Remembering Bobby Pagano and 'The NAM

At the time of this posting, Memorial Day in the US was yesterday – Monday, 28 May, 2012. Honestly, I think it’s a Hallmark Holiday with good intentions. It’s not nearly as blatantly self-serving as, say, Sweetheart Day, Secretary’s Day or Buy Someone A Card Just Because Day for those few days that don’t have a card already attached to them, but given that the original idea of honoring those who have fallen in the line of duty for their country has been perverted to ‘pick the closest Monday so we can weasel a three day weekend out of it’ and ‘what the heck – break out the white shoes and summer frocks and call it the ‘official’ first day of summer’ even though Summer Solstice is actually closer to the end of June than the end of May. I fully recognize the part about honoring fallen heroes. The three day weekend bit?  Not so much.

Still, it serves its purpose

This is the part, faithful reader, where every year at this time and in this spot, relatively speaking, I break out the litany of family members by blood and marital ties (which, come to think of it, still meets the ‘by blood criteria albeit in an entirely different form) have served or are serving in some branch of the armed services in some capacity. Take a deep breath and relax – I’m not doing that this year.

I want to focus instead on the one I missed, and personalize it, if I may.

My war, if you will, was Viet Nam. I missed it for a combination of reasons, the most important of which are my place and date of birth. I was born in north central New Jersey on New Year’s Day, one thousand, nine hundred fifty three anno domini, and therein do it lie, the birthday boy caveat emptor. Yes, I know that’s not the word I want, but my Latin is lacking, and you gotta admit if you’re not fluent in ‘Every Day Latin for the Common Man (AKA ‘Latin for Dummies’), you wouldn’t have been aware of the faux pas.

I was the second child granted admission to the newborn ward of Somerset Hospital Newborn Ward (the preceding comment brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department - don't worry - read it a few times and you'll get it), much to the disappointment to my parents, not the least of which reason being that it totally scrapped their New Year’s Eve party plans. Worthy of a side bar is that the firstborn that day and place was given a full tuition, books, fees, and residents pass to the New Jersey Ivy League college of her (yes, the firstborn was a gurl ^(sic)) while all my parents got was “Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Roth – it’s a boy!”

The door prize came five years later, when school started. This was, of course, during the Jurassic period (now called Study Hall) when school started with kindergarten at age five rather than the currently popular pre-pre-pre-pre-preschool which begins as soon as they apply enough Max Factor to the newborn’s bum to cover his/her/its first head on confrontation with corporeal punishment – the slap on the bottom to get you to cry – a reaction for which you will be told for most of the rest of your life, is unacceptable socially in good families.

Because of this, I started school a year later than my friends, and if you trace my timeline, something I had long before Facebook, you will note that the occasion of my eighteenth birthday was Winter Break (we still called it Christmas Break back then) my senior year of high school.

I went down the next day, my birthday being not only an international holiday, but the day of the big three parades and bowl games, and registered for the still popular Viet Nam Draft.

The number I pulled in the lottery was in the three hundreds. Mr. Nixon signed the papers ending the war days before my number would have come up (and it wasn’t even an election year – not to mention he was in his second term, so re-election wasn’t on his bucket list, and long story short (I know – too late) the Nam came and went without me.

Not so for many of my high school chums. Jeff, Ilene, Bill and Bobby enlisted into the Army. Bruce went Air Force. Others chose from the remaining three branches of the armed services, and some were ‘chosen’. As I said, I opted for the education deferment to let me finish high school, something two years prior had not appealed to me, and ended up missing everything but the Sylvester Stallone Rambo and Chuck Norris movies.

Jeff, Ilene, and Bill made it home. Bruce died, but not from the Nam.

Then there’s Bobby.

Bobby was my best friend. We were in the same Sunday School class at Northwest Baptist Church. We were in high school together. We walked the Everglades at night with Jimmy Booth, another church friend with whom we’d gone camping in the Glades but didn’t bring a tent. Even with 6-12 (90 weight motor oil masquerading as mosquito repellent) we had to keep moving to give the 12-foot wing span blood suckers they grow in the Florida Swamps a moving target to even up the survival odds). We were both in Campus Life, a Christian service club sponsored by Crusade for Christ, and Octagon, a secular service club sponsored by the Optimist Club, and were in the same Boy Scout Troop and Patrol. I was a guest at his parents’ table and hitched a ride to church with his family now and then if I missed the church bus. Bobby was in the Pep Club, and I was the school Mascot. We were grouped together everywhere except high school class. We were the same age, but Bobby was a year behind me in high school because he was held back a year somewhere along the road. We did all night birthday parties, went snorkeling and rode out tropical storms and hurricanes together.

And Bobby died in the Nam fighting to let me keep and enjoy the freedoms I still enjoy.

Oh, it didn’t get him right away. Agent Orange killed him. Friendly fire, you might say. It gave him the tumor in his brain that took twenty years to put him in the ground.

Bobby is why I observe Memorial Day. Bobby and others like him who fought and sometimes died because freedom isn’t free. It has never been free. It will never be free.

Bobby Pagano and others like him are the real heroes. Not the fake comic book heroes who wear a cape, the wannabe heroes who strut about half naked on a stage with a microphone or in front of a cinematic camera, or the spoiled rich kids who make more money in sixty minutes of playing a game than I’ll see in my lifetime.

Real heroes. Heroes who pull on a uniform, pin on a badge, buckle on a gun or a medical kit, and heroes who wear dog tags. Heroes who put themselves in harm’s way every day of their life in my place.

Bobby Pagano was that kind of Capital ‘H’ Hero. My friend.

On this day after Memorial day, I remember my friends and a real hero, and say Thank you, Bobby, and thank you to all the men and women who wear or have worn the uniform. And especially the heroes from ‘my’ war – the Nam. Thank you, God Bless you, and because we got it so terribly wrong thirty five years ago – WELCOME HOME!

Understanding

There is a difference between knowing about a thing and understanding a thing.  For example, I know that if I stand in the edge of our front porch roof and step off onto that portion of the space time reality where there is no porch roof, however gracefully done, I will in all likelihood break something when I come to the sudden stop at the end of my rather brief experiment with human flight.  This is the same thing experienced when Sir Isaac Newton was bopped on the noggin while resting beneath the infamous apple tree, resulting in the invention of fruit filled fingerling cakes.

The technical moniker for this bit of discovery is ‘gravity.’ I know it exists.  I even have a working understanding of what it does.  I don’t have a clue as to how it works.  Ditto wind, by which I mean the kind born between high and low atmospheric pressure inversions, as opposed to that which is the byproduct of having consumed too much cheese, which, the wind, not the cheese, can be ‘broken’

I know what it is.  I know what it does.  I do not understand at even the most rudimentary level how it works.  That is true for both gravity and wind.  I know they exist, I have a working, if fundamentally fragile understanding of how they do it, but I’m so far removed from grasping the elemental mechanics of either scientific discipline, I am without question the wrong person to send hip deep into a pool of curious third graders intent upon expanding their circles of scientific inquiry.  I am, however, a good target for their spitballs and paper airplanes, and hence not a complete waste of skin.

My point is this.  I am not the person you would seek out to further your understanding of either scientific theorem.

Why, you ask?

Good question.  One for which I am eminently qualified to provide you with an answer.  Ready?  Good.  Here goes:

I don’t know the answer. 

My education and training, and in no small part, personal areas of interest include neither meteorology nor physics. Oh, I could give you an opinion.  I have one for almost every topic imaginable, and a few on topics about which you never considered,  and in most cases, I could speak for a very long time and give every impression of knowledge in these areas, but the fact remains, I would be mostly making it up.

I call this the IDIOT (the Impossibly Dim Influencing the Ostentatiously Trivial) Syndrome. I am not alone in this field of postulating an opinion on a subject about which I have little or no knowledge.  Depending on the subject, at times it’s a little crowded in here. One might go so far as to suggest that we’re surrounded by IDIOTS.

For example, last week Barry Soetoro, A.K.A. Barack H. Obama,  A.K.A. POTUS (President Of The United States) went on record in support of homosexual marriage. To add merit to his proclamation, Barry called upon the Bible for support by citing, however vaguely, an axiom of Scripture known to Believers and unbelievers alike as ‘The Golden Rule’.  In Leviticus 19, it appears as a portion of Mosaic Law saying, “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” (vs. 18, NKJV).

As recorded in the New Testament Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus refers to this passage: “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12 NKJV), and again in Matthew 22:37-40 NKJV: “Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

The holy book to which Barry personally subscribes makes a similar proclamation: “Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” (Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi 13, Quran).

I could give you a forever list of Barry’s stumblings, but since we’re concerning ourselves mostly with how he demonstrates that he is a card carrying, lifelong IDIOT, I’ll stick to the matter at hand.

Barry is not a Christian.  He is certainly not a Bible scholar or theologian. His membership as high ranking IDIOT is demonstrated by how he interprets, or rather MISinterprets the Bible.

The ‘how’ of his misunderstanding is clearly explained by the ‘why’. Barry doesn’t know the Christ of the Bible, and because he doesn’t know the Christ of the Bible, he cannot understand, much less give authoritative explanation of what the Bible is saying.  The Bible itself makes clear the principle of how understanding the Bible works: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
(1 Corinthians 2:13-15 NKJV)

From Genesis to Revelation, God condemns homosexuality.  From Genesis to Revelation marriage is ALWAYS described as the union of a man and a woman.  The first command given by God to his human creation was that they (man and woman) procreate.  By design, two men or two women cannot procreate naturally. From the very beginning of humankind on this planet, God intended that the growth and continued existence of human beings would be blessed by the union of a man and a woman. It’s not that difficult to grasp unless you’re one of the IDIOTS.  Here’s what God said: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:27-28 NKJV).

Homosexuality, on the other hand and irrespective of gender (male/male or female/female) is always condemned in the Bible.  In Genesis 19 the depravity of homosexuality is so great that God destroys the city whose name describes the act of homosexual sex.

But this is not the issue in question.  There cannot be a misunderstanding of what God says about sin in general, or about the specific sin of homosexuality.  The misunderstanding lies elsewhere.  The so-called Golden Rule and how that applies to homosexuals and other sinners are what is misunderstood.

You see, God never told His people to hate homosexuals or any other sinner.  God said hate the sin, but love the sinner.  The problem is that the one is not synonymous with the other, and it is only by the clarity of understanding that God bestows on His children through the teaching of His Holy Spirit that clarity and understanding come.  Love your neighbor as you love yourself never means love your neighbor’s sin.

Barry may have suggested that loving your neighbor means approving of your neighbor’s sin, but Barry saying it does not make it true.  Barry, after all, is not God, and God who does not change his mind because the political or moral climate has shifted, has already spoken on the matter.  Despise the sin, but love with the love of God, Who sent his Son to be crucified for sinners, those who sin.

Sumertime

The last time I wrote one of these was back in February.  Oh, I wrote a poem in April, but when I post them in this spot they are, more often than not, filler.

I called this Summertime more because of the weather than the juxtaposition of the sun, moon and earth in their annual transit through the space/time continuum.  I mean, it’s 11:00 PM (2300 hours if you’re keeping score that way) and according to my nifty Weather Channel electronic weather station, it is 79.6°f (26.4°c), 71% relative humidity and the dew point is 71°. I think that means if it cools off another 8.5°, gills are required to walk the dog.  Fortunately, the forecast says we’ve probably already bottomed out for the night.  Barometric pressure is 1014 millibars and falling, so we might get rain.  If the temperature drops, the humidity will take care of it whether there’s rain or not.  There is no wind to speak of, so the ‘feels like’ temperature is the same as the actual temperature.

Of course, the calendar disputes my numbers.  According to the calendar Summer doesn’t start for another five and a half weeks.

Of course, the weather has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on my lack of linguistic legerdemain.  I don’t write because I’m lazy – at least part of me, anyway, and I’m frankly not motivated enough to try and resolve the issues with the dysfunctional bits.

After about a minute of typing and my left hand take an unscheduled, long term break, and I’m not patient enough for one handed typing.  I also have software that will transcribe my spoken word into printed text onscreen.  It’s a great idea, and works well – but (and there’s always a ‘but’, isn’t there) but here’s the thing.  For me, writing only works smoothly when it flows from thoughts to fingertips.  Thoughts to spoken word – at least for the purpose of writing – doesn’t work for me.  Oh, I can speak extemporarily at the drop of a hat, but to just start telling a story can’t do it.

 <===And here’s the culprit: the picture is the CT of my brain just a few hours after my second thalamic stroke, which took place on 20th April, 2008 – just a little over four years ago.  The white spot inside the circle is a quarter sized dollop of blood resulting from either a cavernous malformation, or an A/V (arterial/venal) malformation.  Think of it as that old bike tire tube you kept having to patch because there’s a weakness in the rubber that first forms a bubble in the weakened rubber and then finally bursts.  Long story short, it’s like an aneurism.  I had two of them in the exact same location (right side of the brain near the thalamus) thirty three months apart.

I believe God healed the damaged blood vessels, but I now live with the consequence of ignoring high blood pressure for fifty-one years.  My BP in under control, and the CT scans and MRI’s are all clean, but the neurological damage is in all likelihood permanent.

But that’s OK.  It’s even cool that I can walk on a leg I can’t feel.  I cook and do other things with an arm, hand and fingers I can’t really feel.  My speech, memory and cognitive centers were unaffected.  And God continues to bless me and open doors for me to serve Him.

I’m still writing, however slowly, and will dust off the text recognition software and, somehow learn how to direct my creative writing that way.  Even an early summer can’t stop me – as long as the A/C keeps working.

Who knows – I may even get a poem finished this month. AND sometime during the first week of June I get to conduct an exclusive interview with #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger in conjunction with the release of her new thriller, Heartbroken, which comes to stores June 26th.  Now is that cool or what?
So – last night I had this dream about performing “Summertime” with the Wynton Marsalis Big Band in a sultry New Orleans jazz style,  What a shame you can’t videotape dreams, huh?

Happy Trails!

Spring Break

It is completely inexplicable,
the curious enigma
so bold in its tempestuous confrontation.

Oh, I’ve searched for a definitive answer,
a satisfactory resolution,
a logical solution,
or simply put, a sensible riposte.

Occam’s razor left me wanting.
I sought, but did not find;
gave without receiving,
knocked on the door
of an apparently empty flat.

The neatly categorized,
purposefully filed,
precisely organized,
diligently maintained,
and seemingly endless
repository of nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs
in all their glorious form and style

has abandoned me,
in abrupt manner
and deliberate fashion
not unlike that demonstrated
in the cruel reality
of two dissolute marital relationships.

I am left
with the frightening realization
that even the words
which comprise my most meaningful
and longest lived associations
have abandoned my company
in favor of some sort of
linguistic spring break.

Oh, the shame of it all.

“Prick us, do we not bleed?
Tickle us, do we not laugh?
Poison us, do we not die?
Wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

~Shylock
Merchant of Venice
Act III, Scene I
W. Shakespeare

Spring Break
By David Roth
© 11th April, 2012

Welcome C. Hope Clark

There are any number of reasons I could give you why I love C. Hope Clark, not the lease of which are her free writers aids, Funds for Writers and her newsletters, and the fact that she is of the genus Austeralis Dominæ, Southern Belle - one of my personal favorite.  Now there is another reason: Lowcountry Bribe, her new novel.  For a first time novelist, Hope has hit a winner.  I've invited her to share something with us here at Poetica in Silentium, and ever the gracious Southern Lady, she graciously accepted.  Take a look at this and then GO BUY HER BOOK!

Here is C. Hope Clark:

What if Real Isn't Real Enough?

By C. Hope Clark

          These days I'm running my legs down to stumps, or rather fingers down to nubs, promoting the release of Lowcountry Bribe, A Carolina Slade Mystery.  Just released in February by Bell Bridge Books, the first in the series is set in rural South Carolina. The story takes a US Department of Agriculture bureaucrat and turns her into a rogue, amateur sleuth when a threat arrives in the form of a hog farmer. And I find myself chuckling about the whole situation because I was once offered such a bribe. By a hog farmer.

          So is the book about me? Not at all. I actually wrote about the real situation, years ago, in an effort to exorcize the traumatic event out of my system. Took me two years to complete the task only for editors, authors, and an agent to tell me that the story wasn't interesting enough.

          Seriously?

          The situation, at the time, scared me silly. The case involved federal agents and I received a warning from the culprit that he'd "get" me, but the case fizzled, he went free, and I moved on. So I did what any self-respecting writer does in such a situation: I turned it into fiction.

Jesse drew me by my stretched sleeve to the truck bed, my face barely a foot from the nearest body. "There's ten thousand dollars in it for you," he whispered, draping his arm around my shoulders. "If you find a way to get me the Williams farm. We can iron out the details later . . . in private." He winked and clicked his tongue. "If you know what I mean."

          Panic coursed through me at the altered state. Like hearing that your churchgoing mother liked bourbon straight and sex on top.

          He'd offered me a bribe.

          The opening chapter of Lowcountry Bribe is similar to reality, but from that small piece of my life, a story takes off on its own with new characters, a different location, and the craziest of twists . . . and I had an absolute ball spinning the yarn into a whole different reality . . . a world of its own.

O-positive primer wasn't quite the color I had in mind for the small office, but Lucas Sherwood hadn't given the decor a second thought when he blew out the left side of his head with a .45.

As the office manager, I identified Lucas' body for the cops, and gave the poor man a quick moment of silence with thoughts to a higher power that he be let through the pearly gates. He died in a place he didn't like, doing work he wasn't very good at, having no place else to go. No mother gives birth thinking her child will end up like this. Reading the unexpected note scrawled across his desk pad, gripped me. "Sorry, Slade." Apologizing for what, I didn't know.             

Damn it, Lucas. What were you thinking?

Lucas Sherwood was death number two. A year ago, almost to the day, my easygoing boss Mickey Wilder drove to one of the islands and never returned. I immediately stepped into Mickey's job but sensed he continued to peer over my shoulder, my perpetual mentor. His leadership spirit still hovered in the office. The cops labeled his disappearance a probable suicide based on a string of personal factors I wasn't privy to. The police moved on. We remained behind, shaken in our foundation of Mickey thanks to the whispers and innuendo.

None of that happened. But I could envision the office I once inhabited as I walked through the set up. I once worked on those references islands. Nobody disappeared like that, but stop and think . . . what if? Take any crossroad in your life and ask . . . what if? Therein starts a tale.

          When writing instructors say "write what you know," it doesn't always mean that you record precisely what you experienced or remain limited by the exact facts. Writing what you know is a seed. Plant it, then let it sprout, climb, coil, fork, blossom and bear fruit that you never expected. If we only wrote in the familiar, we'd become boorish and self-absorbed, but if we take a moment to get quirky, unique, and creative, that "knowledge" becomes remarkably entertaining.

BIO

Hope is founder of FundsforWriters.com, a career resource for freelance writers, recognized by Writer's Digest Magazine in its 101 Best Websites for Writers for 2001 through 2011. Her  online publications reach over 43,000 readers each week, and she makes appearances at conferences across the country. In 2012, Hope will speak in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Iowa and Oklahoma. www.fundsforwriters.com

But Clark considers the Carolina Slade Mystery Series her professional personal best, debuting with Lowcountry Bribe.  The novel won several awards as it evolved, from semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award to finalist in the Daphne du Maurier Award for Mystery/Suspense. Hope graduated from Clemson University, in the field of agriculture, enabling her to walk the walk of her protagonist, the illustrious Carolina Slade. www.chopeclark.com

Live at Five

The first time I ever saw the inside of a television studio was almost forty years ago.  It was on the eve of the very first World Cup Gymnastics Meet, held then in the Miami Beach Convention Center.  A much smaller even than the one McDonalds now sponsors, it featured just a few competitors from the world’s elite band of gymnasts. Kathy Rigby and John Crosby represented the United States.  Russia’s entrie were Ludmilla Torescheva and Nikoli Andrianov.

I worked the event with members of the Miami Dade Junior College (MDJC) Gymnastics team and members of the Muriel Grossfeld School of Gymnastics, of which my college coach, Bruce Davis was the local owner and head coach.  Muriel Grossfeld, Bruce’s sister, was at the time the US Women’s Olympic coach.  Her husband, Abe was the Men’s Olympic coach.

I’m telling you this to explain what Bruce, a high school Sophomore named Kurt Thomas, and a couple other MDJC gymnasts and I were doing at the Miami CBS affiliate.  It was a short segment filmed as a promo for the upcoming inaugural World Cup Gymnastics Meet.  I took my camera along and did get some stills, but they’re long since gone.  Hey – it was almost forty years ago, remember?

The studio, even during the relative quiet between live broadcasts was still crawling with activity – and people.  A director, producer, several cameramen, the on air ‘talent’ hosting us, and of course, the guests – that would be us.

Now we fast forward almost forty years.

Reginald Roundtree & Heather Van Nest

I’ve gotten to know former Miami Beach policeman turned news anchor, Reginald ‘Big Daddy’ Roundtree, quite well during the last year.  Just as a sense of setting, I graduated from Carol City, a high school in Northwest Dade County, in 1971.  Reg graduated from Miami Beach High in 1975.  We probably sat across the field from each other at Traz-Powel stadium at MDJC in Opa-Locka, but never met until last year when Reginald asked me if I’d like to cover a story with him.  His side would be for TV while I would do my thing for the Tampa Examiner, an online column for which I usually do book reviews, but occasionally cover other community events.  I jumped at the chance, and we’ve been friends since.  In the coming weeks, I’ll be interviewing ‘Big Daddy Reggie’ for my column.

Last night my wife and I were Reggie’s guests on the News set at WTSP, 10News, the local Tampa-St. Petersburg CBS/Gannett News outlet.  All I can say is wow, things sure have changed!

We arrived at the station on Gandy Blvd around 4:15.  Reggie came down to the front lobby and ushered us into an empty studio and got us settled into our seats at the back to watch the magic begin.

L to R:  Reg, Melodie & Heather

Throughout the evening – we were there through the 5:00, 5:30, and 6:00 airings – we were made both welcome and comfortable by the floor director, Stephanie, Reg himself, his co-anchor Heather Van Nest, Chief Meteorologist Jim Van Fleet, reporters Chase Caine and Melody Michael, and Senior Sports Director Dave Wirth.  I really can’t emphasize enough how much the 10News team made us feel at home.  They were all business when he cameras were rolling, but as warm and welcoming as family during commercial breaks and off-site feeds.  You know that teasing, cut-up banter you see so much between local news teams during a broadcast?  These folks did it even when the cameras weren’t rolling.  We both got the feeling that this was more than a bunch of people thrown together by a television station to do a job.  They actually like each other, and click so well on air, because that’s how they are off-air.  The newest member of the team, Meteorologist Jim Van Fleet said working with this group of people felt like family.

Sports Director Dave Wirth

Jim Van Fleet at the Green Screen

One other thing stood out to us.  Everything, including the three large rolling cameras loaded with prompters and enough electronic gadgetry to make ‘Q’ happy, were run by Adam, a quiet guy in headphones sitting at a sophisticated control panel of buttons, slides, monitors and a joystick, in the back next to the Green Screen.  That’s where you had to pay attention.  The three large mobile cameras moved around the floor seemingly as if they had minds of their own.  Flashing safety lights notwithstanding, if you’re not paying attention, you could get run over!  The level of automation in the studio was just amazing.

And, as I said, the welcome we were given was warm and genuine.  These folk are real people who care about their community.  Reggie’s coverage of the Cleveland area high school shootings was warm and heartfelt.  Heather’s story about a new breast cancer screening was clearly from the heart.  Jim Van Fleet had us quietly chuckling over his on-air quip about the above normal temperatures expected during the upcoming local strawberry festival ‘baking the berries.’

The 10News Team: Jim, Reg, Heather & Dave

Overall from begin to end it was a great time for both my wife and I.  We learned a lot about what happens during a typical broadcast, and made some new friends.  Thanks Reg, Heather, Melodie, Jim, Dave and Stephanie.  It was great!

Hey – check out the new 10News team in the picture below:

L-R: Dave, Reg, Heather & Linda

Remembering Aunt Alice

Alice Eckhart (L) Jekyll Island, GA, June 1976

Thirty seven years ago this coming August, I had the great privilege of meeting three amazing individuals.  Within a year, one would become my Father-in-law, one my Mother-in-law, and the third my Aunt-in-law, although in all honesty they were just Mom, Dad, and Aunt Alice.

In ways unusual to me, and certainly outside of the family into which I was born, I was unaccustomed to seeing such broad, open acceptance of a newcomer into a very closely knit family as that I felt when I became a part of the Baier’s and Pletz’s of Lansing Michigan.

About a year after the wedding, Dad Baier would go home to meet the Savior he loved and served, fallen to inoperable cancer.  I can honestly say I have never met so Godly a man, or so consistent a man in my life.  Some have come close, and I mean no disrespect to them when I say this, but Oscar Baier was an amazing man who loved and served God as a deacon in his church, a faithful, loving husband, and adoring father to his two children, one of whom would be my wife for 22 years.  I still miss him every day of my life.

In the years following Dad Baier’s home going, Mom Baier, Aunt Alice, Grandma’s Baier and Pletz would eventually sell their individual homes, pool their resources, and build the home where the four ladies would live together.  Time’s passing brought the home going of both Grandmothers.  Hey lived into their ninety’s and brought joy into the lives of those who knew them, and left holes in the hearts of those who loved them, when they went to meet their Savior.

Saturday morning at seven minutes past midnight, Aunt Alice took her last breath in this realm and opened her eyes in the presence of Jesus.

When I first moved to Michigan, I lived in Aunt Alice’s spare room the summer leading up to my marriage to her niece.  A generous, independent woman, it was quickly obvious that beneath her sometimes gruff exterior beat a heart of pure gold.  I was never her ‘nephew-in-law’.  I was simply David.

Make no mistake, when I screwed up, something at which admittedly, I excel, she let me know it.  I never had to question where this sainted woman stood on a subject.  Open with her opinion, she expressed it with honesty and integrity, and never in my knowledge out of anger, although being who I know I am I’m certain there were many times she demonstrated great restraint around me.

She sang in the church choir, was active in women’s groups in her church, worked hard all of her life – even in retirement – and made brown gravy that was a food group all by itself.

She loved her brother, and never really got over his passing, or that of her own husband, whom I never met, early in their marriage.  Mom Baier, her brother’s wife, was her best friend – even before they were sisters-in-law.  Oh, there’s that word again.  There were no ‘in-laws’.  Marge was her sister, and her friend, and oh yes – her brother’s wife – probably in that order.

And as I said –she never treated me as an outsider ‘in-law’.  She loved me and demonstrated that love as much, I like to think, as she would her own child, had she been blessed to have one.  Rather than weep openly over not having children of her own, she extended the love she would have given them, to her brother’s two daughters, their husbands, their children, and ultimately, their grandchildren. And to the whole pack of us, she was simply, “Aunt Alice”.

Her funeral will be today, and I won’t be able to be in attendance, but there is an empty place in the core of my being that is exactly ‘Alice’ shaped.  I rejoice in the knowledge that she is, as the Apostle Paul wrote, ‘absent from the body, but present with the Lord,’ but I don’t think I will ever get over my personal, admittedly selfish sense of loss.  We were not related by blood, but I loved her none-the-less.

Some years back I dedicated my second collection of poetry to Alice and Marge with these words:

Dedicated to Alice Eckhart and Marge Baier

Sisters by marriage and best friends by choice.

Two Proverbs 31 women who always treated me like a son.

This is the title poem from the book, Alice’s Goldfinch.

Alice’s Goldfinch

By David Roth

© 5^th December, 2008

Yellow bird,

perched on the shadow

of eternal Spring,

I envy you.

Thistle and flaxseed your dining delight,

window companion whose song gives me flight,

flittering gaily from dawn until night,

fly away, hide away sprite.

Little bird,

brave golden watcher

sentinel on vigil

blossom duty calls.

Sweet the attraction that brings me to you,

each year returning afresh and anew,

wait by my window, ignore the taboo,

je t’aime, merci beaucoup.

Alice Eckhart was a true Proverbs 31 woman. 

I still miss you, Aunt Alice.