A Happy Snowman?

When Frozen: The Musical announced it was rehearsing and opening its Broadway touring ensemble in Buffalo, my sister was at the front of the line to buy tickets. Unfortunately for her, the long-awaited performance ended up conflicting with a commitment to her son, so the text came: would you and Madelyn like to come and use my tickets? Is the Pope Catholic? Does a bear . . . You get my drift.

 

What an amazing night. Shea’s Buffalo is a majestic setting. Filled with masked attendees in the 2021 pandemic version of a costume ball, the theater was abuzz with anticipation. The show is coming to Cleveland in August 2022, and it’s worth every cent of the price of admission. Save the date, Madelyn, Lizzie and Emma – we’re going (sorry, Henry, but I’m afraid my favorite Energizer Bunny couldn’t sit still – your time will come).

 

My favorite part of the night was when Olaf sang “In Summer,” the clever composition by Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez. There is something about the little snowman’s character that is enchanting. Created of snow, he has only known the cold of winter, but as he sings, he considers the perks of being warm. “But  sometimes I like to close my eyes and imagine what I’d be like when summer does come.” As the song nears its conclusion, Olaf dreams out loud: “Winter’s a good time to stay in and cuddle, but put me in summer and I’ll be a . . .” Into the song’s pregnant pause, the adults in the audience held their collective breath, knowing that the next word, rhyming with cuddle, will be puddle. If Olaf only knew . . . But into the silence of the theater came a tiny voice from the audience, beating Olaf to his punchline: “a happy snowman.”

 

Of course every child in that theater knew those words. So did the grandparents. We’ve head the song a zillion times as the little ones have watched the movie and listened to the song over and over, and we believe with Olaf. Sadly, this precious understanding of a shared meaning won’t last past the Disney experience. 

 

I first heard the phrase ‘post-modern’ about twenty-five years ago. We were moving from modernity, with its emphasis on realism, to post-modernity, a cultural construct that rests on the idea that there’s no such thing as absolute truth. Your truth is your truth and my truth is mine, and we’re both right. In post-modernism, we no longer have a “happy snowman” common experience. Remember when Hulu was a dance, an apple was a fruit, and a fox was a sneaky animal trying to get into the henhouse?  Not anymore. With the internet, podcasts, blogs, and hundreds of cable channels bombarding us daily, our input is so varied that our output is bound to be as well. No wonder we have such varied opinions about what is right and what is true.

 

I sense a meandering in my thinking and writing about my little snowman friend. By the end of Olaf’s song, even his innocent dreaming is faced with a threat, as Kristof says, “I’m going to tell him.” What Kristof knows is that snow melts under the summer sun, and without some kind of miraculous intervention (see Frozen II), Olaf will become a puddle rather than a happy snowman. Olaf has one reality, and Kristof another, but in the real world, there is absolute truth. Snow melts as temperatures rise. 

 

No tidy little package this morning, I’m afraid. Speaking in the courtroom of “A Few Good Men,” Jack Nicholson indicts us all: “You can’t handle the truth!” If he’s right, then at what cost? That’s what I’m wondering this morning.

So Long, Farewell

When the Salvation Army Kroc Center first opened in Ashland, our welcome center staff fielded a variety of phone calls. Potential visitors inquired about the hours of operation and the feeding program menu for the day. One of my favorite calls asked if Ray or Joan Kroc was in, and another wanted to know if we did exorcisms. No. For quite some time, the daily calls included a complaint from Jim Becker, aka Mountain Man, telling us “there’s no such thing as homeless.” 

 

As part of the county’s Homeless Coalition and heavily involved in ACCESS, the church-based sheltering program, we knew Jim’s premise was incorrect – there definitely were unhoused and precariously housed people in Ashland. To pretend there weren’t was a disservice to those who needed stable housing. But as I look back on his words from the perspective of a decade, on some level, Jim was correct and perhaps even prophetic in his words. Vocabulary is changing, and now we are more likely to speak about people without homes, or unhoused people, rather than “the homeless.”

 

It’s happening in other fields as well. American Indians became Native Americans and are now spoken of as indigenous or First Nations people. Mental retardation services are now programs for those who are developmentally disabled, adjusting our language to use descriptors rather than shaming labels.

 

It’s a good reminder to me that words matter. How we speak about each other and how we speak about ideas make a difference. For the past fourteen years, I’ve had the absolute privilege of crafting words to offer my perspective on all kinds of topics, with the hope there might be a reader or two who responds, “I never thought about it quite that way.” Early on as a newspaper columnist, I came to grips with Brett Stevens’s guidance: “What a columnist owes his readers isn’t a bid for their constant agreement.” Judging by a few vocal critics, I succeeded in that.

 

I’ve written as a smitten immigrant to Ashland, and as an even more smitten grandmother to the lovely Madelyn Simone, the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday, the charming Henry Kyle and the sweet Emma Belle. Nearly every year, I’ve claimed that hope springs eternal for the Browns, the Cavs, and the Indians. Together we’ve grieved the loss of Ashlanders we’ve loved, and celebrated amazing accomplishments within the community. Although not primarily a column on faith, a columnist writes from where they sit, so that’s been present as well. It’s been a good run, much longer than I expected when I first stuck my head into Ted Daniels’ office with a hesitant question about an occasional column. Thanks for saying yes, Ted.

 

However, this will be my last column for the Ashland Times-Gazette. I’ve written before about the struggles of small town newspapers, and now that struggle has impacted regular contributors to the paper, myself included.

 

I’ll miss writing about the food at the Ashland County Fair, the Cleveland Guardians, Ashland’s  incredible Women of Achievement, and the excitement of the Kroc Center’s upcoming production of Frozen Jr. And what about Bishop Sycamore, the high school that’s not a high school? I was hoping to tackle the topic of how I am becoming my mother – and mother-in-law, and wanted to be able to write about Lizzie’s on-going wish coming true – the end of the Corona. But as Elsa of Arendelle knows so well, sometimes we just have to “let it go.” Ingrained habits are hard to break, however, so I may be writing and posting for families and friends on Facebook, keeping up a blog for lack of a better platform at the present. 

 

Rogers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music” was one of the first movies I saw in a theater, and I still have the dog-eared copy of its tunes that I played day after day on the piano. Madelyn, Lizzie and I listen to its soundtrack often, so I’ll conclude with a song. With deep gratitude for the opportunity and for my faithful readers, I join with the von Trapp children to say, “So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye, I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye.”

 

Running for Office

How do people choose who will provide leadership to them? In some cultures, leadership is passed from father to son (less commonly, to a daughter) or announced as an anointing. In other people groups, the leader may be the loudest, the bravest, the most charismatic or the richest. In the United States, a rather elaborate system has evolved of campaigns, advertisements, endorsements and voting that selects leaders of both local communities  and national interests. It’s called politics.

 

In this politically tense world of 2021, why would anyone in their right mind want to run for public office? For the one with a desire – or a calling – to lead, dipping a  foot into the election process is a daunting task. It helps to be on the right (or left) side of a demographic, and the ability to raise money remains an important key. It’s apparently not necessary to have previous political experience, as football coach (Tommy Tuberville), minister (Raphael Warnock), and ophthalmologist (Rand Paul) are among our U.S. senators. But regardless of background, one thing is clear – political candidates have got to be willing to pick up the phone to call potential donors, and, at least pre-pandemic, knock on a lot of doors and kiss a baby or two. 

 

If I ever seriously considered running for public office, my past experience of going “door to door” would scare me away. I thought first of my days of training to be a Salvation Army officer, when we donned our uniforms on Saturday morning to go door-to-door, selling The War Cry, the Army’s magazine. Interrupting someone’s leisurely cup of coffee to pitch a magazine that our potential customers probably didn’t want was a not-so-subtle attempt to solicit donations and invite conversation about faith. As an introvert, I dreaded Saturday mornings during those two years.

 

I’m wondering if my dislike of door-knocking was rooted in a traumatic experience I had as a young child. My mother was often tapped to visit her neighbors for a donation to a worthy cause, such as the March of Dimes or Easter Seals. At age five, I was helping her collect money for the hospital expansion drive when I fell off the porch of one of those neighbors, breaking my arm. No wonder the hospital needed to expand.

 

I’m not up for election, but I have great respect for those who take up that challenge. In the absence of the dreaded television commercials that ran ad nauseum a year ago, we may not realize that we’re currently in the midst of an election cycle in local communities across Ohio, but we are. In a little over two months, we’ll go to the polls to vote for city council members, school board members, coroners and maybe even dog catchers. Some voters will sit this one out, while others will look for a familiar name or pull the red or blue lever just because that’s what we’ve always done. 

 

Instead, can this be the year to take seriously Tip O’Neill’s claim that “all politics  are [is] local,” and get to know those willing to offer leadership within our cities and towns? As an example, two friends of mine are ‘rookies,’ running for public office for the first time. One’s a Democrat, one’s a Republican, but  their character and commitment to their community takes precedence over whether they lean left or right. In Orville, Bev Squirrel is running to represent her neighbors on city council, and Ashland’s Emily Huestis has the same goal. Both are smitten immigrants to their cities, so I can relate. I’ve watched them parent their children, serve their communities, and offer hospitality to both friends and strangers. They have a good heart for people, probably a better qualification for public service than professional wrestling fame (former Minnesota governor Jesse the Body Ventura).

 

Here’s the challenge. Between now and November’s election, get to know them and the others who hope to serve. If they knock on your door, hear them out. Ask yourself: who will govern wisely, with commitment and compassion? Then get to the polls on November 2 and vote.