Blurb Post

I have some deeper subjects not far below the surface of my writing impulse, but lack the focus and persistence to address them because it would mean first having to sweep aside the myriad mundane details that interfere. This will be a blurb post, full of references to the mundane. Scattered thoughts from a scattered brain.

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Today is my father's 82nd birthday. He celebrated it by preaching the sermon in church this morning. A few times he paused longer than usual, and his notes no longer fit on one 3 x 5 card like they used to. But he still speaks truth in an easy-to-listen-to manner.

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I've been noticing something about most of the over-80 crowd during the past year. They speak at lower decibels than they used to. I wonder why. Less lung capacity? Weaker diaphragm muscles?

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Ever since attending the ACSI (Christian School) convention, my head is full of the Excellence in Writing system for teaching writing. This approach has a lot in common with the 6 + 1 Writing Traits, but seems to be more specific in the "how-to-do-it" department, with the 6 + 1 Writing Traits focusing more on the "what-does-it-look-like?" part of good writing. I'm pondering how to get to some of their 3-day workshops. The one that really looks wonderful to me is the one in North Carolina next summer where the founder and current director of the project will be speaking. It's for advanced users of the method, and I probably won't qualify, unless I go to a basic seminar first.

I'd like to have an excuse to visit my sister Dorcas who lives in North Carolina. Our school has continuing education funds available that I have never used.

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Two of my high school composition class students won ribbons at the poetry contest that was part of the annual Partridge celebration. Congratulations to Tim Shenk and Seth Yutzy.

I'm proud of all my students who entered the contest, after producing these poems on short notice. I told them they were due on Wednesday, after beginning teaching poetry writing only on Monday. This belated flurry of activity was because of a long list of misfortunes involving missed announcements, wrong information on deadlines, heart attacks of relatives--necessitating a quick exit on the part of one of the judges, etc. I have a promise from one of the organizers that next year I'll get a special notice in plenty of time. I didn't request that, but appreciate the gesture.

I don't consider myself an accomplished poet, or a good reader of poetry, but I'm always surprised by how much I like it when I spend time focusing on it. My old Sound and Sense poetry writing textbook from college is a wonderful resource, as is a poetry anthology one of my profs gave me. Her name is still on the front page. I think it was a sample she got from a publisher who hoped it would be adopted as a text for her class.

I don't suppose I'm really qualified to speak for them, but my students seem to have actually enjoyed this writing endeavor, to some extent at least. They used some good poetic devices.

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Last week I had a good conversation with our principal, Wesley, on poetry. His college major was Literature, so his brain is worth picking on this subject. I especially liked what he had to say on the merits of rigid forms in poetry. He understands that these forms have limitations, but he doesn't subscribe to the idea that poetry is better when it is devoid of such forms.

Wesley told about a poetry event he attended last summer in which a retired local college writing teacher spoke about poetry, and read some of his own writings. He was dismissive of the archaic language and forms of poetry characteristic of some of the British poets who lived in recent centuries. "That kind of poetry takes a lot of explanation [before it can be understood]" he said.

Then he read his own poetry. It was written in free verse, with the meaning unclear until he explained it. Wesley's comment: "I sat there thinking Your poetry takes a lot of explanation."

I believe that most aspiring poets will write their best poetry if they learn to lean heavily on two reference books--a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary.

When language must be as concentrated as it will be in good poetry, diligent effort in finding just the right word is essential. Every word in a poem must work hard, and if it sounds just right and, better yet, is freighted with several appropriate meanings, it probably won't be the first one that pops into the writer's head.

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One of the thought-provoking sessions I took in at the conference last week was the one on mentoring, by Sean McDowell.

I realized two things: 1) I haven't been taking my mentoring opportunities seriously enough--even the ones that fall into my lap. 2) One of the hazards of getting older is that there are fewer people older than me to serve as my mentors.

I could certainly profit from the wisdom of many who are older than me, but who, specifically? Maybe I'm over thinking this, but I seriously wonder if anyone at all would volunteer to mentor me. This isn't the first time in my life that I've felt as though I'm too intimidating.

I don't plan to stop learning bits and pieces from others in the meantime, even if I never have a formal mentoring relationship with anyone.

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One of the lectures at the Expo was by Dr. Cullan, an OB/GYN doctor who we learned to know when their family and ours were part of the same 4H club, made up mostly of homeschoolers. He was the project leader for some of the things our boys participated in.

Yesterday Dr. Cullan talked about Vitamin D. For quite a while, he tested all his patients for their Vitamin D levels, and found, to his surprise, that here in sunny Kansas, 60% of those tested were below the normal level, which is about 32 (units? It's a blood test). The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) is 400 units per day. However, up to 50,000 units per week (per day?? Per week is how I remember this, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.) is safe for up to three months.

That morning before I left home I had read an email from a breast cancer survivor who told me that she had taken a lot of Vitamin D. She has been cancer free for some time, and I don't believe she ever had surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation. She also took other non-pharmaceutical substances, each step after a lot of research and prayer.

I've been reading recently in the mainstream media that many people experience improved health when they begin to take Vitamin D supplements.

I'm not standing in line for Vitamin D pills just yet. For one thing, the Mannatech multivitamin/multimineral I'm taking has the RDA in the daily dosage, so I don't think it's too likely that I'm deficient. I will be doubly glad now though to bask in any sunshine I can gather on my skin. After weeks of rainy weather, this will feel wonderful anyway.


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The ministers in our church are about halfway through the process of interviewing each member. Although we were given some guiding questions ahead of time, we were free to talk about whatever concerns we wished to share.

I think this is a great thing for ministers to do. I've heard of other churches who do this when they're in the middle of a crisis. I'm glad for the foresight our ministers have to do this before then.

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Next weekend is the youth retreat. Trippy, from Virginia, has arrived for the event. She spent last school year here, and graduated at Pilgrim. This is the first time she's back. It looked so right to see her that it was almost as though she never left. She was in my Sunday School class.

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My sister Linda reported that the apple pies I baked after I got home from the ACSI Convention sold for $10.00 and $15.00 at auction at the end of the Partridge Day events. They apparently didn't need all they had ordered for serving with the lunch for the day.

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While I was gone, Hiromi seized the opportunity to clean out the refrigerator without interference from me. I saw that it looked cleaner and emptier, and that was nice, but I was a little fearful.

Not without reason, as it turned out. When I discovered that the one tiny unopened carton of cream that I was counting on for my pies was missing, I learned that, in fact, it had been discarded. "There wasn't a year on the expiration date, and I thought it was probably three years old." (It was a recent purchase.) Also, the egg-vinegar-water mixture for moistening the dry ingredients in the pie dough had been thrown out. "It smelled bad and looked watery."

He was feeling smug that he had recognized and saved the flour/shortening mixture I had put in the fridge in a Tupperware container.

I try not to discourage attempts to be helpful, and I really do appreciate them most of the time. Nevertheless, I did not feel generous enough late on a Friday evening to offer to go to Dwights for more cream to finish my apple pies. Thankfully, he picked up on my pointed suggestion that he inquire about its availability and trundle over there to get it and pay for it while I continued with other parts of the pie baking process. I mixed up more egg-vinegar-water stuff for the dough.

I owe a lot to my sister-in-law Judy for being able to make beautiful pies, and to my mother, who taught me all the basics. Judy learned it from her grandmother, and I use the same top crust designs, and brush on the same cream and egg glaze on the top, and then sprinkle it lightly with sugar. I also use cream and butter, besides sugar and cinnamon and lemon juice, for the apple pie filling.

Grant's comment just now as he worked on demolishing the last piece: "This is some kind of good."

Later: Grant sheepishly admitted that he had not actually delivered the pies to Partridge till about 12:20 when he discovered them on the dining room table, along with a note containing instructions, when he came home for lunch. We had talked about it the evening before and left the note and the pies because we had to leave early for the Expo, and Grant wasn't up yet. No wonder they were still intact at auction time. He told me though that the ladies that took the pies fussed about how nice they looked. (He knows how to compensate for his shortcomings.)

Grant fits right into the family. A lot of my life seems to be a story of almost meeting my obligations.

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Hiromi's sister and her husband stopped in this afternoon to pick up some Japanese pickles Hiromi has been making. I had forgotten they were coming or I would have done a little more tidying up. As it was, I was sound asleep when they arrived, and not awake enough at any time to muster the energy to get up. So I missed seeing them, which is really a shame, given the fact that we don't often get together.

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I bought several books in KC while I was there last week. One of them was a biography of Amy Carmichael written by Elisabeth Elliot. Both women are heroes of mine.

While I was there, and since I'm home I read the book A Thousand Shall Fall. It is written about a German Seventh Day Adventist Family's experiences during World War II. Because they were Sabbath keepers, people suspected them of being Jews. They were nonresistant, but the husband served six years in the military. He vowed never to kill anyone, and, because he was an excellent marksman, and did not trust himself to be able to resist the temptation to use his gun if he were threatened, he threw it away and put a similarly shaped piece of wood in its place in his holster. No one ever discovered his secret till after the war was over. On many occasions, the family experienced miraculous deliverance from terrible things that befell others. Life was hard, and they almost starved, even after the war was over. But reading the story is a faith strengthening experience. The author is the youngest child in the family.

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See the link below for news on someone who grew up in our church. He is known here as Ervin Ray Stutzman, the middle name used to distinguish him from his uncle Ervin. He has just been appointed as Executive Director of Mennonite Church USA. Everyone who knew him as a child knew that he had enormous potential, but I think it's fair to say that we weren't all sure always that it was being channeled appropriately. It's wonderful to see how he is serving the church now. Ervin is a year younger than I. Ervin's dad died when he was three, and his widowed mother worked hard to support her family. It's too bad she didn't live long enough to see her son honored as he is being honored now. I'm also thinking about the many who served as mentors in Ervin's life, and how that effort paid off.

http://www.mennoweekly.org/2009/9/7/june-krehbiel/


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Several weeks ago when I was in Iowa, I heard several stories that I'd like to pass on.

One was from Aunt Fannie, who was in fine form the night after Uncle Henry's funeral when a bunch of the Beachys gathered at Uncle Joe and Aunt Mary's house. She's in her mid-80s and does not fit the diminished-decibel speech pattern I referred to earlier. From Ellis, who works with her son Marland, I learned that she has been known to play football with her grandchildren. Not a typical 80-year-old Mennonite grandma past time.

I learned that night that when she taunted the tramp from the safety of the corn field, it was because her brother John had promised her a nickel if she did so. Then he failed to pay up until decades later, when he gave her a dime, for good measure.

Lillian, Fannie's only daughter, accompanied her to Iowa from Florida. I hadn't seen her since she was a child, and was glad to get reacquainted a bit. She was at one time a loan officer in a bank, and is still in that business I believe, perhaps having been promoted since then. She looks the part--tall, dignified, and smartly dressed.

My sister Lois remembers that when she was three years old she got to go to Iowa with my dad by train when he had a week of meetings there. She stayed with Grandpas, and Lillian came over to play one day. She was just a bit younger than Lois.

Lillian did not want to take a nap when Grandma had them both lie down. She threw a sufficiently major fit to prompt my easy-going Grandma to interfere. "Vo iss meh pattle?" (Where is my paddle?) she kept repeating as she looked here and there in the bedroom, hoping no doubt that Lillian would take the hint and simmer down. She didn't, and Lois looked on in wonder as Grandma finally produced a ping-pong paddle and smacked Lillian on the bottom several times. That did the trick. Lillian doesn't remember this.

My Uncle Jesse told a story about the bull upstairs. He must have practiced this story, because he told it with just the right pacing and timing of details, which I won't be able to duplicate. It went something like this:

A farmer that Jesse works for part time called him one day and told him he had a bull upstairs, and he wouldn't come down. The bull was aggressive, and he needed Jesse's help since the bull had been there for several days already.

Jesse went over and peeked just above the stair well to check on the bull, at which point the bull came after him, and Jesse bailed out so as not to be caught in the stairwell with an agressive bull.

He waited till the next day, when he thought the bull might have weakened a bit from thirst and hunger, and, armed with a handful of green, fresh-smelling hay, he peeked again. This time the bull came to the stair well calmly and ate the hay. So Jesse put the rest of his plan into action. He nailed a big piece of plywood (or perhaps an old door) onto the stairs, with cleats across it for traction, and he scattered bits of hay from the top to the bottom of the stairs. Then he left, with doors open all the way to the outside.

The next day the bull was back outdoors, grazing with the other cattle.

The upstairs was in a tobacco drying shed. The bull who ended up there had entered the first floor through a door that was left open, or which had been pushed open. Several bulls--at least three--were inside the building when the door accidentally closed. Judging by the wreckage created, they were apparently fighting and scrapping in there when one of them made a dash for safety up the stairs. Later the others were discovered and released. But the one upstairs was left stranded. Going down stairs is much more frightening for bovines than going up, and that's why the bull had to be coaxed to come down.

I remembered hearing a story about college students who, as a prank, took a cow all the way to the top of the bell tower on campus, by way of a narrow, winding stairway. They left her there, and I'm guessing neither the cow or the people who had to get her down or leave her there to die thought it was very funny. I don't remember what they did. (Don't you hate it when people forget the ending to a story, or the punchline to a joke?)

My cousin Norman, who recently moved to northern Iowa, told the story of how they recently burned an old barn on their property, in preparation for building a new dairy barn. He called the fire department before he set the fire to see if they wanted to use it for training purposes. They said yes, and then later capitulated because of all the red tape involved. They gave him instructions, however. "Go ahead and light the fire whenever you get ready. Then call 911 and say that your controlled burn is getting out of control. We'll come right out and take care of things."

Norman did as instructed. But things got spectacular very fast, and he soon had a roaring inferno, with an enormous torch of flame shooting out of the opening toward another building. Big burning globs of stuff were falling on the porch floor of the house. He called 911 again and said "This is really an emergency now." Fortunately, the trucks were already on the way, and none of the other buildings were destroyed.

I grinned at Norman's commentary when he was showing my cousin Paul B. the picture of the fire and said, "You know, I'm pretty self-confident--like you--and my wife usually tries to help me think about what could happen. I usually tell her there's no need to worry. But I'm listening real good to my wife right now."

Norman and his brother Myron used to look like the two little boys on the "Been farmin' long?" poster. Ever-so-cute, with curly blond hair and blue eyes. I can picture them in striped overalls too.

I also enlightened my cousin Alan on a story our family occasionally recalls with amusement. We had been visiting Uncle Henrys (Alan's parents), and paused before we left for home to take a picture of their family. Little Leon had awakened shortly before this and was still in his PJ's. He kept the pants firmly in hand.

When his mother saw that he was clutching the waistline while posing for the picture, she said, "Leon, du musht net deh hussa uff haeva." (Leon, you don't have to hold up your pants.) He was an obedient little boy, so he let go, and the pants plummeted to his ankles. The picture waited till he retrieved them. Everyone looks happy on the picture, and no one minds that Leon is holding on to his pants.

Alan must have relayed the story to Leon because the next day when his own small son took a tumble and was totally embarrassed, he consoled him by saying, "At least your pants didn't fall down."

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Myron works for Rod and Staff, and told me some astonishing news. They are publishing support materials for the Cup and Cross Anabaptist History textbook we have been using at our high school.

I wish this had happened earlier. It could have saved me a lot of time.

I contacted them several times about such a possibility, and never heard back from them. I also showed them some of the work I had done, with an offer to converse further. Only after that did I offer to sell my materials to some of the people who inquired. Now I realize that I was probably of the wrong gender to do any writing for R & S. I should have thought of that. I don't think Myron knew anything about this background.