Burn It Down

I’ve been enamored with story for as long as I can remember. Whether through oral tradition, book, or film, the telling of a story grabs my attention in ways that border on addiction. If I give myself permission, I can watch Law and Order reruns endlessly, captured by the opening tease and the “so-do” of its haunting theme music. 

I’m often on the lookout for stories with historical content or personal connections to place or person. When we first moved into our house, I had great hopes of discovering a diary or journal under the eaves of the attic in the hundred-year home, as I knew its walls had great stories to tell. But alas, no literary discovery has been made.

My friend Judy (best known as the Dr. Judy of Kroc Center fame), is in possession of pages from a nineteenth-century diary that she shared with our writing group. The writer detailed her days on the farm, and as Judy read, I jotted down my favorite phrase: “Today, I basted my corset.” I’m glad that’s not on my to-do list for this week.

Often, the words scribbled on the pages of our daily lives are just as ordinary as the corset-construction, little different from social media posts detailing meals prepared and trips taken. So when my friend Pete handed me a paint-splattered folder, filled with onion-skin pages of typing and penciled words in cursive handwriting, I wondered if I’d find any corsets between its covers. Instead, as I created a Word document to preserve the pages of his mother’s writing and to print a few copies for his family and friends, I found a wonderful combination of history, adventure, and philosophy woven throughout the true account of a young family’s attempt at a “Green Acres” type of life, absent the television-watching pig, Arnold Ziffel.

If the plot line of “Green Acres” is a bit hazy, it told of Oliver Wendell Douglas (Eddie Albert), a New York lawyer, and his wife, Lisa (Eva Gabor), who, sight unseen, bought a rundown farm in Hooterville. It’s hard now to believe the popular network comedy debuted more than fifty years ago, as I can still sing along with the theme song. “Green Acres is the place to be, farm living is the life for me . . .”

Almost twenty years before the Douglas family decided to move to Hooterville to follow Oliver’s dreams, Larry and Alice Twitchell forged their own path from the city to Mifflin, Ohio. Had Alice’s account of their experience on a run-down farm not languished in that folder since the mid-fifties, I might have thought their small farm had inspired the popular comedy show, as they had nearly as many misadventures as did Oliver and Lisa.

Their only vehicle was a surplus army truck that served as tractor and family car. A middle-of-the-night ceiling collapse, the cantankerous oil stove, (evil smelling varmint that it was), the vagrant bovine Josephine, and brandy-fed chickens all give a glimpse of humor alongside the back-breaking work of life on a farm with no running water, no electricity, and a land so worn out that “even the weeds look tired and weak.”

Like Oliver, they too hoped for a new life, even as they were urged to abandon their dream. “No matter what you do to this,” said Larry’s brother Jack, “it’ll never be any better than its worst. All of his work will be just thrown away. If it were mine, I’d burn it down.” Larry responded to Alice, “If you can stand this discouraging place, we’ll do our best to make it work.”

And that they did. The young carpenter and his artist-wife created “the frame in which we shall dwell,” a simple home, an adequate livelihood, and a childhood remembered with joy and adventure rather than deprivation.

In recording her experiences and her philosophical observations, Alice Twitchell collected “fragments out of life” that she was afraid might “die away when the telling is done.” Fortunately, hers is a story whose telling is not yet done, as “the essence of new dreams richly blend with the old” in her book, “Burn It Down,” now available at Local Roots and amazon.com.

 https://www.createspace.com/7379175

"Mine"

We had the pleasure of a two-day sleepover with the lovely Madelyn Simone and the delightful Elizabeth Holiday this past weekend (smiley face emoji). We picked tomatoes and peppers from my hot mess of a garden, explored the delights of the Kendig playground in Hayesville, took in a Halloween-like haul of candy at Ashland’s Labor Day parade, and soaked up the late summer sunshine in our backyard.

Watching the dynamics between the two sisters, ages seven and two, brought a fascinating glimpse at humanity. In selected moments of time, they reminded me of “Sisters, Sisters,” sung so memorably by the Haynes Sisters (Rosemarie Clooney and Vera-Ellen) in “White Christmas.” “Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters . . . those who have seen us know that not a thing could come between us.” Yes, at times Irving Berlin’s words were a perfect description of Madelyn and Elizabeth. But you know what’s coming, don’t you?

I chose the adjective “delightful” when our sweet Lizzie Lou was born, but in the throes of her two-year-old personality development, a better choice is “determined.” In her desire to keep up with her big sister, I heard, “Shisshie, wait,” at least a hundred times over the weekend as her little legs chugged across along. Her plea was met with an age-appropriate amount of tolerance on Madelyn’s part, but the big sister had her moments of exasperation with the persistent toddler as well.

More exasperating to me was the fighting. Elizabeth’s budding vocabulary has landed fully on the word, “MINE,” no matter what the object in question is. Madelyn is good about sharing, but there were times when Elizabeth’s demands were met with either furtive manipulation or bodily resistance, as they fought over a plastic baseball bat, a tiny jumping monkey, and a tomato (you can guess where that went). I reminded Madelyn that she was the older sister, and she was better able to understand and to help Elizabeth to share, but the little one also needs to learn that she can’t have everything she wants. While I managed to keep myself in check, I just wanted to scream at them, “Can’t you girls get along with each other?”

As their sibling relationship develops, they are indeed a microcosm of the world around us. We may ascribe to the sentiment expressed in “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and do pretty well with it most of the time, but when push comes to shove, all too often we want what’s “mine” and are willing to get nasty if it will help us hold on to what we have or grab ahold of what we want (whether material goods or fiercely-held opinions). Our faith traditions tell us we’re not meant to hate our enemies, but we struggle to find ways to bridge the chasms that come between us.

That’s why I’m looking forward to this week’s visit of Dr. Susan Glisson and Charles Tucker to Ashland University. Their work is centered on leading individuals and communities to examine their own attitudes and biases so together they can build trust and sustain respectful relationships. In this 2017 Symposium Against Indifference, sponsored by Ashland University’s College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Religion, the speakers will focus on ways that people of various backgrounds can build bridges through dialogue. Tuesday evening’s presentation about “No More Enemies” will use Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s words, “My enemy is someone whose story I haven’t heard,” as a touchstone. Wednesday’s interactive workshop at 7:30 p.m. will introduce participants to the tools and techniques of the Welcome Table process that Glisson and Tucker successfully use in their work. The university’s welcome mat at Upper Convo is warmly extended to the Ashland community and beyond for this visit, and more details can be found on the AU website.

Soon, Elizabeth’s vocabulary (and comprehension) will expand from “mine” to “ours,” and we can begin the conversation of relationship. In this chaotic, disconnecte world of 2017, we too can choose “ours” over “mine,” for as Eleanor Roosevelt understood, “If we are to live together we have to talk.” Thanks, AU, for the opportunity to develop more tools for our dialogue toolkit.

Ribbon of Highway

The words of Woodie Guthrie’s iconic song rang in my ears quite a bit over the last week, as Larry and I spent countless hours on the interstates that cross our vast country. “As I was walking that ribbon of highway, I saw above me that endless skyway; I saw below me that golden valley. This land was made for you and me.” Unlike Guthrie, we weren’t walking on “that ribbon of highway,” but our automobile trip to visit family in Kansas and to participate in a business meeting in Illinois exposed us to many a mile of that yellow-bordered ribbon of asphalt.

The land of the U. S. of A. has always stretched “from sea to shining sea,” but the ability to traverse it with speed, ease, comfort and even joy is new within my lifetime, as we learned at our visit to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kansas. The Federal Interstate and Defense Highways Act was passed in 1956, and President Eisenhower placed his seal of approval upon Public Law 84-627, making provision for the highways that would one day stretch for more than 50,000 miles, north, south, east and west.

Eisenhower’s support of the Interstate Act had deep roots, stemming initially from his participation in the transcontinental motor convoy in 1919. That highly publicized military convoy, which crossed the United States primarily on the Lincoln Highway, was marked by cracked bridges, mud-entrenched vehicles, and faulty equipment – at the average rate of 6 miles per hour! But the convoy’s two-month-long journey drew attention to the need for better highways, for both the military and burgeoning automobile sales. As Eisenhower explained it in “At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends,” “The old convoy had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways, but [experience in] Germany [with its autobahn network] had made me see the wisdom of broader ribbons across the land.” However, with the Crash of ’29, the subsequent Great Depression, and then World War II, no comprehensive plan to address the nation’s roadways was possible until 1956.

The Interstate system changed the landscape of our country, its major cities, and its farmland, as well as its transportation systems, employment patterns, and vacation travel. It certainly made out trip to and from Kansas efficient, if a tad boring.

To some extent, we’ve moved on from the challenges of Eisenhower’s day, but the expansion created in part by the interstates have led to other concerns. As we figuratively sailed across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas on those broad ribbons, a terribly unwelcome visit from Harvey turned Interstate 10 into a roaring river, described by Texas state representative Dade Phelen as “waves with whitecaps on the interstate.” The Katy Freeway claims the title of the widest freeway in the world, with up to twenty-six lanes at some points, but this past weekend, it challenged the mighty Mississippi in its width and power. President Eisenhower probably didn’t foresee that outcome to his far-reaching plan.

The images floating out of the Houston area this week have been unforgettable, heart-wrenching as well as heart-warming. In disaster relief, Americans are quick to reach out to our brothers and sisters in need, and Houston is no exception. But another component to disaster services is mitigation. What can be done to lessen the impact of a natural disaster in the future? Until the newly formed Katy River becomes the Katy Freeway again, it may be too early to ask those questions, but ask we must.

Where should we live? How should we live? How can we live so we don’t contribute to the possible destruction of our neighbors? Pardon the influence of the hippie era on me, but Woody Guthrie understood when he looked out upon the ribbons of highway and proclaimed, “this land is your land, this land is my land.” We won’t solve the issues facing our country by sitting around the campfire singing Kum Bah Yah, but as neighbors, community leaders, and elected representatives, affirming that “this land is made for me and you,” and acknowledging that our actions must work for the good of all, is a place I want to start.