Tenderfoot" or a "First Class," whichever the first thing you test for is.  Our meetings were in our church, and a scout of rank took us into the kitchen and quizzed us at length on the scout lore we had learned.  One thing I remember was that we had to draw the scout pin from memory.  When we were finished, we were deemed First Class--until, the head Scout, an older kid, came in.  Our tester told him we had succeeded.  He sneered and said no we had not.  We could not advance until he tested us!  His tone suggested just how worthless he felt we were, and the scout who tested didn't say a word in his or our defense.  Baloney, I grumbled to myself.  I'm not doing this again.  That was it!  I never went back.  Never even bought one of those khaki shirts with the red scarves!  They didn't wear khaki in the cavalry, anyway.

I am completely aware that scouting has been wonderful for many people.  Just look at the Eagle Scouts who became POTUSes.  (There are several, I believe.)  It just wasn't for me.  I tried scouting, and it found me lacking. . .and I found it the same way.  As to the two scouts who tested that night long ago, do I hold any bad feeling?  Do I even remember their names?  Oh, yes, I do. . .I absolutely do!

Blindsided by Beauty. . .and What Followed

Sometimes, I am blindsided by beauty.  Although, being “blindsided” usually has a negative connotation, I don’t mean it that way.  I just needed a word stronger than “surprised” to describe the “surprise” I sometimes feel when I bump into someone or something beautiful. This morning I walked out of Panera and got blindsided when I looked at the sky.  It wasn’t the bright blue kind of sky extending from horizon to horizon, but rather a dappled blue sky, spotted by white and grey pebbles of cloud strewn in every direction.  For a second it took my breath away.  

Later, when I thought about it, I remembered a poem, “The Windhover” by Victorian monk and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, introduced to me by Harry Staley, my favorite literature professor at UAlbany.  Professor Staley was always a blur of chalk dust and insight.  He lectured at a whirlwind rate, and when he stopped for a breath, would lean against the blackboard so that when he turned around you could read some of the lecture notes in reverse on the back of his tweed sport coat.  What follows is a few lines from “The Windhover,” a poem in which Hopkins describes his reaction to the moment a high flying bird dives, the support of the wind seemingly no longer beneath it:

“My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and

valour and act,

oh, air, pride, plume,

here

Buckle! AND the 

fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more

dangerous. . .”

Let me first say this poem contains one of the worst bits of internal rhyme ever created by a master.  “My heart in hiding stirred for a bird.”  Not good, Gerard. . .but the rest is really good.  Professor Staley flew across the front of the room talking about the “essence” and the “thissence” of a moment when the air buckled under the windhover.  For me, it’s a poem about being blindsided by beauty.

Using my dappled sky moment as a point to work back from, I thought of the other moments of beauty I had experienced this morning.  Sitting across a table from and eating a whole grain bagel with the love of my life was beautiful, although I didn’t think about it at the time.  Nor did I think about the beauty of the shining smile on the face of a student from the past, who I had failed to recognize when I walked by her because she had an interesting hat atop her head.  A little boy and a little girl dancing out the door with their mom and grandma in tow were beautiful.  The handsome young couple working at their computer and laughing now and again by the front window, delighted with each other, was beautiful, too.  As I reflected, I asked myself, “Greg, how can you ever be down or depressed when, if you are alert, you so often can be blindsided by beauty?”

That’s a question that is easy to answer.  Darn right, I’ll be down and depressed again.  I’ll think about the mess in Syria, for example.  I’ll not want to risk one American life in any attempt to help a group of people thousands of miles away, many of whom despise Americans.  That's the best way, all right, and I’m not even sure whether it’s liberal or conservative.  Then I’ll recall the final four lines of the poem “No Man Is An Island” written by cleric John Donne, the greatest of the metaphysical poets:

“Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.” 

I quoted from “No Man Is An Island” in another blog a couple years ago.  It’s a poem that just won’t go away.  Too many times over the centuries, when human beings called out for help, other human beings turned their backs, shut their ears.  They chose not to hear the bell tolling.  So. . .is there a bell tolling now that America must heed?

That is a question that will be very hard to answer.  In fact, I won’t be able to.  I’m not smart enough.  And that is depressing!

So, I better pose myself another question.  How did a post about being blindsided by beauty become a post about whether or not to do more war?  I can’t answer that, either.   My thoughts just led me this way.  From a beautiful sky, to a poem dedicated to Christ written by a priest 150 years ago, then to a poem that might be about responsibility by an Anglican cleric from 400 years past.  

To close, I will try one more poet, the Romantic John Keats, who, around 200 years ago wrote an ode about a vase he saw in a museum.  He called this poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”  As odes are, it was dedicated or addressed to people or things.  In this case, he spoke of the painted characters on an ancient vase, captured for an eternity at one particular moment of their lives.  It was a poem about art and life, and it ended with the famous words,

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all

Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.”

My problem is that I never have been exactly sure what that means.  “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” five words that are "all" I "know on earth” and, according to Keats, “all" I "need to know.” (I sigh!) I guess I will simply opt for beauty, let it continue to occasionally blindside me, and hope that most often, it leads me to the truth. . .which it is, after all, so says Keats.

Bittersweet, A Connection

Connections.  I was talking to Mike Fisher about them a couple weeks back, about how one thing that happens to you seems to eventually bounce into something else with which you are concerned, just when you least expect it.  I have been wanting to write about a “for example” of this connection phenomenon for a couple weeks and have finally gotten up the wherewithal to do so.  (“Wherewithal” is a term I picked because it doesn’t sound as wimpy as “courage.”)

You may recall that our labrador Lucy died unexpectedly at the end of March.  I still miss her and think of her multiple times each day.  August 15th would have been her 9th birthday, and I got a little sadder as the date approached.  A bunch of other family concerns were bothering us, too, and I wished Linda and I could relax and put some of those concerns aside.  What we needed was to re-experience “Beaufort TIme,” a term I coined for us three years ago when we spent a carefree month in Beaufort, South Carolina. But I had forgotten about that idyllic term and state of mind.

Then came the connection.  The weekend before Lucy’s birthday, USA TODAY did a feature story on Beaufort.  We read it and remembered the peace of “Beaufort Time.”  But the thing is Lucy had loved Beaufort, too.  The house on the river where we stayed was equipped with a labrador-sized dog door through which Lucy could crash to go out to the fenced-in riverside deck.  The walking was good there, too.  Probably her favorite part of Beaufort life was swimming in the Beaufort River just a mile or so from our house.

I think the definition of this connection is the word “bittersweet.”  Linda and I both agree that we don’t know if it would be as much fun to go back to Beaufort without our girl.  Still, recalling the relaxed fun we had there is really special.  So we are faced with a connection, our puppy and our place, which is very “sweet” but yet somehow “bitter.”

I wish I could say that this connection has taught me something, but I can’t think of anything. . .except maybe that the key word in “Beaufort Time” is “Time.”  Maybe at this time next year, a month in Beaufort will seem like just the thing.  I can’t imagine that it will, but. . .maybe.