While writing a book based on my time at college, an attempt to contact everyone who would become a character in the story was made. My friend Nanci, Nan i, as we called her after the iron-on “C” fell off her Superman Tshirt emblazoned with her name, figured prominently in my memories. I was delighted when she sent me an email. However, that moment was bittersweet, as the reading of her words revealed this wonderful person had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.

After a few weeks, while taking a break from the chemotherapy and allowing her hair to grow, she agreed to meet with a few of us old college buddies. Before long we were corresponding often. She attended the “Ridin’ Around” book launch as an honored guest. A few weeks later we decided to take a day trip and were having the time of our lives.

While riding along in my midlife crisis Camaro z28 with this dear college friend, we talked and joked and laughed despite having no communication for the previous twenty-five years. She could make me laugh like no other person on earth. Oh, for a transcript of all the quips and jokes we made that day in the car! It was spontaneous, natural, and really funny. However, no recording was necessary for one thing she said. It will forever be a meaningful moment in my memory. Motoring down the highway Nanci turned to me and stated:

“Elaine, I didn’t know if we’d have anything to talk about because I’m not the same person I was back when we were in college. But, you know, I found out, I AM the same person!”

Tears came to my eyes and if I hadn’t been driving, I would have hugged her. Not too firmly though-the cancer had ravaged her body to the point of fragility. We took full advantage of the next few months, until that terrible disease took her spirit from us. Even the last time we met, a few days before her death, we laughed. Well, we were trying not to cry.

So many years can pass by unnoticed and the layers of life seem to separate us not only from our friends, but from our true selves. This memory gives me the courage to throw off those layers and reach out to the people I love no matter how long we have been apart. Because that love, though buried, is probably still there and can thrive if you’ll just let it out.  And, also, you may be older, fatter, grayer or even a bit wiser, but deep down inside, you’re still you.

 

Recently, some work on the big air conditioning units was performed behind brick walls near the building where I go to work. Cranes blocked the driveway and parking spaces and various other inconveniences occurred. But the work was completed. The result cannot be seen, but there is a new phenomenon.  A hum, it is, at a certain pitch and quality to remind one of something specific.

Hummmmmmmmmmmm it goes constantly, as I walk by. Then it hit me. It was the first haunting note in the Steve Miller Band song, “Jet Airliner!” The air conditioning was kicking off the classic rock song. So, of course, I had to continue and break into the song: “Leavin’ home out on the road…thinkin’ about my home…big ol jet air liner, don’t carry me too far away…”

This feeling did not go away, nor did the song, so I found it on youtube to listen. A quick pass through FaceBook found my high school and great musician friend Keith Reynolds to be logged in. Sending him a quick message about listening to the classic rock and needing to tell someone about the weird phenomenon, we got the inspiration to rhyme, and traded writing verses off the proverbial cuff:

Elaine: Thanks go to youtube, they got the greatest hits,
           Whether you like that weirdo Ice Cube, or even a Ballroom Blitz.

Keith:  Steve Miller was the sound I liked, no matter how hard I tried,
           The sounds just kept flowin' by, takin' me to way up to the skies.

Elaine: When the ac unit started hummin,
            I found myself a drummin,
            Fought the urge to break into “Jet Airliner,”
            People would a thunk I'd hit the Shiner.

Keith:  Shiner is a beer, tequila puts you into gear,
           Everclear just makes you queer,
           And bourbon if mixed with all three will bring you where????
           I certainly don't know....

Elaine: And I don't really wanna know,
            Just wanna go out to the show.
            Grandpa's pickin,
            The chicken's finger lickin',
            Let's just dance, let’s GO GO GO!

(Note the song playing during the last verse, “Dance, Dance, Dance,” begins “My grandpa, he’s ninety-five, and he keeps on dancin’, he’s still alive.” So grandpa made an appearance…)

Ain’t it great when the music touches your soul, lightens your mood, brightens your day, and inspires you to be completely goofy? Most times people don’t see me be goofy, but it does happen… here’s a link to the song on youtube and the hummmmmmmmm… Jet Airliner

Mother was a worrier. Perhaps growing up during the Depression and observing all the hardships and heartache associated with World War II caused her to anticipate trouble. One of my jokes about this trait is if I were to tell my mom about an incident where we had a flat tire, but found a $100 bill on the side of the road, she would only hear the “had a flat tire part.” She focused on the worrisome things.

But, worrying is not usually part of being me. Dad tended not to worry about much of anything. Perhaps my usually calm nature took after him with regard to fretting over things. That temperament saved him from having ulcers and heart problems. I fought the ulcer problem years ago during a very unhappy work situation and learned to control anxiety. Yet in the past few days I’ve found myself preoccupied about something over which there can be little control. Coincidentally, a garage sale find made it to the top of my “books to read” stack—a hardback version of the Dale Carnegie, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.” This famous book was copyrighted in 1944, ’45, ’46, ’47, and ’48, and who knows how many subsequent printings exist.

The past few days I’ve been agonizing over finding a way to raise enough money to fund a trip to a great two-day event in September in a town a three hour drive from my home. Ideas bounced around my head, plans, good and bad were examined. I contacted several friends to see if a night’s lodging could be bummed. Reviewing the pros and cons revealed the cost of the trip to be the only negative. The pros were numerous. So, taking action, I designed a flyer for a “Package Deal” with my books and some John Wayne movies and posted it as an “offer” on Facebook. Sadly, twenty-four hours later, not one sale was realized. Ideas of various things to sell or make money ping-ponged around in my head. The fretting exploded into honest to goodness worry.

Then the thought of something I read in that book a few nights back came to me. Carnegie quoted a  formerly bankrupt investment banker who received some valuable advice. He was instructed to put a stop loss on any investment to reduce the amount of losses should that investment go sour. The man realized the theory was applicable to other facets of life. Stop Loss. Cut your losses and move on. Worry is like throwing good money after bad. Assess the situation and assign a stop loss point. Worry and fretting about something you can't seem to resolve gets you nowhere. It does create frowns and heart palpitations and various other unpleasant symptoms. But it doesn’t fix the problem.

Back to my desire to attend the event to show off my books, make important contacts, and possibly see old friends who live in the area. The cost of this venture would likely not be covered with sales revenue. The money would have to come from another source. The whole plan was becoming too difficult to execute. Why should I bother friends to put me up for a night or two? Would the experience be worth the cost?

When those questions roared through my mind, I said, “Whoa. Stop. Stop Loss. Cut and run.” The thought of the many car restoration projects which were abandoned and placed on Craig’s List hit me. We’ve done that. Thrown up our hands and sold a car for which we had great plans at a loss. So I figuratively threw up my hands and said, “Enough, Elaine. If it’s going to happen, it will happen.” Shortly thereafter, our friend called and said I’m welcome to stay with them. They live less than 30 minutes from the event.

So with that good sign, I stopped worrying, fretting, and being overly concerned about something which, in the whole scheme of things, isn’t all that important. What’s vital is to live each moment in happiness and contentment. If something is to be, it will be. Struggling to make it happen does no good for me or the world around me. Hmm, maybe I should write a poem:

If a thing is to be, it will be.

No need to struggle or plea

Time will allow us to see

If that thing is really to be.

E

Having a photographic memory should be a wonderful attribute. However, imagine, if you will, this characteristic is solely activated upon an encounter with a horrific, shocking, or even just very unpleasant image. The afflicted person may bemoan the feature is not at all helpful with more constructive pursuits such as memorizing poetry or remembering where to go when she forgot to bring the map. Yet, the person is encumbered with terrible images stored in her brain.

For example, a long time ago a very scary movie was playing on cable with the most hideous, frightening looking vampire one could imagine. The face was blue with death and the hooked nose seemed to have its own sharp claw. Nowadays, vampires are romantic figures, a notion I simply cannot understand, whereas this THING was evil. The image of that horrible face is burned into my memory from just one look at the TV screen over thirty years ago. Another example of the impressionability of my mind is when I walked through the living room where my father in law was watching the movie, “The Jackal.” My eyes were drawn to the screen, as it seems is natural to do, just as Bruce Willis purposely fired a large gun of some sort and completely blew his assistant’s arm off at the shoulder.  The image of the man twirling, spewing blood in all directions and the mangled arm socket is etched in my memory. Even now, my heart races while thinking of this.

Perhaps it began when I was a small child. My mother and sister were collecting tarantulas for a science project in our front yard. They would pour a little gasoline in the hole, and out would crawl a large and very agitated spider. They scooped them up with a shovel and dropped a total ten or fifteen into a metal trash can. Curious little me put my little fingers on the edge of the can and stood on tiptoe to look inside. The mass of writhing, hairy horrors likely made me scream and surely cemented a strong case of arachnophobia which keeps the local exterminator with a regular customer.

The image of the girl’s leg sinking through the water at the beginning of “Jaws.” My foot turned toes backward after being pushed and while falling down some stairs in junior high. The dirt on the inside of my helmet shield after tumbling into a ditch with an upside down motorcycle.

What brings this issue to mind at this time is something which occurred recently at an outdoor event here in Central Texas. The temperature was 102 in the shade. The day dragged on. A woman from a radio station had conducted some interviews complete with headphones and sitting next to her equipment. She apparently overheated and felt faint, as she rushed to lie down on a bench. But, just as quickly, she rose straight upward and projectile vomited over the handrail. The sight of her stomach contents shooting from her mouth now joins the substantial amount of unpleasant images in my mind.

And I wonder why I have nightmares.

So, just as anyone who has witnessed something disturbing, I must pigeonhole these images and, remember what my mom would have said, “Just put it out of your mind, Elaine.”

I do try, Mama, I do try.

As a person who participates in regular sessions of yoga exercise and believes in the power of the universe and love, a gift of a desktop Zen Garden was recently bestowed upon me by a friend. This little box included a shallow wooden tray about four inches wide by ten inches long. The kit also included a bag of very fine sand, some small rocks, and a teeny tiny plastic rake.

After adding some colorful rocks and a souvenir shell turtle with glasses, I found moving the sand around with the teeny tiny rake was indeed soothing and rewarding. Some days the sand became as smooth as glass. Other times, it would drift against the sides of the box as if a strong, desert wind had blown through my office cubicle.  Often, strange designs appeared in the surface of the sand as though the shell turtle with glasses had hopped about across the sand under the cover of darkness. Coworkers would stop by to rake the sand and rearrange the rocks. Overall, the desktop Zen Garden was a big success in the office.

In a seemingly unrelated event, a new addition to my menagerie of pets at home came in the form of a nine week old kitten. Thus, for said kitten, being too small to protect himself outdoors in the Central Texas countryside with hawks, raccoons and coyotes ready to eat him, a cat litter box was placed into service. At first, cleaning the thoroughly disgusting tray of offal was a nose holding, sometimes gagging experience.  But the discovery of an exceptionally effective odor control, clumping cat litter made this task much less objectionable.

One morning, after scooping out the now thankfully unrecognizable excrement with the slotted spatula type instrument designed for such activity, I quite unintentionally proceeded to smooth and move the cat litter around the box. The grains sifted through the slots in the scoop easily and gracefully. The surface of the litter moved like a wave with the strokes of the scoop. I smiled. Yes, you read that right. I smiled while leaning over the cat box. It was surprisingly peaceful.

Therefore, no wonder indoor cats and odor controlling cat litter are so popular. They combine to make a very desirable pet situation.   Between the warm, soft fur, the gentle purring, and the unexpected pleasure of litter box stirring, a person most certainly can reach a state of Cat Box Zen.

Monsters. Multiple images of nightmarish shapes. Falling, stumbling, even jumping out a window. That’s what the film shown to a bunch of us teenagers in the early '70s taught me about doing drugs. Scared the peediddly squat out of this gal so badly that I never considered trying any drugs, cigarettes or more than two margaritas. And we’re talking forty years that lesson has stayed with me.

There is quite the discussion in America today for the legalization of recreational marijuana. Perhaps that indicates medical marijuana is already fairly commonplace. Some folks are adamantly against it, others are very much in favor of the drug being available legally. Arguments are made stating the effects of marijuana are no worse than alcohol, which, unless one is driving, is perfectly legal. Others take moral issue with the use of this drug saying it is just plain wrong-a sin.

Personally I sit on the fence on this topic. Being a fairly moral person, and having the crap scared out of me with a visual display of what could happen under the influence of drugs, I would not eat, drink or otherwise use marijuana. Never mind it is illegal. Except in Colorado.

Why are there laws? To protect John Q. Public from something, someone, or himself. Laws regarding drugs are an attempt at the latter. Good ol’ John, he shouldn’t be smoking that stuff, it’ll lead to other problems, or he’ll jump off a bridge or something. So it is illegal for John to have the drug. Trouble is, John gets it anyway. What was the lesson of Prohibition? Keep people from legally getting what they want and they’ll find an illegal way to get it. In some cases, the danger of breaking the law is part of the appeal. “Look at me, I’m really bad,” the guy with the bag of dope says. Funny how “bad” is both good and bad to some people.

As a fifty something year old, it is easy to say the morals of today are so loose, the line between right and wrong is so blurred, or that the country is going to Hell in a hand basket due the actions of the younger generation. But like that anti-drug commercial said, “Where’d you learn to do that?” “From you, Dad. I learned it from you.” One can go back in history and find entire decades spent under the spell of opiates or alcohol. Yet civilization has survived, and moved forward.

I guess those monsters and terrifying things shown in that movie so long ago would now appear hokey or commonplace. Heck, there are images in commercials that give me nightmares today. Perhaps I was, and am, impressionable; perhaps inherently moral activity is in my nature. My mom always said, “To each his own.” After all, each of us has different views and desires.

However, there is a line to be drawn. As long as an action doesn’t hurt anyone or anything, it should be all right. Whether a person is drunk, high or a violent sociopath makes no difference to the person he caused physical or emotional pain. Nothing is a good excuse for hurting others. But if somebody under the influence of drugs, or just plain meanness, does something which causes hurt to me or mine, he’ll need a different kind of drug to ease the pain of the gunshot wound he'll get from me.

 

Regret. Just what causes regret? Often we look back on a situation and see it more clearly than when we were actually facing it. We realize something should have been done, but for some reason we do not act. Emotional issues can be uncomfortable and one might be hesitant to step into another person’s predicament. A famous quote says one should not offer uninvited advice. But our hearts tell us otherwise.

What should we do?

If a person has a conscience, and an answer to  a problem, he will be compelled to help another person facing that same problem. Experience—knowing what someone is feeling in a certain circumstance—is a unique connection between humans who have, and are, facing similar issues.  That connection may allow an interaction which will have a profound effect on both parties. But when that connection is avoided, both people are left in a void. The person with the firsthand experience who fails to act on his compulsion to help another in the same situation will never know what might have happened. He will always wonder if a few words offered to the troubled person could have made
a difference. That is regret.

Conversely, when that personal experience is shared with another in the same struggle you have endured, an emotional connection deeper than almost anything you’ve ever known is created. The
knowledge that someone else understands, and truly knows how he feels is more healing than hours of therapy. No longer feeling alone, he can draw from his ally’s strength, heal, and forge a bond which will never break.

 Why do we not act when we should? Our hearts know what action should be taken, what words should be spoken. Something stops us. Fear. The fear of failure, the fear of ridicule, of rejection, of
embarrassment. Yet, are these valid consequences? What harm does it do to endure  any of those negative possibilities? No skin off your nose, as the saying goes. You tried. If you don’t at least try, regret will result.

Case in point: a former classmate from high school sent me a manuscript to review. I read a little of it and put it off for later. That friendsuddenly died. And I never talked to him about his manuscript. In fact, I still have it, this true story of a grackle who became friends with this man. I heartily regret not talking to him about it, polishing it and putting it out for people to enjoy. And that situation cannot be corrected. He is gone. The  opportunity has passed.

As humans we need each other. I try to do some good deed every day, smile and be pleasant to everyone I meet, and attempt  to positively touch their lives in whatever way possible. Unresolved unfinished business is contrary to our nature. We want a task to be over, done and move on to the next one. Do not let opportunities to help another person pass you by. If you think to take that action later, it might be too late. 

Consider this quote from Zachary Scott – 2/21/14 – 10/3/65, native Texan and actor.

      As you grow older, you’ll find the only things you regret are the things you didn’t do.


© Copyright 2013  Elaine Fields Smith.  All rights reserved.

July was my birthday month. Right. Not just one day, but a whole  month. When I was a kid there were no birthday parties. Oh, mom always made strawberry shortcake and often we got shrimp to eat. But no party. We were poor and lived pretty far away from most of the people I knew-which wasn’t many. In fact just recently I reached the conclusion that I must be an extrovert. However, as a child, shyness kept me from experiencing many things. Painfully shy is the term. But not now. So I was a shy extrovert then. I’m pretty much over the shyness, but it shows up occasionally. 
 
As Andy Griffith said, we’re driftin’ here so back to the subject. At this point in life, birthdays could be a dreaded affair. Back when I turned thirty-nine, someone asked if I was planning to stay at that age. My response was if I was going to stop, I would have stopped at twenty-nine! The aging process can be disturbing—hence the billion dollar “look younger/stop aging” business. 

But now being over fifty, there’s no denying this aging thing, so why not enjoy it? If my yoga buddies want to have a “birthday tea” after class one Saturday, I’m there. Friends want to go out to dinner, you betcha. Other friends make cakes but can’t deliver, sure I’ll come by and get it. Post a recipe on Facebook a month early with the words “Somebody make this for my birthday” and you’ll get several versions of that concoction. (That plan worked well!)

 Face it, all this cannot happen on one day. Seems like only once per decade or so one can gather a large group of friends for an event. So taking things as they come, and not being picky about when or how, allows one to have a birthday month. This year was great. So many people helped make it special. The husband not only took me to a mall (one of our least favorite places), he went in the store with me to help pick out my gift—good, gold earrings. So all in all, birthday month 2013 was a grand success. And get this, I didn’t even have to give myself a party. The parties were given to me.

Elaine 8/1/13

The downfall of modern civilization can be narrowed to a few guilty aspects of our lives, the foremost being: cartoons. Gone are the days when Wile E. Coyote blew himself up with those Acme Corporation bombs and came away without shedding a drop of blood and with only a temporary bandage. In the next scene, he was his normal scrawny, but healthy, self. Elmer Fudd also suffered from such luck in pursuit of that “wascally wabbit,” but never did he lose a limb or actually blow off his extraordinarily large head.

Why, though admittedly somewhat violent, were these cartoons harmless? The same way playing cowboys and Indians with toy guns was harmless. It wasn’t real. Fiction through and through. And the goal was to make the viewer laugh.Actual injuries bleeding real blood caused real pain and meant a trip to the emergency room. Shouting “Bang Bang” at your friend and him falling to the ground to play dead wasn’t a reflection of reality. It was play.

Then came video games. Pac Man and Space Invaders were all  right-again, fiction. But advances in animation caused the games to become more  life-like. And then there was “Beavus and Butthead” and “The Simpsons.” Fiction morphed reality through these types of programs.The laughs became spiteful. The goal became the "high score."  Videos where one fires a gun and kills another person, who often falls in a full color pool of blood, are now considered “games.” 
 
What is the difference from the kid with a pop gun shooting at his friend who falls down and the video game where a futuristic vigilante fires an AK-47 and mows down a column of armed forces? It isn’t “play.”It is called “playing a video game” but it is not “play.” The kid’s friend hops up and they
run inside to get an afternoon snack. The formerly living beings in the video game do not get back up. They are dead and bleeding on the ground. This sort of thing desensitizes us to the realities of true injury and actual, tragic death. And I just heard of a cartoon about blob characters which capture humans to grind up and put in their soup. Unbelievable. 
 
One might argue the people in the video games are not real. Tell that to the kid who readily fires a gun in a computer game then does so in real life and is not concerned with the blood from the wound. That blood doesn’t mean anything  to him. Wile E. Coyote and good old Elmer Fudd always bounced right back. The people ground up for soup can’t do that. Perhaps the blobs will poop restored human beings. Kind of scary to think about it.


 

We used to do the drag. No, not dress in drag. We rode up and down the main street in our town to see what was going on and to say “hey” to people who were “out.” Gas was cheap then and there wasn’t all this electronic entertainment. Heck, if you had cable you were rich. So we rode around. Going to the movies on dollar night was an option, but one had to make a drag before, and after, to make the event complete. My first book, Ridin’ Around is about all that nostalgia stuff. As all old folks seem to say: them was the days.

Now, with friends spread far and wide and gas so expensive, we have Facebook. I can “make a drag” through the newsfeed and see what’s going on, who has been “out” and what they’ve been doing. Or, passing on by, stopping for a second and acknowledging them by “liking” their status, (this is what I call waving) or pulling over and posting in the conversation are all options. And even if they don’t answer my input right away, when it's time to make that drag through later, I’ll see if they said something. Yep, that’s what I like about Facebook. And the fact it saves on fuel.

It’s not as good as talking in person, but the opportunity to converse with such a diverse group is not to be taken for granted. So I interact as is appropriate, or sometimes not so appropriate. One can joke, sympathize, express horror or get on his soapbox. The beauty of it is, we don’t have to listen to all of it. You can just cruise on by.

That’s why I like Facebook better than Twitter. I’m an entertainer, not a news person. Reading the paper for me is concentrating on the headlines, the funnies and the crossword puzzle. Twitter doesn’t have the personal feel for me that Facebook has. Both are good in their own ways, much like chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Some folks only like one, some both, some pass on the whole thing. So excuse me now, I must go “make a drag” before lunch!