Going back to college as a retiree was all good until it was sorta not.  I was hanging out with the cool kids, Wow look at me, the old person in a class of 20ish-year-olds.  I am riding the bus, studying, reading, writing papers, joining in class discussions. It kinda made me feel special.  

Being the novelty act was cool at first.  However, being cool was not the reason I was back at college. I was there to build a better base of knowledge about communications so could I get better at this blog.  

All I needed to do is get a C or higher for 34 credits of various Communications Studies classes and I would be awarded a second major from the 35th highest ranked University in the world. Easy peasy.   

The 34 credits at $10 a credit would only cost $340. Plus $50 to $125 per class for books.   Compare that to the current official estimated cost of $28,822 per year for an in-state ($48,620 for non-resident) full-time U of MN student.   It is a great deal for me. I was risking $340 for a degree, the other students were paying $28,000 / $48,000 per year for four years to get their degree.  The other students were polite and nice but they had a lot more at stake than I did.

Being a senior citizen college student is no longer a theoretical thing for me.  To date, I have completed nine of the thirty-four required credits. I got an A for two of the classes and an A- for the other.  I could cross the finish line with only about 8 more classes.  

Here is what it feels like.  First off, in reality, studying, reading, working in small groups, writing papers, joining in out of class discussions took about 8 – 10 hours a week.  Add to that the actual three-hour class each week plus the time to get there and home. It takes a lot of time to be a student at the U of MN.  

Reading college-level textbooks is less fun than reading Harry Potter books.  Taking tests is every bit as nerve-wracking as it was when I was younger. I am older than the professors so they are no longer as intimidating.  However, as it was 45 years ago, professors still have weird and annoying idiosyncrasies. They talk about themselves a lot. 

Most students in my classes were in school for the expressed purpose of getting a degree so they can get ahead in life.  At least a dozen times I was called on by the professor to give real-world examples of where the lesson being taught would be helpful to get ahead in the workplace.  At first, it was flattering. After awhile I wondered where were the examples of how this knowledge or these skills would help me in my future.  

So, yes it was a bigger time commitment than I thought it would be.  Yes, I had life experiences that already taught me much of what was being taught.  However, to be fair, most of the time, I was being taught stuff I did not know previously. 

Linda and my friends were very supportive.  However, I didn’t know anyone close to my age who was also taking college courses.  Knowing someone in the same boat as I was; who would understand, relate to and discuss the experiences and feelings I was going through, would have been nice. 

Not knowing other college students my age sometimes made me feel isolated.   I kept reminding myself to suck it up, a sense of isolation is probably inevitable.   Choosing an activity different from what your friends choose means you are not sharing the same experiences they are experiencing. That feels like isolation.  

I have no regrets but I am taking time off from college for now.  Not sure I will go back. I no longer plan to complete my Communication Studies major.  More likely I will attend a few lectures here or there. I may take an online MasterClass.  Several people have suggested I join the Writers Guild or another similar writing group. 

My actual goal was to improve my blog by learning more about communications. I learned much from the classes, but mostly I learned from my fellow students.  The communication studies students are masters at using connected tech. They know how to research quickly and well. They know the technical side of editing, words, sounds, videos, and pictures. They have an arsenal of apps and know how to use them.  Posting on social media takes them seconds and that includes resizing the image appropriately and making a witty comment.   

I had to learn connected tech as an adult.  Twenty-year-olds never knew a pre-connected tech world.  Connected tech is second nature to them. I doubt I could ever catch up to their skill level.

I am proud that I was able to hold my own with them.  Sure, I was able to give them a little information/advice about the working world but that same advice is probably also found with a simple search.  

The number one thing they taught me:  No matter what you heard or read and no matter who said it, do a quick search to check if it is legit and what other relevant factors are involved.  Then be technically prepared to present what you found in an easily understood, meaningful, way. I’ve seen them create a simple graphic in minutes that explains more than a long essay possibly could.  

In the end, it sort of came down to Do I want to spend multiple years getting this second major (one class a semester, eight classes needed = four years of classes) or would it be more fun to do other interesting things.  Choices need to be made: road trips or classes. It is hard to do both.    

 

What you perceive depends on how close you look;  Scaleandperception.com

When I was about 9 or 10 years old, my next-door neighbor called to me through the break in the bushes between our houses, asking if I ever looked for rocks.  He pointed to three rocks each the size of an adult’s fist laying on his freshly mowed lawn. He encouraged me to pick them up and take a good look. Then he suggested we figure out what kinds of rocks these were.

He alternated between asking me what I saw and pointing out what he saw.  He would ask leading questions like: Pointing at a dark, smooth rock – Do you think the lighter streaks on this rock looks like the grain in a piece of wood?  

Another rock was very rough and jagged.   It looked a bit rusty. My hands got a bit dirty handling it.  He said something like, Does this rock look like it was a chip off the surface of another rock or does it look like a chunk out of the middle of bigger rocks?

The third rock was sandy with multiple layers each a different shade of blush pink.  I could rub off a bit of the sand with my fingers. He asked something like: Why do you think this rock was not as heavy as the other rocks?

Then we brought the rocks into his garage.  He got a nail so we could see if it would leave a mark if we scraped the rock with the point of the nail.  The nail did not leave a mark in the smooth rock. It made a slight scratch in the jagged rock. It made a gouge in the sandy rock.

He had me guess the kinds of rocks they were.  My dad was a stonemason so I knew that the sandstone was a sandstone.  Even with several hints, I did not guess the smooth rock was petrified wood.  He gave me a clue that the reason the nail scratched the rusty rock was it was sort of the same as the steel nail. It was a chunk of iron ore and he said I came close with: steel rock. 

He then gave me a mini-lecture about the rocks. I don’t remember what he said but I just looked up the characteristics of these type rocks.   I bet what I looked up was pretty much the same as he told me. Petrified wood is actually the fossil of a tree buried in sediment with no oxygen to decay it.  The iron ore had actually been mined from a formation and so the iron ore was the result of the bigger chunks being crushed into smaller chunks.  He probably also described how sandstone was formed. 

He had a doctorate in geology but he told me to call him Don.  Not only was he a Ph.D. level geologist, but he was also the head of the Geology Department at the University of Minnesota.  Until I was older I did not know to be impressed. He was just my nice neighbor.

Once a year he would invite a bunch of grad students to a backyard get-together.  They would mill around Don’s back yard, holding a beer, talking to each other about whatever grad students talk about.  I remember at least three of those years, Don spotted me in our backyard and called me over.  

He would introduce me to a couple of the grad students then raise his voice and announce to any who would listen: “My job was to get you educated, your job is to educate the next generation like Paul here.”  I was then pretty much pushed back toward my yard.  

Don was a very nice guy, however other than the interactions above, while I was his neighbor, most of my interactions with him were a nod or a short hello.  I had moved away from home by the time I was old enough to understand that a University Department Head was a very busy person. I was very lucky to get a lesson in geology from him.  

I never had more than a minor interest in geology.  It never occurred to me that I might have had an inside track if I did.  I got my degree in psychology.

Once I was an adult and Don was retired, I would occasionally talk to him and his wife at Target or the funeral of a person from the neighborhood etc.   Don passed at age 91 in 2009.  We attended his funeral.  His wife is still alive and we exchange Christmas cards with her every year.  

I got to keep the rocks.  The piece of petrified wood is now part of a stone fireplace in the cabin our family used to own. My dad put it there, at my request, when he built the fireplace. I have no idea where the other two rocks ended up.

 

The closer you look the more you see

www.scaleandperception.com

I found some shade and set my chair down at the picnic get-together.    The guy sitting next to me is several years older than me, well educated and very nice.  Well into the conversation, he said he was confirmed as a Catholic but was now an atheist. It was my turn to speak, this is pretty much what I said.

As a kid, most of my friends were Catholic.  I was confirmed at Falcon Heights Congregational Church. The chapel was relatively new, not huge, brick structure. I remember it had small stained glass windows in the front but long, narrow stained glass windows on the left side. The Sunday school wing had about five or six block-wall classrooms. 

I went to Sunday school until the middle of 5th grade when I was kicked out.  Apparently they had enough of my questions and comments. I made numerous and repeated statements like: nobody could be swallowed by a whale and live to tell the story.  After he slayed the giant, were there other giants? You get the idea. I was an inquisitive kid with a mind of my own.  

Mom got a call saying it was best for me to be in the church rather than Sunday school.  So from then until I was confirmed, mom and I sat about two-thirds of the way back, next to the wall, on the left side of the sanctuary.  I actually liked church. 

Once I was in seventh grade, I attended Wednesday night confirmation lessons.  All of the confirmands were required to attend church. I was no longer different than the other kids. My first real kiss was with a girl named LuAnne at a church camp, confirmation New Year’s Eve overnight party.    

About a week from confirmation.  Each confirmand, including me, was scheduled to meet individually with the pastor for 15 minutes. The pastor was in his late 50’s, Yale-educated, a little full of himself, a little straight-laced, but caring and generally kind.  

He asked if I believed in God.  I said I was on the fence. We discussed it.  For the next 45 minutes, I held my own as we discussed whether there was a God and my suitability to join the church.  I pointed out some of his sermons were inconsistent with what he said in other sermons. He got defensive. I sensed it and pointed out, obviously, he was also confused. You get the idea.  

He called my mom saying unless I answer the question, “Do you believe in God?” with a simple, “Yes”, he would not sign off on me being confirmed.  

Mom and I had a chat.  Not so much about religion, more about embarrassment and learning to go with the flow. We came to an agreement.  If I said, “Yes, I believed in God without reservation, ” she would not insist I go to church thereafter. Seemed fair.  In my head, I would say “yes”, outloud, in unison with a group of about 20 other eighth-graders, eat a wafer, drink a little grape juice and walk out the door never to look back. 

A week later, the ceremony started and almost immediately I was individually called up to the front of the church and baptized.  I was not told beforehand that I had not been previously baptized nor that I was about to be, at age 12, baptized in front of a church load of people.  I was embarrassed.

Mom said, “Sorry, I thought you knew”.  I would have negotiated a private baptism. 

So here we are 55 years later.  Linda and I had the kids baptized when they were infants. We brought them to Sunday school. They got confirmed.  In short, we did the family at church thing. I even did a stint on the church council. 

I am still on the fence about God.  Since then I came to realize my reality is more about what I believe and less about verifiable proof.  It is my choice as to what I believe. I choose to be on the fence.  

As for the church.  For me, churches are social organizations.  They are like a club. Like-minded people join and socialize with each other.  Humans are social beings and churches filled the need to belong, for some of us. 

As time has passed my faith has deepened.  I deeply believe we should all work to make tomorrow better than today because I have faith that tomorrow can be better.  I believe strongly that even when the odds are stacked against us, to our last breath, we should all have faith and hope for the future.

As I matured I realized virtually all religions and all non-religious people pretty much agree, it is morally best to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Treating others as we wish to be treated is not just a religion thing. 

So, I had an emotional reaction when recalling the story of my confirmation.  That was a long time ago. My reaction surprised me.  

I cannot help but wonder. Church attendance worldwide is decreasing.  One explanation, people are finding more, non-church, ways to feel they belong.  Maybe another explanation is the church is paying the price for rejecting those who are unsure of what they believe.

 

The closer you look the more you see

www.scaleandperception.com

We drove 3,400 miles over 11 days from St Paul MN to where the Mississippi River dumps into the Gulf of Mexico and back again.  The Great River Road route is a designated zig-zag of mostly two-lane state or county roads going through rural mid-America.  Very little freeway. Some town roads. Thirteen miles was a very narrow, harrowing one-lane gravel road.  

This trip was about the journey, not the destination.  We saw some cool destinations, the World War II Museum in New Orleans is awesome.  The National Military Park in Vicksburg Mississippi is great. Mostly we discovered that rural life outside of the big city and off of the is freeway sad and lacking in hope or good news.

Maybe I will post more some other time but I wanted to share one story now.

Day three, the two-plus hour drive through St Louis Missouri was frustrating and took much longer than it should.  Saw the Arch but the area around it was under construction. So we stopped, looked up, and then drove on.  

About 60 miles south of St. Louis we needed to use the facilities.  As we approached the small town we were no longer surprised how rundown many small towns looked.  The bigger cities we had driven through were growing and busy. However, most of the small towns were in various stages of disrepair.  Most small towns we had driven through looked years into hard times.

In a bigger city, we would never have stopped at this rundown convenience store/gas station to use the restroom.  But we were not in a bigger city. We knew by then this was likely as good as we will see. Half of the store was empty/dark and the rest was only marginally stocked.  The very friendly clerk greeted us with a Hi y’all. She pointed us to the restrooms with a smile on her face.

At these stops, we made it a practice to purchase, at least something for providing for our needs.  It just seems fair. As the clerk rang up my bottle of soda, I asked her about the town. She responded that she had only been in town less than a week so she did not know much about the town. 

Linda responded with something like, “Oh really, less than a week”.  The clerk then explained, less than a week earlier she decided that living in St Louis was too dangerous.  So she grabbed her two kids and drove away. She added, be careful who you make friends with. Making friends can be dangerous. Very dangerous.

She said she did not know where to go, she just headed south.   She stopped here for some gas. As she walked in to pay for the gas, the previous clerk was screaming at the owner and quit.  So she told the owner she needed a job. He hired her on the spot.

She said she found a room and the next day, enrolled the two kids in school.  She said she was ready for a new life. She said she “ain’t never going back. This time I ain’t going to get to know anybody.  The kids are the only people I need to know. If I don’t know anybody, ain’t nobody going to cause us problems.”  

We wished her luck and we were on our way.  

On the front door of the store was two small clear plastic zip-lock bags filled with water and tied onto the door handle. One on each of the two doors.  Curiosity got the best of me. I turned to ask her about them. Her response was, “There are two pennies in each one. Everyone says they keep the flies away from the doors.”  All I could say was. “Really”. She just nodded reassuringly like you would to a young kid who was not sure if you were teasing. 

As we drove away, it was several minutes before either Linda or I had digested enough of what we just heard to even speak.  We lived in a different world from this young lady. I hope things turned out well for her.  

Everyone we interacted with on the whole trip was nice.  It is just that some of those people had a very different life than ours.

Pennies In Bags of Water Make Flies Flee

 

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.

Scaleandperception.com

 Several candidates for President are older than I am. I am about to be age 67. Experts on aging pretty much unanimously agree, most old people are cognitively as sharp as they were in their younger days.

I agree, most people my age or older are every bit as smart as we ever were. Yes, some old people get Alzheimer’s or other conditions which affect cognitive ability.  However, most of us of a certain age are, in fact, are as cognitively capable as most younger people.

My personal concern about getting older is not so much about losing my cognitive abilities. My concern about getting older is mostly about staying in touch with the world as it moves forward.  The past is a great place to visit but I want to live in the present. I worry my past life experience is not totally relevant in today’s world.

In the custom built street rod waiting at the stoplight next to me was a person my age or maybe a little older. It was a cool looking car. The Subaru Forester I was driving has cool accident avoidance technology. Today’s cars are different than they used to be. What makes each car cool depends on your assumptions about what cool means in today’s world, I guess.

Periodically one of my Facebook friends posts “Remember the good old days when people had common sense.” Back in the day, it was a different world. Kindergarten kids today read and do math, our goal from kindergarten was to learn the names of the basic colors and count to 10.  Common sense is different now than it used to be.

My 8.5-year-old granddaughter uses my smartphone much better than I do. I asked her how she finds apps so fast. She looked at me like I was an idiot. In her world, everyone knows how to navigate “devices” well. The idea that someone, me, does not, seems totally weird to her. It is not that I am dumb or she is super smart. It is about how required basic skill sets are now different than they were even 10 – 15 years ago.

I am just as smart as I used to be, however, what I am smart about is sometimes not as relevant as it used to be.

It was not many years ago when being smart meant knowing lots of stuff about stuff. Someone would ask a question and the smart people knew the answer. In today’s world, being able to look up most anything about anything is considered a basic skill. Being smart today is maybe more about a deep understanding and experience with a topic.

I do not wish I was younger. Time marches on, like it or not. I choose to like it. I am happy to have made it this far. That said, the primary lesson I learned in my lifetime is the best path forward is found by just moving forward.

I am not worried about lost mental capacity for the old presidential candidates or myself. If it happens to me or them, it needs to be dealt with as appropriate. I do worry about gaining the new life experiences necessary for my assumptions about the world to remain relevant.

Here is an example of how today’s world is different than it used to be. One of Linda’s cousins travels to China to help set up machines the company he works for sells to China. He does not speak Chinese. To communicate, he talks to Google Assistant which understands what he is asking and translates it to the local dialect of Chinese. He said when he is in a different part of China it translates to a different dialect of Chinese. It also works in reverse translating their responses into words he understands. He said it even understood that when he said, “you betcha” it translated it to “yes”.

Not knowing the language is not the barrier it once was. All of those assumptions about speaking or not speaking a language native to an area are mostly, now wrong. Technology made, what my experience taught me was a major problem, mostly irrelevant.

There are thousands of examples of how things are different than they used to be. The world is different than it used to be. I know that for a fact.

What I do not know is how well I understand the realities of the modern age. I am not panicked or anything. I just know I must remain open to learning the ways of the world as they are now.

Just for the record, in my head, the age of the candidate does not matter. For me, whether or not the candidate is in touch with the reality of the modern world is actually a primary criterion I will use to evaluate for whom I vote.

 

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.

Scaleandperception.com

The new drain tile is functioning well. With historic flooding most everywhere, our basement remained dry for the first time since we moved in some 40+ years ago. As Linda pointed out, our style is usually to react after the problem and it was nice to prevent the problem for a change. We were lucky.

Shortly after I started the demo required to make room for the drain tile to be installed it was clear we needed to remove some of the stuff that filled the basement. This is me publicly admitting Linda was right and I was wrong. It took time and hard work, There is still lots of stuff piled floor to ceiling in the center of the basement.

The demo was next. For the record, the 66-year-old me gets tired and grouchy from physical labor. In the end, we were ready for the drain tile install a couple of days prior to the actual install. The actual install was hard work for the crew that did it.

Well, one thing leads to another which leads to another. The basement was very cold with the walls removed. So we got some additional heating and air conditioning duct work done. I used bleach diluted with water to kill the mold on the basement walls. I am almost done applying a mold/mildew resistant primer to the walls as a preventive measure. About a week ago, the floor drain all but stopped functioning. Called a sewer guy to clean it out. The line was full of sludge probably because of the golf ball lodged in the drain that partially blocked the flow of water which allowed stuff to settle in the pipe instead of being washed away. As I write this I am waiting for a new hot water heater to be installed after the plumber who was installing the proper tee in the hot water supply line for the new dishwasher discovered the inlet to and top of the 12-year-old hot water heater was very corroded and would likely fail soon.

The plan for the basement is to wait until at least next winter before deciding what the future basement will include.

In the meantime, many changes were made on the main floor.

The painter did a great job painting the kitchen cabinets the same cream color as most of the trim in the house. The old cream colored appliances looked old and faded. We replaced the range, microwave and dishwasher with stainless steel with better functionality. The old refrigerator does not look too bad and our options for a new refrigerator were very limited by the cabinet height above. Decided not to cut off freshly painted cupboard at this time.

Maria’s old bedroom was renamed “The nook”. The new lazy-boy chair is very comfortable and the new reading lamp works well. By mutual agreement, the nook shall remain a TV-free room. It is a quiet place to read, knit, contemplate or do nothing.

Gone is the heavy golden oak furniture in the living room and dining room. It now has a reclaimed look and lighter more open feel. Our kids are adults and our grandchildren are old enough that our furniture no longer has to be kid proof. The old was donated to Bridging and Habitat for Humanity.

Deciding what to change and how to change it takes time. Finding the right thing takes time. Implementing change takes time. Discussions, late nights, research, more discussions, trips to showrooms, discussions with salespeople. Delivery schedules. What to do with the old stuff. It all takes time, effort and involves tradeoffs. Mistakes are made. Surprises, both positive and negative happen. Through it all the idea is the same, move forward.

Several people including our adult children asked: Why are we making all of these changes? I wish there was a simple answer. Although, at the heart of all of these changes was a simple idea. Once we retired, how we use and interact with our house changed. The idea is to make adjustments to both the house and to our own behavior to better meet our new needs.

For example, Linda and I are now both home at the same time but are doing separate, unrelated, activities. We both wanted a place to read/knit while we listen to good, but separate, music. We now spend far more time at home than we used to. We want our house to better serve our needs and what we need is evolving.

Also, over the past several years, we experienced helping several different people move. In every case, the volume of stuff they had accumulated was a major issue. Long story short, we are doing our best to live a less cluttered life and limit the volume of stuff our kids will need to deal with someday.

Our journey to get our home set up has been long and hard. Options were considered and decisions were made. It is not true but it feels like there was a complication or twist for every individual piece we added. Yes, the journey seemed long and sometimes hard. However, honestly, the real journey is just beginning, what we just did was for the purpose of being better prepared for the journey ahead.

 

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.

Scaleandperception.com

The damn Russian hackers mounted cyber attacks which managed to both influence the election and deepen the divide between Americans.  Those damn commie bastards.

My dad was a bricklayer.  I went to work with him a couple of times when I was around 10 years old, which is how I came to find out two things about him that surprised me.  Dad swore a lot at work: “Hand me the f***ing brick”. Dad really did not like commies: “those commie bastards.”

I do not remember him swearing much nor talking about communists outside of work. Sure, at home, he swore and talked about the evil commies once in a while but not much.  At work, he became more passionate about both.

His work transistor radio was tuned to talk radio.  Not the “WCCO good neighbor” kind of talk radio. His was “fight the Communist conspiracy against America” kind of talk radio.  There were communist conspiracies everywhere and assholes in Washington, whose job was to keep us safe, were clueless.

It was the middle of the Cold War (1947 to 1991).  America hated commies. We entered the Vietnam War to defeat the communists. School kids practiced what to do in the case of a nuclear attack by the communists:  Sit under your desk with your hands over your head. Seriously. The Cuban missile crisis happened in this timeframe.

I was young but looking back on it now, my dad’s anti-communist views at the time, were actually fairly mainstream.  Communists were a sneaky enemy who will infiltrate and disrupt our American way of life any way they could. We need to keep that from happening.   

The Cold War ended in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved.  

Jump ahead to 2008 some 18 years after the Cold War ended.  Russia launches cyber attacks on several countries around the world.  By 2015, articles about Russian cyber attacks on the USA are in the mass media.  

Russia’s goal?  They wanted a favorable environment within which Russian interests could be moved forward with the least amount of American resistance.  In particular, they wanted to deepen existing divisions among the American citizens and to widen our distrust in a democratic system of government.

By the time I was in high school dad and I never argued about the war.  He knew I did not consider the communists a big enough threat to justify the horrors of the Vietnam War.  I knew he felt the commie bastards were so evil it justified doing whatever it took to defeat them.

Some 50 years after I spent a couple of days at work with my dad, the communist threat became reality.  The communist cyberattacks managed to influence the election and deepen the divide between Americans.  

Ironically, the talk radio my dad listened to, hated the commies but now Russia relied on talk radio and cable news organizations to repeat the social media stories the hackers planted.  The effect was to amplify those planted stories. Talk radio or cable news was complicit with the Russian attack on America, knowingly or not. Either way, it deepened the divide to further the Russian goals.

Unfortunately, both the liberal and conservative reaction to the cyber attack was not so much to demonize the communists.  Instead, the communists got what they wanted. Both the liberals and conservatives are demonizing each other. The goal of the communists was to divide us.  They succeeded.

I can hear dad quietly say, “We need to do whatever is needed to defeat the communists.”  We never got angry with each other over it But I knew he was not happy at my opposition to the Vietnam war nor how liberal I was becoming in high school.  I was not happy he supported the war.

Every nation in the history of nations always has tension between its citizenry.  The hope is our democracy can do what it has always done. Allow people to disagree and still work together for the greater good.  

The current deep divide threatening America is exactly what the communists had in mind.  Democrats are demonizing Republicans and Republicans are demonizing Democrats.  Putting our head in the sand and pretending we do not have to mitigate the damage done by the communist cyberattacks is not the answer.  

What we need to do is take a lesson from the late great Mr. Rogers.  Let us be nice and respectful to each other. Interact with each other as individuals not as demons.  Just because someone voted for a bigot does not make them a bigot. Just because someone supports universal healthcare does not make them a socialist.  This is a democracy. We are allowed to disagree with the positions taken by others and still work with each other for the common good.

My dad passed away in November of 1970 at the age of 52.  I was an 18-year-old freshman at Mankato State College. Dad and I were never really very close but he was my father.  I miss him. If he were alive to see the communists had succeeded, My guess is his thoughts would be something like, We let down our guard and let the communists bastards undermine our democracy, get to work and clean up the f***ing mess.   

 

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.

Scaleandperception.com

I hesitated.  We moved into this house with a finished basement about 40 years ago.  When I pounded in the pry bar to peel off the first paneling I had mixed feelings. Real men do demo.  Real men leave good enough alone. Which is it? Maybe my real man’s identity had nothing to do with paneling.  Too late to turn back now. The Got Junk guys already took the first truckload of demo debris.

We tolerated the water coming in the basement since the week after we bought the house.  Oh, the stories I could tell. Bailing water after midnight from the floor into the tub because the floor drain was not up to the task. Caulking this or that.  Re-landscaping. Special paint. Heavy rain, lots of snow melt. For over 40 years, we had water seeping in the basement. Sometimes it flowed.

Signed a contract to get a drain tile installed. I have until mid-February to remove most everything within 5 feet of the perimeter walls.  They will tunnel under the hot water heater. The basement has been used for storage for about 10 years now. A lot of stuff is stored there.  Some things will stay but for the rest, several different charities will benefit. The remainder will go to wherever the Got Junk people take it.  

The drain tile salesperson surveyed the amount of work that we were facing and asked why after 40 years of living with the problem were we dealing with it now.  My answer was, “This old house has taken care of us for 40 years. It is time to return the favor.”

Returning a favor to an inanimate thing sounds cool.  It is true, sort of. I actually sort of feel that way.  However the real answer to, “Why now”, is actually I got tired of lying to myself about taking care of the problem, “someday”.  Time to face the reality I am getting older and likely as the years continue to pass, our ability to take on a big project will diminish.  Time to make the house meet the needs of the older people (us) who will be living in it.

I did not take another class at the U of MN this semester (travel, burned out) but one of them was to do something about “the basement”.  So we are dealing with the basement.

Like it is for all people, the place we live is a part of our identity.  I was very hesitant to allow people into our basement because I did not want them to identify me as a person who tolerated water seeping in with every heavy rain.  Who had boxes of stuff from my adult children’s childhood. Who had boxes of stuff from our long deceased parents tucked here and there. Who had sports equipment that literally had not been used for 3 decades here and there.  

So it is going to take some time.  The first step is to deconstruct. Then fix the underlying water control issue.  Then we will let it have bare walls and only a couple boxes of stuff stored in it while we figure out what a basement for a couple of older people should look like.   

I have some ideas but what is next for the basement is still a blank canvas.  I need a place for the workbench. We still want to store the holiday decorations.  Maybe we should add a small bathroom. We will definitely increase the amount of light.  

We have decided to add a small rain garden in the front yard.  The rain garden will surround the basin which will be fed by the buried pipe the sump pump will discharge to. The salesman thought that was a great Idea. I did not bother to tell him I used to work for the water quality section of the MN Pollution Control Agency.

So the future of the basement is yet to be determined.  The design of the rain garden is yet to be determined. One thing I know, right now, this old house does not have a finished basement.

 

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.

Scaleandperception.com

 

Linda just shakes her head as I wipe away a tear while watching Christmas movies.  Yes, I know they are sappy. I am not proud, I watch and enjoy Christmas movies.

The setup of every Christmas movie is a character unable to move beyond a past traumatic event and thus causing them issues. The bulk of the movie is about this person learning to accept the traumatic event for what it is and learning to move forward with their life.  

The main character of the movie is forced by circumstances out of their comfort zone and to  interact with a person(s) who is not part of their old comfort zone. It is never easy. The process of moving out of a comfort zone is fraught with drama and takes time.  We humans, and the lead characters in Christmas movies resist, change with a passion.

Just before the end of any Christmas movie, the main character chooses whether to go back to their old comfort zone or move forward and beyond the old.  Quite often the lead character ends up paying homage to a past traumatic event, and then, literally, looking in a different direction as they announce they will move forward to embrace their new life.  

I tear up at the scene which includes the moment where the character accepts the past for what it was, but realizes they are able to go beyond the past trauma and move forward.  It is a bittersweet moment. They loved their former life. Something dramatic happened. Life will never be the same again. Except, of course, they just learned life can be good again. It is a powerful realization.

The reality is, most everyone has past traumatic events in their lives.  People in our lives die. Jobs are lost. People get sick, disabled, distant, and the list goes on and on.   Over a period of a lifetime, life-changing stuff happens to most everyone.

One difference between real life and life in Christmas movies is in real life, people only mostly get over a past tragedy.  People only mostly move on. Moving out of a comfort zone is really hard. Moving on for most of us includes keeping a toe back there in the past.  We kind of move on but we can mentally go back to the past in a flash.

Then come the holidays. Events and circumstances can remind us of a point in our life we hoped would remain undisturbed.  Yet there that repressed memory is, staring us in the face. Maybe it was triggered by seeing that person at the get together, that commercial, or hearing a name not thought of for years.  The holidays often trigger a mental journey back to the past. Sometimes that memory is not a great place to visit.

For me, Christmas movies are a reminder we are able to move on after traumatic events.  Sure, it was tough for a while, but life is good. The best we can do is the best we can do.  The best we can do is move forward with our lives as best we can.

When I shed a little tear during the moving-on scene in a Christmas movie, it is not only for empathy toward that character.  Part of it is a tear of joy at being reminded we can acknowledge our past traumatic events and still move forward to lead a happy, fulfilling life.

So please be a bit extra tolerant of each other during the holiday season.  Be understanding when a person’s reaction seems out of proportion (too much or too little) or even a bit inappropriate.  Sometimes a memory triggered by a holiday is not a happy one. What they might need most is support and understanding.

In all Christmas movies, there is a person who helps the lead character to find a path forward and beyond a past tragedy.  The funny thing is the person who helps the lead character is often helped the most. Each of us can be that person who helps others and thus gets helped.

 

By the way.  Happy holidays.   

 

 What we perceive often depends on how close we look.

Scaleandperception.com

The dare was to ride my bike as fast as possible to the bottom of a big hill over the just-built jump.  The bike and I landed in a tangled heap.  It hurt.  My appendages were skinned and bleeding. My back hurt. Dirt in my hair, rips in my pants and the air knocked out of me.

Mom was mad at me for ripping my pants.  She did not blame the kids who dared me. I still wince at the memory of the pain from the brush used to clean the dirt out of the bloody scraps. She said something like: “I hope you learned a lesson”.   Those scrapes did not mark the last time I did something stupid when I had a choice not to.  However, that experience taught me it is less painful to use a garden hose or faucet to clean out a wound.

That was about 56 years ago.  I have learned many lessons about leadership and taking a dare since then.

If a leader tells you to jump off a cliff, whether you actually jump off the cliff is still your choice.  We often blame the leader but whose fault is it?  The 10-year old who did the daring or the 10-year old who accepted the dare.   It takes two to tango.  If I had successfully flipped a bike in mid-air and stuck the landing, I would have been legendary. It was a risk I chose to take.  I do not even remember who did the daring.

I would probably have made a different choice if instead of daring me to make the jump, the other kid dared me to find someone to train me over a period of many months on how to safely flip a bike in mid-air.  If he explained that first you need lots of practice going off a small jump, then work your way up to bigger jumps and more speed.   Explained I needed the right kind of bike and the right kind of jump.  Explained I should wear a helmet and various pads.  Doing epic things takes much resources, training, sacrifice and support.

Daring a kid to do a mid-air flip on a bike is not leadership.  Helping a kid understand what it takes to jump safely would have been leadership.  But that is the problem.  Very few 10-year-old kids have access to the resources and the support system it would take to learn the proper way to flip a bike in mid-air.  Even if the 10-year-old me had the resources (I did not), I probably would have chosen to do other things instead.  Flipping a bike would be really cool and I was more than willing to spend two hours to do it.  On the other hand, there is no way I was willing spend all of my free time for a couple years in order to be able to do it.

When a leader dares you to do something, stop and think for a minute or ten about what it would actually take to safely accomplish what the leader is asking you to do.  Once you understand better what it would take then consider whether it is a price you want to pay. Leadership only occurs with the consent of those being led.

Have you ever noticed that when people who accomplish something epic talk about it, they almost always talk about what it took for them to get there?  They talk about the years spent training, all those who helped them, all they and their families sacrificed, and the list goes on.  The downhill run took a couple minutes, but it really took them 10 years of hard work and sacrifice to get from the top of that hill to the bottom.  In the end, learning to safely flip a bike in mid-air is not so much about flipping the bike in mid-air, it is all about learning how.

Many so-called leaders are people who jump in front of a parade and call themselves the leader.  They amplify the voice of the crowd asking you to do what they perceive those in the parade think might be cool to do.  The leader dares them to be bold. Take a risk.  It all sounds great. You can be the person to flip a bike or whatever it is the leader says you already want to do.  You can do what most are not brave enough to do.

Which is all good until you get to the bottom of the hill where the jump is.  Then it depends on whether or not you have done the hard work of learning how to safely stick the landing.  Whatever it is.  Remember you have a choice.  Just because you were dared to be great does not mean you can be great without taking the journey required to be great.

It is one thing to want to do something epic.  It is a whole other thing to spend the years and the resources it actually takes to accomplish epic things. Accomplishing things by doing them the right way makes for a great story.   Cleaning the dirt out a wound with a brush is not fun.  Most of the time I skip the part when I came home crying because it hurt so bad.  The story of the cool things I accomplished in my life is all about how hard I worked to get it done.

Good leadership is about encouraging us to put in the work it takes to accomplish epic things.  It is about the journey.  Less good leadership fails to mention the effort, time and resources it takes to successfully make the journey.

A leader can only lead with the consent of those being led.  We might consider whether the leader talks about the journey or the only the destination before consenting.

 

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.

Scaleandperception.com