HOSPITALITY!

   We highly value the trait of hospitality. It is, without exaggeration, one of the things thast makes life worth the living. When someone opens up their hearts and homes to you, seeking nothing in return but your company, or when you welcome them into your little piece of the world, what joy is born! I think the people I admire most are those who are hospitable; it is a character trait we should instill in our children and grandchildren.
   Nor am I the only one who thinks so: the Bible itself, when listing the qualifications for elders and deacons in the Church, demands that the candidate be, among things, "a lover of hospitality". And the Old Testament patriarch Abraham, when receiving the angels on their way to the cities of the valley, entreated them, "Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and conmfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on." Now you can go to any hotel and find a place to wash up, to lay down, or to grab something to eat; but that last part- comfort your hearts--you can't buy that anywhere! It is a gift from family and friends. And that's what hospitality is all about.
 
   I am so glad I married a woman who feels the same way I do in this. Wendy loves to plan, prepare and host family & friends get-togethers, whether holiday celebrations, cook-outs, dinners or birthday parties. And I am glad to help out in any way I can because I know it brings her great satisfaction to see our guests leave happy and to know everyone had a good time.
   Growing up, we weren't what you'd call rich. But we had rich times when we all got together! My Mom was the Queen of the Kitchen and I was one of her little minions. As a little boy, I'd help peel the potatoes, and from my teen years I'd help her prepare the Thanksgiving meal by removing the turkey neck and giblets from its barely thawed out body cavities. And of course I'd peel & chop the turnips (or rutabagas, if you please ). Thus was my introduction to hospitality.

   But if Thanksgiving belonged to Mom, Dad owned New Years' Eve!  He'd head on down to his friends at Pilgrim Bar-B-Q of Ansonia, CT, and pick up racks n' racks of mouth-watering spare ribs, steak fries, and chicken wings. There'd be like tons of food! My sister Linda Thompson (God rest her soul) loved Christmas: she would start shopping around September and buy gifts for literally everyone she knew and a few folks she didn't! She'd see that the house was decked out and get her troops baking cookies to roll out a warm holiday welcome for her guests (like me).
   Planning and preparation are great, but sometimes gatherings just spring up spontaneously. I remember back when we lived in Naugatuck, some summer Saturday afternoon we were just hangin' out on the front porch. One by one this brother or that sister then this nephew showed up - uninvited, but still welcome- and the whole thing turned into a spur-of-the-moment porch party. We brewed like five pots of coffee that day! If I'm not mistaken, there was a brief shower followed by a magnificent rainbow. Behold, how good and how pleasant when brethren dwell together in unity!
 

Pool party at Miriam's, the Hostess with the Mostest!

   Not only is it a great joy of life to welcome people into our homes, but it is an honor and a blessing to be welcomed into the homes of others. Now I have been in houses where it's so uptight you feel like you're in a museum and you're afraid to touch anything lest you break it or dirty it....and you don't dare ask for seconds! But my kind of people are the ones who make  you feel as if you belong there, like you're part of the family. You've heard the expression, "Mi casa es su casa"?  We like to go to places we can be ourselves- and our hosts can be themselves.

   My wife and I don't do a lot of "entertaining"; we don't throw lavish parties just to throw parties. Among the Native American peoples of the Pacific Northwest was a custom called the potlatch. It was in a way a huge competition between the chiefs to see who could throw the biggest bash! But hospitality needn't be extravagant, nor even expensive....'cuz it ain't about the money, it's about the love. (Anyone who wishes to show me love with pie & coffee, I accept!)

   Think about it: how would life be if no one invited you over, and no one came over to visit you? It would basically suck. Hospitality is really at the core of our society, and makes everything better. It's the way things are supposed to be. And it is one of the things we love about life.

   Those are my thoughts....what are yours?

 

   

I'm Bowled Over!

   Physics, probability, skill, luck, and fun all come together in the amazing little game of bowling. Ten pins, arranged like Pascal's Triangle wait helplessly as an 8 to 16 pound ball comes rolling down on them! That satisfying CRACK! when you throw a strike! The exasperation when that one last pin just doesn't wanna go down!  The dismay when you're left with a split! All part of the emotional roller coaster ride of bowling!


   Years ago, my brother Charles ("Choll"), nephew Stephen, a friend Regina and I bowled in a mixed league.  You meet all kinds of characters, all kinds of teams. Like the lady who shows up drunk every night. Or the dude who thinks he's Joe Bowler. Some teams think they're all that, and look down on you like trash. Those are the guys we enjoy beating the most! Mixed leagues are great for beginners and accomplished bowlers as well. Lots of fun!
    The best game I ever bowled was the night I had a tooth taken out. I guess the pain meds mellowed me out enough to keep me from over-thinking? Whatever! But you know, you've got to anylize everything; are the lanes oily? are they dry? Is my ball clean? Am I putting too much spin? Not enough? Do I need coffee? or French fries?
   Then some guy punches up the jukebox and blasts some tune only he likes. Two-hundred and forty songs, and you gotta pick that one! Hey, it's part of the ambience. Remember the old days, when you had to keep score yourselves with scoresheets and pencil? You had to do the math yourself; now everything's computerized, and your frame is displayed up there on the screen for everyone to see.
   Oh, and if you don't own your own ball, you have to hunt around for a House Ball that suits you. After three or four false starts, you find one that doesn't head straight for the gutter each time you throw it. And, no, we can't put the bumpers out!  What? A foot-fault? So you roll a split and the ball gets stuck and the pins won't re-set. So Billy the Bowling Alley Guy goes down inside the machine and fixes everything up again.
    Then your team mate is ready to roll when you notice a little head behind the pins....WAIT! Billy's still in there!!! Or you're just about ready to throw your ball, when the person in the lane beside you runs up and rolls their shot, totally breaking your concentration! AAARGH! Your ball misses every pin!
   Or you need to pick up this spare, and the ball's rolling, rolling, rolling, while you're all shuckin' & jivin' with the Body English to steer the ball to the pin. Which never works, but we all do it anyway. True story.
    Do you all know what a "coffee-box" is?  It's when each team member but one throws a strike in the same frame. Then we say the person who didn't get a strike has to buy coffee for the rest of us who did. (Almost never enforced, just for fun) A double is when you throw strikes in two consecutive frames, and a turkey is when you get three-in-a-row. It feels so great the first time you turkey; you break into your happy dance! 
   Back in our league days, my brother Choll and I would celebrate a big win by treating ourselves to pie & coffee at The Pie Plate restaurant. Or, if we lost, we would console ourselves with a big hunk of pie & coffee from The Pie Plate.  Come to think of it, if we had a mediocre game, we'd review it over pie & coffee at The Pie Plate.  (Do you get the feeling one day there will be a post just about pie?)
   One of the nice things about bowling is that it can accomodate players of diffierent skill levels and abilities. For children just learning the game, we have the afore-mentioned bumpers which block the ball from rolling into the gutters. For persons with physical or developmental disabilities, there is a kind of chute to launch the ball. I love to see when a little kid- or really old kid- who can barely lift the ball just drops it on the lane and it tumbles slowly, gradually, gently down the lane and you're wondering if it will ever reach the pins.....and then one at a time they all go down. A strike?? I don't know of any other sport that is so do-able.
   Bowling, like fishing, is one of those great bonding activities for parents to pass on to their kids; an excellent family experience. Someone out there is saying, "What about duckpins? What about candlesticks?" Don't forget Moonlight Bowling! Yeah, those variations are all cool too, in their own way. But my favorite is the basic ten pin. One of the things we love about life. And Billy loves it, too.

Ooh, ooh, that SMELL!

   Smells, odors, scents, fragrances, aromas---yes sir, this essay is all about olfactory delights of all kinds! When you got a schnozz like mine, smells are important!  And it's one of the things we love about life. Everybody talks about that new car smell (which is mostly formaldehyde and other carcinogens), but there are plenty of other smells that just do something for ya.
   Wake up and smell the coffee! Years ago I was attending a Vineyard Church which was right above a Dunkin Donuts in Waterbury, CT.  Try staying spiritual with an aroma so appealing to the flesh as coffee & doughnuts!

  And, oh, my nights of working second shift, driving home through Prospect I'd pass a home with a fire cracklin' in the fireplace on a cold, crisp December night; how good that hickory smoke smelled! On summer nights I'd come home to my little pad on North Main in Naugatuck, and the porch had lattice with some night-blooming flowering vine (honeysuckle?). That soothing aroma welcomed me home.

   Now I'm no psychologist, and I can't explain for you the science behind that connection between smell and memory, but as an artist I can sure write about the magic! You know the smell of hot tar when the town is patching the winter's potholes (and the Mayor is up for re-election)? Love it! It always takes me back to my kindergarten days, walking home from the bus stop. Reminds me of simpler times.

   Another odor concoction I love is the blend of coffee and wall paint (gotta love those VOC's). Fresh coffee + fresh paint = fresh beginnings.  Always reminds me of moving in day.

My nephew's wife, Casden Anderson, remarked that if Yankee Candle ever came up with a scent that smelled like a newborn baby's head, she'd buy out the whole store! (Some of you think that baby smell just evolved by chance. Yeah, right.)

   And who doesn't love that smell of the salt air when you go to the beach? Some folks love the smell of deisel smoke (I'm not a fan). Others love the smell of books in a library. Then there's always the lady who wears that perfume that just drives you crazy!  She might not even be all that good-lookin', but she smells so nice, ya just wanna eat her! Don't look at me in that tone of voice; you know you've felt the same way.

   When I was a kid, my Mom never had to call us down to breakfast in the morning: that smell of bacon frying in a cast iron skillet pulled us out of bed and down the stairs! A few years back, some hoods bushwhacked the Pizza Guy after giving him our address as a ruse. They jumped him and took his cash. They took off and he took off, leaving two boxes of hot, steaming pizza on our front porch. Two o'clock in the morning with the smell of bacon & pepperoni pizza, and here we couldn't even eat some because it was crime scene evidence!

   I could go on and on; time would fail me to tell of the sleazy boardwalk smells of the Carnival, the onion rings and fried dough at the Agricultural Fair, cigars, pipes, cinnamon, maple syrup, steak barbecuing on the grill,  cheap beer and French fries at the bowling alley, even the smell of pesticides and fertilzers in the home improvement store. Fresh cut grass? Autumn leaves?

   Whatever the occasion, whatever the season, smells are one of the things we love about life.

   DISCUSSION: What are your favorite smells? What memories do certain smells conjure up for you? What feelings do you associate with various aromas?

Fishin'!

   What better endeavor for Dads, Grampas, or Uncles to pass on to their clan's young men than Fishing! With such stinky, slimey gross creatures as worms, bugs, eels,  bullheads and suckers it is the ideal activity for little boys! (And Big Men who are still little boys at heart.) Sure, there's some danger with hooks and snakes and the like, but it's not an adventure if there's no risk, right?

  Now people have been fishin' for just about as long as there's been people; and probably will for as long as there are fish!  Some of you may think it strange that a person would get up at 4:00 in the morning to go stand in ice-cold, hip-deep water for hours with a can full of big, juicy worms.  But there's no thrill like that moment when you feel that tug on your line, and you know you've got one! And after a brief struggle you draw your beautiful prize out from the waters!

   I remember those summer Sundays when Dad would pile all us boys and our gear in the station wagon and head out to Uncle Steve's cottage on the Housatonic River. Out there on the dock, getting my line all tangled while Neil Diamond crooned out a tune on Dad's AM radio, I discovered the ancient art and mystery of fishing. If I ever caught anything besides a rock or a stick, it was a slippery, squirmy eel, which Uncle Steve would unceremoniously feed to his cat. 

    Honestly, I sucked at fishing, as I sucked at anything requiring any degree of athletic prowess; to this day I can't cast out a line to save my life. 

   My brother Bob, on the other hand, was a fish magnet. He'd haul in three or four catches before anyone else ever got a nibble. I do believe that he could drop a shoelace into a mud puddle and pull up a five-pound bass.  One day he reeled in a bizarre, prehistoric looking creature we later found out to be a Red-Horned Chub (Nocomis biguttatus). 

   Just kidding, that wasn't it! Note to all POKEMON GO! players: instead of running around trying to catch make-believe creatures that aren't even there, why not go after real creatures like hornyhead chubs? I mean you can't eat a Magicarp, can you? It was almost fifty years ago my brother caught that dude and it's still exciting.

*   *   *   *   *

   Maybe the only thing better than catching fish is eating them. One summer  my mother, brother, and I journeyed to Arkansas to spend a week with Mom's brother Richard Mullins.     Her cousin Ewing owned a cabin on a man-made pond they'd stocked with catfish.  My brother Gary and I passed the morning with Uncle Richard fishing that pond. (I caught me a big ol' flathead.)  The rest of the clan joined us there bringing all kinds of food and we had a fish-fry right out in the country. That catfish was delicious! 

   As our wedding day approached and it was looking as though we wouldn't have enough money for the banquet facility, Wendy was stressing out that we might have to cut some guests! Then someone gave her a half-dozen or so fish they'd caught, and it was like a sign to her that money was coming and everything would be all right. God has funny ways of answering our prayers sometimes! Whatever, I gutted and scaled those fish and Wendy cooked 'em up. Her fear was gone and we had us an awesome wedding reception!

   Salt-water or fresh water, whether you're an avid sportsman or a novice angler, fishin' is an awesome pastime we love, and love to pass on to our kids. And that's the way it should be.

Dogs & Hounds

   Who doesn't love a dog? Our canine compaions fill a unique niche in our lives and share a closer bond with us than any other creature.
    So what exactly is a dog? When our ancient ancestors took wolf pups home to be raised among us, something weird and wonderful happened: the animals began to take on new forms, colors, shapes and sizes, and ...personalities.  And a new creature arose that was neither wolf nor human, and yet a little of both!
   Before we came to rely on machines for everything, our dogs served numerous purposes around the fields, woods, farms, and homes, giving rise to the axiom, "Dog is Man's best friend". No matter how far our technology advances, it will never replace our dogs and hounds! (with apologies to my DR. WHO fans and their beloved K-9! )
 

  

   Someone thought it was strange how I talked to our dog "like he understood" me. Of course they understand what we say! My wife Wendy says our Schnauzer Blackie is bilingual, fluent in English and in Spanish! Really, he probably responds more to our tone of voice, facial expressions, and hand signals.  Dogs in turn communicate with us through vocalizations, body language, and touch. 

   Anyone who's raised their dog from a pup knows he's not just a pet, but a member of the family.  A house isn't a home without a dog!

   We love dogs and they love us; they can get so attached that they will get depressed when we're gone for too long. And they know and are concerned when one of us is sick! This ability to empathize with us is probably one of the main reasons we love them so much. My sister's youngest daughter was diagnosed with autism. She got her a little service dog for therapy, and what a difference!

   So here's to the dogs: hunters, defenders, protectors, companions, therapists, and friends!

  We welcome your feedback! To get the discussion rolling: What was your best dog ever? What was the oddest dog name you've ever heard? What do you love about your dog?

What dog do you miss the most?

    Thanks for spending this time with us, we'll be back soon! Peace!

Why This Blog?

   Why am I starting this blog? As I grow older, I see the lines between what does matter and what doesn't matter changing.  There is just so much ugliness and crass tastelessness all around us, I say it's time to focus on what's good, what's beautiful, what's cool, what's sweet, what's calming, what's right about this life here on earth. The alternative is plunging into despair, rage, and desensitivity.
   So I'm going to be sharing a few moments in your day a bright spot or two to kind of forget, if but for a minute, all the stress and strife we're bombarded with. I'll be writing about things I love, and things I'm sure we all love. Simple things. Good things that maybe we're so caught up in the the daily drama, we no longer notice, or take the time to enjoy.
   Nothing really deep here, just talking about what makes us feel good: what we love about life. My wife says, "Life is beautiful!" and so it is. Sometimes we have to look for it, but more often it drops from heaven like the dew on the grass. Fresh beauty every day, and that's what I want to bring to your attention. Surely you've heard the expression, "Stop and smell the roses"? It's not, "Stop and feel the thorns."

And so I launch this blog. We welcome your comments, reflections, recollections and recommendations! Peace!