Water Sports, Card Games & Airplane Letters

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daughter, family, friends, Memorial Day, brother, sister, summer, Coeur d'Alene, children, waterskiing, swimming, card games, Pinochle, Hearts

Coeur d’Alene rental cabin

As Memorial Day approaches, I remember long summer days of swimming and waterskiing until we were exhausted, followed by cutthroat card games in the afternoons and evenings.

My family rented a cabin on Coeur d’Alene Lake in northern Idaho, beginning when I was thirteen or fourteen, until my parents bought land on the lake and built their own cabin. We split the summer rental season with two other families.

Sometimes one family had a week alone, sometimes we would vacation together. When everyone was there, the parents slept inside, and the boys and girls had separate Army tents outside, each tent large enough for three or four sets of metal bunk beds.

The kids ran in a pack, from rowdy teenage boys and giggling girls down to toddlers. Some were natural athletes and waterskied on single slalom skis, starting when the sun rose and the water was smooth as glass. They challenged themselves to take off from the dock and grab the diving board on their return, so they never got wet above the knees.

Others, like me, took a whole summer to learn how to ski on two skis. It was years before I managed to slalom.

Some were too young to ski at all. My five-year-old sister, showing off for a little boy next door, yelled, “Chop, chop, timber!” and did a belly flop from the dock into the lake, not realizing the importance of having an adult who could swim ready to catch her. My father dove in after her, and all was well.

My toddler brother lost his footing in knee-deep water when a speedboat’s wake rolled by. He did a natural dead man’s float without any prior instruction. I picked him up by the diaper, set him back on his feet, and all was well.

No wonder we were worn out by mid-afternoon. At which point, we returned to the cabin to eat corn chips and drink sodas. And play cards.

Sometimes we played Hearts. I always dreaded it when someone tried to shoot the moon, even when it was me. To this day, I hate the Queen of Spades.

“I hate Hearts,” I complained to my daughter many years later when she  demanded I play with her.

“No, you don’t,” she said. “You love it. You love all those games.”

I still hate Hearts, even when I’m winning.

But I did love Pinochle, our game of choice, though I have mostly forgotten the rules now. Four of us usually played together in teams of two. Sometimes two games were going on at separate tables. We bid too high, but it didn’t matter. If we lost, there’d be another game. We started a new tally sheet each day.

Little brother in his Airplane Letter days

That toddler brother of mine was a bright little guy. One summer he was learning his letters out of an alphabet book that began “A is for airplane, B is for baby . . .”

When the older children played Pinochle, he wandered around the table begging corn chips and asking, “How come you got all dem Airplane letters?”

Once we realized he could distinguish Airplane letters from Kite letters and Quilt letters, he got sent on many a reconnoitering mission. It wasn’t cheating if he happened to call out what was in someone’s hand, was it?

Each year as Memorial Day approaches, I smile as I remember those lost summer days.

I wonder if kids playing online games today have as much fun as my family and friends had playing cards. The competition can’t be nearly as intense when your opponent is across the world instead of across the table. After all, how can you send little brother to spy through a wireless connection?

What memories do you have of childhood summers?

Sticking to Goals as a Writer (and Not)

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Carolyn See, exercise, goals, novel, planning, reading, self-discipline, time, volunteering, writing

I had a boss once who always knew what percent of the year had already passed – it was roughly 2% per week, a little more than 8% each month. He would cite the percentage down to a fraction.

I’ve come to adopt that attitude, as I watch time and life slip through my hourglass. What have I accomplished? I ask myself each week. Have I moved 2% along the path I set for myself back in January?

Even in retirement, I set myself goals each year, just as I used to set goals for my staff and myself when I worked a corporate job. I set goals for writing, for mediating, for my volunteer work, for time spent with family. Some of my goals are unlikely high-bars – like publishing two books this year – and some are more easily achieved – like attending my writing group meetings regularly.

This year it has been difficult to stick to my writing goals. When one is one’s own boss, it is too easy to let events intervene, to rationalize putting things off. There was my daughter’s injury, the time it took to get myself off one volunteer board (although that was one of my goals, and it did get accomplished), ongoing projects on a couple of other boards, preparing and filing my federal, state and local tax returns (which each year consumes most of March and half of April).

Before I knew it, it was the end of April. One-third of the year gone.

What have I done on my writing goals in those four months? I’ve written 45-50 blog posts (averaging about 600 words/post), most of them for this blog, but also for two other blogs I work on. I’ve written a couple of short pieces, edited 200 pages of a novel (which still needs more work before I can publish it), and planned and executed one group book-selling event.

As I posted last year, in Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers, Carolyn See says to write 1000 words five days a week. I certainly have not met that goal this year.

One year, when I was doing the first draft of a novel, I kept a spreadsheet of words written each day. I probably stuck to my writing plan the best that year.

But when most of my writing work is editing, it is harder to count words. Carolyn See has an answer for that – edit for two hours/day. On days I edit, I probably work for an average of two hours.

But the problem is that I don’t write or edit every day. My days are broken up with too many meetings – just like when I was working. It is too easy to justify not working, if I only have an hour free till my next obligation. And that is my downfall!

I used to laugh at myself and say I wanted to be a recluse when I retired. Perhaps that is the answer. Chuck all the organizations in which I participate. And yet, each time I think about the organizations with which I’m involved, I talk myself out of dropping them. I agonize about them for months before deciding that one must go.

I tell myself it is all about self-discipline. And it is.

I could write every day, if I just quit reading so much. But I won’t. Or if I gave up trying to exercise regularly. But my husband, a fitness fiend, won’t let me do that.

There should be time for it all. But there isn’t. (Well, there would be, if I had the self-discipline. If I used those hours here and there between meetings.)

No matter what you do, you can never catch up, and you can never get ahead. Those were the lessons I learned from Carolyn See. Every week, 2% of the year slips away, never to return.

And that’s why self-discipline is so important. So I’ll work harder at it. I promise.

Do you set yourself goals? How are you doing this year?

Reunions, Memories, Age, and Wonder

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age, children, daughter, father, graduation, grandmother, high school, memories, parenting, parents, reunion, siblings, stories, time, wonder, work

My high school graduation

I recently received a notice about my fortieth high school reunion this fall.

Fortieth!!! How can it be forty years since I graduated from high school? I still feel seventeen.

Well, except when my back hurts. And my knees creak.

I remember when I was fifteen and my parents went to their twentieth high school reunion. My grandmother lived in Klamath Falls, Oregon, the town where they had been high school sweethearts. The whole family went to visit, and we children stayed with my grandmother while our parents went to their reunion dinner.

My parents’ 20th high school reunion

Twenty years out of high school. I thought they were so old.

But now I’ve been out of high school twice as long as they were then.  Does that mean I’m old?

Not when I still feel seventeen.

I’ve written before how our perspective changes with time. Now, forty years after I graduated from high school, I look back and think how young I was, how much has changed.

I was a valedictorian of my high school class. I have an old cassette tape recording of the speech I gave. Not from the actual graduation ceremony, but from one of my practice sessions, which I recorded so I could work on my diction and phrasing. I listened to it a few years ago, and it brought tears to my eyes, remembering how young I was. How naïve. How untested.

The theme of my speech was “wonder” or “awe.” I’m not sure my engineer father understood what I wanted to say. He kept teasing me about “twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.” What I wanted to say was that we should take the time to stop and see the beauty of creation around us, the magnificence of the universe and of nature. That was what I wanted my fellow students and younger siblings to focus on.

It isn’t easy to focus on beauty in the drudgery of everyday living, when jobs and chores and getting the kids fed intervene, when one is too weary to do anything more than drop into bed at the end of the day. The magnificence of the universe pales in comparison to a soft pillow.

But it’s still there. And it’s still important to focus on the wonder and beauty around us.

I’ve learned a lot in forty years, about life and love and responsibility. About strength and weakness. About the limits of intellect and the power of emotion.

Mostly, I’ve learned how much more I have to learn. I’ll need at least another forty years to feel wise, to have some inkling of the wonders of the universe.

But I hope after forty more years, there are still days when I feel seventeen.

How old do you feel? What inspires you to wonder?

Jesse Applegate and the Great Migration of 1843

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Applegate Trail, characters, emigrants, historical fiction, history, Jesse Applegate, Missouri, Oregon, Oregon Trail, stories, Whitman Mission, writing

Jesse Applegate, drawn by a nephew

In May 1843 – 170 years ago this month – Jesse Applegate and his brothers and their families left Missouri for Oregon. They were among the early pioneers to Oregon, four years earlier than the emigrants of 1847 in my novel about the Oregon Trail. In fact, 1843 was the first year of significant migration to Oregon; the travelers that year and their lengthy wagon trains became known as “the Great Migration.”

The Applegate party faced many difficulties along the way. The first problem arose because families with livestock could not keep up with emigrants not herding cattle. The wagon train divided into the faster group and the “cow column,” which lagged behind the others. Jesse Applegate was the leader of the cow column.

Jesse Applegate later wrote a reminiscence entitled “A Day with the Cow Column in 1843,” which was published by the Oregon Pioneer Association in 1876, and re-published in the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Dec. 1900). In this account, we hear his perspective of a day on the trail, from the time they arose at 4:00am, until the evening watch began after supper at 8:00pm. It is a fascinating story of life on the trail, and one I referred to frequently in drafting my novel.

The greater difficulty the Applegates faced came after they abandoned their wagons at the Whitman Mission, and built boats to float down the Columbia River. One of Jesse’s sons and one of his nephews, both nine years old, drowned when a boat capsized on the Columbia – a frequent occurrence as the boats pitched over rapids in the roiling current. I grew up on the Columbia, but not until after it was dammed. The river today is nothing like what the emigrants of the 19^th century faced.

Applegate Trail, the northern-most red line

As a result of the tragedy the Applegates suffered on the Columbia, Jesse, who had been a surveyor in Missouri, and his brothers decided to improve the route to Oregon. In 1846, the Oregon Provisional Legislature authorized Jesse to survey a southern route into Oregon City. The route he blazed passed from Fort Hall, in what is now Idaho, along the Humboldt River in present-day Nevada, before moving into California and through southern Oregon into the Willamette Valley. This route came to be known as the Applegate Trail.

Here is part of the letter Jesse Applegate wrote dated August 10, 1846, “to future emigrants” at Fort Hall:

Gentlemen:

The undersigned are happy to inform you that a southern route to the Willamette, has just been explored, and a portion of the emigration of the present year are now upon the road. . . .

The new route follows the road to California about 320 miles from this place, and enters the Oregon Territory by the way of the Clamet [Klamath] Lake, passes through the splendid vallies of the Rogue and Umqua rivers, and enters the valley of the Willamette near its south eastern extremity.

The advantage gained to the emigrant by this route is of the greatest importance—the distance is considerably shortened, the grass and water plenty, the sterile regions and dangerous crossings of the Snake and Columbia rivers avoided, as well as the Cascade Mountain—he may reach his place of destination with his wagon and property in time to build a cabin and sow wheat before the rainy season. This road has been explored, and will be opened at the expense of the citizens of Oregon, and nothing whatever demanded of the emigrants. . . .

Many emigrants used the Applegate Trail to get to the California gold fields after the 1848 discovery of gold. In fact, Jesse and his brother Lindsay both left Oregon in 1848 to seek their fortunes in California. They did not stay, but returned to Oregon in 1849 to farm in the Umpqua Valley.

The Applegates’ tale has fostered the imagination of other writers in addition to myself. Jesse’s great-great-granddaughter, Leta Neiderheiser, published a book, Jesse Applegate: A Dialog With Destiny, that recounts his life.

Remembering: It’s What Mothers Do

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Bible, birthday, broken leg, children, daughter, family, memories, mother's day, motherhood, parenting, stories

Daughter on her 1st birthday

My daughter chastises me for not documenting her childhood completely in her baby book. She claims I didn’t write as much about her as about her older brother.

This week – the week of her birthday as well as of Mother’s Day – I’ve gone back and looked at her baby book. I didn’t do too badly.

Her first birthday was actually on Mother’s Day, and we had a family celebration with both grandmothers, a grandfather, and a great-grandmother on hand. I wrote about everyone who came to see her, and also wrote:

M. was sick – she had an ear infection, but bore it bravely, and looked very pretty in a navy blue party dress which Grandma and Grandpa gave her when she was born.

For her second birthday we had another family celebration. That year, I wrote in part:

M. was very aware of how important the celebration was, and told everyone she was “two on my Happy Two-Day.”. . .

M. had her arm in a cast on her birthday, because she had fallen off a slide at school two weeks before.

Daughter with arm in cast on her 2nd birthday

How ironic that she celebrated her second birthday recuperating from a broken bone, and is now about to celebrate a twenty-something birthday in the same condition – this time a leg instead of an arm. (But other than these two fractures, she only had a stress fracture in high school. She’s not that accident prone. Well, she had hip surgery in college. But that wasn’t an accident; that was a bone spur.)

Her baby book also contains lists I wrote of the words she could say at 14 months, 17 months, and 19 months. I detailed the songs she sang in her first few Christmas programs in preschool.

I have her birth certificate, Baptismal Record, and First Communication certificate.  I can tell you her height and weight until she was ten years old. I even kept her Driver’s Record Examination form from when she was 16 (she passed the driver’s test on the first try) and a copy of the form we sent when she enrolled in college listing all her immunizations to date.

The baby book is one repository for the details of her life.

But it doesn’t contain everything. It isn’t even the most important repository.

The note from her second birthday about the cast on her arm doesn’t record my memories of when it happened. The daycare center said she had hit her head, and not to give her Tylenol in case she had a concussion. But by bedtime it was clear to me that it was her arm that was injured, not her head. I gave her the Tylenol.

That night was the only time either of my children ever slept with me, but I put my daughter in bed with me that night when she cried with the pain. Neither of us got much sleep.

The next morning – a Saturday – was the only time I ever showed up at the pediatrician’s office without an appointment. “She needs to see a doctor,” I told the receptionist, in a tone that made clear I wouldn’t be put off. We were seen right away, then sent to the hospital for an X-ray.

“Mommy!” my little girl screamed, reaching out her good arm over the nurse’s shoulder toward me as the nurse carried her off to X-ray. Without me. My heart broke as she sobbed, but I was not permitted to follow.

No, those memories are not in the baby book, but they are written on my heart.

Fast forward to this February. The text message my daughter sent announcing her ski accident (“In a clinic – probably broke my leg . . . ”) will disappear from my cell phone at some future date, as will her follow-up message (“Surgery! I’ll let you know.”).

But what won’t disappear as long as I have a memory is my sinking feeling and then certainty that I needed to be with her. Twenty-four hours after her first text, I was at the airport ready to fly to her side. I dropped everything to spend two-and-a-half weeks with her. We both survived me giving her shots of blood thinners, getting her in and out of her car (around her friend’s skis and poles), and living together in her small apartment.

Each notation in her baby book, each card and email and text, bring back my memories. The real repository of my life as a mother. As the Bible says, “And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” Lk 2:19 NAB)

Remembering. Reflecting. It’s what mothers do, what we have done throughout the ages.

Happy Birthday to my daughter. Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers.

What do you remember about your children? Or your mothers? Write it down. And tell them.

Diversity in Families: A Mother’s Day Gift from My Son

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children, diversity, earrings, family, gift, memories, mother's day, parenting, personality, son, teenagers, thoughtfulness, time

On Mother’s Day, when he was eleven or twelve, my son gave me a pair of earrings – dangling strings of tiny freshwater pearls. I was surprised when I opened the little box he sheepishly handed me to find such a personal and beautiful gift.

The earrings must be inexpensive, because he bought them with his own pocket money, but they are precious to me. They were the first gift my son gave me that he chose on his own, without anyone’s assistance, and he made a lovely choice.

My son had gone with his friend and the friend’s mother to some craft show. That isn’t the kind of event I would patronize, so I doubt my son had ever seen such an extravaganza of homemade merchandise for sale. And had I been the one to suggest the outing, I doubt he would have agreed to accompany me. But he wanted to spend the day with his friend, and that’s what the friend’s mother had planned, so my son tagged along.

His friend’s mother later described for me how my son had shopped for the earrings. “He was so sweet. He looked at every pair, back and forth from one to another, trying to decide which you would like best. The little pearls were what he finally chose.”

Unlike me, my son has always had a hard time making choices. On the Myers-Briggs scale, I generally test as an ISTJ (Introverted Sensing Thinking Judger). I am extremely strong on Judging – which means I will make a decision on a split second, whether I have all the facts or not. My son tests the opposite as me. He is an ENFP (Extroverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiver). He is as far out on the Perceiving scale as I am on the Judging – he can’t decide what to have for breakfast without wondering if he is restricting all his future life options.

So the gift of the pearl earrings was all the sweeter for having been my son’s choice – a selection he made with me in mind.

Our son went through some difficult times as a teenager – the normal resistance to parents trying to control him when he no longer wanted (or needed) to be controlled. He tested his limits, as most kids do when they don’t think they need limits, but aren’t yet old enough to realize that we all need limits.

When my teenage son tried my patience, I opened my jewelry box and saw the earrings he gave me. And I smiled, remembering his pre-teen self spending his own money to buy something he thought I would like.

During and after my son’s teenage years, I was on my corporate employer’s Diversity Council. The Council members talked about diversity being more than racial and gender differences. We described diversity as including such things as education, family status, and personality style. I had no difficulty with this concept, because my son was my example of diversity. Though his personality was different from mine, though he often resisted and resented his parents, he had many gifts, and one of them was his thoughtfulness, as displayed in the gift of the earrings.

It has now been about twenty years since my son gave me the little freshwater pearls. Each time I open my jewelry box, I remember him with all his dissimilarities. I think of him poring over his choice of earrings and picking these out for me. And I realize that love overcomes all our differences.

What have the different personalities in your family taught you?

Insulation – Then and Now

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family, father, fiberglass, house, husband, memories, sister, stories

My husband and I need to replace our furnace. If possible, we also want to even out the heating and cooling in our house – one upstairs room is perpetually hot in the summer, and a basement bedroom needs a space heater in winter for comfort.

We had a furnace salesman give us an estimate recently. He suggested more insulation in the attic as a first step to improving the ability of our air conditioner to cool the upstairs room.

I immediately asked, “How would you get the insulation into the attic? Will we get dust and fibers all over the house?”

My questions were prompted by memories of the insulation my father installed in our family’s lake cabin when I was in high school. A contractor had framed in the house and done the plumbing and electrical work, but my father did all the inside work.

The first time our family spent a long weekend in the cabin, we walked into the small house that had studs on the walls, but no wallboard or paneling. Rolls of pink fiberglass insulation sat on the floor.

“Pillows!” my seven-year-old sister exclaimed, throwing herself on top of the pretty pink piles.

And then she burst into tears when she started itching.

My father hadn’t even turned on the water in the cabin yet, so she had to wait for a shower to wash the glass fibers off her skin. We had no washer or dryer, so my mother couldn’t wash her clothes. It took a couple of showers and a lot of skin lotion before my sister felt normal, and she complained of itching all weekend.

As my father and brother worked with the insulation rolls, they wore long pants, long sleeves and gloves. The rest of us avoided the nasty stuff as much as possible.

This long-ago weekend ran through my mind when the salesman told me we needed more insulation in our attic. How would we avoid similar discomfort while fixing our home?

“No,” he said. “You have blown insulation. We’d just blow more in. Run a hose from a truck in the street through an upstairs window and into your attic.”

The window he pointed at is in front of my office desk. So if we decide to proceed, I will have to move my laptop and clean off my desk. My skin crawls at that thought, but it won’t be as bad as spreading fiberglass particles throughout the house.

How Do You Read? Ebook or Paper?

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books, ebooks, ereader, husband, learning, Nook, paper, reading, technology, writing

I have always read avidly, as much as my time permitted. Libraries are invaluable, because I couldn’t afford my reading habit without them.

My husband gave me a Nook Color e-reader for Christmas 2010. I was skeptical when I opened the box. I wasn’t sure I wanted to switch to ebooks. But overnight, I was hooked. My reading addiction shifted seamlessly from paper to digital.

Of course, it helped that just as I received my Nook, the Mid-Continent Public Library made ebooks available to their patrons. A whole library at my fingertips! I didn’t even have to drive to the nearest branch.

Scientific American published an article on April 11, 2013, entitled The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens, by Ferris Jabr, that discusses the differences between reading on paper and on screens.

The article begins with a description of a toddler who manipulated a tablet computer with ease, then tried to pinch and swipe the pages of a paper book. I, too, have found myself trying to turn the page of a paper book by tapping the screen, or even tapping a word on the paper page to look up its definition.

The article asks how the technology we use to read changes the way we read, how reading on screens differs from reading paper. Do we read as thoroughly? Do we retain the information as well?

According to Scientific American, the studies that have examined these questions show changing results over time. Before 1992, studies found that people read more slowly on screens; more recent studies have split results.

But many people still report that they miss the feeling of paper in their hands as they read digital books, that they remember less of what they read on screens, and that it takes more mental effort to read ebooks.

I was fascinated by the Scientific American article’s description of the neurology of reading. Apparently, we perceive letters as physical objects. We read by weaving together the brain circuits devoted to spoken language, motor coordination, and vision – a relatively new ability in human development.

We also view a page of text as topography, much like we would view a map or a panoramic landscape. Haven’t you found yourself trying to remember how far through a book or where on the page a particular sentence or topic was covered? I always remember the large picture of the spider in Charlotte’s Web, so I know which page to skip when I read that book.

Paper books have more reliable topography than ebooks. In digital books the location of text varies as the reader changes font size or style, or from one e-reading device to another (smartphone and tablet, for example).

I also miss knowing instinctively how far I am through a book by the weight of what’s in my left hand and what’s in my right hand. With ebooks, I can find out what percentage of the book I’ve read with a simple tap on the screen, but it isn’t the same.

The research also shows that the difference in reading comprehension between what is read on paper and on screen is small, but the difference in retention of the information may be greater. Moreover, knowing and internalizing the information may be easier with paper.

When I want to really learn what I am reading, I prefer hard copy to digital formats. I highlight text when I’m trying to learn the information, and the highlighting function in ebooks is not easy to use. The physical and mental sensations of first reading text, then re-reading as I highlight with a neon marker, make it much easier to imprint the information on my brain. I often print out a digital article to highlight when I want to absorb and retain its contents.

I also am more easily distracted when I’m reading on screen than on paper. It’s too easy to switch to another book on my Nook, or surf the web or check email when all these applications and sources are available with a few clicks or taps.

I don’t know whether later generations will learn more easily when they read digitally, or whether e-reading devices will change to better duplicate the tactile experience of reading on paper. For now, I will split my time between paper and screen.

But don’t take my Nook away!

I love setting my e-reader (now upgraded to a Nook HD) to night mode and reading in the dark in bed. For novels that are pure escape, where I have no need to retain what I’m reading, it’s a decadent pleasure of the twenty-first century. Of course, it also means I sleep less.

Which do you prefer – reading on paper or on screen?

Working Through the Generations: Happy 80th Birthday to My Father

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brother, career, children, college, family, father, law school, memories, mother, parenting, stories, work

I’ve written before that I am a lot like my mother. But I developed my attitudes toward work by watching my father.

My earliest memories of my father at work date back to when I was in pre-school. When he was in graduate school earning his Ph.D. in metallurgy, he worked a variety of jobs and studied at home in the evenings. Some of the other graduate students had wives who worked, but my father was determined that his wife would stay home with my brother and me.

My father’s desk was a tilted drafting table he had made himself, large enough to hold full-size blueprints or several textbooks at a convenient angle (this was long before personal computers). During the day, my brother and I played house underneath the table. But when Daddy came home, we had to evacuate and be quiet so he could study. My mother made it clear that helping Daddy study was important for all of us.

One of the jobs my father had during graduate school was as a butcher at the neighborhood market. When my mother walked to the store for groceries, my brother and I rode our tricycles beside her. At the store, I saw my father behind the meat counter covered in a bloodstained white apron. It seemed a yucky job, but his hard work impressed me even then. (He still can get the best steaks and roasts from any meat department in any grocery store – he makes friends with every butcher he meets.)

After he completed his degree, my father returned to his engineering role, and soon was promoted into management. Then he worked even harder. He left home before we children were awake, and returned just in time for dinner.

He traveled all over the world for his job, presenting papers at nuclear engineering conferences and touring production and research facilities in the U.S. and abroad. He had to cancel one business trip near the time my mother was going to give birth to my youngest brother, so he’d be home when the baby came. He wasn’t very happy about the scheduling conflict . . . particularly when the baby appeared earlier than expected, so he could have made the trip.

My father brought home stories from his job about his bosses and co-workers. As I grew older, I could tell when things were going well for him at work and when they weren’t. Usually, when he wasn’t happy about his job, it was because of corporate politics or budget cuts. Or because someone wasn’t behaving as ethically as my father thought they should be.

I learned from his stories. I learned that doing a good job meant working hard, doing the right thing, and doing the best work you could.

As my father’s jobs became more demanding, my mother raised four children. She volunteered as a school librarian for several years at a Catholic grade school. As the head librarian, she could have taken a salary, but my father claimed it would be a conflict of interest because he was on the school board at the time.

I don’t think he wanted his wife to work for pay. In his mind, it was his responsibility to support our family, and he would meet that obligation. My mother hadn’t worked when he was in graduate school, and she wouldn’t work even after the kids no longer needed her full-time.

Yet, though I was female, as I grew up, I knew my father expected me to be able to earn my own living after I finished my schooling. He paid for my undergraduate and law degrees from excellent institutions. After I graduated, however, I would be on my own.

Well, I surprised myself and got married before I got my law degree. But I still expected to work after graduation. I received my J.D. in 1979, and started work as a new attorney immediately after passing the bar exam.

I had never held a long-term job before, only summer jobs during college and law school.

So I only knew one way to handle a job, and that was how my father had handled his – by devoting as much time to the job as it took to finish it, by being honest in what I said and did, and by working for the best result I could achieve. His stories came back to me as I confronted problems in my work.

And when my kids got old enough to understand, I told them stories. As an employment lawyer and Human Resources director, I found plenty of stories of my own to tell about people who didn’t do what they should at work.

“Don’t ever do that!” I told my children, as I told them about someone lied about an absence from work, or stole from the company, or harassed another employee, or did any of the myriad of dumb things that people do at work (as they do elsewhere in their lives).

My children are now grown and working in careers of their own. As far as I know, they have been good employees. I hope they learned something from their father and me, as I learned from my father.

This week my father turns 80. He has been retired for many years, though he is still an active volunteer. He built a good legacy in his work and in his family – a legacy I am proud to be a part of, and one I hope his descendants will continue into future generations.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Flat Stanley Visits Kansas City

Tags

family, Flat Stanley, history, Kansas City, niece, reading, travel, writing

Flat Stanley, by my niece

My niece, a second-grader in a Seattle suburb, assigned me homework. She wanted me to take Flat Stanley to landmarks in Kansas City, to help her class learn geography.

For those of you who are not familiar with Flat Stanley, he began as a character, Stanley Lambchop, in a 1964 children’s book by Jeff Brown. The Stanley character is flattened in his sleep, but then has the advantage of able to visit his friends via mail.

In 1995, a Canadian teacher, Dale Hubert, started the Flat Stanley Project to get grade school children writing letters to friends to show where they took Flat Stanley. Students create paper Flat Stanleys, mail them to people they know, and ask those people to take Flat Stanley around their communities.

So I took Flat Stanley around Kansas City with me for a week. Here is the letter I sent my niece:

Dear M_____,

Your FLAT STANLEY came all the way to my city, Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

While he was here, these are some of the exciting things he saw and did:

1. FLAT STANLEY and I started near my home at an overlook in Briarcliff where we could see the skyline of Kansas City, Missouri. In 2006, Briarcliff was named the best place to live in Kansas City.
2. 

   Union Station, from Liberty Memorial

   FLAT STANLEY and I then went past downtown to Union Station and the Liberty Memorial. Union Station is a huge train station that was built in 1914. The Union Station Massacre took place in front of Union Station in 1933 (about where the school buses are). Mobsters tried to free a convicted criminal, and four policemen and FBI agents and the criminal were killed.

   

   Inside Union Station

3. During World War II, about a million people traveled through Union Station. It is still an Amtrak station. After a huge renovation, Union Station now also contains a Post Office, restaurants, shops, museums, and theatres.
   

   Clock in Union Station

4. There is a huge clock in Union Station – it’s about six feet in diameter. Do you see FLAT STANLEY perched on the clock? I don’t know how he got up there.
   

   Liberty Memorial, from Union Station

5. The Liberty Memorial is dedicated to soldiers who died in World War I. FLAT STANLEY and I looked at the Liberty Memorial from Union Station.
   

   Liberty Memorial

6. Underneath the Liberty Memorial is the National World War I Museum. The museum opened in 1921.  In 2004 it was dedicated by Congress as our nation’s official museum commemorating World War I.
   

   J.C. Nichols Fountain

7. Kansas City has more than 200 fountains – more than any city except Rome, Italy. FLAT STANLEY and I drove past the J.C. Nichols Fountain, which is near the Country Club Plaza shopping area. The Plaza was the first shopping area designed for shoppers who traveled in cars.
   

   Country Club Christian Church

8. FLAT STANLEY also went with me to a meeting in the Country Club Christian Church. This church is on Ward Parkway, a lovely tree-lined boulevard with lots of mansions. Your Uncle Al tells me when he was your age, he thought this was the church where God lived, because it is so magnificent. (I think God lives in lots of places.)
9. 

   Missouri River

   FLAT STANLEY also had his picture taken beside the Missouri River, with a dredge in the background. Dredges keep the river channel deep enough for boat traffic.

The distance between your city, Renton, Washington, and my city, Kansas City, Missouri, is approximately 1,900 miles.

If FLAT STANLEY should come back for a visit, he should wear shorts in the summer and a parka in the winter, because the climate here is hot and humid in summer and cold in the winter.

Some other interesting facts about my city include:

• Kansas City, Missouri, began as the Town of Kansas in 1838. It was (and is) located where the Missouri and Kansas rivers join.
• There are two Kansas Cities, side by side, but one is in Missouri and the other is in Kansas. Kansas City, Missouri, is bigger, and that is where I live. Parts of the two cities are divided by the Missouri River, and parts are divided by State Line Road. (Why is it called “State Line Road”?)
• Kansas City is known for barbeque. Do you like to eat barbeque?

Aunt Theresa

* * * * *

Now I admit I didn’t go out of my way to show Flat Stanley a good time in Kansas City. Except for one picture (can you tell which one?), I passed all the places I wrote about on my regular travels about town a couple of weeks ago. But I hope I gave my niece some sense of what Kansas City is like.

If Flat Stanley came to visit you in your community, where would you take him?