Missing Karl

My brother Karl would have turned fifty-seven this month.  It's been almost six years since he left us, not too long after his birthday.  I had gone to Montgomery that afternoon to rent chairs for Fawn's outdoor wedding.  Funny how you never forget details like that when something traumatic, life-changing happens.  We got back to the church and found a note taped to the door.   I was to call home immediately.  There had been an accident. 

No one was more laid back than my brother.  One time he went into a burning barn to retrieve a bike that he'd stored there, a gift for his son's birthday.  It was a crazy thing to do, especially considering that the barn was full of explosives. I asked him afterwards if he had considered the possibility of the building exploding with him still in it.  He just kinda shrugged it off, even when I probed him about the risks that came with his job.   Karl had always loved fireworks, he and my brother Rex were always setting off the small stuff when they were kids.  So when he was all grown up and the chance came around to make the big stuff, he didn't even hesitate.  And doing the big shows, well, for him that was just icing on the cake.

Speaking of cake, the only time I remember being really angry with Karl involved one that I had made from scratch.  I had turned it upside down on a tray and covered the entire thing with a thick layer of frosting.  But a few hours later I found my lovely concoction drastically changed.  Someone had run their fingers around the edges, eating every bit of frosting off the sides.   It took no time at all to find out who had gotten into it, Karl.  I think it was my youngest sister Beth who squealed. I was livid.  So angry in fact that I wrote a note to my brother and propped it up by the cake. I need to insert a bit about my family here.  We were the God-fearing, church-going, no drinking, no smoking,  no cursing or bad talking Marvin family.  Therefore,  some of the language I used so shocked my brothers and sisters, that even today, decades later, the story still comes up at family gatherings.

The last time I was with Karl on his birthday.  This was his 49th.   

But Karl was so likable that no one could ever stay mad at him for long.  And he was kind.  The Allegany would sometimes overflow its banks and empty into the Mill Pond.  One particular summer the river had overflowed more than usual and deposited hundreds of good-sized carp into the marsh.  As the water receded, the fish found themselves trapped in just a few inches of water.  Karl gathered up some buckets and sloshing through several inches of muck spent hours filling them with the fish and hauling them back to the river.  It wasn't until his memorial service, however, that I heard the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say.  I had spoken and ended with the account of Karl hauling all those carp back to the river in a couple of  buckets when his friend Mike took the podium, looked at me and said, "And did you know that after he got tired of carrying pails, he got a twenty-two and shot the rest of them in the head?"  Nope, I didn't know that.  But I'm pretty sure that he was simply putting them out of their misery.  

Along with his big heart, he also had a good-sized stomach.  He enjoyed frog legs and didn't mind hunting the things and cutting off their appendages for a lip-smacking meal.  One time, however, he wasn't able to perform the amputations until later,  so he took them home and threw them into the bathtub.  They were obviously feeling pretty feisty, because when my sister-in-law went in to use the john, a stretch of green suddenly lunged from the tub and flew into her lap.  My parents had been invited to dinner that night, totally unaware that on the other side of the wall was a bathtub full of amphibians having an evening swim.  But even if they'd known, something tells me they wouldn't have been all that surprised.

Karl knew how to make an adventure out of about anything.  My sister Dawn tells a story about when our cousin Paul was up from North Carolina, the three of them went driving the back roads in Karl's bronco.  The frogs were out that night, so every time Karl would see one in the headlights, he'd brake while Paul jumped out to grab it,  then would stuff it in the glove compartment.  The car was soon filled with the sound of an amphibious chorus coming out of the dashboard.  And no, there were no frog legs on the menu that night.  Karl let them go after the concert. 

Karl would have rather been outside than anywhere else.  He'd thought of going into conservation, working in the park service.  He never got there, but he could name and tell you about most any plant.  And the trees, he especially loved the trees.  We had a line of tall pines that ran along the canal next to our home.  As soon as his legs were long enough, he started climbing those pine, all the way to the top.  At first it scared me, I was the oldest, probably the most protective.  But over time I began to relax, realizing that he wasn't going to fall.  He was at home up there.

I was the oldest, therefore the Protector. Karl is at the center.

Material things meant little to Karl.  His clothes were usually mismatched, and even when he dressed up for church or a special occasion, he usually looked a bit rumpled. His house was always in need of repair, and it seemed that his vehicles were often on the verge of breaking down. But on the other hand, he was always available whenever someone else had a need.  After my mom's cancer had progressed, he called Alabama asking if I needed money to get home.  And as Dad got older, Karl was always the one to stop by and see if he needed help with anything.   Then after dad was gone and my sister Beth took over the house, Karl was the one she called on if she had a question or problem.  He'd always be there.  That's just who he was.

The worst dream I ever had involved Karl when we were both young.  A large machine had dug a large, very deep hole down the street in a neighbor's yard, tied him up and placed him there, teetering on the edge.  It frightened me so badly that I remember getting up in the night and peeking into his bedroom to make sure he was still there.  For nights afterwards I dreaded going to bed because that dream played over and over again in my mind.   Finally I went to my mother and asked her if I would ever be able to forget the horrible nightmare. She shook her head.  Probably not, she said.  But the day would come, she assured me, when it wouldn't bother me anymore.   And she was right.   Though I never forgot the dream, the fear of losing my brother Karl eventually went away.

I thought about that dream many times over the years, wondering why it affected me so profoundly when I was young.   I know now that  I was grappling with the reality of death, understanding for the first time that it could take away those I love.  But when word came that this same brother was teetering, not on the edge of a hole as in my dream, but on the brink of eternity,  I wasn't afraid for him.  I knew where he was going, that he had prepared for this day a long time ago. When the paramedics arrived, though covered with burns from the explosion, Karl was still conscious and insisted that they take care of his young coworker Andy first.  "Don't worry about me," he said.  "I'm ready." 

I won't say I don't miss him, I do.  In fact, it seems the more time that passes, greater the longing to see him again. I wish I could be with him one more time. If that were granted me,  I would sit at the piano,  him standing behind me and Beth would join us.  And we would sing, praying that time would show us favor and stop for awhile.  But on this side of eternity, unfortunately, there are clocks with hands that move all too quickly, and with that come the inevitable goodbyes.   But he can't leave without one more song, one that we always sing when we're together and it seems especially appropriate now.  The harmony is pure as Karl's wonderful baritone carries the tenor while Beth covers the alto and I take the melody. "Some glad morning when this life is o'er," we sing, "I'll fly away.  To a home on God's celestial shore, I'll fly away.  I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll fly away.  When I die, hallelujah, by and by, I'll fly away." And as we repeat the chorus I hear only the two parts and know he is gone.  

Karl two years before the accident, the last picture I ever took of him.    

Cockroach Cookies

There are only a few shows that I record, a couple for Larry and a couple for me.  But there's one that I set for the both of us, "Hoarders."   That's because we are intrigued by these people who live lives  so foreign to our own, surrounded by such a mountain of stuff that they can't use their kitchens or sit on their furniture or even sleep in their own beds.

We were a family of seven, so naturally there was a bit of clutter in our home.  It didn't seem to bother my mother much, but that didn't deter from her insistence on having a clean house.  She liked a freshly-scrubbed floor and would get down on her hands and knees to make sure it was done right.  Sparkling windows were important as well, she'd have us wipe them down with newspapers to get rid of the streaks after they'd been sprayed with ammonia water.   As for the bedding, our sheets were washed regularly and hung outside, even in the winter.  After she had taken them down off the line,  I remember her holding them up to her nose and then to mine, wanting me to take in the wonderful fragrance of the outdoors.  Smells were important too, and I don't remember our home ever being filled with anything but pleasant aromas.

That's why I found one particular episode especially disturbing.  The house was not only piled with junk, it was filthy beyond belief.  I don't get it. People living with the smell of animal poop and urine in their noses is bad enough, but the worst, most offensive part was the bugs, specifically the roaches. Everywhere.  In fact, when the pest control guys came, they said they had never seen anything like it, estimating not just thousands but possibly millions in that home.  The vermin were on and in everything, even the refrigerator and freezer were full of them.  As for getting a good night's sleep, forget it.  The son complained he couldn't get one because the things would crawl all over him during the night.

I didn't know what a roach was until I went to college.  I think I read that they can be found anywhere in the world except for Antarctica but I had never seen one up close and personal until I lived in a college dorm in South Carolina.  My roomies and I were the closest to the trash shoot that ran from the third floor down to the first, and for some reason those nasty little critters weren't content to stay there.  They decided it was much more fun to hang out in room 216.  They would go scurrying across the floor when the light was turned on, hide in our drawers and drop out of our shoes.  I emptied what was left in a coke bottle one night and a drowned roach went down the sink with the contents.  I almost gagged at the thought that just moments before I had considered swigging down those last few gulps of soda.  One night I was lying in one of the lower bunks and suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched.  I lifted my head and found myself looking into the face of a large roach sitting on my pillow, its little antennae twitching malevolently.   I had had it!  I got up, turned on the light and proceeded to move all my bedding to the top of the three-tiered bunk where I slept for the rest of the year.

I don't have a clue as to why the school's so-called exterminator could not eliminate our roach problem.  Supposedly he tried, or so they said, but nothing worked.  One night we were so fed up that the four of us armed ourselves with every aerosol can we could find, including our spray deodorants, and went after the varmints.  We took out every drawer, went into every closet, pulled everything off every shelf and started shooting.  It felt good to be on the offensive for a change, we had killed dozens of the enemy that night. But we also knew what we were up against, that for every roach down there were dozens in hiding just waiting for us to leave or to turn off the lights.  And then it would be party time all over again.

It would be a lot of years before I went to war with the roaches again.  This time I would be living in La Ceiba, Honduras where I was sometimes seeing cucarachas the size of army tanks.  I didn't know what to do.  "Make cockroach cookies," I was told by another missionary.  "It works every time."  She gave me the recipe listing a few common kitchen ingredients along with the killer.  Boric acid.  "Mix well and then form into small patties," it said.  Well, that was easy enough.  I then proceeded to place the sweet delectables in every little hidden space I could find all through the house.  And it wasn't long before I realized that it had indeed worked, the enemy troops were slowly disappearing. 

During our first furlough I was speaking at a small rural church one Sunday morning while Larry spoke in another.  I happened to mention the bug problem I'd had and being taught how to make the cockroach cookies.  Larry later joined us for a potluck at the church where I had spoken when a gentleman sitting across the table from him cleared his throat, leaned forward and asked in all seriousness, "So what do they taste like?"  "What do what taste like?"  The man looked a bit uncomfortable.  "The cookies, the cockroach cookies.  Your wife said that she makes cockroach cookies.  I was just wondering what they taste like?"  And then it dawned on my husband  that the poor guy thought that I was adding them to my cookie batter like I would chocolate chips!  "What exactly did you say?" he asked me later.  I shrugged.  I had spoken on numerous occasions before that and often mentioned making cockroach cookies.  I just figured everyone knew what I was talking about.  Maybe they hadn't after all.  No wonder we had received such great financial support.  People thought we poor missionaries had resorted to eating bugs.  Ah well, whatever worked!

The Mill Pond

Larry and I were in Bradford County a few weeks ago to visit some friends.  With farm country comes ponds, lots of them.  It was a pretty cold day,  and looking out the van window  I could see a thin layer of ice on the surface of those we passed.  I remarked that with three or four more days just like that one, the ice skating would be perfect. That is, as long as the snow held off. 

I never minded winter as a kid.  There were lots of children on Chestnut Street so we never had to look far for someone to play with. We sculptured snow into various shapes, built formidable forts with plenty of ammo piled high behind the walls and during quiet moments made perfect snow angels where the snow was still untouched.  The Reese kids who lived across the canal had a nice little tobogganing hill as did the Putt girls who lived on the other side of the street.  Ahhh, life was good in Weston's Mills during the winter months.  

But as wonderful as the snow was, there were times I would hold my breath, hoping and praying that the skies would stay clear. You see, there was a pond that had been a part of the lumber mill owned by the Westons' brothers who had logged the area decades earlier.  During the summer it was nothing but a mosquito-breeding swamp, and unless you wanted to spend those months covered in pink Calamine, it was best to avoid the place.  But it was altogether different in the winter.  That's because just a short distance away through the trees ran the Allegany River which managed to overflow its banks each winter, just enough to fill the Mill Pond and turn it into a wonderful skating rink. 

We would start checking the ice after the first cold snap.  It wasn't far from the house, just across the street and through the field where we picked wild strawberries in June and early July. If snow was in the air, we knew we'd probably find slush which would eventually make for a bumpy, less than desirable surface.  But if the sky was clear, no snow in the forecast,  we could anticipate a smooth area for the first skate of the year. 

The pond was never ready at first check.  Water and bubbles were still visible beneath the thin layer of ice, and we were smart enough to stay off of it.  It's not that we were concerned about falling in, it wasn't that deep.  We simply didn't want to chance ruining the surface.  So during the week, we'd take turns trudging through the field to the pond, eventually venturing off the bank and away from the edge to see how well it held up under our weight.  And then finally the day would come.  I still hear my brother Karl calling out as he pushed through the kitchen door. "It's ready, it's ready!" His voice always seemed to go to a higher pitch when he was excited.  "I'm getting my skates!" 

I don't know how word spread as fast as it did throughout the neighborhood, but in just a matter of minutes the pond was filling up with kids of all ages.  There were a few like my brother Rex who didn't skate, but they were there as well, running and sliding in their black vinyl boots.  And when there was snow to be shoveled, most took their turn at clearing the ice, no matter what they were wearing.

It's funny.  Though I remember my dad skating with us once or twice, rarely were there adults present. Yet I don't remember any fighting or bickering or bullying.  And though some were better skaters, it didn't matter.  If someone was learning, others patiently helped them along.  On the ice there was a camaraderie among us, no matter the degree of skill.  And though we raced to see who could go the fastest and admired those who could do the most spins, there was never a sense of trying to outdo each other.  We were community.

Eventually a light was put up at the Mill Pond allowing for night skates.  I still remember the thunderous booms coming from the ice settling on the dark river that ran just beyond the trees.  I always shivered at the sound, seeming all the more eerie because of the quiet that comes with the night, the moon's reflection being our only company. Karl was often with me as he loved to skate, no matter the time of day.  When I go back to that place and time, he is always there.  I wonder if there's a place that he's able to skate in Heaven?  I hope so. 

The Mill Pond is gone now.  Several years ago the river was dammed off to keep the water away.  Thus, no more swamp and no more mosquitoes.  That's nice for the people of Weston's Mills.  I guess.  I'm told there's a nice rink over in Olean, just a few miles away.  I'll  bet they don't have problems with slush either, always  nice and smooth.  But if I could go back in time and relive one thing over again,  I would return to the Mill pond.  And I would skate all day and then well into the night with my family, gliding among the trees.  And I would savor every moment.  Grateful.

Shoveling the  Mill Pond

The Packer Tree

Our First Packer Tree--2012

This Packer Tree  (2013)  no longer sits by the 22 inch TV.  That died, replaced by a 40 incher! 

 I packed up our Packer Tree this morning.  The team is done, for this year at least, and I feel like I'm ready to move on to other things.  Oh, I'll watch the Super Bowl of course, perhaps not with the same passion I might have felt with Aaron Rodgers controlling the ball, but I'll be cheering on Eli Manning and his Giants while eating chicken wings and pizza along with the rest of America.  Tom Brady is much too pretty and the Patriots are way too cocky, so I'm really hoping New York will put them in their place.  But not that I'm thinking too much about it.  I decided this week that there will be no more football consuming my thoughts and taking up my time.  Taking the tree down should bring some closure to what was an exciting and emotional season.



A gift from a fellow Packer fan in Elmira.   We are everywhere!

The Packer tree went up after Christmas. As soon as the big one came down, we set the little guy up on the entertainment unit right above the old 22-inch television set that carried the games.  Larry found the topper to an artificial tree in the attic at the church and strung it with little green and yellow lights.   Then we proceeded to decorate it with all the Packer ornaments that we'd received over the past months, using a Packer towel for a tree skirt and a hat for the topper.  Beneath the branches,  surrounded by more Packer paraphernalia, sat a picture of Aaron Rodgers.  It was taken six or seven years ago when my brother Rex was in Green Bay visiting Zac who would eventually become our son-in-law.  Some who came to see the Packer tree called it our shrine.  When I told Fawn about it,  she merely laughed and said that her father and I were more consumed with this football stuff than she was.  Perhaps.  Nevertheless, we had resolved it would stay until the Packers were finished for the season.  Naturally, I had hoped it would come down in February.

Aaron Rodgers as a bobble-head, a gift for Larry's 60th birthday

Zac,  Rex and Aaron  

I had a dream last night about Tim Tebow.  So much for football no longer consuming my thoughts, huh?  With all the ESPN highlights I've watched over the past five months, I've seen lots of the Denver quarterback.  And though I'm not a big Broncos fan,  I really like this guy.  So in this dream, I'm hanging out with this person who looks and sounds just like the real Tim Tebow.  But as usually happens in dreams, he is suddenly gone, and I wish that I had thought to grab my camera and get a picture with him.  Ahhh, a sad reminder that I never asked to have a picture taken with a certain Mister Rodgers at my daughter's wedding.  And that was real life.

This one was captured by a friend with  "the claw" at a local convenience store

I never understood why some people go into a slump after the football season wraps up, surviving only by counting the months, weeks, days until it starts all over again. I mean, it is only a game.  Speaking of football, I've been thinking that our little Packer Tree should go up a bit earlier next year.  Before Christmas rather than after might be better, and we could enjoy it longer that way.  Or maybe earlier yet, like halfway through the season, say in early November.  On second thought,  perhaps we should just go ahead and put it up in September when the season starts. That would make more sense.  Better yet,  if it was up during the preseason,  everybody would know how serious we are about our team.  Let's see, that's only six months, a week and six days after the Super Bowl is over.  But then, who's counting?  

Fawn and Zac sent this one to us--from the Pro Shop at Lambeau Field

Charles Woodson as a Hallmark ornament

Carrot Cake Connection

So Fawn texts me two days day before Christmas on her way to the grocery store.  "Mom, don't kill me but I need ingredients for carrot cake again!!!"  Just a few weeks earlier she had called and asked me for the recipe, that time for Thanksgiving.  The same thing happened last year and I think the year before.  To tell you the truth, I'm not sure how many times I've given it to her, I've lost count.  But I can't fuss at her too much.

Being that my dad had been a meat cutter, I would call him from Alabama every year a few weeks before Christmas and ask him about a particular cut of meat that I was preparing for a special dinner.  I used the same kind of roast and prepared it exactly the same way every year, but I always wanted to make sure that I got it right.    "Dad, how long am I supposed to cook this if it's a four-pound eye of round?" I would ask.  And every year he would patiently go over it with me again.  The first year after he died, I felt a sense of loss as I prepared the meat to go into the oven.  I had long mastered the recipe, but I missed the sound of his voice on the other end of the line, a thousand miles away in New York. I think the call I made from my kitchen each year on that particular occasion was something he had come to expect and looked forward to, simply one thing of many that connected us.

I do the same thing with my sister Beth.  There is a fruit salad carried down from my father's family that requires a certain amount of jello, and every year I call to ask her how much I should use.  It doesn't matter that I've made the stuff for most of my life.  I call every year and ask her what to do.  Except for this year.  She's been working a lot so I decided to go it alone.  She called a couple of days ago.  "So how much jello did you put in the fruit salad?" she asked.  I told her.  "You should have put in another pack," she informed me.  Sigh.  I told her I was afraid of putting in too much, I did that once and it wasn't as good.  "I thought it tasted pretty good this year," I continued, "but maybe I should have put in one more pack."  Like I said, we go through this every Christmas.  And in spite the fact that she makes me wonder if I'll ever get it right, somehow it seems to draw us closer together.

So I'm thinking that maybe when Fawn calls from Green Bay and asks for that carrot cake recipe again or Angela texts from El Paso for the umpteenth time asking how much soup she needs for her favorite chicken recipe, they might be using it as a way to connect, to be closer to their mom who is so far away in New York.  Maybe?  But then there's Autumn down in Birmingham.  She sent me a message a few weeks back.  "Mom, need your pastry recipe."  I knew the one she was talking about, the one that came from her Grandma Burke.  I always made it for my kids on Christmas and New Year's mornings, one of their favorites.  But I didn't hear back from her after that, so a few days later I called and asked her if she still wanted the recipe.  "No thanks mom.  I found it." 

Ok,  so maybe my theory has some holes in it.  Perhaps they're more like their father, writing things down on little pieces of paper and then forgetting where they've put them.  It doesn't really matter.  They can ask me as often as they like, however they like.  It's all good as it helps keep them close in spite of the miles.  Connected.  And I need that. 

Mom's Old Henry Bars recipe

So back to the carrot cake recipe.  Each time Fawn calls I pull it out of the large zip lock bag where I keep my special recipes.  No neat little file box with pretty three by five cards for me.  If I did that, I'd have to recopy the ones my mom wrote down on whatever piece of paper she had close at hand.  It probably wouldn't be a bad idea.   Her "Chicken Every Sunday" recipe is especially vulnerable, written on the thinnest  of paper and in danger of disintegrating at any moment.  But it reminds me of her, so I treat it as if I were handling one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, not wanting to lose any of her hieroglyphics.  The "Old Henry Bars" recipe has faded some over the years, but she loved making them when she needed something quick and easy and yummy. I do the same.  And then there's the pastry recipe from my mother-in-law, her letters large and neat, much easier to read than my mother's.  A couple of the corners are ripped off and there are food stains on the front and back of the card. But I won't replace it, it's more valuable than ever now that she's gone.

Some years back one of my girls decided to take all the recipes out of the zip lock and organize and write them down into into a notebook.  She was well into her project when I realized that she'd been throwing away the originals, including the paper with my mother's carrot cake recipe.  That was the first one to be entered into the notebook, now titled "Marcy's Carrot Cake."  The remaining originals are now neatly packed into the front pocket of that same notebook of which I pulled a cake recipe a few weeks back and made a couple of times over the holidays.  I felt connected to the giver as I mixed the various ingredients, following the familiar handwriting.   And naturally there were the compliments.  "What a delicious cake," they would say.  And I would reply every single time,  "I'm glad you liked it."  And then I would smile. "That was my mother's recipe."

Singing By Christmas



The choir right before the Christmas cantata



It had been six months since I'd flown to New York for the botox injections that help me talk and my voice was still doing relatively well.  I had a bit of raspiness and occasionally a word would catch in my throat, but all in all, I didn't sound all that bad.  In fact, I probably could have held off the trip a bit longer and if I had, I would have seen the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center and the stores on Fifth Avenue all decorated for Christmas.  It would have been a new experience for me, visiting New York during the holidays.  But it wasn't December, it was the first Tuesday in November, and there was a reason for going when I did.  I had been calculating in my head not how long it would take for the botox to help me talk, but how long it would take to let me sing again.

Having a voice disorder, my inability to speak without forcing every word was hard enough, but losing my singing voice was especially devastating.  Over time I accepted the reality of how my life had changed because of Spasmodic Dysphonia, but that didn't change the longing I had to make music again.  That is until early last year after meeting with a new doctor in New York.  (See "Singing" November 8, 2010.)  For the next few months I was able to do what I hadn't done in four years, sing.  Unfortunately the injections are temporary, eventually the effects of the botox wear off.  Thus the spasms slowly returned and sadly the singing was the first to go.   I had wanted to sing for Christmas, but it wasn't going to happen.  At least not this time.

And that's why I flew to New York when I did.  As I sat in the chair waiting for the doctor to insert the needles into the muscles adjoining my vocal cords, I visited with his two assistants.  They looked at me and both commented on how remarkably strong my voice was, even after six months.  "You're the best voice we've heard today!" one of them said.  I said something about wanting to get it out of the way before the winter weather hit the city.  I remembered my first time there.  It was January and a frigid, biting wind swept mercilessly through the streets of Manhattan.  I had never been colder in my entire life, so in part it was the truth.  But there was more, the part that was harder to articulate.  If I had spoken my heart it would have gone something like this:  "Well actually, I've been figuring out how many weeks it takes to sing again.  I knew if I came now, I'd time it just right for Christmas!" 

Last Sunday evening I had the privilege of directing our Christmas cantata.  Not only did the choir watch my hands to bring them in and cut them off at the appropriate moments, they were watching my lips as well.  For you see, I sang along with them on every single song, every single note.  And Christmas Sunday morning, just a few days from now,  I'll be singing the carols along with everyone else.  It's all I really wanted, all I asked for this year.  I wanted to be singing by Christmas.  

Larry and I right before the cantata



Warming up with the choir before the cantata  

  

Dropping Needles--A Christmas Reflection

We have a real Christmas tree set up in the sanctuary.  A guy who attends here has a tree farm and asked if the church might like a live one this year.  It's big, about ten feet tall and a good seven or eight feet across. And it's nice, real nice, evoking quite a few oohs and aahs over the past few weeks.  There's only one problem.  It stopped drinking water a few days after it went up, and I'm afraid it might start dropping its needles.     

I like live trees, that's what Larry and I had always had in our families.  I still remember sitting on the couch in my piano teacher's living room waiting for my lesson, watching the colors change on her aluminum tree.  Even as a child I didn't quite understand the appeal of that.  But she lived in a neat little house without imperfect children or bothersome pets.  Looking back now, I suspect that she simply didn't want to deal with a dirty tree and those pesky pine needles.

That's the chance you take with the lives ones.  There's almost always a big sign on the lot advertising the trees as being fresh.  Hmmm.  I've learned you need to size em up, shake them around a bit and then watch the eyes of the sales person as you ask when they were brought in. And if they don't meet your gaze while talking,  you take your business somewhere else.  But no matter how hard you try, sometimes you get a bad one.   

Six or seven years ago while still living in Alabama,  I noticed the water wasn't going down in the tree stand.   We were barely into December and our lowly fir was already beginning to drop needles.  I went back to Lowes and approached a girl working in the garden center.  "We bought a tree here a week or so ago and already it's dropping needles," I explained. She looked at me rather suspiciously.  "Do you still have the receipt?"  she asked.  "Bring me the receipt along with the tree and we'll give you another one."  I suspect she didn't believe me, that I wouldn't really come back with a tree.  But a couple of hours later we pulled the poor half-naked tree out of our van and dragged it into the store, leaving a thick path of needles behind us.  She took one look.  "Oh, I guess it is dropping needles, isn't it.  Go head, get yourself another tree."  And she pointed in the direction from whence we had originally picked out our pathetic little pine.  "Could we get something a little pricier?"  I asked.  It was worth a try.  After all, we had gone to a lot of trouble to strip it of its lights and ornaments,  load it back into the van and drive it across town.  Plus I'd be vacuuming needles out of the car for weeks.  No sympathy from this lady however.  "Sure, you can get whatever you like as long as you pay the difference."  So much for Christmas spirit.

Finding a live tree was never a concern until we moved to Costa Rica for language school. It was 1985, our first time so far from home.  It was going to be hard enough as it was, and not having a proper tree would make it all the more difficult.  Therefore, when Larry said that he had seen some being sold on the street six or seven blocks from the house, I was ecstatic.  We rallied the kids and headed out in the direction where he had seen them.  Not only was it a longer walk than what we had anticipated, we discovered that the trees were actually set up in the center of three major boulevards on a small medium.  We managed to cross with all three kids in tow, ignoring the best we could the traffic whizzing all around us, and picked out a good- sized pine, remarkably similar to what we might have found in the States. Somehow we managed to get it back across the street to the sidewalk and started the long trek home, five gringos and a very cumbersome,  heavier than anticipated pine tree.  There were a few times during that year we could have really used a vehicle, this was one of them.

Angela, Joel and Fawn on Christmas morning in Costa Rica 

It wasn't too many days later that we discovered our treasure already dropping piles of needles.  On Christmas morning it looked so sad that I didn't even take a close-up shot of the tree with all three children sitting in front of it.  Instead we took a shot of them sitting on the steps leading down to the living room, the tree well out of view.  The best picture I have is one of our little chihuahua sitting underneath the lowest branches.  Even in that, it's pretty obvious that the arbol had nothing left of its former glory.  A few hours later we removed all the decorations and dragged it outside, the remaining needles trailing behind.

Chiqui under our very dry Christmas tree 

We had another reason for removing the remaining vestiges of Christmas that afternoon.  My sister Dawn had come to spend Christmas with us, and the next morning we were going to load up on a bus and head to the beach for a few days.  The tree might have been a disappointment, but the adventure of spending that memorable Christmas in Costa Rica was not.  In fact, it turned out to be one of our absolute favorites ever.  



Larry,  Marcy , Fawn, Joel and Angela at Caihuita in Costa Rica two days after Christmas



This will be our third year in this parsonage and three years with an artificial tree in the corner of our living room.  Fifty-seven live trees, fifty-eight if you want to count the lemon from Lowe's, and after all these years I buckle and resort to a fake.   But someone offered it, we're not putting money out for a new one every year and our kids aren't around to fuss and complain.  Besides, most people can't even tell it's not the real thing anyways.  But the best part of all, it manages to drop a few needles, just enough to remind me of those past places and times that have been such an important part of my life.  And in that remembering, I joy and I laugh.   

The Bride in the Watermelon Dress

I went to the most wonderful wedding last week.  It was on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of this eleventh year at the eleventh hour when the music began.  Each member of the wedding party came into the room dancing, including the bride's eighty-something-year-old grandfather who had been given the honor of accompanying  his granddaughter down the aisle at the eleventh minute.  There she was, her hand on his arm moving to the beat.  And the groom, who had just finished his own dance down the aisle, turned just in time to see his bride in the gown that had been kept hidden from him.  His smile said it all.  She was dressed in a lovely shade of watermelon pink.

I've been to lots of weddings.  It's one of those things that comes with being married to a pastor.  I suppose being a pianist has something to do with it as well,  I've played the Bridal March more times than I can count.   Most of them I've pretty much forgotten, especially the ones that went off without a hitch or the ten-minute ceremonies followed by a reception in the basement of a church where one gets to eat cake, mixed nuts and mints.

But there have been some unforgettables as well.  For example, the time the bridesmaid fainted is pretty memorable, and the fact that she was close to six-feet tall made the fall all the more dramatic.  Nor will I forget singing "Endless Love" while one particular bride shook uncontrollably and then couldn't stop giggling during her vows.  But I've seen men and boys shake from nerves too, grooms with their knees knocking together and a ring bearer who threw up just as the service was about to begin.  I was playing for a wedding in Montgomery, Alabama when the bride could not get down the aisle because of her hoop skirt, inspired no doubt by the lovely Scarlet O'Hara herself.  She finally had to tilt it upwards with one hand while clutching her father's arm with the other,  obviously not having taken the width of her dress into consideration when she booked the church.  I've also seen a veil catch on fire and a new bride grab and kiss her groom so long and hard that even the guests began to squirm a bit uncomfortably.  So when it comes to weddings, I've learned to expect anything.

Well maybe not everything.  There is a Hallmark commercial that features the brother of the bride who continually puts his foot in his mouth.  When he stands to toast his sister,  everyone suddenly becomes quite nervous, concerned at what he might say.  But he wisely pulls a greeting card from his lapel, reads the beautiful prose that Hallmark has already penned and everyone breathes a great sigh of relief and applauds.  Sigh.  I so wish a particular relative of ours had pulled a greeting card out of his lapel while toasting his brother at a wedding we attended this past summer.  But unlike the commercial, it was obvious from the first sentence that the best man was going to wing it.  Thus when he said,  "I probably shouldn't say this," he shouldn't have.  In retrospect, someone should have politely pulled him to the side and encouraged him to rethink what he was about to say, perhaps even better yet,  tackled him to the ground.  For as the video rolled,  he proceeded to tell all assembled there in that lovely setting that when his brother, the groom,  was especially nervous, he would go into the bathroom and....are you ready?....take a really big dump.  Oh my.  I was sitting across from my sister-in-law whose big brown eyes grew considerably larger.  The laughter he was anticipating never came, not even a ripple.  No one spoke or even cleared their throat.  Just silence.  Thud.

So back to the wedding with the bride in the watermelon dress.  Her name is Amie, and the decision to get married hadn't come easily for her.  Her parents had a troubled marriage, and she and her brother ended up being raised by their grandparents.  She had thought long and hard before agreeing to marry Jeremy, the man who would have waited forever if necessary.  She had told him she would marry when she was eighty.  "Then I will wait for you until you're eighty," he had said.  Now who wouldn't want to marry a man like that?   

Amie planned her wedding for two years, and it was clear from the moment the first of her wedding party danced down the center aisle, she was going to do it her way no matter what anyone else might think.  From the candy-filled centerpieces to the carnival-style photo booth complete with props,  it was clear how much she wanted everyone to enjoy this day with her. Food was plentiful with a breakfast bar in one corner and a dinner buffet in the other, and  I finished off my meal with a smoothie served in a fine china goblet.  She had simply thought of everything.

There was more of course.  The day had started with music and dance and it would end with it as well.  And though I've no doubt Amie enjoyed every part of her wedding on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of this eleventh year, I suspect her favorite part of all was the moment she stepped onto the dance floor.  You see, she had come prepared.  For poking out from under that lovely watermelon gown, she had worn the most comfortable of dancing shoes complete with laces, a pair of plaid sneakers.

   

It Started With A Name

Matthew Woodfin along with Zac

 

His name is Matt, he's just recently had his thirteenth birthday and his last name is Woodfin.  Nope, no relation to my son-in-law or the other Woodfins from the South land as far as I know.  He lives near Detroit with his mom and dad and maybe some siblings.  I'm not really sure about that part.  He also happens to be a huge Packer fan.

It was Saturday morning and Fawn wanted to take us to Kavarna, the coffee house that she had discovered right after moving to Green Bay.  Zac had gone on ahead as he'd made arrangements to meet someone there.  It turns out it was birthday boy Matt and a few of his family members.  They'd all come in for the game, Matt's first, and a great way to celebrate this milestone birthday.  After all, turning thirteen is a big deal.

I'm not all that sure how the family had made contact with Zac in the first place.  I imagine they probably follow the Packers pretty religiously and saw that the team had hired a new strength coach whose last name just happened to be the same as theirs.  Who made the initial contact isn't all that important to the story anyways.  The thing that does matter is that a young assistant coach was making time to meet a kid who loves a certain football team and had traveled 300 miles to see them play.

As we pushed through the front door, we immediately saw Zac near the entrance sitting across from a kid in a Packer's sweatshirt and a middle-aged guy, obviously his dad.  An older cousin and uncle were seated at the end of the table. We ordered our drinks then pulled up some chairs to listen as he talked with them about the team and answered what questions he could.  They weren't missing a word.  To commemorate the occasion Fawn ordered a brownie and set it down in front of Matthew as we sang to him.  The whole experience must have been a bit overwhelming,  he asked his dad if he could save it for later.

Fawn and I were the first to leave.  She had dinner guests coming later and we had a couple of errands to run.  I'd also promised her that I'd make some sauce out of the apples we'd brought from New York to add to the meal.  So we said our goodbyes, not expecting to see any of them again of course. The stadium holds almost eighty-thousand people.  The chances of running into them the next day was highly unlikely.

We'd only planned to stop at the Pro Shop at Lambeau just long enough to pick out a couple of shirts to wear to the game the next day.  The place was crowded, wall-to-wall with excited Packer fans who had come in from all over the country.  Between checking out the racks and waiting in line for a dressing room, we had already spent more time there than expected.  Also mingled there among the crowd of shoppers were several families of players and staff members who had traveled in for the game just like we had. Every few minutes we were being introduced to another mom or cousin or grandparent and it was during one of those chance meetings that we were told the training area was going to be open to family members that afternoon.  All we needed was a player or staff member to take us through.  And for us, that would be Zac.

We hadn't expected to see where he worked.  We were cool with it, but now that I knew we were going to see the facility, I was stoked.  The applesauce could wait. As we congregated outside the Pro Shop,  I was surprised to see that someone else had joined us.  Zac had received permission to invite a few extras to come along, three men and a thirteen-year-old boy who had come from Detroit to see his first Packer game.  I would have loved to have been there when those guys got that call.

After the elevator had descended into the belly of Lambeau,  I had a sense of anticipation as we stepped off and followed behind our newly-appointed guide.  I enjoyed the sense of privilege I felt while checking out the rooms full of exercise equipment, seeing the team dining hall, visiting the locker room, taking in names like Woodson, Matthews, Rodgers and standing just feet away from their gear.  It was fun trying out the recliners in the theater and standing just feet away from Bart Starr as he passed us in one of the hallways.  Finally, walking through the tunnel, imagining the roar of the home crowd as we approached the  field, looking up and seeing the size and beauty of the place from that vantage point, it was all very cool.



Larry, Matthew, Nathan, Me, Steve and Bob in the theater



But of everything I remember about that afternoon, the thing that stands out most for me were the smiles that never left the faces of Matthew and his family.  This special tour, being in that part of Lambeau that many never get to see, this was something they hadn't anticipated a few hours earlier.  When I saw a player out of uniform, I didn't usually know who it was.  People look a lot different without helmets on their heads and don't usually wear names on their backs so people like me can identify them.   But it was obvious that these three men and a boy seemed to know just about everything and everybody connected to the Green Bay team.



Matthew and Steve Woodfin in the locker room



That was the last we saw Matthew and his three companions though a couple weeks later his dad sent me the pictures of their trip.  He also wrote a letter to Zac, thanking him for his part in making his son's birthday so special.  Actually, I think the whole story is pretty special.   And just think, it all started with a name.



Cousin Nathan, Uncle Bob, Matthew, Dad Steve and Zac at Lambeau Field  

Watching the Credits

Larry and I took in a movie this week.  It's called  "Courageous," and it was produced  by the good people of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia.  They've done some pretty ambitious projects including "Facing the Giants" and "Fireproof."  They've obviously got some very talented people on staff there, people like brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick who write the screen plays, get the movies made and then somehow manage to get them distributed all over the United States.  Amazing what a couple of church guys can do, huh?

After the movie was over, Larry and I remained seated and watched the credits roll until the end. I'll admit, those were some of the most interesting I've ever seen.  I think everybody that lives in or has ever visited Albany, Georgia was listed including Jim Bob and Michele Duggar and their nineteen kids.  I'm not sure what they did, but they're there.  And I think everyone that brought in a nice home-cooked meal got their names on the big screen including  most of the Sunday school classes at Sherwood Baptist Church.  But the best part came towards the end when the dozens of  baby sitters who helped watch kids during those long, grueling months of film-making are recognized as well, a few seconds of film devoted just to them.      

 

There was a time I wouldn't have bothered with the credits.  They seem to take forever, and I thought it totally unnecessary to include all those hundreds of names.  Then in 2003 some big-time movie people decided to make a movie in our part of Alabama and put out a call for people who might like to be a part of it all.  I sent in my resume along with a picture and they called me within a week or so.  A few days later I drove to Montgomery to be fitted for my costume and get my assignment.  I would be filming for three days on a cotton farm about a forty-five minute drive from my house.  My only instructions were to wash my hair each night, set it in sponge rollers while it was still wet, sleep in them and wear them to the site.  Oh, and I wasn't to wear any makeup.          

It was still dark when I arrived at the farm that first morning.  There were signs pointing to the parking areas, and after I locked up my van, a shuttle took me and several others to a large tent set up in the middle of a cotton field.  We were encouraged to help ourselves to a nice breakfast that had been set out and after that proceeded to another tent for makeup and then on to another for our costumes.

Turns out I was hired as a background actor, my official title.  Okay,  I know I spoke no lines, was hired merely to fill in the landscape and got minimum wage.  But I must admit it made me feel good to have the word "actor" in my job description, especially as I stood on that Alabama river bank for three days in February in nothing but a skirt and a blouse and a blazer.  Those who live elsewhere assume that Alabama can't possibly get all that cold, even in the dead of winter.   Well, they're wrong.  It can and it was.  I was freezing as were all the others who stood in costume on the bank of the Coosa.  I shouldn't complain, at least I had long sleeves to protect me a bit from the wind cutting across that river.  I could have been one of the girls dressed in a strapless prom dress or a circus entertainer dressed in a leotard.  If it wasn't for those running out with blankets and setting up propane heaters between takes, I think we would have stood frozen in place until Spring came to thaw us out.

I came away from that experience with an appreciation for those who were working so hard behind the scenes, and in this particular movie, there were hundreds of them.  I would arrive at the set before daybreak, but the extras' coordinator and her helpers had  been checking people in as early as 4 a.m.  One crew had been preparing breakfast,  others were driving the shuttles back and forth, several were doing makeup and hair and getting everyone into costume while others were setting up for the day's shoots.  And who knows how late they had been working into the night, many surviving on just a few hours of sleep.   During the filming, as soon as the action stopped and cameras were being repositioned, people would suddenly appear with those blankets and heaters I mentioned while others would move quickly up and down the hill rearranging hair and checking makeup.  Then, just as quickly, everyone and everything would quickly disappear as the director began the count once again and called for the action to begin.

If you asked me the name of the film, who directed and what actors starred in it, I could spout their names off quickly.  But beyond that I can't tell you the name of the woman who cast me or the one who did my hair or those who helped fit me for my costume or wrapped me in a blanket during the coldest of those three days.  I no  longer remember them or even what they looked like.  They were simply people working behind the scenes, doing their jobs.

The movie did real well by the way.  It was even up for a couple of Academy Awards.  But don't look for my name in the credits.  Not everybody thinks like those people at the Sherwood Baptist Church. Actually, don't look for the names of any of the background actors.  We all knew that was just a fancy name for what we really were anyways.  Extras.  But the others, those working  behind scenes, doing their part to take a  story and visualize it for us,  their names are there.  And that's as it should be.  That's why I don't complain about all the time it takes to run those names after the movie has finished telling its story.   

A few years later, I got a phone call one night from one of the guys in our church in South Carolina.  "Marcy, is it true that you were in that movie 'Big Fish?'" he asked.  I told him it was true.  "I want you to know," he said.  "A few years ago I was at the end of my rope.  My life was going nowhere.  I was into drugs and alcohol big time, so I checked myself into a motel.  I turned the TV on and that movie was playing."   He paused for a moment.  "You know about my dad and all, how he died in prison for killing my mom.  I held a lot of anger and bitterness towards him."  He paused a moment.  "By the time the movie was over I was bawling.  That story helped me to get some stuff resolved where my dad was concerned.  Just wanted you to know."

Larry's talking about seeing  "Courageous" a second time.  I'm not sure yet if I'm going or not, but I'm tempted.  It's a good story and hopefully might help change some lives for the better.  And if I do, I think I just might hang around for a few minutes at the end.  I wouldn't mind watching the credits again.

Sixty

I'm still working through this thing called getting older.  I know, nowadays sixty is still considered relatively young, especially when you have so many living well into their eighties and nineties.  Still, the realization that I'm here at this juncture has me reflecting a bit more than usual on what I've done thus far and what it is exactly that I'd still like to accomplish during this latest chapter of my life.  I think it's easier to explain where I want to go if I reflect on where I've come from.  So what better place to start than near the beginning.

Kindergarten--I'm standing, second from right

I'll never forget Mrs. Slocum's kindergarten class or how shy I was,  too afraid to ask questions or speak what was on my mind.  I recall the crush I had on the cutest boy there,  but because some little red-headed, freckle-faced girl boldly announced to everyone that she liked the same boy,  he agreed that he would indeed be her boyfriend.  I still remember wishing that I'd had the same kind of courage that she did.  If so, perhaps he would have been my boyfriend instead of hers.  Actually, probably not.  But that little episode in my five-year-old life reminds me that I don't want to live in fear of what others might think.  I want to speak and live out my life with courage and confidence.    

Secondly, I don't want to get too comfortable in my little corner of  the world.  Our kindergarten classroom sat next door to Miss Smith's first-grade class.  I still have these few seconds of recall where I'm passing those first-graders in the hallway and feeling a sense of awe at their size, their maturity. I couldn't wait to get there.  As a five-year-old, I only saw what was close to me and anticipated only that which was directly ahead.  My world was pretty small back then and consisted of my family, a few neighborhood friends, my church and Mrs. Slocum's kindergarten class. As I became older, it got bigger of course.  Going to college a thousand miles from home, pastoring churches around the country, learning to speak Spanish and living in a third-world country, these challenging, and yet wonderful experiences grew me and enlarged my world.  I'll be honest, there's still a little part of me that wants to sit back and surround myself with things that are familiar, comfortable.  But how easy it would be to become complacent, just coasting along for the rest of my life and missing those wonderful adventures that God still has planned for me.     

The school bus dropping me off with my brother Rex  

Third, I don't want to be afraid of the "what ifs."  One day not too long after I started school,  I was sitting in the back seat of the bus heading home when I suddenly realized that the bus was completely empty except for me and the driver.  I ran down the aisle and tearfully told him that I had forgotten to get off with the others. He scolded me, told me to pay better attention and opening the door, let me off.  Fortunately he hadn't gone very far, but for weeks afterwards I was overwhelmed by the fear that I would forget to get off that bus. Even when I wasn't on the bus, I thought about what might happen if I should forget again.   I think back to how much time I wasted anticipating and fearing something that never happened.   I'm a grownup now, but I know how easy it is to fall into the worry trap, expecting the sky to fall at any moment.  I don't want to live there.



Fourth, I don't want the fear of failure to keep me from taking risks.  When I turned sixteen,  I was afraid every time I got behind the wheel of a car and froze when it was time to take my driving test.  I failed of course.   A year or so later I tried again.  And failed again.  I would take the test four times before I could finally stop renewing my permit and get a license.  When we moved to Honduras, I had to learn to drive stick on a Toyota double-cab truck if I wanted to get anywhere. The narrow roads, the absence of traffic lights, the myriad of buses and cabs and horse-drawn carts and bicycles weaving in and out of traffic absolutely terrified me. But Larry was patient, taking me out on Sunday afternoons, allowing me to practice shifting when the traffic wasn't so heavy.  Finally the day came when he had to leave for a two-week trip to Jamaica, and suddenly it was up to me to get our kids to school across town everyday.  I did it, and soon I was weaving in and out of traffic along with the rest of them.  Those past challenges  remind me that I don't want to come to the end of my life filled with regret because of the things I wanted to do but didn't because I was too afraid to go after them.  

Angela, Fawn and Joel in the back of the Toyota

Finally, I don't want to stop dreaming.  I want to believe that God still has great things in mind for me, but I won't discover what those things are if I don't keep moving forward.  To do that I have to take to heart the other goals I've set for myself:  to live my life courageously and with confidence,  to get out of my comfort zone, to quit worrying about the "what ifs" and take some risks.  Those things don't come natural for me as I am by nature a bit of a coward.  But with God's help, I can do and be all that He has placed within me.  After all, I left kindergarten a long time ago.