Lift Up Your Hearts!

Sunday mornings, when I was a young child, often meant going to church. But even more religiously, it meant blueberry pancakes. The pancakes were from a box mix, quite likely Aunt Jemima, although I don't remember for sure. The blueberries, however, were local, hand-picked by our family from a small blueberry farm owned by one of my father's co-workers, Viv Merschon. Mr. Merschon lived in a delightful stone house that he built with his own hands, and always let us eat as many berries as we wished while we were picking.

Our syrup wasn't Aunt Jemima—we shunned commercial fake syrup like the plague—but it wasn't real maple syrup, either. Even living in Upstate New York, that was beyond our budget. We made our own syrup with white sugar, brown sugar, water, and Mapeleine (maple extract). My recollection of the process was to bring 1 cup water, 1 cup white sugar, and 2 cups brown sugar to a boil, and stir until the sugar was dissolved. Then add 1/4 teaspoon (or maybe 1/2) Mapeleine, stir well, and serve. To this day, although I almost always use pure maple syrup (preferring Grade B, which apparently doesn't exist anymore), this homemade syrup ranks higher than any store-bought substitute.

And of course there was bacon. We weren't much of a family for sausage; I've since come to like it a lot, but it will never take the place of bacon when it comes to eating pancakes. The same budget that closed the door to real maple syrup meant that bacon was rationed: three half-slices each. We never felt underprivileged, but happy to have bacon at all, and content to know what was our share.

I don't think it was thrift, per se, that made my mother save the grease that rendered out of the bacon. That was common practice in those days—why waste such a good source of fat and flavor? But that's a story for another post.

Here's a very short Facebook reel that I have found worthwhile and encouraging. Some of you may pass it by simply because it is Glenn Beck speaking, and I'd be in sympathy with that reaction. There are some people—he's not one, but there certainly are some people—with whom I have a hard time following my own motto, "The wise man recognizes truth in the words of his enemies." If you feel that way about Glenn Beck, don't torture yourself.

But I appreciate hearing wisdom and truth spoken calmly, clearly, and succinctly, facing reality without anger and without fear. I share it for those of my readers who may find it inspiring.

Nearly 10 years after I first read and reviewed The Fall of Heaven—a book recommended to me by two Iranian friends who suffered through, and escaped from, the Iranian Revolution of 1978/79—I think it may be time to read it again.

It's a page-turner of a book, and now much more personal, since in the interim our Persian friends have become family. If you want incentive to learn more about the complex history behind the headlines, I recommend acquiring Persian relatives.  Failing that, The Fall of Heaven is a good place to start.

My father did have a way with words.  If you're feeling a bit cynical about the state of the world, you might appreciate his thoughts on politics, from a September 1988 letter:

So far the presidential campaign speeches don't seem to have done much to answer what I consider to be some very important questions. They each keep telling me that to vote for their opponent would be a disaster. Perhaps they are both right.

I'm not feeling cynical at the moment, though I've been known to visit that territory on occasion.  I am, however, tired.  Tired of rudeness.  Tired of ignorance.  Tired of bitterness, hatred and violence.  Most of all, I'm tired of people and institutions who stoke the fires that destroy rather than provide warmth and light.

But Dad can still make me laugh!

When I read that Florida's legislature had voted to rename Palm Beach International Airport to "Donald J. Trump International Airport," it was not high on my list of things to be upset about. (Ditto the change from "Gulf of Mexico" to "Gulf of America." Around here it's simply called "The Gulf," anyway.)

But I'm not fond of naming things—airports, roads, college buildings—after people, especially living people. And I'm especially annoyed when good, solid workhorse names that have served for decades get replaced, benefitting no one but those who are paid to change all the signs. I remember when Idlewild Airport became JFK, and when Washington National acquired Ronald Reagan's name. When Central Florida's Bee Line Expressway to the coast became "Beach Line," I knew the authorities had more power than sense, as if tourists were too stupid to find their way eastward otherwise. (Even if they are, Google Maps makes up for a multitude of defects.)

Palm Beach County is both wealthy and liberal, and no doubt many of its citizens will cringe at President Trump's name on their airport. I feel their pain. We frequently travel up I-95 from Florida to Connecticut, and our favorite route crosses the Hudson River over the Tappan Zee Bridge. That is, the bridge that was subsequently renamed for former New York governor Mario Cuomo. I remember him all too well as governor, and cringe every time I see the renamed bridge signs.

But the bridge still gets me across the Hudson, and whether our grandson flies into Palm Beach or Donald J. Trump Airport, it won't affect my prayers for his safe landing.

In a letter from my father, 6 April 1985

You mentioned some time back that so many of the AT&T fathers, and mothers too, seemed to have minimal interest in doing things with their children and seemed almost to regard their children as an unwanted product of their marriage. I can only comment that I can think of no activity that pays better dividends than the time spent with the children.. I can comment from experience that whatever time you spend can be returned many times over.

I can attest that his life was in perfect alignment with his words.

You probably know me well enough to know that I don't like football.  Even in high school, where the marching band was reqired to stay at a game until our halftime show was over, I was out of there before the second half began, and cared not one bit whether our team won or lost.  For college or professional teams I care even less.

It's true that when someone in the house had the TV on for a game, I'd wander in at halftime to see the bands' shows, which was always of interest to me.  Ohio State football?  Yawn.  But when the select Ohio State sousaphone ran onto the field to dot the I in "Ohio"—now that thrilled my heart.  But when halftime shows threw out the marching bands, I went out with them.

The Super Bowl?  Double yawn.  Not interested in the game, nor the commercials, and especially not the halftime shows.  They long ago became garbage not worth wasting my time on.

If I were the type of person who cared for football, the Super Bowl, or modern halftime shows, or if someone had tied me down and forced me to watch one or the other, I'd have chosen the TPUSA version.  Not that that alternative appealed to me, but I could at least be pretty sure the language would be decent and there would be no crotch-grabbing nor wardrobe malfunctions.  However, since none of the above situations were true, I remained blissfully ignorant of it all.  I didn't even find out who won till the following day.

I'm not against people watching the Super Bowl; if you did, I hope you enjoyed it.  I understand it can be a fun time with like-minded friends.  Just not for me; I'd rather read a book, write a blog post, or even scrub my kitchen floor.  One of the advantages of advancing age is a keener awareness of what is, and what is not, a worthwhile use of my time.

Spoken by Faramir, in The Two Towers.

Here's some more from my father, writing in 1988 about an airplane flight to Denver.

There is much talk about the high level of illiteracy in this country and I suppose that is why all the "do and don't" instructions on the plane are all in the form of pictures with no words to be found anywhere. I have my own type of illiteracy—I often can't understand pictures. There was a picture that seemed to be a man and a woman with something that I could not make out between them, and the line through the picture indicating that whatever the picture represented was forbidden. It wasn't until my trip to Hawaii when I paid more attention to it that I concluded the picture had to do with whether or not the lavatory was occupied. It needs to be recognized that some of us never went to kindergarten and we therefore sometimes need a few words to help us along.

I did go to kindergarten, and still need words to help me along.  I never did like those "wordless books" that were popular when our kids were young.

That said, when confronted by a choice between those cryptic heiroglyphics and instructions in a foreign language, I usually have a better (though still minimal) chance of decyphering the pictures.

(I can't say I've been waiting all my life to use "cryptic," "heiroglyphics," and "decyphering" in the same sentence, but now that I've accidentally done it, I find it pretty cool.)

This may be the most inspirational pig story since Charlotte's Web.

I've recently discovered Mollie Engelhart, who is both a regenerative farmer, à la my hero Joel Salatin, and an excellent writer. Also more:

Mollie Engelhart, regenerative farmer and rancher at Sovereignty Ranch, is committed to food sovereignty, soil regeneration, and educating on homesteading and self-sufficiency. She is the author of “Debunked by Nature”: Debunk Everything You Thought You Knew About Food, Farming, and Freedom—a raw, riveting account of her journey from vegan chef and LA restaurateur to hands-in-the-dirt farmer, and how nature shattered her cultural programming.

The title of Engelhart's article this morning is "The Pig Who Refused to Be Bacon." Good enough, but I think I would have called it "The Pig Who Lived." 

Brave Hart stands as a reminder that will matters. That spirit matters. That individual actions can shift outcomes in ways we cannot predict.... And every time I see her, mud on her sides, babies tucked against her belly, I’m reminded: The fight you think you’ve lost may be the one that changes everything.

You may have guessed by now that I love engineers.  I am not one myself; my degree is in mathematics.  But tell me, what would engineering be without math?  I rest my case.

Engineering and mathematics are strong in both my heredity and my environment.  Therefore I laughed harder at this Don McMillan comedy routine than I have in quite a whle.  If you are an engineer, or know an engineer, you may, too.

If you're not an engineer and don't want to sit through 25 minutes of jokes you might not understand, but you would like to understand better the engineers in your life, here's the important graphic from the section that starts at 4:50.

My father may have been an engineer himself, but as I read through his journals I run repeatedly into comments expressing frustration about how hard it was to read my emotions.  As he said after my first experience of a fireworks show, on my 7th birthday:  "As usual, she gave little indication of how she was impressed."  Perhaps I'm more engineer than I thought.

Anyway, I hope that made some of you smile, thinking about yourself and the engineers around you.  (Thanks to ND for finding this.)

There hasn't been a lot of Grace news recently (for which we are thankful), but Heather just posted an update and a new prayer request. In short,

On Wednesday, 2/4, Grace will have a long MRI, for which she will be sedated. (She normally does not get sedated, as she is so good at holding perfectly still (she usually falls asleep) but this one is very detailed and thus of long duration, too much to ask of any four-year-old.) They will be looking specifically for any changes in the size of her ear tumor, and especially for what is going on around her eye that they couldn't see well in her most recent MRI. Here are three specific requests.

• That there be no eye tumor at all, of any size
• That her ear tumor will have shrunk
• That the news about the above will be such that they will be able to take a break from the NF1 medicine to give her skin a chance to heal. One of its side effects is a very itchy skin rash. As Heather wrote, "With the dry weather, Grace's skin has really broken out. It gets dry and itchy, and then she scratches so hard that she makes herself bleed, and gives herself welts. So our nighttime routine involves slathering her with cortisone and Vaseline before she puts her pajamas on. I've also tried cutting her nails more often and filing them more often, but the thing that works best is just having her wear mittens to bed. Her pain tolerance is still so high that she doesn't really realize that she's scratching herself to excess."

Thank you for your concern and your faithful prayers. Sunday, February 8 will mark the second anniversary of Grace's bone marrow transplant, and on that front she is looking very well indeed.

You think Minnesota has problems?  You should see what's going on here in Florida.

Back in 1992, Hurricane Andrew brought to Florida a massive wave of illegal immigrants.  No, not people.  Iguanas.  The green iguana is an invasive species that has been devastating South Florida's flora and fauna ever since. Plus, what other state includes a "Falling Iguanas Warning" in its weather forecasts?  In cold weather, the heavy, cold-blooded beasts go comatose and start falling out of trees, and woe to person, pet, or car standing in their way.

Sunday and Monday, the State has lifted their prohibition on transporting live iguanas, hoping people will join in a massive effort to round up the reptiles up for deportation while they are less capable of resisting.

Officials say the order allows people to remove green iguanas from private property with landowner permission, or from commission-managed lands in South and Southwest Florida, and deliver them directly to designated FWC offices.

Not that this is something you casually pick up off your neighbor's lawn and throw into the back of your pickup truck.

They said iguanas must be placed in a sealed, escape-proof cloth bag and then secured inside a locked container labeled “prohibited reptiles.” Bags must remain closed until transferred to FWC [Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission] staff. FWC also advises wearing protective gloves, long sleeves and pants when handling iguanas. Collected animals should be transported immediately to reduce the risk of escape.

Florida and Minnesota may be far apart both geographically and politically, but this weekend I believe the Sunshine State would be happy to join the North Star State in an anti-ICE protest.  I can't remember when we had our last hard freeze.  We did once go camping with the Indian Princesses when the temperatures hit the mid-20's—but I think that was some 30 years ago.

There's been a lot of talk about autism, and the autism spectrum, in recent years: what it is, what causes it, why the condition seems to have skyrocketed, what can or should be done to help those dealing with it. I'm not getting into the politics of it all; whether you blame heredity, vaccines, Tylenol, environmental pollution, ultraprocessed foods, random chance, or all of the above doesn't matter for this post. Personally, my own favored "cause" is the explanation I once heard of the high number of children considered "on the spectrum" in places like Silicon Valley and Seattle: Engineers are marrying engineers. I'm only half joking.

From my perspective, 1988 seems recent, but in the 38 years since then much has changed, including autism awareness. In that year, my father attended an Elderhostel program near Pikes Peak, Colorado. This comment from his journal of the occasion stood out:

Mrs. Drummond felt compelled to keep up a conversation as we traveled to her home. They have two children, a girl about 7 and a boy about 5 years old. The boy is Autistic and is in the public school for the first time this year. The disease is rare enough, at least in that area, that she has had to spend a good deal of time instructing the teacher on how to handle the problem.

Today, no one would call autism a disease, nor would they consider it rare. On the other hand, I'm certain there are many parents of autistic children who would say that they are still having to spend a good deal of time educating teachers (also family, friends, and random strangers).

Forty years ago today, the temperature was a record cold of 26 degrees, and my friend Leanne and I were looking forward to watching the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger from our front yard. She and her young daughter were visiting, and I was eager for her to see Central Florida's most exciting show. But instead of awaiting the launch outdoors, we opted to keep our two preschool children inside and watch from our big front window.

The folks at NASA should have been as concerned about the cold. We all know what happened that day.

At Porter's office, worked stopped to observe the launch. Heather watched with her first-grade classmates from the school playground.

We were never quite the same again.

(Much later, Heather would graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, where Judy Resnick was especially honored. Then she moved to New Hampshire, home of Christa McAuliffe. Some events refuse to let themselves be forgotten.)

Living in Central Florida, regularly watching shuttle launches, thrilling to the double sonic boom of the landings, and having a cousin who worked for NASA in the early years made this a tragedy especially close to my heart. I was appalled by the number of people in other parts of the country and the world who were making jokes about it. (This was well before there was social media to inure us to heartlessness.) Here in Central Florida this day is a "where were you when...?" question, like "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" and "Where were you when the Twin Towers came down?"

I asked at choir practice tonight, "Do you know where you were 40 years ago today?" And the stories came out.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

—John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

(Read by President Ronald Reagan in honor of the Challenger astronauts.)