I have a friend named Donna who is remarkable. Part of the church family we’ve adopted, she has strong opinions about most things, and she is not shy about making them known. Donna is the ultimate volunteer; her dedication to taking on some of the routine office chores has made her a necessary part of my job. She has a long history with the church, and a keen memory for the evolution of most events there. I can’t count the number of times someone has said, “Ask Donna,” when something puzzles us.

Her volunteerism doesn’t only benefit the church. Since I’ve known her, she has volunteered weekly at the V.A. (the veterans’ hospital), at VEAP (our local food shelf), and as a driver for friends who no longer drive themselves. She coordinates food deliveries for families in crisis, has served in most capacities, and on most committees, keeping track of decisions made, minutes of meetings, newsletters that she has produced, and being the unofficial church historian.

A voracious reader, Donna has suggested many books to me that I’ve enjoyed and recommended to others. She is a painter, and her portrait of two of my granddaughters is a special reminder of them and of her each time I look at it. And she makes incredible ginger cookies, an essential quality in a friend.

For about five years Donna and I joined several like-minded peace lovers in a weekly vigil on a corner in “downtown” Bloomington. Many of those hours were cold and windy, or hot and humid – typical Minnesota days. We were taunted, harassed, appreciated, and proud of our quiet position against the wars our country was waging.

Our church choir, of which Donna’s husband, Lou, was a member, puts on an annual production. Donna has served as stage manager – keeping backstage foolishness under control – and as a painter of scenery. Her suggestions were wise and welcome.

When I consider cherished moments in the last fifteen years, Donna is more often than not at the heart of them. We have made many special friends in that time, and I am so grateful for my special relationship with Donna. When I grow up, I want to be just like her.

I had lunch with my sister yesterday. We met after my work day, and we spent nearly three hours in conversation. We came from the same bolt of cloth, but the garments we’ve become are quite different.

I went from St Olaf College into teaching; my sister went from St Olaf to the University of Chicago with the man she would marry. I spent thirty years as a teacher; she taught for a short time, became a successful potter, a CPA, and in retirement she is a talented quilter. When I retired from teaching, I found a part time position as an office administrator in a small church where I still work.

Our vocations/avocations were dissimilar. She is a world traveler having lived for a time in Finland, in Wyoming, in Washington, D.C., and in Minnesota. She has recently visited many lands with her husband who is part of a Congress to Campus group educating foreign students on the complexities of American politics.

I am a reluctant traveler, more comfortable reading about interesting places than visiting them. When we had children and grandchildren in Ireland, we visited them twice. We have been twice to Costa Rica, spending much time in a familiar location. We had one week in the Dominican Republic. After each adventure I was happy to be at home. Early in our marriage we traveled across this country with a tent and summertime to wander. Getting back to school each fall was satisfying for me. I loved teaching, and I was home.

As we grow older, I appreciate my siblings at a comfortable distance. When we are together, we reminisce. No two memories are alike, but that is the way of it for most families. I am grateful for our small town childhood. Our parents were talented, much-admired role models for us. Are we like them? In small ways I suppose we are. As relatives go, mine are above average.

From the time I began working at at the church in 1998, George Fairman has been the “face of MVUUF” for me. He and Phyllis made sure I found what I needed to succeed in a job that had no clear parameters. When the building program began, George spent much of his time on site, encouraging, often prodding, running errands, finding contractors, making sure his vision would become our reality. It did.

Serving on most church committees has given him a wide-reaching view of our successes and our needs. In his inimitable style, always with confidence and a twinkle in his eye, he has found ways to accomplish things on a small budget. His careful record-keeping has made each new committee chair and member aware of what has been done, whom to call for specific services, and how to locate misplaced pieces of equipment. When he was nominated for the Prairie Star District’s “Keeping the Faith” Award, no one was surprised at his selection.

His constant positive voice in the choir and the music committee has helped those groups stay focused on what matters to all of us, the joy and satisfaction of bringing quality music to the congregation.

As we honor him on his 90th birthday this month, I reflect on his impact on the many people whose lives he has touched. His warmth, good humor, timely and thoughtful responses to people’s needs have given him a stature to be celebrated.
With him in our lives we can say with conviction, “It’s a wonderful world. Oh, yeah!”

Thanksgiving has wonderful memories for me. In the 50’s we drove to Bloomington to spend the holiday with Mom’s sister’s family. During the day we kids skated on Nine Mile Creek, coming in rosy-cheeked and hungry for an early dinner. We ate early so we could drive downtown to see Dayton’s Christmas windows that were on display from that day to Christmas. Often depicting scenes from Victorian tales, some were animated, and all were magical to children from a small town.

It wasn’t long before the Thanksgiving celebration moved to our home in Gaylord. My uncle would come on the bus from Minneapolis, and he and Mom would play the piano for singing. Our cousins would join us, and if the weather was mild, the meal was preceded by a football game we played in the nearby park. One by one family members would go with Dad to the dental office for attention. Dad never seemed to mind making those appointments with relatives, and the relatives didn’t mind the holiday visits to the dentist.

Our dining room was small, and we’d crowd around a table filled with wonderful holiday food. One year the kids, who ate in the kitchen at a kids’ table, swore that they’d only been given jello. To this day their story persists, even though we know they never would have let that pass without a noisy reaction to the slight.

One year my family was snowed in; southwestern Minnesota had slippery roads with no travel advised. I called the family in Gaylord to see how things were going there. My cousin answered the phone, but he was laughing so hard that I couldn’t understand him very well. It seems that my brother who had been whipping cream in the mixer, turned it on high to give it a good start. Cream flew all over the kitchen, much of it landing on the four big dogs, who loved it. They licked it off every surface they could reach. It was a slippery mess. How I wish I’d been there.

These days we spend the holiday with our children’s families. I am thankful for happy memories and the love of family. In these uncertain times, it is a blessing.

So many of life’s simple pleasures, once an important part of every day, seem elusive and obscured by the frenzy of our world. Reading a good book, stimulating conversation, the joy of watching children make discoveries, quiet moments of solitary contemplation, the pleasure of biting into a juicy apple or vine-ripened tomato still warm from the garden: all are harder to savor. Parents are caught up in their children’s activities, children seem to require constant stimulation, attention spans grow shorter, patience, once called a virtue, is mistaken for indifference or ennui.

I miss the excitement of the classroom. For me teaching was a calling. I treasured the “aha” moments of student comprehension. I looked forward to the start of the school year and to each morning with its promise.

These days I feel guilty taking a couple hours to read or write or just breathe. So many chores need doing; there are weeds to pull, closets to clean, clutter to sort, recipes to try, little jobs to tend to. I hear friends talk about their busy lives, and I try not to feel as if I’m missing something. I need to step back, see my world and the pleasant environment it provides, appreciate what is without longing for what is not.

On a day when another war may start, a storm may disrupt someone’s life, fear in some form may attack someone’s security, I will be mindful of the little things that give me a sense of purpose and bring me peace.

For the first time in my experience a man offered me his seat on a bus headed for the fair, and I took it; he stood as I had expected to do. It was a strange feeling to know that to him, I was old enough to be seated instead of standing for the twenty minute ride. I know I’m not as young as I feel inside. I also know I don’t look young, even though my hair hasn’t grayed. My mother used to talk about not feeling old. I didn’t understand that then as I do now.

In a family gathering I enjoy visiting with the younger relatives; I gravitate to our children and their generation, sometimes even the grandchildren seem more interesting than my generation. Their lives, careers, adventures, and dreams have an allure; vicariously I am white water rafting, skydiving, camping in the Boundary Waters, climbing to an altitude that challenges breathing, riding a horse in the Grand Canyon. All of that is more interesting to me than health problems, retirement woes, Medicare, or unfulfilled dreams.

Then there are the bucket lists people talk about. I don’t have one, though there are a few things I would like to do. Most of them are things I would like to do again. I enjoyed our trips to Costa Rica, the Broadway weekend in Manhattan, seeing the fall colors from the Superior trail, staying at a cabin in the Hamptons, visiting family in Ireland, camping our way cross country before and after NEA Conventions. As I understand the bucket list phenomenon, one has one occasion to do a thing on the list, then it’s crossed off. Maybe that’s why I don’t have a list. I like repeating good things more than I like trying something new. Although when I do step out of my comfort zone to try something, it often becomes part of my list of things I’d do again.

My tennis player has a 30-year warranty on his new knees. He wants me to stick around at least that long. Maybe we’ll make a list together.

Letter writing between friends has been replaced by emails or texting. I have a few older friends who still write letters, partly because it’s an art form, and in some cases, it’s all they know. I love hearing from them, and I enjoy our exchanges by “snail mail.”

There are people who measure their popularity by the number of facebook friends they have. I just watched a link from facebook about loneliness. It suggested that for humans, 150 people is the maximum number in a group to have any kind of relationships exist. Beyond a certain point, the group breaks into factions of like-thinking individuals. The intimacy of the whole is lost.

Conversations on line are brief, and people tend to put their best faces on their experiences. We are likely to portray ourselves as we would like to be, not as we are. Just as we display photographs that flatter, so we describe our exploits in a flattering light.

Usually by this time in my blog I have an idea of the point I’m making. Today that isn’t happening. Think I’ll go swimming.

Once upon a long-ago time I was a registered Republican, actually an Independent Republican (IR), active in Minnesota politics through the Minnesota Education Association. This was in the last century, and it feels like a century ago. The evolution of the party has taken it far away from me and from the IR leaders I respected and supported. I served on the PAC Board, and I voted with our endorsements that included Republicans Arne Carlson, Jim Ramstad, Dave Durenberger, Dave Jennings, and Vin Weber.

Today’s party has strayed into areas that should not be legislated. We as a people have an obligation to take care of the poor, to assure future generations that they will have clean air and water. We must preserve the forests both as animal and bird habitats and as part of the ecosystem. Our children should feel safe and be educated  in schools that will teach them to think, to ask questions, to be exposed to art and music, and to thrive in healthy environments.

I have always believed those things. Right now I am troubled by the pressures of both extremes, right and left, where the focus is disruptive and destructive. It seems to matter more who has an idea than what that idea is. The merits of a solution are weighed on imperfect scales; motivations are self-serving, and the “greater good” has taken on its own interpretation.

Forced to choose a political place for myself right now, I am independent with a strong social conscience, a love of the arts and a belief that they must be preserved. I don’t think wars solve problems, nor do I think armed citizens should roam the streets. I am a fiscal conservative, and I live my personal life that way. I recognize the difficulty of putting our nation’s financial house in order, but the needs of the voiceless must be met and maintained.

I have always been an optimist, but it gets harder to find sunshine in these stormy times.

It’s Rummage Sale time at church again. We’ve been putting in long days sorting, organizing, taping, and we have finally done some pricing. The sale begins Thursday of this week. We always seem to be ready, but this year we are a bit behind schedule. Some lovely old pieces of furniture have been sold, and members who work on set-up have found some treasures to buy: one of the perks of being a worker.

A few items will be on ebay, some on craigslist, to get more than rummage sale prices for them. One of my co-chairs has an eye for the valuable brands and items. My many garage sale adventures give me an idea of what prices are realistic. The third co-chair enjoys organizing workers and supervising the cleanup. We have a good balance of leadership.

We also have wonderful volunteers who dig through bags, sort things, and help us make the best possible presentations. It is a bonding time; new friendships are forged; and we come back year after year. As Martha Stewart might say, “It’s a good thing.”

Mom spent her early childhood in Darfur, a very small town in southwestern Minnesota. From their home it was a short walk up a hill to the local creamery. There they got milk, butter, and cream that they carried home in their own containers. Mom raved about the wonderful things they made from those fresh dairy products. She learned to love June strawberries with thick cream, and warm home-baked bread was heavenly with fresh butter and strawberry jam. Spring, especially June, with its flowers and strawberries, was her favorite time of year.

In that little town was a man who did odd jobs for people. I’ll call him John. He was a happy soul, forever smiling and willing. He would carry packages, cut grass, play with family dogs, anything that seemed to want doing, he did.

A town-wide celebration was held each fourth of July. There was a big picnic in an open area; people brought baskets of food for a potluck dinner. A farmer or two brought the plow horses to town to provide rides for the children, and those who played instruments provided music for dancing and entertainment. There were games for the young and old to play together. After morning chores were done, no work was done on that day.

Early in the day each July 4th John would set out with a small flag. It was his favorite day of the year. He walked everywhere waving his flag and greeting people with, “Rah for the fourth!” From the time my siblings and I were small, we have recognized July 4th by greeting one another that way. It sounds silly when I talk about it, but it brings with it so many memories of Mom and her stories of Darfur. And so this morning, as we almost always do, we emailed, “Rah for the 4th.”