The Graceful Exit

Writing in “The Marvelous Land of Oz,” L. Frank Baum said, “Everything has to come to an end, sometime.” This year, the ‘sometime’ has all too often been sooner rather than later. The Ashland University women’s basketball season ended on the brink of an undefeated year, the 2019-20 school year bit the dust in March, and the Tribe didn’t even make it out of spring training. How I miss “Tito” and Indians baseball. Will we possibly hear the crack of the bat and the iconic “play ball” at the corner of Carnegie and West 9^thStreet before the summer of 2020 ends? Hope springs eternal.

We live in a world filled with endings of all kinds. To the dismay of many Ashlanders, Belly Busters closed their doors this week. I remember their first Ashland location, in the tiny building on Main Street just around the corner from our Walnut Street house. Could an authentic BBQ restaurant find a home in Ashland, Ohio? After twelve years of delicious food, thousands of Facebook fans, and their huge hearts (400+ Thanksgiving dinners in 2019), the answer was “yes.” Linda and Will Anderson attempted to sell the restaurant last year without success, and the COVID-19 restrictions gave a final nudge to their decision to close. As Linda and Will grudgingly admit, “we are getting older.” Ashland will definitely miss their “all you can eat” Friday fish fry, ribs, pulled pork, and – my favorite – Linda’s German chocolate cake.

Their decision came just weeks after Bella Bleu’s announced they were not going to reopen for business. Rita Edwards had created wonderful food off the beaten track in an idyllic space at the water’s edge in Ashland. But like many other small business owners across the county and the country, there wasn’t enough of a cushion to sustain operations through the corona-tinged spring of 2020. 

An ending of retirement has come as well for former Ashland resident Rev. Janet Chilcote, who pastored Paradise Hill United Methodist Church for a number of years while her husband taught at Ashland Theological Seminary. In a tribute to his wife, Paul writes: “I simply want to say that Janet ‘gets it.’ Her life has always been characterized by selfless, humble love, every day that I’ve had the honor to be her partner in life. She taught me very early the art of the ‘win-win’ and has always sought reconciliation and peace in every difficult situation she has ever encountered.” This may be the ending of full-time ministry for Janet, but her selfless, humble love as seen in the roots of ACCESS, and her ministry at Hospice and Paradise Hill, will bear fruit in Ashland county and around the world for years to come. 

Baum stated the obvious when he wrote of the necessity of endings, but their inevitability doesn’t take away the sting of loss. As spectators at a stadium or arena, occasional patrons at a restaurant, or parishioners in the pew, we may experience a pinch of sadness, but we will soon transfer our loyalty to other athletes, restaurants, and pastors. Yet the loss felt by those fully invested in the teams, the businesses and the pastorates runs deeper, and we lament with them in their sorrow and disappointment.

In these days, when loss struggles to find a rhythm in the shadow of pandemic, Ellen Goodman’s advice brings encouragement . “There’s a trick to the ‘graceful exit.’ It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over – and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.” 

One of the losses to Pandemic 2020 was Ashland’s BalloonFest. Yet symbolic of Goodman’s “sense of future,” we may just be able to catch a glimpse of color soaring overhead if we look to the sky tonight and Sunday morning. Somewhere, you see, over the rainbow, dreams that we dare to dream, even if reimagined a dozen times, really do come true. 

To See Snow

Searching for financial records from 2018 in the dungeon, the descriptive name given to a storage room at The Salvation Army in Canton, I came across a stack of 3x5 cards, carefully printed on both sides and each containing a brief snapshot of a life in crisis. In 1991, as Ronald was traveling from Boston to Denver as a stow-away, he was removed from the train in Canton. The next year, Henry was heading to the Carolinas in search of a good job. The next card noted that government agents were after Tim, and his erratic behavior required a referral for a mental health assessment. 

Nineteen year old Brandy was kicked out of her parents’ home and had nowhere to go. When asked his source of income, John indicated he sold his plasma. Darla, her husband, and five kids were traveling: no job, no money, no home. Jerry simply wanted to go home.

Some of the case notes had a touch of humor. Richard, from Kentucky, was heading to Erie, Pennsylvania because he heard it was a good welfare state. Tammy got stranded when she came to Canton to visit her boyfriend at the circus. And although not in this stack of cards, my favorite is recorded in my memory. Asked why he came to Canton from Florida without any plan to support himself, Jim answered, “I wanted to see snow.”

Along with the 3x5 cards used for transient clients, boxes and boxes of case files document the presenting needs of people who requested help with rent, utilities, clothing or food. Some paperwork dated back to the years we served at this very same Salvation Army center beginning in 1995. By policy, records more than seven years old can be destroyed, but like the boxes on the storage shelves in my basement and the dust bunnies under our beds, “out of sight, out of mind.” 

Sorting through a few boxes, I began recycling the file folders and shredding stacks of forms with self-identifying information. As I worked, my mind wandered. What a treasure trove these files could be to the anthropologist or sociologist who wanted to study human societies and cultures or even the scope of social problems and poverty. Contrary to popular assumption, very few of the case files showed “frequent fliers.” I’ve heard countless attacks on those who live in poverty, the stereotypical “welfare queens” who make a science out of milking the system. While I didn’t do any statistical analysis, the large majority of files had one, or maybe two notations. One month’s utility bill paid in2009, and then a month’s rent payment in 2013 when the car needed an $800 repair. 

That evening, my researcher brain started down the rabbit hole of the internet to gather information about poverty. One telling report is that less than a quarter of families in poverty actually receive cash assistance in the form of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and the monthly “welfare check” for a family of three is less than five hundred dollars. Kermit the Frog sings, “it’s not easy being green.” A modified refrain echoes :“It’s not easy being poor.”

Yet beyond the questions of both policy and statistical analysis, I’m drawn to the people and their stories. Did Ronald ever get to Denver? Did Jim open his mouth wide and let the first snowflakes melt on his tongue? Did it work out under the big top for Tammy and her circus boyfriend? Did Jerry ever get home? Where are these people today? Did the modest financial intervention or the gift of a listening ear or a guiding hand make a difference? 

As I washed my hands one more time at the end of a dusty day, my thoughts turned to those waiting to fill out a new generation of poverty-inspired paperwork, to plead their own stories of scarcity. As churches, social service practitioners, and government agencies, and yes, as neighbors and family, can we gently meet the cares of our brothers and sisters with grace and generosity? In these corona-tinged days, will their concerns be met with kindness, their dreams lifted up? These are the stories still to be written in 2020. 

The View from My Window

With a week off from my part-time job, I dusted off a book project and buckled down to write. If I was looking for an excuse to get distracted, the birdfeeder outside the picture window provided the perfect drama, often drawing my attention to the variety of creatures that visited.

Quite a few feathered friends have swooped by for breakfast or lunch. No ornithologist credentials here, but I’ve seen a few robins, some sparrows, and the flash of red from a cardinal. 

Our birdfeeder has also attracted other visitors. Alvin, Simon and Theodore have scampered up the pole and managed to fill their chubby cheeks with birdseed, before scooting off into their hiding places in our front yard. Chipmunks sure are cute little critters. 

And then there are the squirrels. The three elderly trees in our front yard provide the perfect setting for the rodents to engage in a frenzied game of climb, hide and seek. Soon after Larry fills the birdfeeder, the squirrels converge. Often, one climbs the pole and scatters abundant birdseed for his playmates waiting below. Another one likes to sit atop the birdfeeder, a king-of-the-hill, or perhaps queen. I’m not sure which squirrels are girls and which are boys, and I don’t want to get close enough to figure it out. 

I’ve been surprised at how strongly I feel about the squirrels and the birdfeeder. I’m more lenient with the chipmunks, but I do not want the squirrels to take over where they don’t belong. I’ve started knocking on the window to chase them away, and sometimes even go out the door to scare them off. I’ve googled “keeping squirrels out of the birdfeeder,” and Larry has even sprayed the pole with WD-40, but it hasn’t helped. Posting a sign “birds only” isn’t a viable option either. I can’t blame the squirrels for feeding themselves when there are easy pickin’s. 

What’s ironic is that the animals aren’t having issues with each other. The squirrels don’t knock down the chipmunks, and the birds don’t assert their proprietary rights to the birdhouse by attacking the squirrels. They’re sharing the bounty of the seed while this human is sputtering about who should be allowed to eat. 

Without consciously realizing it, I’ve developed a hierarchy of worth for the animals that dwell in our yard. As a result, I’m hearing Bulda, the mama troll from the movie Frozen asking Anna about her hesitancy to marry Kristof. “What’s the issue, dear?” Do I have something against squirrels? I’ve never been bitten by a squirrel, but we did have a squirrel take up residence in our attic a few years ago, and it cost us a bunch of money to tighten up the house to avoid future freeloaders. Chipmunks are definitely cuter, and I do love the way they sing, “All I want for Christmas.” And birds – my concern for them doesn’t make sense – I watched Hitchcock’s The Birdsas a teen and, as our birthday girl Lizzie (five!!!) says, I was ‘fweaked out” for days. Perhaps I’m channeling the words of Jesus: “Consider the birds of the air.” Glad he didn’t say squirrels!

Am I reacting so strongly because it’s called a birdfeeder? The world should function in a right and proper way, and therefore birds should have first dibs on the seed, not squirrels. Because that preconception informs my worldview, how do I accommodate what I am seeing if it challenges my way of being in the world?

Years ago, I demanded of my counselor, “Just tell me what to do to fix this (thinking ‘them’ rather than me) and I’ll do it.” He wisely refused, showing me that sitting with the questions and becoming familiar with the roots of discomfort allows truth, courage and humility to lead to transformative change.

This week, there’s no specific “and the moral of the story is . . .” Instead, some gentle counsel. Take Jed Clampett’s advice to “Set a spell. Take your shoes off.” Push ‘play’ on Ecclesiastes 3 with the Byrds’ anthem by Pete Seeger: “There is a season (turn, turn, turn), and a time to every purpose, under heaven.” See what stirs in you. And breathe deeply. 

Deep in my heart . . . .

Traditional Hasidic wisdom tells us: “Rake the muck this way. Rake the muck that way. It will still be muck. In the time you are brooding, you could be stringing pearls for the delight of heaven.” I’ve been brooding, yes, but I’ve also gathered pearls of image and word to string together this week.

On Tuesday, former Vice President Joe Biden told a story from November 22, 1963, when little Yolanda King came home from school in Atlanta. Jumping in her father’s arms, she said, “Oh, Daddy. Now we will never get our freedom.” Biden told of her father’s response, reassuring, strong, and brave. “Now don’t you worry, baby,” said Martin Luther King, Jr. “It’s going to be all right.” We shall overcome . . .

When King himself was assassinated five years later, presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy faced a serious choice. Kennedy was urged not to go to the planned rally site in the poor, mostly black section of Indianapolis, and had every right to surround himself with bodyguards, hunkerrd down in his own remembered grief. Instead, deciding to address the crowd, he painfully broke the news of Dr. King’s death. As Michael Rosenwald later described, “Kennedy, wearing his brother’s overcoat and speaking without notes, quoted the Greek playwright Aeschylus. ‘Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart . . .’” Following Kennedy’s words, “the threat of violence subsided. Everyone went home.” Across the nation that night, cities burned. Not Indianapolis. 

A year later, at a time when many community pools were still segregated, Mr. Rogers invited Officer Clemmons to join him in a kiddie pool to cool off his feet, to take a break from his work as a neighborhood police officer. In that iconic image, Fred Rogers and François Clemons sit side by side, a white man and a black man in the water of shared baptism. As the scene concluded, Fred Rogers took a towel and dried Officer Clemmons’ feet. 

In 1992, having learned a new song for his day care center’s Black History Month program, our tow-headed three-year-old stood in the mall’s food court and belted out: “We shall obercome.” O yes, Dan, even in these days, I still string that pearl of memory and hope: “Deep in my heart . . .” 

Another Dan was in Dallas in November 1963. Later, he filled the news anchor seat at CBS Evening News for twenty-four years. Now at eighty-eight, elder statesman Dan Rather continues to lift his voice. In response to his own question of what gives him hope, he concludes his thoughts with this: “And I see millions of my fellow Americans saying give me a hammer, give me a bandage, give me a ballot, let’s go out there and get to work.” Sing on, Pete Seeger – we’ve still got a hammer, bell and song.

Columnist Connie Schultz has created an on-line community I visit each day. In these difficult times, she faithfully posts a daily photo, often of her grandchildren or canine companions Franklin and Walter, with the reminder to pause and to breathe. A community member asked how she can remain positive, and her answer handed me the final addition to my strand of pearls. “I’ve tried to be open about the times when I, too, struggle to remain hopeful. I cry sometimes, and at times I am so angry that, to paraphrase a long ago friend, I run out of walk before I run out of rage. I rest a bit, and keep walking.” Schultz continued: “I am a hopeful person by nature, and most of the time I can count on optimism winning out, even during some of the hardest times in my life. This is such a challenge, but I grasp onto joy wherever I can find it. That is what is keeping me going.”

The strength of a father’s arms. The prophetic mantle of a brother’s coat. The cleansing water of a child’s pool. The promise of a three-year-old’s song. A hammer, a bandage, a ballot; a bell and song too. The reminder to breathe. Glimpses of joy. These are the hope-burnished pearls I’m gratefully stringing to wear in June 2020.