For tonight's offering, I submit a little list of things I have learned in life, usually the hard way:
1) Don't accidentally brush up against a wire while working on your cantankerous air conditioning unit.
2) Along those same lines, don't touch any metal part of an umbrella handle if you find yourself out and about during a lightning storm.
3) A constantly-running toilet can make your water bill skyrocket.
4) Never use black enamel-based oil paint on anything you feel ambivalent about painting black.
5) All deer are vaguely suicidal.
6) When doing the splits, don't let any observers rush you. The damage could be permanent.
7) Don't stick your whole face into a peony and sniff. They stink terribly.
8) Mow across the hills, not up and down.
9) Check your wallet BEFORE you order the meal.
10) Never try to burn a tick off your brother.
11) Never attempt to stop a slamming wood door with a big window in it.
12) Self-rising flour, cake flour, and all-purpose flour are not the same.
13) Don't put a cat in a wading pool.
14) Cheap rum is much worse than no rum at all.
15) Don't blow a bubble with your bubble gum while riding your motorcycle through a field at sundown. It gets crunchy.
16) A kid that you have written off can still turn things around.
17) There's only ever been one perfect person, and you're not it.
18) Tease a dog, appease a cat. Dogs forgive all, cats nothing.
19) Don't jerk the gears on a hay truck carrying nine big round bales up a steep hill.
20) It doesn't hurt a baby to eat things that have touched the floor.
21) Drive like everyone else on the road failed road-rage intervention class.
22) Use a coaster.
23) Call home when you say you will.
24) Give and accept gifts graciously, but simply; do not try to get a reading from the giving or receiving.
25) If you have to think about it for more than a few moments, it is probably wrong---the wrong thing to do, the wrong thing to say, the wrong thing to buy, whatever.
26) Don't make out with men with stubble.
27) Screening calls can save time and temper.
28) Dreams just clean out all the closet trash in your head and don't necessarily mean anything at all.
29) Certain animals (pigs, chickens, cows) are for dinner, not for pets, and certainly not for decoration!
30) Friends might love you more, but family loves you longer.
31) Be willing to change any list of things learned along the way, for life will surely show you that everything, anything, can change at any time.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Perception is Reality
I have a good friend at work who is one of the smartest people and best teachers I've ever known. He happens to teach a subject that runs concurrent with the content in my class: he teaches American history, and I American literature. We have views that often are symmetrical, but many that are in opposition to each other, and on the rare occasions that we get to talk at any length, our conversations run to those differences pretty quickly. I can't even pretend to persuade him to agree with me, no matter how passionately I believe whatever it is we're discussing, mostly because his knowledge of politics, economics, and their effects on history completely eclipses anything I can begin to grasp. I'm not too proud to say that whenever we have one of these conversations, I usually leave with a list of eight or ten names of theories, groups, or people that I need or want to look into. Sometimes the new info just immediately gets my back up more; sometimes I have to consider it for a few days to let it sink in. Often, I read and then let go, because I can't make it all meld in my mind, not with the things that I have to keep focused on at the time---lesson plans, essays, the minutia of life. But I'm always grateful that I have learned something new from our passing debates.
There is one that has been niggling at my brain since before school started. I don't remember the way the discussion started, but I know when it went off on a new tangent: with my reference to the common statement that "perception is reality," applying it to some aspect of law. I think Tim was somewhat appalled that I would assert such a thing. Later the same day, he sent me an email with an attachment about how the Constitution is a fact, not perception, that the rights granted therein are universal and absolute and not to be based on opinion, and that because we are a republic, majority rule cannot determine rights; they ARE rights, no matter how many people agree or disagree with them. Generally, I have to agree...except for one little issue: mankind is annoyingly human and incapable of such purely black-and-white reasoning. Yes, I know this makes the reasoning no less valid, but it renders the whole argument an exercise in futility for most people.
C. S. Lewis wrote, "What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are." Or as that great late-20th century bard Everlast so distinctly put it, "You know, where it is, yo, it usually depends on where you start." Both men surely must have been considering the way that our own frame of reference affects everything---EVERYthing---that we experience, whether through thought or physical action.
There are, of course, always cases where perception is reality; the arts are rife with examples of whatever-floats-your-boat kind of junk. I think Salvador Dali was a nut. Some love him, some hate him, and some don't know a thing about him and will never care, all based on our perceptions. We could say the same thing about a billion other artistic endeavors: velvet paintings of dogs playing poker, Megadeth, Swan Lake, heroin-chic 90's supermodels, Beanie Babies, Adele, Cadillac convertibles, and the mullet. My world has been solidly centered on the arts since I drew breath, so I understand this way of thinking; it's where I live. One of the most dramatic lessons I remember learning in my degree program is that you can take the same student essay, give it to four different teachers to grade, and come out with four different letter grades, all justified by the teacher to some degree. We learn to narrow that focus as professionals, but rarely do any of us think to truly consider the repercussions of passing judgement in day-to-day life.
So it is in the political, legal, and moral landscapes: we pass the scenery with little thought beyond "I love this, but I hate that," even though every pronouncement comes from our own frame of reference. Gun rights is always a hot-button issue. The author from the link Tim sent me referenced this; he asserted that the right to bear arms was fact, not opinion, which I agree with. (I'm a Democrat, not an idiot.) However, everyone's frame of reference is going to shape the depth of that fact. For example, I grew up with a healthy respect for guns, mostly because I didn't see them a lot, though I knew we had them. Do we have the right to keep and bear arms? Absolutely. Do we need to build our own personal arsenals for some doomsday scenario or, as is often cited, to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government? I don't think there's enough firepower to carry off either of those things, so it seems foolish to me to allow everyone to collect as much artillery and weaponry as they can manage. Plus, "yo, it usually depends on where you start"; I see a difference between a family who hunts (like some of mine do) and a gang or cult group stockpiling automatic weapons designed solely for killing humans. I have friends, though, who are unfamiliar with weapons and have a terror of them, and while I don't carry my fear that far, like them, I hate the thought of open carry laws because there are so many crazy people out there who will think they are going to stop something with their sidearm and will try to be a cowboy, with tragic results. All that to say this: our perception of the truth of our "rights" has to be colored by our experiences, which then renders them our own reality, our opinion.
The other side has to see this, too, in the great humbug of conservative policy: same-sex marriage. If discrimination is wrong, then it's wrong to hold back rights enjoyed by those who are married "traditionally" from those who are not. Yes, conservative beliefs may color the lens through which they view the issue, but it doesn't allow them to rescind those rights from those with whom they disagree.
If we all could agree to see things in such a way, wouldn't it make it easier to smooth everyone's feathers in all policy decisions? Wouldn't we get more done and less undone in such a way?
I've got a lot more work to do before I can present this argument to my friend, but I feel like I've got my head around something that makes sense to me. At least, I did when I started. Now it's another late Saturday evening, and I've written myself into exhaustion with this one draft. I'm so glad I don't have to present policy every day at school, that I can kick back with easy good humor while unraveling the Salem Witch Trials, Senator McCarthy, and The Crucible simultaneously for eager teenagers. Now THERE'S "perception is reality" at work!
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Dream Weaver
After an accidental three-hour Friday evening nap, I stumbled across Coal Miner's Daughter on some movie channel while I was eating my dinner in the middle of the night. It'd been many years since I'd seen the whole thing, and I watched most of it, although I didn't remember so much annoying banjo music in it. But hearing all those Loretta Lynn songs made me remember how I used to perform mini-concerts on the steps of our church at home when I was little, maybe three or four.
We still lived in Skedee then, right across the street from the little white clapboard Methodist church, and those front steps went just high enough that I felt like I had a commanding stage for the whole street. I probably owe a few apologies for those performances; I have no idea how many times I might have annoyed Bo and Evelyn Brown, who lived straight across the street, or Nancy, who lived in the former parsonage next door. I never saw anyone watching, so I felt free to sing my heart out. As I recall, I favored Tammy Wynette a little more than Loretta---Tammy seemed so much more coolly elegant, and she had a prettier name. There were probably a few Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Hank Williams songs thrown in. When the new house out at the elevator was still being built, I would imagine the back patio as my new stage, something of an upgrade because it looked out on an open pasture that could be filled with who knows how many star-struck fans applauding my stunning performances. With more people around to catch me there, I don't think I was as exuberant with my performances, but I do remember riding my bicycle in giant figure-eights in the pristine garage, singing "Happiest Girl in the Whole USA."
That dream of stages and stunning costumes carried me through a lot of years---far more than I care to admit. A shy kid who really didn't like to fail at things, I didn't talk about that dream much except in joking, though I know now it was pretty obvious that I craved it. It didn't really occur to me to long for any other profession, even as I learned the realities of life and survival and the long, long odds against making a name. Even when I went to college, I chose radio broadcasting as my first degree at Rogers, unwilling to walk away from that abiding love of music that has passed through several generations of my family. Only when I found that DJs make almost no money did I reluctantly decide I needed another path, and teaching opened before me with a stage far more suited to my talents than singing. The classroom turned out to be more rewarding than any dream I could have thought up for myself.
Of course, there were other dreams that came---and eventually went. Like most girls, I thought at one time I really wanted a family: marrying a farmer and having six kids seemed perfectly reasonable, a thought that now makes me infinitely grateful that God in His (or Her!) wisdom planned something else for me! I love babies, can't get enough of them, but I'd have made an impatient, self-involved mother. Marriage might be OK if I could be married only on weekends, or if I had a husband who traveled; I barely manage to take care of myself, and having to cook and clean for someone else after working all day would make me really cranky, I think. There also was the dream of being a published poet that never really got beyond several angst-ridden poems and a lot of ideas for chapbook titles. A creative writing teacher in college encouraged my talent in ways I couldn't have expected, but I was way too closed-up to ever think of sharing what seemed so incredibly personal at that time. Actually, after learning at 30 that I'd suffered life-long depression and getting that under control, I lost the desire---and much of what talent I did have---to write my best work; that made even more sense to me when I learned that 33% of America's poet laureates have suffered from bi-polar disorder. I could live in a gray world and write, or I could live in color and be happy and mostly wordless. There was no pain in making the choice I did.
These days, my dreams, the waking ones, are mostly simple, but often, still, blue-sky thinking at its most deluded. I dream of being able to wear cute shoes again, of returning to the days when I could take my feet for granted in flip-flops, flats with no arch support, and spiky heels that I could teach and walk campus in all day. Dreams of being healthy and more confident, while more within reach now, will always require hard work and vigilance on my part, which I pray for always. Then, too, there is that dream that everyone has but few find true: to be known and understood, to be the most important person in the world to someone. Some would call it being in love, but it's just love, in many varieties. I know I've been rich with it, so I try not to wish for more than my share.
Dreams are, I believe, what keep all of us going; when we run out of dreams, we run out of a will to go on. I've had the power to dream, to believe in myself enough to dream, ripped away before, and I know I don't ever want to experience it again. So I will be brave enough to keep dreaming and confess my dreams to anyone who asks, for as long as I can wring a single thread of hope out of life---and there's a lot of life left out there.
We still lived in Skedee then, right across the street from the little white clapboard Methodist church, and those front steps went just high enough that I felt like I had a commanding stage for the whole street. I probably owe a few apologies for those performances; I have no idea how many times I might have annoyed Bo and Evelyn Brown, who lived straight across the street, or Nancy, who lived in the former parsonage next door. I never saw anyone watching, so I felt free to sing my heart out. As I recall, I favored Tammy Wynette a little more than Loretta---Tammy seemed so much more coolly elegant, and she had a prettier name. There were probably a few Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Hank Williams songs thrown in. When the new house out at the elevator was still being built, I would imagine the back patio as my new stage, something of an upgrade because it looked out on an open pasture that could be filled with who knows how many star-struck fans applauding my stunning performances. With more people around to catch me there, I don't think I was as exuberant with my performances, but I do remember riding my bicycle in giant figure-eights in the pristine garage, singing "Happiest Girl in the Whole USA."
That dream of stages and stunning costumes carried me through a lot of years---far more than I care to admit. A shy kid who really didn't like to fail at things, I didn't talk about that dream much except in joking, though I know now it was pretty obvious that I craved it. It didn't really occur to me to long for any other profession, even as I learned the realities of life and survival and the long, long odds against making a name. Even when I went to college, I chose radio broadcasting as my first degree at Rogers, unwilling to walk away from that abiding love of music that has passed through several generations of my family. Only when I found that DJs make almost no money did I reluctantly decide I needed another path, and teaching opened before me with a stage far more suited to my talents than singing. The classroom turned out to be more rewarding than any dream I could have thought up for myself.
Of course, there were other dreams that came---and eventually went. Like most girls, I thought at one time I really wanted a family: marrying a farmer and having six kids seemed perfectly reasonable, a thought that now makes me infinitely grateful that God in His (or Her!) wisdom planned something else for me! I love babies, can't get enough of them, but I'd have made an impatient, self-involved mother. Marriage might be OK if I could be married only on weekends, or if I had a husband who traveled; I barely manage to take care of myself, and having to cook and clean for someone else after working all day would make me really cranky, I think. There also was the dream of being a published poet that never really got beyond several angst-ridden poems and a lot of ideas for chapbook titles. A creative writing teacher in college encouraged my talent in ways I couldn't have expected, but I was way too closed-up to ever think of sharing what seemed so incredibly personal at that time. Actually, after learning at 30 that I'd suffered life-long depression and getting that under control, I lost the desire---and much of what talent I did have---to write my best work; that made even more sense to me when I learned that 33% of America's poet laureates have suffered from bi-polar disorder. I could live in a gray world and write, or I could live in color and be happy and mostly wordless. There was no pain in making the choice I did.
These days, my dreams, the waking ones, are mostly simple, but often, still, blue-sky thinking at its most deluded. I dream of being able to wear cute shoes again, of returning to the days when I could take my feet for granted in flip-flops, flats with no arch support, and spiky heels that I could teach and walk campus in all day. Dreams of being healthy and more confident, while more within reach now, will always require hard work and vigilance on my part, which I pray for always. Then, too, there is that dream that everyone has but few find true: to be known and understood, to be the most important person in the world to someone. Some would call it being in love, but it's just love, in many varieties. I know I've been rich with it, so I try not to wish for more than my share.
Dreams are, I believe, what keep all of us going; when we run out of dreams, we run out of a will to go on. I've had the power to dream, to believe in myself enough to dream, ripped away before, and I know I don't ever want to experience it again. So I will be brave enough to keep dreaming and confess my dreams to anyone who asks, for as long as I can wring a single thread of hope out of life---and there's a lot of life left out there.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Double Your Fun
On Christmas Eve of 1994, I was very anxious to get to my Grandma Brown's house in Pryor. That would be my first chance to meet two little men who joined our family right after school had started that summer: my brother's boys, Logan and Nolan. They had been a bit of a surprise; until July, my sister-in-law had been told she was carrying one baby, and then a month before they arrived, it was discovered that Nolan had been hiding Logan all along. Since they were born in South Dakota, I hadn't been able to see them until Christmas. I walked in the house, walked straight to them lying side by side on a blanket on the living room floor, and fell helplessly in love with them, with their round Welker features and their big eyes with little bags under them, just like my brother. Not one thing about that love has changed in the last 19 years.
Dear Nolan:
You are the coolest customer around with a dry, witty remark, and I know I have really accomplished something when I make you laugh. Ever since you picked up a guitar, you've been a different kid, one more confident, but also with a little bit of a mask to hide behind. But I still see you: the little toddler who would growl at me, "Hugs, but no kisses!" when I threatened to kiss your whole face (and then did); the competitive brother who was dominate even when you were in the womb, and who was probably behind tricks like taking a door off its hinges when you were barely two; the eyebrow you would arch sky-high to express everything from skepticism to a punch line. It may be that eyebrow was the first thing that made me realize that I would always love you best.
The twin language that you and your brother spoke gave you your first run as the family comedian. You would yammer something at Logan, and he would start belly laughing at you; that just egged you on to go on another rant, keeping him laughing the whole time. Once in a while, you'd let him get a work in edgewise, and you thought he was absolutely hysterical. There was NO WAY I could watch that exchange and not laugh along with you both---it made me positively giddy, maybe because I was sure that you'd be little geniuses. I'd give my eyeteeth to know what those conversations were about, but I feel privileged just to have witnessed them.
Between the summer I spent there with you just before you turned a year old, and the trips down here that you took with Grandma and Papa, we had lots of time together. You both loved going to Camp Texas (I don't know which of you started calling the grapefruit orchard that name) and staying in the ancient 13-foot camping trailer that was installed in the barn there. Now we jokingly call it the Citrus Hilton, but you always called it the "cool camping trailer." That time you spent with Grandma and Papa, I am sure, was one of the best times of their lives. All their friends loved to have you along when you traveled, and you and Chris were all so well-behaved that I know they were and are incredibly proud of you all.
One of the most terrifying things I've ever known was when you had to have your bowel surgery at only two years old and couldn't eat or drink for nearly two weeks. When your mom told me on the phone about you begging, "Dink, Mama, dink," I hung up the phone and wept the rest of the evening. Your parents and grandparents were absolute towers of strength, but I've always been grateful I couldn't be there. It still breaks my heart to thing of it.
Your little Terminator voice from childhood, though, can always make me laugh. It was so dang funny. It gave you and Logan both some odd pronunciations: I lived in "Muhdroh" (Muldrow) and Sheri lived in "Chickenshakes" (Chickasha); while you loved music, you couldn't stand "guhl" (girl) songs by Logan's favorites like Shania Twain, Dixie Chicks, or Martina McBride. And somehow, out of this time period, your nickname of Charlie Crab came about because you were tired of being pestered by somebody, so you told them your name was "Chawlie Cwab." I can remember talking to your mom or dad on the phone at times, and I'd hear the most awful growling and roaring sounds from you and Logan, but they would say, "Oh, they're just wrestling." I never had a moment's concern that you were competitive with each other, because even when you didn't agree, neither of you went far without the other.
When you and Logan started school, the different sides of your two personalities became more evident, and I was glad of it. You have always been a little miniature of your dad as he is now, keeping your emotions in check, playing close to the vest, and popping off a smart remark when it applies and isn't meant to cause trouble. In school, things came easy to you, and after a while, your attitude was usually an I-know-I-can-do-it-and-don't-have-to-prove-it coolness, an attitude I admired a little since I was more obsessive about grades, but which also worried me a bit. Clearly, there was no need to worry; your Gates Scholarship is the true reflection of how hard you worked not just at being a good student, but a good man.
I love your attention to your music, and I hope that light will burn in your soul forever. I know it because I had the same light and the same mask to put between me and the world, but not as much talent as you. Keep your talent and your mind open to new ideas and experiences, and you'll be amazed at how the world will respond. And have no fear in life, because you have a heart and spirit of faith that will brook no foolishness from anyone who would bring you down. On the contrary, you are meant for great things we can't even imagine right now. I thank God for the chance to see what those things will be. Happy 19th Birthday, Charlie.
Love,
Cathy
Dear Logan,
You and your brother were never really identical to me; his face was rounder, while yours was more narrow at your jaw. Your eyes had bit more of tilt to them, and the two things combined gave you a little elfin grin even as a baby---you still have a hint of it now. That little elfish face is the first thing I think of when I realize that there was no chance that I would ever forget that I would always love you best.
You've always been like your dad was as a little boy: sweet, quiet, dreamier, a little bit of a wanderer who didn't get in a big hurry about a lot of stuff---unless there were bugs to escape from. In fact, I've always understood your mind a little better than others realize, because we are a lot alike. I could get lost in a book at school and not hear the teacher calling on me until she called me two or three times; you've taken a lot of kidding for that sort of thing from all of us, sometimes when you're reading, sometimes when you're just thinking your thoughts. We just go far away in our minds at times. We both felt driven to do well in school; second best was not really good enough for us, most of the time. And we both could get totally involved in music and block out everything else going on around us. NO ONE in the family will ever forget that video of you at the beach when the tamale man's music started in the background, and you began twitching your backside along with the music as you walked toward the surf! From your early days playing piano, to your sax, fiddle, mandolin, and bass talents, you show so much promise for a future that has art at the heart of your life. You've done a much better job of expanding on that than I did, and I can't tell you how proud I am of that.
When you were little, you were more of a daredevil than Nolan. Grandma talks about how they would have to watch you as a toddler because you would jump into water of any depth, anywhere. As time went by, you became more cautious, but you also were a gentler person as a result. When your little sister was born a few months before you turned 10, she owned you from the first minute. You were always the first one at her crib, because you "just couldn't stand to hear her cry." She was so attached to you, too, that she wouldn't even let us change her diaper unless "Ogie" was holding her hand. I think that experience is what gave you the talent and patience to work at the Club E after-school program for the younger students when you were in high school. These kinds of experiences make you more tender-hearted and will guarantee some heartbreak in life, but they make you a rare and exceptional young man.
You've taken a lot of kidding from the family about your dislike of bugs, especially flying ones, but you might not know that I took the same kidding for a long time. It's hysterically funny to remember you as a little bitty guy, running away screaming from what you universally called a "wahs-hoppah" (anything with wings and legs), looking for someone with a "fly-flapper" to kill it. Grandma always thought I was silly for being terrified of spiders and ticks, but you and I, we just have a healthy respect for things that should not be sharing space with us!
I'm afraid I'm to blame for your nickname "Slick"; one day you were running through the family room at Grandma and Papa's house, and you slipped on a magazine and fell. I looked up, said, "Way to go, Slick," and didn't think anything about it. But Papa latched on to that name because it was when Bill Clinton was in office, and they called him Slick Willie because he told some lies....which you had a tiny problem with at the time---things like "Who left the ketchup out?" "Not me," you'd reply, although no one else had used ketchup in days. So that's my fault, and I apologize, but you're stuck with it, you know.
I think the "singer" you and Nolan had is one of my favorite memories from when you two were little. The little tape player had two microphones that you could sing into along with the tape. The only problem was that the two of you didn't agree on most music. But I remember that you both loved that Tim McGraw song "Where the Green Grass Grows." I can hear the two of you singing along, "I'm gonna live where the green grass grows, watch my corn pop up in rows," and really coming out with a distinctive "pop!" on that word---I still hear the song that way, more than 15 years later, every time I hear it.
And, too, I still see the sweet-natured boy beneath the man, now a college student with a Gates Scholarship to his credit and the whole world opening before him. I see your curious nature and brave spirit in the face of change, leaving the life you have always known for one that you will choose, after careful consideration and heartfelt prayer. I see just the palest, shimmering reflection of who I was at your age, knowing that you will have and make some better choices than I did, because you are wiser and more level-headed. I love having been a part of your life growing up and will look forward to your next two decades as much as the last two. Happy 19th Birthday, Logan!
Love,
Cathy
Dear Nolan:
You are the coolest customer around with a dry, witty remark, and I know I have really accomplished something when I make you laugh. Ever since you picked up a guitar, you've been a different kid, one more confident, but also with a little bit of a mask to hide behind. But I still see you: the little toddler who would growl at me, "Hugs, but no kisses!" when I threatened to kiss your whole face (and then did); the competitive brother who was dominate even when you were in the womb, and who was probably behind tricks like taking a door off its hinges when you were barely two; the eyebrow you would arch sky-high to express everything from skepticism to a punch line. It may be that eyebrow was the first thing that made me realize that I would always love you best.
The twin language that you and your brother spoke gave you your first run as the family comedian. You would yammer something at Logan, and he would start belly laughing at you; that just egged you on to go on another rant, keeping him laughing the whole time. Once in a while, you'd let him get a work in edgewise, and you thought he was absolutely hysterical. There was NO WAY I could watch that exchange and not laugh along with you both---it made me positively giddy, maybe because I was sure that you'd be little geniuses. I'd give my eyeteeth to know what those conversations were about, but I feel privileged just to have witnessed them.
Between the summer I spent there with you just before you turned a year old, and the trips down here that you took with Grandma and Papa, we had lots of time together. You both loved going to Camp Texas (I don't know which of you started calling the grapefruit orchard that name) and staying in the ancient 13-foot camping trailer that was installed in the barn there. Now we jokingly call it the Citrus Hilton, but you always called it the "cool camping trailer." That time you spent with Grandma and Papa, I am sure, was one of the best times of their lives. All their friends loved to have you along when you traveled, and you and Chris were all so well-behaved that I know they were and are incredibly proud of you all.
One of the most terrifying things I've ever known was when you had to have your bowel surgery at only two years old and couldn't eat or drink for nearly two weeks. When your mom told me on the phone about you begging, "Dink, Mama, dink," I hung up the phone and wept the rest of the evening. Your parents and grandparents were absolute towers of strength, but I've always been grateful I couldn't be there. It still breaks my heart to thing of it.
Your little Terminator voice from childhood, though, can always make me laugh. It was so dang funny. It gave you and Logan both some odd pronunciations: I lived in "Muhdroh" (Muldrow) and Sheri lived in "Chickenshakes" (Chickasha); while you loved music, you couldn't stand "guhl" (girl) songs by Logan's favorites like Shania Twain, Dixie Chicks, or Martina McBride. And somehow, out of this time period, your nickname of Charlie Crab came about because you were tired of being pestered by somebody, so you told them your name was "Chawlie Cwab." I can remember talking to your mom or dad on the phone at times, and I'd hear the most awful growling and roaring sounds from you and Logan, but they would say, "Oh, they're just wrestling." I never had a moment's concern that you were competitive with each other, because even when you didn't agree, neither of you went far without the other.
When you and Logan started school, the different sides of your two personalities became more evident, and I was glad of it. You have always been a little miniature of your dad as he is now, keeping your emotions in check, playing close to the vest, and popping off a smart remark when it applies and isn't meant to cause trouble. In school, things came easy to you, and after a while, your attitude was usually an I-know-I-can-do-it-and-don't-have-to-prove-it coolness, an attitude I admired a little since I was more obsessive about grades, but which also worried me a bit. Clearly, there was no need to worry; your Gates Scholarship is the true reflection of how hard you worked not just at being a good student, but a good man.
I love your attention to your music, and I hope that light will burn in your soul forever. I know it because I had the same light and the same mask to put between me and the world, but not as much talent as you. Keep your talent and your mind open to new ideas and experiences, and you'll be amazed at how the world will respond. And have no fear in life, because you have a heart and spirit of faith that will brook no foolishness from anyone who would bring you down. On the contrary, you are meant for great things we can't even imagine right now. I thank God for the chance to see what those things will be. Happy 19th Birthday, Charlie.
Love,
Cathy
Dear Logan,
You and your brother were never really identical to me; his face was rounder, while yours was more narrow at your jaw. Your eyes had bit more of tilt to them, and the two things combined gave you a little elfin grin even as a baby---you still have a hint of it now. That little elfish face is the first thing I think of when I realize that there was no chance that I would ever forget that I would always love you best.
You've always been like your dad was as a little boy: sweet, quiet, dreamier, a little bit of a wanderer who didn't get in a big hurry about a lot of stuff---unless there were bugs to escape from. In fact, I've always understood your mind a little better than others realize, because we are a lot alike. I could get lost in a book at school and not hear the teacher calling on me until she called me two or three times; you've taken a lot of kidding for that sort of thing from all of us, sometimes when you're reading, sometimes when you're just thinking your thoughts. We just go far away in our minds at times. We both felt driven to do well in school; second best was not really good enough for us, most of the time. And we both could get totally involved in music and block out everything else going on around us. NO ONE in the family will ever forget that video of you at the beach when the tamale man's music started in the background, and you began twitching your backside along with the music as you walked toward the surf! From your early days playing piano, to your sax, fiddle, mandolin, and bass talents, you show so much promise for a future that has art at the heart of your life. You've done a much better job of expanding on that than I did, and I can't tell you how proud I am of that.
When you were little, you were more of a daredevil than Nolan. Grandma talks about how they would have to watch you as a toddler because you would jump into water of any depth, anywhere. As time went by, you became more cautious, but you also were a gentler person as a result. When your little sister was born a few months before you turned 10, she owned you from the first minute. You were always the first one at her crib, because you "just couldn't stand to hear her cry." She was so attached to you, too, that she wouldn't even let us change her diaper unless "Ogie" was holding her hand. I think that experience is what gave you the talent and patience to work at the Club E after-school program for the younger students when you were in high school. These kinds of experiences make you more tender-hearted and will guarantee some heartbreak in life, but they make you a rare and exceptional young man.
You've taken a lot of kidding from the family about your dislike of bugs, especially flying ones, but you might not know that I took the same kidding for a long time. It's hysterically funny to remember you as a little bitty guy, running away screaming from what you universally called a "wahs-hoppah" (anything with wings and legs), looking for someone with a "fly-flapper" to kill it. Grandma always thought I was silly for being terrified of spiders and ticks, but you and I, we just have a healthy respect for things that should not be sharing space with us!
I'm afraid I'm to blame for your nickname "Slick"; one day you were running through the family room at Grandma and Papa's house, and you slipped on a magazine and fell. I looked up, said, "Way to go, Slick," and didn't think anything about it. But Papa latched on to that name because it was when Bill Clinton was in office, and they called him Slick Willie because he told some lies....which you had a tiny problem with at the time---things like "Who left the ketchup out?" "Not me," you'd reply, although no one else had used ketchup in days. So that's my fault, and I apologize, but you're stuck with it, you know.
I think the "singer" you and Nolan had is one of my favorite memories from when you two were little. The little tape player had two microphones that you could sing into along with the tape. The only problem was that the two of you didn't agree on most music. But I remember that you both loved that Tim McGraw song "Where the Green Grass Grows." I can hear the two of you singing along, "I'm gonna live where the green grass grows, watch my corn pop up in rows," and really coming out with a distinctive "pop!" on that word---I still hear the song that way, more than 15 years later, every time I hear it.
And, too, I still see the sweet-natured boy beneath the man, now a college student with a Gates Scholarship to his credit and the whole world opening before him. I see your curious nature and brave spirit in the face of change, leaving the life you have always known for one that you will choose, after careful consideration and heartfelt prayer. I see just the palest, shimmering reflection of who I was at your age, knowing that you will have and make some better choices than I did, because you are wiser and more level-headed. I love having been a part of your life growing up and will look forward to your next two decades as much as the last two. Happy 19th Birthday, Logan!
Love,
Cathy
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