The Paterfamilias of a Community

We recently enjoyed the classic film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” with our kids. Through the years, certain phrases from the movie have made their way into our family lexicon, such as, “He’s a suitor,” “He’s bona fide,” “I’m a Dapper Dan man,” and my favorite, “I’ll only be eighty-two,” Delmar’s words when he realizes how old he’ll potentially be when released from prison. We’ve also liked “paterfamilias,” the term Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) uses to remind his children that he should still be the father figure in his family, even though he’s been in prison.

As the male head of a family or household, paterfamilias is similar to the term “patriarch.” “Patriarch” describes the men known as the fathers of the Hebrew faith: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. It is sometimes used to describe a man who is the head of a household of faith within a community, and the head of the Orthodox Church is also called “Patriarch.” 

This week, Ashland lost one of its own patriarchs in the death of Sanford Mitchell, aka Pastor Mitchell. When he retired in 2015, he had served the congregation of Trinity Lutheran Church for thirty-seven years, with eleven years of service at two previous churches. That’s a lot of marrying and burying. Many of the on-line tributes to Pastor Mitchell noted his involvement in the sacred and sacramental times of the families of the church – the births and deaths, the baptisms, confirmations, and weddings. When a pastor speaks into an individual’s life at a critical moment, we may not be able to quote the words, but our lives are never the same. 

Ministers, rabbis, pastors and priests play a vital role in the lives of individuals, in the church, and, as did Pastor Mitchell, in the life of the greater community. My interactions with Pastor Mitchell occurred because of his involvement in that greater community, as he served on the steering committee that brought The Salvation Army’s Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center to life. At one point, there was a possibility that Ashland would lose the project entirely, and I still remember Sandy’s adamant message to the rest of the committee – (paraphrased from a dozen years ago) “we will do what it takes to get this center for our community.”

When Cook’s Field was purchased as the Kroc Center’s building site, The Salvation Army sponsored a series of old-fashioned gospel tent meetings on the grounds. When we asked Sandy if he would participate, he readily agreed. I wondered how a pastor from the Lutheran tradition, rooted in the Reformation and used to the formality of its Sunday morning liturgical format, would do in an evangelistic tent meeting. Any worries I had that night were put to rest as soon as he opened his Bible and began to preach from the book of Jonah. Amen, brother, amen!

Those of us raised in the church may recall the ministers of our early years. The Reverend Donald Roberts served First Presbyterian Church in Tonawanda, New York until he was appointed as the first Protestant chaplain to Moscow in 1962. I was only seven, but I can still picture him, with his wife and young family, and how heartbroken our congregation was as he responded to the call to Russia. 

This week, many are remembering the pastor of their childhood, their young adult years, their golden years, who served faithfully at the church on Center Street. Sanford Mitchell was a man who was gifted enough to go out into the world beyond Ashland, but he chose to sink his Lutheran roots deep into the soil of this church, this community. In doing so, he echoed the words of 2^ndTimothy 4: he fought the good fight, he finished the race, he kept the faith. 

Serving in ministry for more than half a century, Reverend Sanford Mitchell was truly a paterfamilias in the best sense of the word, a father of the family of God. He may not have been a “Dapper Dan Man” like Ulysses Everett McGill, but he was definitely “bona fide,” genuine, real, with good faith. A rich legacy, to be sure.

Buckle Me Out, Nana

Those of us who care for young children often say, “Let’s get you buckled in.” The use of car seats is a given in today’s culture, and our kids and grandkids know the drill – we don’t go anywhere without our seat belts on. But when we arrive at our destination, they’re done with the restraints. The delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday, age three, reminds me as soon as we pull in the driveway: “Buckle me out, Nana.” 

Buckle me out and buckle me in. These two phrases symbolize the hopes and prayers of our family over the last few weeks. If it’s possible for babies to communicate before birth, our first grandson, Henry Kyle, was sending a clear message, “Buckle me out of here, Mama”! With his due date quickly approaching, Hank the Tank was attempting to elbow his way out of his temporary home, and his mother was more than ready to trade sleepless nights as an expectant mother for sleepless nights as the mother of a newborn. Henry Kyle Shade made his appearance before dawn on March 14^th, to the delight of his big sisters, the lovely Madelyn Simone and darling Elizabeth. We are, of course, smitten with this new little one as well, although I am derelict in my duty, as I haven’t yet discovered the perfect descriptor to use when writing about him. I think I just need a few more hours of Nana snuggle time to sort that out.

As Henry and his mother got acquainted at the hospital, they were literally doors away from our youngest son and his wife, who have made the Aultman Hospital antenatal wing their home away from home for the past forty days. With a high-risk pregnancy, potential signs of labor sent them to the hospital in early February, and they’ve been there ever since. Friends and family have been whispering a similar prayer daily: “Stay buckled in, dear Emma Belle, stay buckled in.” Not sure those words are found in the Book of Common Prayer, but it’s all we’ve got these days. 

Baby Emma is nearing the thirty-week mark of development, and her mom and dad are encouraged because her chances of survival are so much better than when Becky was first admitted to the hospital. We are so grateful for the professional and compassionate concern of the medical personnel, for the support of family and friends, and for the daily signs of providential care present in Room 412. 

I’ve been reminded this week of the parenting advice that hung in our home for many years, from an unknown source: “There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other wings.” Over the life of a child, there are hundreds of times when we buckle our children in, and encourage their roots to go deep. We nurture them in the womb and at the breast, we keep them from running into the street or touching the hot stove, and we teach them of the power of family and faith, of song, of kindness, of belonging. 

Yet from the day of their birth, we begin the process of releasing them to what can seem a cold, uncaring world. We allow them the freedom of the sandbox and the playground, the first cell phone, and their “temps,” that portentous sign of impending adulthood guaranteed to raise a parent’s blood pressure by twenty points. Each unbuckling brings its own anxiety, but we trust that the balance of roots and wings, based upon age and maturity, will allow for safe flight, even if only to the end of the driveway – or halfway around the world.   

For people of faith, the holding and the releasing tends to be accompanied by prayer. One of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott, suggests that help, thanks, and wow are the three essential prayers of life, and we’ve uttered them for years. Now, as both great joy and great concern co-exist, they echo again. Help. Thanks. Wow. And, for today, and hopefully a few more weeks, “Stay buckled in, sweet Emma, stay buckled in.” 

A Homecomer

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, people in the United States move on average more than eleven times over their lifetime. For some, those moves are within a few miles of their birth, or, in Ashland parlance, from “in town” to a house on one of the numbered county roads. Our first major move on our own tends to be when we head off to college or the military, and while some move back home, many others chose to settle in their college town or head off to parts unknown to take that first “real” job. 

What do we miss when we leave? For me, it’s symbolized in food. Ted’s hot dogs and Anderson’s frozen custard from Tonawanda; pasties from a tiny storefront in Wharton and ice cream at the Dairy Maid in Dover, NJ; cheesesteaks from D’Allesandros in Philadelphia; shopping at the West Side Market in Cleveland; Taggarts’ ice cream in Canton; pie from the Lyn-Way in Ashland – my mouth is watering as I type the words. The body remembers!

In Ashland this week for the monthly writers group at the Kroc Center (2^ndMonday of the month, 7 p.m. – all welcome), I had to order perch and French fries (for me) and Coneys (for Larry) at the A&W. Could it taste as good as I remember? Wiping the grease off my hands, I smiled. Yes indeed!

Since we moved to Canton to be closer to family, I’ve missed Chauntae, my hair stylist at Sheila and Company, the meat counters at Gerwig’s White Barn and Cleveland Avenue Market, and cheering on the AU basketball teams in person. Dan and Becky, our youngest son and his beloved wife, were telling me how much they miss the times of worship at Park Street Brethren Church – me too. Not sure which one of us said it, but it’s so true: “You don’t fully appreciate what you have until you don’t have it anymore.”

For some, the pull of missing their hometown is strong, and they return. They’ve experienced the bright lights of L.A. or the Big Apple, the quest for the unknown, and the culinary joys of the world around them, but home is calling, for family reasons, for quality of life reasons, or just because. Poet and rural advocate Wendell Berry has even coined a name for them: the homecomers, people who have been away but choose to return to their rural or small town roots. 

Writing in the New York Times this week (“Go Home to Your ‘Dying’ Hometown”), Michele Anderson tells of moving home to Fergus Falls, Minnesota, a community of 14,000 people surrounded by open prairie. She muses: “I feel conflicted about my role here. Rural places like this one are facing countless questions about the economy, about identity and about the environment. It’s hard to know what we need to be stewards of and sustain, and what we need to let go or confront, to build a strong future.” 

An oft-repeated narrative is that rural America, small town America, is dying. That may be true for some areas, but about half of our rural counties are gaining population, not losing. Anderson wonders: “Simply panicking about the ‘death’ of rural America gives those of us who care about and live in these places very little to learn or build on. Is there another way to think about it?” Instead of sounding a death rattle, what about offering small business incentives for homecomers, gap year projects for students, homecoming residencies for artists, and opportunities for bold creativity? 

For those invested in the future of Ashland and communities like it across the country, Anderson’s thoughtful article is worth a read, especially for its conclusion: “Both urban and rural people share a future far beyond whom we elect as leaders. That shared future is what drives us to live meaningful lives, and what will make us the best stewards of the earth that we can be, no matter where we choose to live.”

What might it look like to intentionally raise a new banner in Ashland, “Homecomers welcome here”? If it includes the promise of pie at the Lyn-Way, you never know what could happen.

Mittens and Snowsuits

The delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday often sings along with a nursery rhyme CD in the car, and consequently knows quite a few of the traditional verses. Two describe my frustration over the past few weeks, my pet peeve regarding the seasonal placement of goods for purchase within retail establishments.

“The three little kittens, they lost their mittens and they began to cry.” Speaking from nearly forty years of motherhood, I accept the disappearance of certain items as inevitable. We will always have Tupperware containers without lids. A pile of mismatched socks will live forever in the laundry room. And children will always lose their mittens. Remember that frigid February day? I was rushing to get Elizabeth and her sister out the door for school, and I could not find two mittens, even mismatched. Could socks work? Finally, I located a pair of magic gloves, probably adult-sized, but they did the trick for little Lizzie. 

Anticipating cold weather into March (my prophetic gift), I decided to purchase some extra mittens so the rush to get out the door would be a bit smoother. Four stores later, in the middle of February in Ohio, all I found were more pairs of magic gloves! Locating a clerk at the fourth store, she said, “Oh, we sold our children’s mittens on clearance after Christmas.” As Elizabeth so often says, with hands on hips, “Weally?”

That wasn’t the end of my winter apparel woes. Remember this nursery rhyme? “Bye, baby bunting, Daddy’s gone a-hunting, gone to get a rabbit skin to wrap the baby bunting in.” As I’m writing these words, it is ten degrees outside. That’s cold. Soon and very soon, Elizabeth and Madelyn will welcome a new baby brother into their family – in fact, we’ve had a couple of false alarms already, so we know Henry Kyle will be here before spring arrives. Lauren and Greg are ready – stacks of diapers are lined up, the receiving blankets are folded, and the cradle is waiting, but Lauren still wanted one of those tiny snowsuits for the new baby, so he’d be nice and toasty on the trip home and the subsequent visits to the doctors and (of course) to Nana’s house. 

So, consummate shopper and smitten grandmother that I am, I offered to purchase this practical item for Henry. I should have gone to the internet immediately, but since I am committed to shopping locally, I went out in search of a snowsuit. 

Seven stores, count them, seven, and no success. I even tried children’s consignment shops, but no blue snowsuit, and after two sisters, this boy was not coming home in pink. When the seventh checkout clerk innocently asked, “Did you find everything you were looking for?”, she got an earful about snowsuit availability in winter. 

I can’t begin to understand the retail cycles, but I do see some cultural symbolism here. At times, Americans (me included) live in anticipation of what’s ahead, rather than being fully present to today. Years of painful Cleveland sports teams stoke the hopeful, “there’s always next year” mentality. We look forward for months to vacation, only to check our business email on the shuttle to the Magic Kingdom. 

How do we stay in the moment? Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer recognizes the challenge: “When people are not in the moment, they’re not there to know that they’re not there.” As Jay Dixit understands, “Overriding the distraction reflex and awaking to the present takes intentionality and practice.” Mindfulness exercises call us to be fully present to the joys and sorrows of today, but still we strip off our parkas and sweaters to try on bathing suits in March (imagining the exercise regimen we will start next week to get us into shape).  

Can we find peace between the present and the future? While mittens and tank tops may not co-exist in Wal-Mart, we can find our way to embrace pregnancy and new babies, spring training and the World Series, mindfulness and dreams, reality and hope. Ashland’s own Dr. Jerry Flora points the way, as he so often quotes Dag Hammarskjöld: “For all that has been [and is] – Thanks. For all that shall be – Yes.” Amen to that!

Lazy, Lazy River

The delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday and I have watched the trailer for the much anticipated “Frozen 2” more times than I care to admit, and I was glad to see that my favorite character, Olaf, will appear in the new movie. Six years after his debut in “Frozen,” his song still dances through my head, as Olaf dreamed of all the things he could do “In Summer.” His introduction: “But sometimes I like to close my eyes and imagine what it’d be like when summer does come.” 

The irony of the song is that the adults in the room know the inevitable – a snowman in summer equals a puddle. But for Olaf, “winter’s a good time to stay in and cuddle, but put me in summer and I’ll be a – happy snowman!” The inclusion of this happy little fellow makes my heart glad for “Frozen 2.”

Growing up, the seasons were defined by our outdoor activity. Winter brought sledding by the Niagara River and ice-skating at Ives Pond until our cheeks were pink and our toes frozen. Summer meant exploratory bike rides, and slipping and sliding on the homemade plastic-lined incline in the back yard as the hose helped to quicken our ride to the bottom, turning into a mud slide as the day progressed. 

While it’s likely the words, “I can’t wait ‘til summer” have escaped from my mouth this week, we have also discovered a magical way to bring a glimpse of summer to our winter days through the advent of the indoor water park. The first was built in 1985 at a mall in Edmonton, a chilly Canadian city. Nine years later, Great Wolf Lodge opened in Wisconsin Dells, and the rest is history. 

Our extended family enjoyed a day at Splash Lagoon in Erie, Pennsylvania, in an after-Christmas meet-up on a blustery late December day. While my spirit still yearns for the thrill of daredevil spiraling slides, my body knows its limitations, so I stuck with the wave pool and the kid’s area with Elizabeth. My favorite? Even though it was crowded that day, there is nothing like floating down a lazy river as the snow flutters through the sky. 

As February trudged closer to March, I thought about taking the girls for a magical Nana day at a water park, but here in Ohio, the closest are in Sandusky. Knowing that it takes a fat wallet to spend a day at Great Wolf Lodge or Kalahari, we’ve opted instead for riding up and down the escalator at the mall, or a dish of ice cream with sprinkles and a cherry on top. Still, as it does for Olaf, summer still calls our names. 

When the Ashland Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center was originally built, Larry and I, supported by a local steering committee, were charged with developing a facility to offer affordable educational, recreational, and artistic opportunities to the whole community. While Joan Kroc’s legacy gift was generous, and many local friends contributed substantially to the project, our dreams were limited by budgetary constraints. We’ve always lived by the belief that you can’t spend what you don’t have, and so the Kroc facility opened without a mortgage, and has served the Ashland community well for ten years. 

Now, as the final accounting is being completed for the Kroc estate, there are dollars available for expansion, and Ashland has received the “winner, winner, chicken dinner” call to the tune of seven+ million dollars. While details of the building design won’t be announced until the ten-year birthday bash on April 13, I’ve got it from a good source that summer is coming to Ashland year-round. Woohoo!

I can picture it now. It’s a frigid February day, and I’m floating down Ashland’s own lazy river with Madelyn Simone, Elizabeth Holiday, Henry Kyle and Emma Belle, singing along to the Louis Armstrong classic by Hoagy Carmichael and Sidney Arodan: “Oh, up a lazy river where the old mill run . . . how happy we will be.” We’ll be sure to be on the lookout for a happy little snowman floating alongside too – in summer and winter, spring and fall!