Olde Canal Days

Canal Fulton is a small northeast Ohio town with a vintage toy store, two ice cream shops, and a towpath trail. Originally named Fulton, “Canal” was later added to its name to “convey a more dynamic quality.” The name change may have helped while the canal was prosperous, but alas, the coming of the railroad dealt Canal Fulton’s prosperity a serious blow. 

 

I was excited when a notification for Lerch’s donuts appeared on my Facebook feed announcing their presence at the Olde Canal Days Festival in Canal Fulton during the time I was caring for my grandkids. I’d never heard of the festival before, but it seemed a good diversion while their parents were away – and yes, Lerch’s donuts too. 

 

I gathered up the lovely Madelyn Simone, the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday, and the charming Henry Kyle, and off we went to Canal Fulton last Thursday night, with a pocketful of cash and our sturdy stroller, which I now know how to fold and unfold. We wandered down Main Street, ate our supper sitting on the curb, and bounced in the bounce houses manned by the high school band. As we headed to the car, Madelyn said, “Nana, there’s a Ferris wheel!” Apparently we’d missed a whole section of the festival – the midway by the canal. And I was out of cash.

 

The next night, with Henry safely in the care of his maternal grandmother, it was girls’ night out. As we strolled the midway, I had an aha! moment: this is what normal feels like. After the isolation and fear engendered by the pandemic, it felt good to be in the midst of people once again. Yes, there was some adherence to social distancing in the line for the Ferris wheel, and food vendors had hand sanitizer available, but the Corona seemed far from the festival, even if still lurking in the shadows.

 

Game barkers chattered endlessly, convincing the rubes to squander an Abe Lincoln ($5) for a chance to break a balloon and win a prize worth two quarters. Teen girls in the shortest of shorts (called hot pants when I was a teen) flirted with boys not even old enough to shave. Kids of all ages ate cotton candy (Lizzie), candy apples (Madelyn), and donuts (Nana). 

 

The Ferris wheel that Madelyn had seen shone in all its glory in the sultry night sky. Its original design was to be America’s answer to the Eiffel Tower of Paris, when architect David Burnham challenged a group of engineers to build something “novel, original, daring and unique” for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in the 1890s. George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. designed its thirty-six cars to carry sixty people each, and the experience was reported to be as if “revolving through a vast orbit in a bird cage.” 

 

For our 2021 ride operator, his was a more quotidian experience, performing his every day, mundane tasks of advancing the wheel, cranking up a small ramp, opening the bar, shooing off the current occupants and lowering the bar on the new riders. More than a hundred years of operation should have found a more efficient way to operate the ride, but apparently not. However, there was steady rhythm to this repetitive task, and the slow-moving line boosted the anticipation of its riders.

 

Unlike Ferris’ first attempt, this Ferris wheel only held two people per car, and I was relieved that our petite six-year-old could ride with “a responsible person” (Madelyn, age 11), so I kept my feet on the ground and sent the sisters into the air together. For the girls, it was as Joni Mitchell sang, “Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel,” as they rocked in the night sky. 

 

As we wandered back to our car on that pitch black evening, I felt a lingering sense of gratitude for this celebration of the intrepid spirit of early settlers and the back-breaking labor of canal diggers. Because of the daring design of young Mr. Ferris, we had a wonder-filled night, with a box of donuts to take home besides. After a long, long Corona-tinged winter, cotton candy sure does taste good.

Magic in the Air, or Ear

 Have you ever heard of the magic trick where you put a tiny neon pink Polly Pocket shoe up your nose and it comes out your ear? No, I hadn’t heard about that one myself until this week, when the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday tried to do it. While my vague memory from tenth grade biology suggests that our nose and ears do have some kind of connection, it’s more likely the tiny pink shoe would end up in the lungs or stomach, rather than the ear canal. Fortunately for Lizzie, the shoe in question lodged in her nose, and her mom was finally able to extract it (with the obligatory screams of terror from my favorite six-year-old).

 

Christopher Moore reminds us that “Children see magic because they look for it.” I think that’s so for our dear Elizabeth. Her interest in magic was evident at age three, when she performed a magic trick with a blanket. She got her signals crossed a bit, calling out “cock-a-doodle-do” instead of “abracadabra” as she made an object disappear. I’m afraid this most recent failure could mark the end of her promising career as the next David Copperfield, but we shall see.

 

Master magicians are incredible to watch, as their sleight-of-hand maneuvers can make believers out of the most skeptical of us. But a bad magician? I’ve sat through a display or two I wish I could forget. Before we send Lizzie off to study at Houdini University, I hope to shift her focus from magic tricks to the magic of our world. Instead of attempting to influence the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces, I want her to be able to see the wonder of the world around her: the magic of a glorious sunset, fireflies dancing in the twilight, a waterfall splashing into the rocks below. As master children’s writer Roald Dahl explains, I want her to “watch with glittering eyes the whole world around [her] because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.” 

 

Charles de Lint writes in the modern fantasy genre. He says, “I do believe in an everyday sort of magic – the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.” 

 

Those magical moments can come between the pages of a book, in the quiet of the forest floor, or on a late-night walk along the beach under a golden moon. Yet they also are unveiled as we move within our family circle, as our connections with friends are renewed and as our faith is expressed through worship and celebration. I felt that sense of wonder recently as our church family began to gather together again. As the beloved stood in worship, singing Chris Tomlin’s “How Great is Our God,” there it was, that shiver of wonder that seldom came in front of a computer screen.

 

When we recently celebrated Lizzie’s sixth birthday, she blew out her birthday candles in a Covid-safe manner without spraying saliva all over her cake. Her wish, as she has articulated from time to time throughout the last year and a half, is that she wants the Corona to be over. We all do, Lizzie, we all do. That nasty Corona has been a thief, stealing life from those we love, robbing us of a sense of security in our daily interactions, and often keeping the magic of wonder at bay. 

The Corona is still hanging on so we can’t fully let our guard down yet, even if vaccinated. But as it retreats, I’ve been singing an old gospel chorus with these words: “I went to the enemy’s camp and I took back what he stole from me.” We don’t have the power to summon back those who have been slaughtered by the virus, but I am claiming a new sense of wonder in these in-between days. Welcome, magical summer. Welcome, tomatoes fresh from the garden. Welcome, the joy of faces reflected in the campfire. Welcome, shiver of the divine. We are watching with glittering eyes. 

 

Technologically Challenged

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, even a technologically-challenged old dog? New trick #1. When I went to the ATM to make a deposit, my debit card was expired. Turns out they sent its replacement to my old address. Wanting to get the money in the bank, I figured out how to deposit a check into my bank by using my phone, simply taking a picture of the check. Remarkable.

 

#2. After a fun day at the zoo with the grandkids, I couldn’t figure out how to fold up Henry’s stroller. I asked another family and they couldn’t figure it out either (so I am not the only one). I tried putting it in the car without folding it, but it didn’t fit, so in my desperation I thought to myself, “Google it, Barbara.” A couple of clicks on my phone, and I found an instruction manual with pictures. Success – the stroller made it home from the zoo along with three tired grandchildren and one exhausted grandmother. 

 

Two steps forward, one step back. By the end of that evening, I managed to get myself locked out of my gmail account on my laptop. It’s the email I use for the important stuff, like receiving bills, communicating with friends and clients, and sending my weekly column to the T-G. They’re telling me it will take until mid-July to let me back in, as they need that long to verify my identity – just because I forgot a password? I’ve managed to avoid Facebook jail all these years, and now this. While I may not be a wolf, I’m making his plea tonight: “Little pig, little pig, let me come in,” and the gmail peeps are taunting me in response: “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin will I open the door so that you can come in.”

 

The fact that I had to google how to fold up a stroller speaks to my natural inability to figure out anything mechanical. But the fact that I could google how to fold up a stroller speaks to my privilege. I have the right equipment. I have a computer and a cell phone with a camera. I can read .I can afford to pay for cell phone service and internet every month. 

 

Yet that is not true for everyone I know. One friend has (and is quite happy with) a flip phone. Another has no cell phone at all, by choice. Many can’t afford the $100-150 a month it costs for a cell phone and internet. A twelve year old in our church cannot read. A couple of the grandmothers can’t either. Another friend has been dependent on the computers at the library, and we all know what COVID did to that accessibility for many months. 

 

The term “privilege” can seem to be overused these days, but how I understand it is that the playing field of life is not level. Depending upon where we are positioned in regards to poverty, race, gender, age, ability or disability, and more, finding success in life, whether folding a stroller or using a computer, is more difficult for some than for others. 

 

Catholic theologian Henri Nouwen speaks to privilege from a spiritual basis: “When we have nothing to cling to as our own and cease thinking of ourselves as people who must defend privileges, we can open ourselves freely to others with the faithful expectation that our strength will manifest itself in our shared weakness.” 

 

While the struggles of the “isms’ such as ageism, sexism, ableism, classism and racism are not easily resolved, Father Nouwen understood that the challenges facing humans went deeper than labels. Might it be that if we open ourselves freely to others, even to those “others’ who are different from us, we might begin to find our way forward? We may not be able to level the playing field created by privilege of all sorts, but perhaps we can discover ways to help others get to the field or to lift them up when they stumble. It’s worth a try.

The Death of a Friend

In 1968, Dion recorded a song by Dick Holler that asked, “Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham (John, Martin, Bobby)?:In the historical wake of the assassination of Lincoln, and then of Dr. King and the Kennedy brothers in the 60s, the song haunted me, as I wondered, “when would it end?”

 

I had a similar feeling in recent days, as news came of one death after another, this time of those I’d been close to in the past. My maid of honor, living in retirement in Florida, deceased after struggling with illness. A retired divisional commander (bishop), gone in his seventies. Our former pastor, dead at age fifty-seven.

 

Carol and I attended the same church as young adults, wrestled with a calling to ministry together, and entered The Salvation Army’s ministerial training program in the same cohort (session), arriving in grand style in one of the thrift store donation trucks. Our paths began to diverge as she and her husband Mike served in rehab settings, while we worked in community ministry. Now, the fun-loving girl in peach who stood beside me as I spoke vows of marriage is gone.

 

We first met Gene at that same training school, where he and his wife Edie were on staff, and Gene and I were quite the team on organ and piano. When Larry and I began our first assignment in New Jersey, they were off to Canada, but then were reassigned to New Jersey, not far from us. They came to Philadelphia as we were adjusting to an inner city appointment there, and they followed us to Cleveland a few years later as well, serving as our regional leaders. Conversations with Gene were always deep and thought-provoking, and sometimes even life-saving.

 

As for Harry, he and Madelaine were our pastors for three years in Wooster. Life was challenging for Harry, as a major stroke limited his mobility but not his passion for his calling. We moved east a bit, and then they moved much further east, and again, the paths went in different directions. 

 

Word of the death of a friend, a pastor, a mentor, comes as unwelcome news, especially when death is sudden. But even when expected, hearing those words of finality shakes us. When had we last connected? How did we drift apart?

 

Friendship is a fascinating phenomenon. What attracts us to someone who will become a friend? What role does proximity play in the development and maintenance of friendships? When we no longer see each other or chat on any regular basis, are we still friends? 

 

And what do we do when we lose a friend we haven’t seen in a long time? Do we travel to the funeral, send a card or a memorial gift? An “I’m so sorry” posted o Facebook seems a trifling acknowledgement of a life that deeply impacted our own ‘back in the day.’ 

 

A friend recently said, “We’re not cemetery people,” a common experience in today’s world. Growing up, we were ‘cemetery people,’ visiting the Protestant cemetery (Elmlawn) and then crossing the road to the Catholics resting in Mount Olivet. On the other side of the canal, we’d bring our cut flowers and grass clippers to my dad’s family too. I wonder how long it’s been since anyone has visited the Hodges, the Freys, the Gagnons and the Streeters. When we head “back home” this summer, we’ll stop at the tree that honors my dad and mom, but what about the cemetery? Could I even find the gravesites? How then do we keep memory alive if there is no place to gather those memories together?

 

As I age, I often ponder the question raised by Geoff Moore, when he asks, “What will be remembered when I’m gone, when all is said and done?” Indeed, what influence do we have, what legacy do we leave? For Carol, Gene and Harry, I find the answer to Moore’s query in Holler’s song about Abraham, John, Martin and Bobby: “Didn’t they try to find some good for you and me?” My friends’ presence in this world made a difference. Might the same be said about each of us “when all is said and done.”

 

 

 

A Splash at the Kroc

WithTrademark#1136758, creator Bob Bernstein added a cultural icon to McDonalds’ menu – the Happy Meal. For forty-five years, children around the world have been recipients of their own specialized meal as they enter the Golden Arches. These colorfully boxed favorites are over 20% of McDonalds’ revenue, thus making its investors quite happy too. However, based on my experience, kids are not always “happy-happy” with their trademarked Happy Meals, especially if they don’t get the toy they want. 

 

When the wife of McDonalds’ founder Ray Kroc died in 2003, she did her best to up the happiness level of kids in nearly thirty cities across the country. Her bequest of more than 1.5 billion dollars allowed for the development of Salvation Army ministries named Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers, with the goal of expanding opportunities in recreation, education and the arts for kids of all ages, especially those who may be underserved or impoverished. While I don’t think the wording of her legacy included “happy,” “joy” or “fun,” there have been plenty of smiles and lots of laughter as children sing, dance, run, jump, stretch, and explore in the Kroc Centers in each selected community, including Ashland, Ohio. 

 

For the safety of the children served by the Kroc Centers, some of that exuberance has been muted while that nasty old corona has ravaged our country. Focus has shifted to providing basic needs to families during this time, but the Ashland Kroc has also used these months of forced inactivity in its recreational programming to increase its footprint, allowing for additional opportunities for fitness and fun as the pandemic subsides. 

 

How did this come about? One of the proposed Kroc Centers in the eastern part of the US wasn’t able to get off the ground, and The Salvation Army decided to redistribute those funds to its existing centers. For Ashland, that meant millions of dollars to expand, and with the help of some local donors who provided matching funds, voila! An indoor waterpark is now rising in the rear of the original building. 

 

On a recent visit to the Ashland Kroc, we got the grand tour of the new facility, hardhat and all. Impressive! And more good news. Majors Annalise and Billy Francis are hopeful that by next summer, the outdoor spraypark will be relocated and open for business. That would make my heart happy.

 

I remember the day when the  water was first turned on for the outdoor spraypark. Captain Gillian Harvey had been working with us for a few weeks, and Gillian and I became the first “kids” to try out its refreshing mist, staying out of the way of the tumble buckets so we didn’t get drenched. It was a serendipitous moment: out of the blue, two grandmothers became children again, splashing in the water underneath a shining sun. What a happy day, uniform and all!

 

It won’t be long before there’s another fun day at the Ashland Kroc. Major Billy was recently daring my husband to join him in heading down the slide in the new waterpark, but I think Larry is going to pass on that invite, and on the Speedos as well. I’m planning to bring the grandkids to frolic in the water, but I’m staying out of the way of the charming Henry Kyle. One of the first words he learned was “move,” and he uses it frequently at the top of the playground slide when he gives a push to his sisters. If I’m trying out those waterslides, I’m going at my own pace, saying my prayers all the way up the steps and throughout the rapid descent on the slide – I don’t want to break my neck or any other body part.

 

On second thought, perhaps I’ll visit the labyrinth instead of the water slide. Tucked into the back corner of the property, its quiet path provides space and time for the rhythm of contemplation. While I’m still open to adventure, at sixty-six I am also willing to seek after a quiet happiness as I walk and pray. That’s the true joy of the Kroc – young or old(er), there’s room for everyone. 

In the News

Our Wednesday night television viewing includes “Chicago One.” The three shows focus on a hospital setting (Chicago Med), the local fire station (Chicago Fire), and the second floor offices for Detective Sergeant Hank Voight and his team of elite intelligence officers (Chicago P.D.). The fictitious Gaffney Chicago Medical Center, Fire House 51, and the twenty-first district of the Chicago Police Department provide the locations for Dick Wolf’s dramatic series, filled with medical emergencies, fires, rescues, and shootings. 

 

Series like NCIS are able to spin-off to new locations, such as Hawaii, but by definition, “Chicago One” is limited to the city of Chicago. I wonder if Mr. Wolf has any new ideas in the Windy City to add to his success? Perhaps he could do Chicago Faith, located in a church, or Chicago Press, centered in a bustling newsroom in that great city, home to the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. 

 

What I didn’t realize is that Dick Wolf tried a newsroom-themed show in 2000 with Deadline, featuring star columnist Wallace Benton at the New York Ledger. The show only lasted one season, cancelled after only five episodes aired. So much for that idea.

 

Were Wolf to attempt a newsroom drama in 2021, he’d have a big problem: location. The days when newsrooms were filled with noisy typewriters and a smoky haze are history. While feisty reporters still stalk their stories with passion, they no longer race to the editor’s desk with submission in hand. Instead, deadline is met by pushing the “submit” button on an email attachment. Since writing can be done in pajamas on a home computer or in a corner of the local coffee shop, there’s no need for the cavernous newsrooms of the past. In fact, Ashland’s own Times-Gazette staff writers have been working remotely for over a year now.

 

That’s one of the reasons why the Ashland Times-Gazette building is in contract to be sold this month. At 40 East Second Street, the T-G was our next-street-over neighbor when we served at the old Salvation Army building at 40 East Third, now only a memory, with its empty lot a home to headstones and monuments. Fortunately, the fate of The Salvation Army in Ashland was a more life-giving one than the property faced, with its move to East Liberty St. in the form of the Kroc Center. (More on that next week).

 

As for the T-G property, I don’t know who is purchasing the building (no investigative reporting skills here), but hopefully its bones are strong enough to be preserved for many years to come. Far beyond their facility needs, that hope of preservation is the challenge for newspapers large and small across our country, as the life of daily newspapers as we know them has changed dramatically in the past several years. Like the T-G, formed when the Ashland Times merged with the Ashland Gazette in 1903, journalists, editors, and publishers are working hard to navigate the churning waters created by the internet, the pandemic, globalization, and changing ownership, while still addressing the need of the local community for responsible journalism. 

 

I was glad to hear T-G general manager Aaron Bass confirm that while the building was being sold, the “Ashland Times-Gazette staff remain committed to 24/7 news online and producing a daily newspaper.” That’s good news for Ashland, and good news for me, the T-G’s favorite Saturday columnist, even if I am the only regular Saturday columnist (smiley face emoji).

 

Just as a community needs daily police and fire protection and access to medical care, we also need to know what is happening around us. Effective journalism can raise the alarm and diagnose community ills, as it seeks truth and reports it, a standard not always adhered to in random social media posts.

 

Is the world of newspapers changing? Of course it is. As JFK said sixty years ago, “Change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past and present are certain to miss the future.” Here’s to a fond farewell to the brick-and-mortar of the T-G newsroom, looking to a future built on its strong commitment to keeping Ashlanders informed and connected.

 

Keeping Pace

“Outside, outside, come on everybody, outside!” These sing-song words of promise, uttered daily on Bubble Guppies, are music to the ears of children everywhere in the month of June, especially my favorite two-year-olds. The charming Henry Kyle and the sweet Emma Belle love to be outside. Emma brings me her rain boots to put on (hint, hint), while Henry stands longingly at the front window, jumping up and down to send me the message: “I want to go outside.”

 

When they get outside, the difference in their personalities is striking. Henry wants to run – down the hill, or to the swing, the backyard or the door of the car. Beyond his parents’ back, I’ve started whispering, ‘Run Forrest Run.’ He ran down the hill at a playground we were visiting and discovered a wide trail, and he ran at least a half mile on the trail before I turned him around – and ran back out as well.

 

Emma is much more interested in exploring her surroundings. She is content picking up sticks to carry around, or playing with stones, putting them in a pile and then spreading them out in a pattern. She watched her dad mow the lawn this week, walking from one end of the porch to the other so she could see him when he came around the corner. Instead of seeing the porch as a place of confinement, she settled in and enjoyed the view, picking up a stick or two in the process.

 

These two little ones remind me about pace, especially as we are (keeping my fingers crossed) turning the corner from the worst of the pandemic. Except for my ill-advised track and field experiment in tenth grade, I have seldom been an actual runner, but the pace I kept up as a mom of three with a full-time ministry and years of graduate school was often grueling. I prided myself at being an expert at shifting gears, but all too often, frantic was a better descriptor than proficient.

 

Even in retirement, even in a pandemic, old habits are hard to break. The challenges of part-time work, baby-sitting the grandkids, a weekly column deadline, midwifing the literary efforts of others, while still writing books of my own – run, Forrest, run! Yet I’ve also heard the echo of the words of Jesus as recorded in The Message, Eugene Peterson’s paraphrased scripture readings first composed for his own congregation. From Matthew 11: “Are you tired? Worn out? . . . Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” 

 

What I’m recognizing about these life rhythms is this: they are unique for each of us. As portrayed in the film Chariots of Fire, Scottish athlete Eric Liddell understood that rhythm in his running. “God made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure.” For others, that pleasure-filled rhythm is best discovered in the garden, on the campaign trail, or holding the hand of a toddler. The words of Henry David Thoreau resonate still. “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” 

 

The traditional fable of the Hare and the Tortoise begins with the swift hare making fun of the slower tortoise. “Do you ever get anywhere?” asked the hare with a mocking laugh. In the first words of Aesop’s tale, the hare speaks the message of our culture, that arriving at a destination as quickly as possible is the most important part of the journey. Yet it wasn’t the speed of the hare that was the problem. No, it was his arrogance that his way was the best way, the only way.

 

As Emma and Henry innately understand, we can embrace a rhythm that gives us life without denying another’s choice. Measured or far away, the music beckons.