Thanks for the Memories

I like to read the lists of the top stories of the previous year as reported on the pages of the local newspaper This year, I decided to make my own review of the remarkable accounts of 2013, with a bit of commentary tucked in alongside the headline. I’ll start with a recent story - the death of Nelson Mandela. I’ve never been to South Africa, but I’ve read his biographies and have a deep respect for the man and the role he played in the deconstruction of apartheid. Mandela taught the watching world a great deal about redemption and reconciliation, and we mourn the loss of Mandiba, the father of his nation. As he taught us, “to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

In November, we marked an anniversary of our own country’s sorrow, as fifty years have passed since the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the United States president who died before his true potential could be known. Growing up in the sixties, his untimely death was a painful rite of passage, and left us wondering about what might have been, with our hopes summed up in his own words: “So, let us not be blind to our differences - but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.”

A third story of note happened closer to home, on the west side of Cleveland, where Ariel Castro imprisoned three young women for many years. A dramatic escape by Amanda Berry led to the rescue of the other two women, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, as well as Berry’s young daughter. How could this happen right in our backyard, many asked? But Ashland had its own story of unlawful imprisonment that reached the national news, as pit bulls and snakes were used to threaten a disabled woman and her child into virtual slavery. What is our world coming to?

These heinous stories of captivity left me with little pity for the young man who became “a man without a country” due to his leaks of the National Security Agency’s confidential information taken without permission (stolen) from the United States. His actions sparked an intense international debate about privacy and national security, but perhaps we could have gotten to that discussion through another door.

It was also a year with some unexpected white smoke arising from the Vatican. In February, Pope Benedict XVI announced abruptly that he would retire, forcing the Catholic Church to choose a new pope in a hurry. Pope Francis has been quite a media sensation, and his words have been tweeted around the world. He recently said, “I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess.” My pastor’s heart can relate to that.

Like so many other years, it has been a dismal season for the Cleveland Browns, and while the Cleveland Indians made it to the playoffs, their sudden-death, win-or-go-home game turned a remarkable September run into a disappointing finale. But it was the Ashland University women’s basketball team that makes my list of memorable happenings for 2013. After a second place finish in San Antonio in 2012, Sue Ramsey and her Lady Eagles made it happen this year, bringing the national championship trophy home to Ashland, Ohio as the winners in the Division II NCAA tournament. Geography has not been kind to me when it comes to victorious sports teams, so I especially cherished the AU win on the national stage.

And for the final item on my top seven list (drum roll, please), the lovely Madelyn Simone has mastered the fine art of potty training. How can this rank right up there with world peace or racial reconciliation? Like jazz, as Louis Armstrong said, if you have to ask, you’ll never know. We sang the potty song, did the potty dance, and offered bribes of M&M’s and pretty princess panties, all to no avail. One day, she made up her mind, and that was that. Woohoo!

Segue to conclusion: thanks, 2013, for the memories. 

Here we are, at the end of 2012, looking at the “year in review” pictures and wondering about what 2013 will bring to us in terms of trials and tribulations, as well as excitement and joy.  The last days of the old year and the first days of the new give us the chance to take stock of where we’ve been, and to look forward to new opportunities that will come.  Perhaps we’ll even make a resolution or two in hopes of making some changes in our lives.

While many of us don’t do too well with New Year’s resolutions, there is value in setting life goals and in receiving wisdom from others who have walked this path before us. As a woman of many opinions, I’ve got plenty of advice I could share, but decided to draw upon two gems of counsel that came my way many years ago. They both come in the form of images – one of five letters scrawled across a blackboard, and the other of an elderly woman climbing into a van.

The first is from my 11^th grade history teacher, Mr. Alfred Scipione. His favorite phrase to his teen-age charges was:  ‘Keep your sunny side up.”  I don’t remember much about Mr. Scipione, but, thanks to the marvels of the Internet, I discovered that his personal history matched his counsel. He faced serious childhood illness, dreamed of unreachable baseball stardom, was turned down for WWII military service, and had a son who was wounded in Viet Nam. Yet here he stood in front of his class, day after day, and taught us how to face life: “Keep your sunny side up.”

He may have hijacked this life motto from the song of the same name, written by Johnny Hamp, with music by Buffalo native Ray Henderson.  Recorded shortly after the stock market crash in 1929, it featured this undistinguished line: “Stand upon your legs, be like two fried eggs, keep your sunny side up.” Regardless of the origin of his counsel, it became a classroom legend – we received tests or papers back with KYSSU proclaimed in bold letters, it appeared upon the chalkboard daily, and was mentioned at least once per class period. The message came across loud and clear: you can choose how to face life!

The second nugget of wisdom comes from Brigadier Elizabeth Earl, a retired Salvation Army officer collected donations at the A&P in our first assignment in Dover, New Jersey. She was quite a character, large both in physical appearance and in spiritual presence, and her words of comfort and courage lifted us up on many an overwhelming day in the life of a rookie Salvation Army officer. Since she had no car, Larry and/or I would pick her up in the 15 passenger van, and invariably, as she took aim for the heights of the passenger seat, she’d hitch up her skirt to ease her climb and say, “fix your eyes on the Lord, son.”

O, my dear Elizabeth, you don’t know how many times I’ve thought of your words. You may jokingly have wanted to spare my husband from seeing your elephantine legs in all their glory, but your words echo through the decades. “Fix your eyes on the Lord.” Now I know that not everyone shares the same religious convictions that Elizabeth and I do, but her words strike home to all of us. Fix your eyes on what you believe in – higher power, convictions, faith. Set your sights on the goal. Keep your eye on the prize. Don’t get distracted from what matters most to you. Focus.

Maya Angelou reminds us: “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.” I’m grateful that I can still hear Mr. Scipione with his trace of a South Philly accent urging, “keep your sunny side up,” and the old Brigadier commanding us on with a twinkle in her eye, “fix your eyes on the Lord, son.” Can’t ask for better wisdom at the start of a new year.