The promises we make... by Joe DeRozier

As the last pieces of turkey, a mouthful of potatoes and what is believed to be the last remnants of dressing are festering in your fridge until they are mercifully thrown to their final resting place, we start our stressful journey towards Christmas.

Each year we promise ourselves that the next Christmas will be better...

We'll spend more time with family.

We'll pick out the perfect gifts.

We won't let uncle Steve get on our nerves after his fifth glass of eggnog.

  

We'll go out and appreciate the lights, and the snow. 

We'll make a snowman.

We'll call friends and family to let them know we think about them.

We'll let every worker in every store we do business with, know how appreciated they really are...

Time moves quickly...especially between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Work, parties, schedules... Soon, we won't have as much time as we had hoped...

We'll end up getting gift certificates for everyone. 

Uncle Steve will get an earful.

We will be too tired to look at lights and it's too cold for building a snowman...besides, didn't the puppy christen that area?

Our friends and family know we love them...besides, they didn't call us, right?

The cashier was busy and wasn't in a good mood, so we said nothing except a nondescript comment about the weather, and left.  Never mind that a kind word of appreciation would have made her day just a little more bearable...

Let's make this year the one that we fulfill our intentions...

Proactive Like a Tree by Joe Scheidler

Welcome back, Joe Scheidler! 

Nov 8, 2018

There is a groundhog in the cover crop today.  We've been seeing him for a few weeks now, generally around the noon, feasting on the newly emerged radish and cereal rye.  I suspect this activity will come to an abrupt end if the weather forecast holds; snow tomorrow, followed by unseasonable cold.  Today the hog is working beyond his usual hours, laying on fat in preparation for the long winter’s sleep.  He apparently knows the forecast as well.

The groundhog is being proactive: acting before a situation becomes a crisis.  It

is responding to an anticipated event, which is winter, by ensuring it has laid on enough energy reserves to carry it until spring. If he were reactive, eating only what was necessary when the mood hit, he would one day soon find himself out of food and short of fat.

Evidence of proactive behavior is rampant in nature: squirrels and birds caching nuts and seed, waterfowl winging southward, insects laying overwintering eggs, frogs and turtles settling into the marsh muck.  During this autumn season even plants respond proactively by shedding leaves and building winter stores.

If a tree does it, then being proactive apparently requires little critical thinking. In nature, it is the result of eons of adapting and evolving, reacting to cues that are life changing or threatening.  It is the product of a lengthy process that bears impressive results.  That's not to say the process has gone uninterrupted. Dramatic, sometimes planet-wide disturbances have occurred over geologic time. Existing proactive measures were sometimes inadequate and entire species, even taxonomic families, were lost, and the slow, lengthy process of filling vacated niches with new life forms would begin anew.

A planetary disturbance is happening again and this time man, that singular species most competent in critical thought and most capable of proactive behavior, is responsible.  Our systematic destruction of earth’s balanced atmosphere has earned us a new title in the epochs of geologic time: the Anthropocene, and this new era has seen the launching of the earth’s sixth mass extinction.  A recent report by the World Wildlife Fund says globally, we’ve lost half of our wild animals in the past 40 years.  Freshwater ecosystems have declined by 75 percent during the same period.  The study looked at only vertebrate populations, but separate published research showed insects declining 45 percent in the past 35 years worldwide, and up to 75 percent in German nature preserves.

Contrary to the perceived abundance we may hear and see daily-- the bird songs, the flowers, the chorus of night insects-- facts are facts.  The studies are not fictitious, no more than running out of gas on the highway is fictitious, and neither is remedied if we ignore them.  As one reviewer stated, “It’s okay to freak out now”.  Yet, by all apparent indicators, we are continuing with business as usual, wielding our dominion over the planet, worried little of food insecurity, mass starvation, unprecedented displacement of people from climate induced disasters. Instead we look forward to the next new iPhone and support fossil fuel consumption at every turn.

We have a one way relationship with this planet.  Earth doesn't need us, we need it.  At our disposal is the technology and wherewithal to influence the end game, to heal the scars, to leave future generations a home.  It demands an immediate, all-in, proactive approach to sustainable energy and lifestyles. We are capable, we can save ourselves, and we owe it to the planet that has given us everything. 

And that groundhog, the birds, the insects? This is beyond their proactive capabilities. Their future is on us, too.

A groundhog lays on the fat

For a long winter’s nap

The birds southward wing

To await the coming of spring

Proactively they choose their course

While man, with his critical thinking,

Burns carbon without blinking,

With nary a hint of remorse.

Days 19-25

Not keeping up very well here. I hope you're seeing these on Facebook and that your Thanksgiving Day (and all your gratitudes) were wonderful.

Day 19 of 30. I wrote this once, but it disappeared, which leads me to think maybe it wasn't very good to start with... Today, I'm thankful for journeys.

For trips, because I've seen such wonderful things and beautiful places and met such great people.

For the mom journey, the marriage journey, the nana journey, the friends journey, the author journey, because they are the best ones, the most exciting, the most fun, the ones I hope never, ever end.

For the learning journey because, even if you're old enough you can almost see your brain cells disappearing, you can still learn new things every day and enjoy that particular ride forever.

Day 21, I'm thankful for people who share the things they know--even with strangers in hotel dining rooms, for pumpkin spice creamer, and for people who tell the truth even when it's not comfortable to do so.

Day 22 a few hours early. My greatest gratitude all in one place except three. Miss you, Mari, Charley, and Shea.

Day 23, I’m grateful for mountain sunsets, daughters and granddaughters, and things that sparkle when you need a little shine in your life.

Day 24 of 30 Days of Gratitude. I’m thankful for “It’s A Wonderful Life” and being reminded that it truly is.

Day 25 of 30 Days of Gratitude. I'm thankful for home. Which needs no explanation whatever.

I just noticed that I missed Day 20. Other than the fact that we were on the road to our own family celebration in North Carolina, I'm not sure how that happened. I kind of like this--it gives me an extra day to be thankful whenever I feel like it. :-)

Turkey, joy, and a small glass of beer

Yikes, it snuck up on me. I have a repeat here from this week's Peru Indiana Today. We're having family celebrations this week and hope you are, too. 

Quite honestly, I'm not sure when I wrote this, so if you've read it too recently to like reading it again, my apologies. The greatest gifts...the greatest reasons for Thanksgiving...are the people in our lives, and I'm so grateful for Aunt Nellie. She gave more richness to my life than I can ever explain.

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” ― Marcel Proust

Aunt Nellie was my great-aunt. She was born in 1892, loved and married two men, and never had any children. She was the other side of the coin from my grandmother, who’d undoubtedly been the Good Daughter, and even though I loved them both, I worshiped the ground Aunt Nellie walked on.

My mother’s side of the family were all teetotalers, but when my brother-in-law asked Aunt Nellie if she’d like a beer, she said, Yes, she wouldn’t mind a small glass. I don’t know that she ever drank beer again, but she did indeed enjoy every drop of that “small glass.” Where Aunt Nellie was, there was always laughter.

We used to go to her house for Thanksgiving. I’m not sure how many of us were there. It seemed like dozens at the time, but the number was probably closer to 25. She lived in a pretty little Cape Cod house on a pretty little street in Goshen, Indiana, and she had...oh, even in memory, it thrills me...she had a step stool you could sit on and the steps pushed out in front! She also had a finished basement with its own kitchen! In the living room part of the basement, there was a cabinet Victrola with a stack of records. They were tinny and scratchy and it was hard to get them going the right speed with the crank, but there was such safety lying on the rug listening to Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore.

Even though I grew up on a small farm, the only time we ever had turkey was on Thanksgiving. I’m pretty sure I ate my weight in it every year. I loved eating whatever I wanted and never having to touch the red stuff that slid out of the Ocean Spray can. The dessert table was impressive, to say the least, and it was pretty much stripped by the end of the day. Even then, leftovers went home with each family, and the feeling of fullness and warmth would go on with turkey and noodles the next day.

I imagine being poor was a key player in my satisfaction with Thanksgiving, but that’s really neither here nor there. What matters are the memories and the lessons Aunt Nellie left behind. She was somewhere in her 80s when she died. She’d been packing for a trip to Grand Rapids with friends when she passed away. Grief created a hard, empty place in my chest at the loss, and I just knew I’d never get over it. However, at the funeral the officiating pastor mentioned her preparing for her trip and said she’d been just as ready to go to heaven as she’d been to go to Grand Rapids. My grandmother, who’d loved her younger sister even more than we did, said she thought if she’d had her choice, Aunt Nellie would rather have gone to Grand Rapids. Laughter softened the grief and added one more rung to the memory ladder.

Aunt Nellie was one of the first people I thought of when I became a Harlequin Heartwarming author. She’d have loved the line’s premise, its joy and sense of family and its humor. She'd have also told everyone at the beauty shop all about her niece, the author. Knowing that reminds me again of how lucky I was to have her.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. If you have that small glass of beer, be sure to enjoy every drop.

Days 13 - 18

Day 13 of 30 Days of Gratitude. I'm thankful for blogs. I love writing them and I love reading them. Even when I didn't have a place for my column, Window Over the Sink--thank you, Peru Indiana Today, I wrote it in blogs. Review bloggers are a tremendous help to authors. Special interest blogs on virtually anything keep people in a loop they might not be able to reach otherwise. (They also help with research, not that it's all about me or anything.) Some are funny, some heartrending, some impart knowledge both relevant and easy to understand. There are political blogs, religious ones, and ones that will make you mad enough you won't go back there ever again.

If you have a favorite blog or blogs, please feel free to leave a link to them in the comments. Their writers will appreciate it and so will I.

Day 14 of 30 Days. Borrowing--okay, ripping out--a page from my friend Amy Vastine's book today, I'm grateful for Google. While I may miss the sturdy dependability of paper and ink encyclopedias, I love the instant gratification and choices offered by Google.

It is particularly helpful in checking the veracity of virtually every political comment or meme or missing person on Facebook, but sometimes it's just fun. (Smiley Burnette played Gene Autry's sidekick, Frog, in case you were wondering... I thought it was Pat Buttram. Duane wins again.)

Day 15 of 30 Days... I'm grateful for the arts and for chances to learn about and participate in them. Talented artists in local galleries offer lessons in addition to displaying and selling their work. The library has free programs on numerous crafts. There are writers' groups, musical Round Robins and open mic sessions nearby. Community theater at Ole Olsen, Logansport's Civic Players, and Tipton and Wabash theater groups, to name a few, are always looking for members.

I hear (and have probably said) that "there's nothing to do here." Yes, there is--you just have to go out and do it.

Day 16, continued from Day 15... I'm grateful that there are always opportunities to learn things and that it's perfectly okay not to be good at them. That it's not necessary to always be the best as long as you're having a good time and not hurting anybody. That music and art and writing come more from the heart than the hands.

That being said, I'm grateful to the artists, musicians, and writers who share their skills and the things they see and feel with the rest of us.

Day 17 of 30. All about me today... I'm grateful for windows. The one by my desk where I watch the deer, the activities visible when you live on an oasis in the middle of farmland, glorious sunsets, and the changes of the seasons. The Windows OS on the computer which was and continues to be one of the great Mysteries of Life, but added immeasurable joy to the writing process.

And the Window Over the Sink, which I started writing in the late 80s for the Peru Tribune and have written off and on ever since. It's where you've learned more about me than you ever wanted to know, and where (hopefully), I've said what you thought, made you laugh--or cry. It's done more for me than I'm sure a therapist would. My thanks to the people who have read it and still do--you are the best therapy of all.

Day 18 of 30 Days of Gratitude. I am grateful for conversations. Ones that inform, that make you laugh, that give you certainty and/or confidence. Ones that assure you that no, it's not just you. Ones that start with "do you remember" and end with feeling as if you got to visit the time and place you were talking about. Ones that clear the air so that you can go on either together or separately. Ones particularly that end with "Love you" and "Love you, too."

MUSTERING IN... by Joe DeRozier

It's late for Veterans Day, but here's a post from my favorite baker, Joe DeRozier, about the way it's been for a lot of new recruits in a lot of lonely places.

I was sitting in my living room, just waiting.

Mom was busy doing things around the house that didn't really have to be done, while my sister calmly sat on the couch. Dad had to work. He asked if I wanted him to stay to see me off, but I knew he hated to miss work. He WOULD have had I asked, but I'm not sure if I could have handled saying goodbye to him.

Mom had cut my hair a day earlier. It was long and I didn't want to draw attention to myself in basic training. I kept grabbing the back of my neck because it felt strange not to have hair back there.

We didn't speak, really. I was waiting for my recruiter to pull up to take me to the bus station in Green Bay.

I pulled my things together and said my goodbyes to everyone, being careful not to look my sister in the eyes.

My recruiter and I spoke in the car during that hour long drive. I asked questions that were vaguely answered. He honestly didn't know the answers, but gave me enough for pacification.

We got to the bus stop. I had never been on a bus. He handed me my ticket, and told me that I was the last stop.

It takes about two hours from Green Bay to Milwaukee, but by bus it was about four. Four hours to sit and think...

I had just graduated high school and had no idea what I wanted to do. College was out of the question and I wasn't sure about the local factories. The military seemed to be a good idea. I got the job I wanted, travel, and decent pay...but now I was scared....and alone.

No cell phones to text my friends. No one to tell me it was okay and I'd be fine....just yesterday's Green Bay Press Gazette....

On the bus I engaged in one of my favorite pastimes of people watching. These were not the same people I grew up with; no one wanted to sit by me and talk. I would have liked that...anything to stop thinking....

It seemed we stopped a thousand times. Towns I had never visited. Some got on, some got off.

A young guy, maybe a few years older than I, had a boombox. He was very respectful and played it softly. Music was changing, I noticed. Hard rock was getting softer, more keyboards, psychedelic.

We got to Milwaukee. He'd told me, last stop, I remembered. It was getting dark. I was the last one on the bus. The driver pulled into the bus terminal and shut down for the night. Dang it...I jump out and have to ask directions to the Howard Johnson Hotel. It isn't far...

I got inside and checked in. I had never been to a hotel. They give me directions to my room. I got up there, laid my things out, and sat. I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

Suddenly the phone rang. It was someone with MEPS. They'd do a wake-up call at four am. Be in the lobby by five. No problem since I won't sleep a wink. Okay. I knew what was next, just nothing after.....

I stared out the window at Milwaukee. I liked the lights.... I ventured outside. I didn't know where I was going or what to even look for. I stayed close to the hotel. I went back. I tried to find someone in the lobby in the same situation that I was in. No one... I went back to the room and turned on the three-channel TV... I wonder if Dad is out of work yet.... is he thinking about me?

I lay on top of the bed and tried to sleep. I'm not sure if I ever got that wake-up call at four, because I was downstairs by that time.

The lobby slowly filled up.

Where were all these people last night?

I talked to a few of them. No one was very festive. Maybe the time, maybe the environment...maybe my breath...

We were herded into giant classrooms...we had a ton of paperwork that we mindlessly signed and dated. No one knew what we were signing and no one questioned it.

My belongings were always on my lap... I was afraid to let them out of my sight. A small connection to home, I guess.

It still felt weird on my neck...

We were set up in groups of 12, more or less. We were taken from one room to another. We were physically tested on everything from eyesight to hearing to reflexes to walking around like a duck in our underwear. A full room of young men, in their undies, walking like ducks. The humor didn't escape me but it didn't seem appropriate to bring to their attention how funny it looked.

I don't know if it was the same group I had been in or not, but we were separated again and given plane tickets to St. Louis.

One young man was put in charge, Phil Arndt (my spelling is probably incorrect). He was the first guy to really talk to me. He corralled us and got us into the plane. He sat next to me.

Phil was my first friend in the army..... great guy. I hope he's doing well...

A THOUSAND CUTS by Joe Scheidler

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to welcome Joe Scheidler to the Window. He read this essay aloud at a Writers' gathering at Black Dog Coffee House the other night and I begged (with dignity, of course) him to visit us here. 

Joe is a native Hoosier with an advanced degree in ecology. He worked for IDNR as a wildlife biologist and owned and operated Springcreek Landscaping for 25 years. The solar advocate practices sustainable living with Lee, his wife of 40+ years. They live near Logansport, Indiana. 

Oct 8, 2018

This morning broke foggy, dripping wet and unseasonably mild. I let the dog out and stood barefoot in the yard, the October soil warm on my feet. Fall flocking blackbirds hung in the cattails at the marsh edge, filling the morning with a raucous symphony. The colors of autumn brightened leaves in the dim light of dawn, and a delightful dank fragrance of an ebbing season’s growth hung in the air.

In that moment, there seemed such hope and promise, a temptation to think things weren't as bad as scientists say. How could we have crashing bird and insect populations, rampant deforestation, melting glaciers, impending ecological disaster?  It's too easy to deny. And therein, perhaps, is the root of the problem.

We, as people, are in a tight spot. Surrounded by the technology and information to save ourselves, we are drifting passively towards certain doom. With a wartime effort we might avoid the worst case scenario, but the probability of acting soon enough appears hugely unlikely.

This old sphere is like a billion year old freight train, chugging along, carried by momentum, optimizing the perfect conditions for life and harboring a resistance to change. But our activities are leading to death by a thousand cuts.  The cutting continues while we experience the pristine, take long drives through endless forests, tally dozens of bird species in a day of watching, find solitude in wild places and breathe air sweetened by all things raw and untainted. The cutting continues as we go about our busy days, engulfed by our efforts to make ends meet, to maintain or improve our level of comfort, to earn and enjoy our leisure, to embrace the status quo.

Recently I learned our current administration quietly acknowledged a projected 7 degree F (3.88C) rise in global temperature before the end of the century.  It wasn't an admission of man-caused climate change, but rather that the planet’s fate is sealed.  It was a justification to freeze fuel efficiency standards because increasing gas mileage in vehicles would play no significant role in reducing global temperatures.  It was a nod to stay the course.

Then today the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a warning that we have only a dozen years to limit total warming by 1.5 degrees C. Another half degree more (i.e. 2 degrees) and dramatic, perhaps irreversible changes to life on earth are assured. According to the report, “It's a line in the sand and what it says to our species is this is the moment we must act”.  The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees is the difference in having hundreds of millions of people exposed to water stress and food scarcity. It means more forest fires, fouled air and heat related deaths. It means massive migrations of people from the world’s shorelines.

But the biggest change, according to the report, would be to nature itself. Pollinating insects would be twice as likely to lose habitat. Ninety-nine percent of coral reefs would die and marine fisheries would decline at twice the rate. Ice free Arctic summers would occur every 10 years at 2C vs every 100 years at 1.5C.

The report goes on to offer specific reductions in carbon pollution and indicates how goals could be met using current technologies.  Former NASA scientist James Hansen, responding to the IPCC, said even 1.5C is well above the Holocene era temperatures in which human civilization developed, but that number gives young people a fighting chance of getting back to the Holocene or close to it.

Meanwhile, we're on a solid course for a multi-degree rise, leaving 2C in our dust.

Tonight I heard coyotes singing. Instead of the typical yipping chaos, they engaged in long mournful howls. Maybe they know something, but more likely they, as so many species wild, are being led innocently to a senseless and needlessly cruel future, if not total extinction.

Coyotes didn't occupy our fair state when I was a lad. I can say the same for white-tailed deer, bald eagles, river otters,  peregrine falcons and wild turkeys. All are the result of applied wildlife science, a hugely successful reintroduction program, and a witness to wild habitats still capable of supporting species long absent. At this moment, just outside my doorstep, the night air is sweet, an ancient bird migration is underway, the songs of insects are reaching a crescendo, and the garden’s newly sprouted cover crop is lush and green.

And while the old sphere spins, a few billion years of refined perfection is being cut to shreds.

The old sphere spins

While time moves on,

We suck our resources dry

And think we do nothing wrong. 

The sun still rises,

The flowers still bloom,

And we're content and nourished

As babes in the womb. 

Our mother is ill

But we acknowledge it not;

We forge headlong in a race

To lose all that we sought.