Past, Present and---What Comes Next?

Sometimes things dovetail so perfectly in my life that it’s spooky. Weeks ago I signed up for a lecture billed as, “Honoring Michigan’s First Veterans” and two days after our election I sat down to this fascinating presentation about the Civil War. An author and former history teacher, our dynamic speaker started out by repeated what both Clinton and Obama said this week about our peaceful transfer of power. One hundred and fifty-five years of peaceful transfers is something to truly be proud of, isn’t it. That’s democracy at its finest and hopefully, we'll continue the tradition.

Then our lecturer talked about how while Abraham Lincoln was being inaugurated (1861), eight lawmakers from south of the Mason Dixie Line went over to the White House, took down the American flag and they literally cut the stars out that represented their states---talk about symbolism---and they sewed them in a circle on another flag known now as the Stars and Bars. Thus the Confederacy was born. Lincoln, as we all know, told these guys that secession from the Union would not be allowed and if they tried he’d have no other choice than to bring them back in by force. It took four years to break the Confederacy and by then more 620,000 men and boys had been killed. Compare that to the 644,000 who died in all our other wars put together from the Revolutionary War through to the Gulf Wars and it drives home the reason why the Civil War is still known as our bloodiest war. I won’t repeat all the interesting things I wrote down in my notebook during the lecture but the aspiring wordsmith in me liked learning that the phrase, “Bite the bullet” came from the Civil War. Wounded soldiers in the field were told to bite down on an actual bullet while medics tended their wounds. Among the many artifacts on display at the lecture was a bullet full of teeth marks. 

This week I also went to my book club where we discussed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. It was written from the point of view of a fifteen year old autistic savant who’d cover his ears and do numbers in his head when he got sensory overloaded. I finished up reading the book while I was in sensory overload just before the election and I count that book as part of the spooky dovetailing the universe brought into my life. It wasn’t the type of book I would have ever read on my own but our discussion was interesting and insightful. Four women in the group were teachers before retirement and had stories of their own to tell about children they’d taught. We got a new book club member this month, a man that I’ve never met and didn’t like from the minute he walked in the door. I’ve got a bad habit of making snap judgements about people, I’m ashamed to admit, so it will be interesting to see if I warm up to him in the coming months. I usually don’t change my snap judgements but I’m always hopeful I’ll learn to be a better person and stop judging a "book" by the cover---lame, over used analogy here but I couldn’t help it.

New Topic: Last summer a woman and her two teen-aged sons moved in across the street. She has Parkinson’s disease and up until this week I thought she spent all her time in a wheelchair because I’d never seen her any other way. A few weeks ago she was sitting outside waiting for the Go-Bus that takes her to adult daycare/socialization once a week so I went over, introduced myself and I learned she can barely speak above a soft whisper. To my surprise, a few days ago I opened my front door to find her leaning on a walker and she had a paper in her hand explaining why she was there. I invited her in and quickly skimmed the message. She was inviting me over to her house for a "girl’s night" with some friends from her old neighborhood. I accepted and after she left I read the paper more thoroughly. It will to be a movie and fellowship night featuring a Christian movie “we might like all like to see.” 

Actually, a Christian movie is the last thing I’d like to see but it wouldn’t have made a difference had I known that before accepting the invitation. It was an opportunity to get to know one of my neighbors. I’ve been feeling sorry for her for months---another snap judgement---knowing she didn’t know anyone on our street and she spends so much time alone. When it was time for her to leave, I asked her if she’d like me to walk her back across the street. It’s a long way and she’s none to steady with that walker. She did and I got to meet her sons. Nice boys with good manners. Getting the back story on what happened to her husband is going to be hard but I’m guessing she’s in that statistical pool of woman whose husband’s leave them when they are severely disabled. I’m planning to give her my email address on movie night in the hopes we can communicate that way---someone had to type out the invitation. Wouldn’t that be a spooky twist of irony if I developed a penpal that lives across the street after a lifetime of having penpals from all over the world? ©