Letting Go

The Life of Riley

Posted on by kwundrow

Ah retirement, or at least the concept of it. Now a days no one really retires. We just become a different kind of busy. I chose volunteering, someone else might pick a part time job, which by the way is what a lot of volunteering turns into these days. It started out as promising to show up a few days a week, but as they figured out how smart all that experience seem to make you coupled with an insane work ethic, and well, there you have it. “I’m sort of retired” becomes your standard reply to “What are you doing these days?”

For me, I was always only sort of retired. I jumped into volunteering for a nonprofit almost immediately after turning in my retirement notice. That was coupled with my seeming inability to walk away from a seasonal teaching job that had consumed the last twenty years of my career and has now morphed into it’s fifth last year of doing it. I am trying to determine if they are that desperate or I am that good, pretty sure it’s desperation. Either way, I have been cajoled into contracting a year at a time for the last five years. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, a very long tunnel. I am slowing down and finding other things to occupy my time. I am in short heading towards the “actually, pretty much, retired” phase.

So what do retired people really do with all that time. The answer is a little of this and a little of that. When truly enjoying the art of retirement, you can actually answer the question “What are you doing today?” with “Nothing.” If reminded that you did that yesterday, just reply “But I wasn’t finished.” On those days when all I have scheduled is nothing, my day starts when I wake up. Follow that up with a couple slow savored cups of coffee, a perusing of the newspaper, including a few puzzles, and then a discussion about what’s for lunch while discussing what’s for dinner.

Alright, I exaggerate. Retirement, other than our Covid-19 quarantine period when the previous statement was pretty accurate, HAS been the life of Riley. I have traveled, albeit for the most part by car, to several of my bucket list destinations. (for reference see a few of my blogs, “The Call of the Road”, “Steel City”, “We’ve Reached Atlanta”) I even got out west for a ski trip with several friends half my age, I think they felt a need for adult supervision and truthfully, their selection might have been poorly thought out. The body may be old but someone needs to explain that to my head and heart.

I think that the best part of retirement has to be the lack of a hard and fast time frame. You get to go to bed when you want to and if you feel like it, get up in time for sunrise or sleep in if you don’t. When traveling, unless you have those required boarding times hanging over your head, you can take your time. You can even stay a few days longer or just stop to visit old friends along the way. You will get home when you are ready to be home. The freedom of not having to look at your watch to be sure you are where you have to be when you need to be, is freeing. My watch is used more to see how many steps I got in than to tell me the time of day. My activity choices now revolve around whether it’s light outside or dark.

Case in point. Today is one of those glorious nothing on my schedule days. I have found time to savor my coffee, listen to some music, do a little fiction reading, get my Valentine’s obligation done, and even write this piece. My only questionable act so far, I reserve the right for one or two more, was to take a walk around the block. Why is that questionable? It is five degrees outside and that might be tolerable for a polar bear, but there’s also the infamous windchill making it feel like seven below. I am going to tell you that the difference is negligible since five degrees is cold, period. But, it was necessary, or so says my doctor who has prescribed it. Did she know it was going to be this cold and why wasn’t she out walking with me? I guess she was hanging out at the emergency room waiting for them to bring me in frozen. But the good news is that this too shall pass. A week from today, my wife and I will be headed to much warmer climes where we will replace today’s ice under our feet with white sand and surf. I think I can already feel it oozing up between my toes.

Ah, the Life of Riley.

It’s Playtime

Posted on by kwundrow

On a recent weekend I found myself the designated grandchildren adhoc guardian for the afternoon while my wife and daughter went shopping. One hour they told me. Certainly I could handle the responsibility for one hour. Well, Jackson was easy. He lately has been into games of strategy and wanted to play solitaire on my phone and who was I to deny him that. Adela was a bit more of a challenge. She is into role playing, imagination and, as a three year old, silly games.

We began with a game I can only describe as “stay on your island”. She would sidle up against one wall of the hallway and order me to the opposite side. Without warning, she would leap to the opposite side and after several failed attempts, I determined I was to mirror the leap to the other opposite side and anticipate her next leap. This went on for, oh let’s say, longer than I was ready, when Adela eventually announced a new game.

Her new game would involve us throwing balls into the laundry bin, but not until she had ample time spent wearing the laundry bin over her head all the while bouncing off the walls blinded by its canvas sides. This new game of “laundry ball” wound up requiring several trips to the playroom to retrieve additional balls of varying size, “no taking the balls back out Opa.” Though interesting for a short time, it was no where near as fun as wearing the laundry bin and was thus not destined to last long.

After several trips to her playroom, sweet Adela emerged with two super hero costumes. She commanded me to put on the green one. I took one look at what she had rolled up in her hands and plotted my escape from this potentially embarrassing playtime activity. My poorly framed excuse was to announce that there was no way I would fit into whatever it was she had for me. With hands on her hips and a look of scorn that could bring down a charging rhino, she proclaimed, dripping with the sarcasm of a three year old, “It’s just a cape Opa.” Jackson, looking up from his solitaire intelligently affirmed that anyone could fit into a cape and warned me that I was going to do some running. Great, they have teamed up on me and I have become the victim.

After donning my cape and having my mask correctly placed on by Adela, how was I to know it was upside down, I was given my instructions. Over the next fifteen minutes we would circle the rooms of the house chasing away the bad guys as super heroes are destined to do. Up one hallway and down the other, through the kitchen and circle the living room, I was unsure I could last. But, I surprised even myself and managed to keep up with my relay mate, Adela.

As I drove home later that day, I mused on having been an almost seventy year old, playing unashamedly with my granddaughter. I started to think back on my own father and asked myself, did he play like that? Now it is only reasonable that I offer a disclaimer. I was raised on a small dairy farm and my dad barely had time to do much of anything other than run the dairy operation, crop the fields and hold down at least two additional part time jobs in an effort to give my five siblings and I the best life he could. It is hardly fair to have expected him to don a cape and run around the house with us, though I must say in hindsight that he deserved a chance to play and a cape for all he did. My dad instead spent his time teaching us how to manage our time, how to be responsible, and how to fix the things in life that kept seeming to break, lessons I have benefitted from throughout my life. He quietly, for the most part, left the playing to my siblings and I.

I am both happy and proud of the fact that I have the time to play. My generation grew up with parents who had been taught by their parents to work hard, to achieve and to survive, and that left little room for play. Though he may not have “played” with me, my dad taught me to fish, or should I say, he tried to teach me. He encouraged me to find time to do more than he ever had the opportunity to do and he taught me about family, about being there in work or play. And for that, I admire him.

I hope you all find time in your day to play. Play reduces stress and, in the case of chasing a three year old, provides great exercise. It reminds us to stop growing old but rather to grow bold, bold enough to play with a child even if it might make you look silly.

Go put on a cape, don a mask, and let a child fall in love with an oversized, slightly awkward, has to be told the rules, playmate. You just might find your imagination supersized.

To my Hallmark Addicts

Posted on by kwundrow

Blame it on COVID isolation or a stressful election waiting game or just plain lack of any serious drive to be meaningful, but I needed a break in my writing. Hopefully you will humor me with your editorial comments after reading this attempt to deal with my funk. I will tell you that writing this piece has definitely lifted my spirits, if even just for a while. But first, you need the set-up to this effort.

My wife and for that matter, her brother Robb, are addicted to the Hallmark Channel and especially to its movie marathons at this time of year. For those of you who have never sat through a Hallmark movie, you have my praise for your persistence but also my pity for what you are missing. While my wife can be moved to tears by the movie, I am humored by the predictability of its plot and characters and tend to get pretty sarcastic during the showing. While watching one the other night with Deb, I bragged that I could write an episode myself. How hard could it be? All it needs is a widower, a too cute kid, colorful townsfolks, a big city women with a slick city boyfriend, a lodge being sold, torn down or foreclosed on and by all means, a dog. Conveniently bring them all accidentally together, stir in some seasonal hijinks and décor and then heat the whole story slowly over a cozy fireplace and you have a Hallmark movie. You might even get an Emmy.

The gauntlet was thrown down by Deb and my co-conspirator and Hallmark critic, Shannon, and I was ready to take on the task. What follows is my first draft. Deb is still laughing upstairs. Hopefully you will be too…………..

Hallmark Presents

A screen play:    Ken Wundrow, Wannabe Hallmark Critic

Editing:                Shannon Briese, Wannabe Hallmark Legal Council

Setting: 

Hill Valley, Idaho  A picturesque village located in Trout Valley, surrounded by majestic, Oh my God the Beauty, mountainside and split through the center of town by the Whopper Trout River. People come here for the trout but stay for the lovely year-round craft and bizarre fair. Town motto: If you can’t get it here, you aren’t trying. (The viewer will be left wondering exactly what it is they were hoping to get.)

Characters:        

Joe Hopelesch   Widowed father of Iotta and owner of the soon to be foreclosed Last Chance Motel. Joe is trying desperately to get customers and raise the money needed to restore the motel to its original glory. He just needs $1,000,000 or a Hallmark miracle.

 Iotta Hopelesch   Twelve-year old precocious daughter of Joe. She has made it her mission to find a mate for her dad and will stop at next to nothing in her quest. Most remarkable features, those adorable brown eyes she can roll at will, and does, and that cute little dimple on her freckled cheek.

Chastity Luking   Big city lawyer for firm advising bank that is foreclosing on The Last Chance Motel. Chastity is working a boyfriend but is seemingly desperate and totally lost outside of the city.

Travelar   Joe and Iotta’s lovable beagle and the watchdog for The Last Chance Motel.

 Bert and Bertha Hopelesch   Joe’s parents who currently manage The Last Chance Motel. A lovable pair often caught rough housing in the vacant motel rooms and the original founders of the motel, dating back to the first days of Hill Valley.

Ethel Farmsby   Mayor of Hill Valley and proprietor of the one and only pharmacy, Ethel’s Potions, where one can get anything you need including all the latest town gossip.

George Farmsby   Husband of Ethel and manager of the bank branch being forced to foreclose on The Last Chance Motel by its corporate headquarters, BBA (Big Bank of America) a cruel and greedy National Chain. George would quit but Ethel demands that he works to keep him out of the pharmacy where years ago he mixed up a prescription and Ethel is still dealing with the coverup.

Colorful Townsfolk   No particular function other than to stroll by the motel aimlessly chatting about saving the old gal. They will create a Save the Motel craft sale and depending on when this airs will be carving pumpkins, selling Christmas trees, organizing the town Easter egg hunt, or selling incredibly lame fireworks and organizing the Hill Valley Firecracker Senior Prom.

Plot Synopsis:

Scene 1 opens with Chastity arguing with her boss about being too busy to travel to some podunk town in the middle of nowhere. She has a Christmas Fund Raiser coming up with her boyfriend, Howard Slick, at the swankiest place in LA and suspects this is the night he pops the question and it better be “will you marry me”. She is about to hit the big three oh and the clock is ticking on his chances. The boss, tells her as soon as the date is over she’s on the next bus to Hill Valley because there’s only one road into town, no airport, no train tracks and one bridge that washes out once a week. (Why the motel can’t find customers when they are trapped there for days on end will remain a Hallmark secret)

Scene 2 finds Chastity broken down on the road into Hill Valley with snow starting to fall. She would have known about the fast-developing blizzard but her boss got her the cheapest rental he could find and it had no radio. Just as she was about to wrap a plastic bread wrapper she found under the front seat over her Gucci boots and hike into town, Joe and Iotta come riding by in The Last Chance Motel pickup. Suggesting she’d never survive the walk to Hill Valley in those fancy boots, he offers her a seat in the bed of the pickup where she belligerently takes her seat on a bale of hay. As they drive toward town, Iotta is heard to say, “what up Dad, she might be a keeper and I ought to have a mom.”

Scene 3 finds Joe, Iotta and Chastity at the pharmacy where Ethel is offering Chastity sturdier boots and a Alpaca coat that she had made for the continuous craft bizarre. Chastity wants to know where she can find the owner of The Last Chance Motel so she can get the papers signed and back on her way. She has obviously not bothered to read the sign on the pick-up’s door. In an awkward moment, Joe identifies himself as one in the same. Iotta chuckles and is heard to say “Even so, dad.” At that moment, Bert and Bertha come waltzing in, literally as there is waltz music being played in the street by a traveling accordion player. Bert announces that it’s now a blizzard and that the bridge is out and the road is closed. Taking a look at Chastity, Bertha says “you’re going to need a room, missy.” Chasity replies “well yeah!’

Scene 4 and Chastity has been informed that the only other place to stay, a B&B owned by one of those colorful townsfolk, is booked up for the weekend. When she is concluding her meeting with George from the bank, a very unproductive meeting at best, she asks if there is any other place to stay. “Well, Miss Luking, there’s the motel.” You know, the one you’re foreclosing on.” Chastity, after obvious embarrassment, heads out of the bank, she is hit by a gust of snow and still wearing her Gucci boots, goes down hard, just then Joe, Iotta and Travelar happen by. Travelar, eager to be helpful, leaps onto Chastity and begins licking her snow-covered face. Joe, pulls Travelar back and offers his hand to Chastity. As he pulls her to her feet, their eyes lock and for a moment she sees what she was really here to get. With the waltz music still playing in the background, muffled through the wailing blizzard wind, Iotta is heard to whisper, “sorry mom, but its been a long time and me and Travelar are sick of taking care of old Joe.”

I leave it to you, my fellow Hallmarkers, to finish the script. I expect no less than a tear jerker, Hallmark miracle ending.

Adventures in Coronavirus Quarantine, or how my past gave me hope for the future

Posted on by kwundrow

I am entering week three of social distancing. The isolation can get a bit overwhelming at times but it also brings out the opportunity to do things you always thought about but never followed through on. We have all been finding time to do some of the things we never found time to do before coronavirus, or Covid-19 as it has come to be known. I still find it interesting that its original designation had to be changed. In the meantime, the “safer at home” rules have created an opportunity for binge watching TV and in my case some nostalgic surfing.

Earlier tonight we enjoyed our third “stay at home virtual get together”. If anything good has come out of this pandemic, it might be that baby boomers have gotten comfortable with live streaming and that we figured out that we could get together with friends for whom the distance between us, had gotten in the way. After spending a night reminiscing with a friend from Arkansas for whom I hold many fond work memories, I found myself longing for just a little more nostalgia.

Enter any one of a host of cable TV apps. I am a child of the sixties. For those of my readers too young to remember those times, think the birth of Star Trek, Bonanza and I Spy. Think the birth of technicolor! The creation of color TV. It was an era of innovation for the baby boomers. We had cut our teeth on Gun Smoke, Have Gun Will Travel and Lassie, all presented in stunning black and white. Suddenly our world exploded with color and our movies gave us something breathtaking, something called Living Technicolor. It was as if God had recreated creation for us right there on the big screen.

I was eleven years old in 1962. I was impressionable and yes naive. Girls were just entering my sphere of awareness and I admit, I had begun writing notes to many of them. This might in fact have been the moment I fantasied myself as a writer. At the very least I was pouring my poetic self into those notes. For you in the world of texting, tweeting and Instagram, I can only express pity for the joy you missed out on in the creation of writing a note and then finding a way to secretly pass it through what was then our crude version of the internet. It was, back then, the friend to friend to friend net. And we never signed a privacy agreement, ever.

It was at this time that a movie came along that to this day remains one of my favorites. I am sure it was not for the acting, though it starred Jimmie Stewart and Maureen O’Hara. It wasn’t for the plot, after all they all followed pretty much the same story line, Jimmie the easy going dad with the mixed up kids trying to define the perfect family. It wasn’t necessarily the acting. What it actually turned out to be was the setting and the girl. The setting was always somewhere you had never been and only imagined you might one day be, and all brought to you in the splendor of “living technicolor”, somehow brighter and clearer than your actual life. The movies took me to a Hollywood Eden and beckoned me to follow. And then there was the girl. She was always the perfect girl, the one you knew one day you would eventually meet, fall in love with and then magically end up with in one of those perfect movie scenes. She was cute, borderline beautiful or as beautiful as an eleven year old could envision, and somehow available if only you knew the right lines. You had to compete with Fabian or Paul Anka but then they were no match for the charm you were imagining you could muster.

My movie was Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation. I probably had seen it half a dozen times already and each and every time I fell for the daughter. In my defense, she was only a couple years older than me and she checked all the boxes, cute, sophisticated and looking for her true love, aka, me. The fact that Jimmie Stewart was her dad only enhanced the relationship. Who wouldn’t want Jimmie Stewart as your dad?

So I have definitely digressed, but you needed the background, whether you wanted it or not. I had just ended our virtual get together, I had enjoyed a scotch or two, and I was waxing nostalgic. When my wife suggested we find a good movie with which to end our evening, who was I to let the opportunity pass me by. She had never heard of the movie, deprived childhood I suspect, and she trusted my opinion. After all, she loved Jimmie Stewart and I convinced her it was a classic. To my sheer delight, two phenomena occurred, it turned out she loved the movie and my memory and expectations were not disappointed. My wife enjoyed the nostalgia that only a Jimmie Stewart movie can bring and my crush was still as idyllic as I remembered her to be.

There is a point here. Coronavirus has forced us into isolation. You would be lying if you weren’t longing for at least a bit of the old normal. I needed an escape. We all need an escape. For me, tonight was all about that escape. The virtual get together gave me a sense of being with my friends even if it was only virtual. Mr Hobbs took me back to a time when life was simple. No work to stress about. No virus for me to worry about. No crashing market and no isolation. Just a moment in time when an eleven year old could imagine a life beyond their everyday existence and a future where the boy meets the girl of his dreams and spends a lifetime getting to woo her. And all in living technicolor.

Body and Soul

Posted on by kwundrow

Body, Mind, Heart and Soul, these were the words that piqued my interest today. I am currently going through a healing process and it has become clear to me how intertwined and dependent these four terms can be.

Let’s start with body. When we are not feeling well, when we have gone through a trauma, when our body needs to be healed, we go to a doctor. They diagnose the problem, assign a regimen of medication, maybe therapy or in some cases, a surgery. The medication assists our body in healing itself. Therapy or surgery, actually repair the damage and begin the process of healing. This is a physical process and in most cases the first place our system looks for the fix. But what if this is not the only issue or possible only a symptom of the real problem.

We might need to consider the mind. The body often can’t heal completely without the healing of the mind. The mind may be causing us to deal with anxiety. “What if I can’t get better?” is the question we begin to want answered. If I want a complete recover, I need to be ready in my mind to deal with the process. Sometimes, there is no true physical issue. The phrase “all in your head” comes to mind. It is true that the perception of pain is in fact all in my head. The pain is real, but it is the mind that interprets the inputs coming from the source of that pain. At other times, the issue is not physical pain, but emotional stress, possibly to the point of depression. If the mind is to be healed, we may need the help of a professional or at least the ear of someone willing to listen and help us confront the source of that anxiety. Just as we can heal the body, so can we heal the mind.

Enter the heart. In this setting I am not talking about the heart as an organ. That would include it in the discussion of the body. I am referring to the heart as the repository of our emotions. If we have suffered a loss, we could be suffering from a broken heart. Not a heart that isn’t functioning but rather a heart that has suffered a loss too big to ignore. At times we may be walking around feeling like there is a figurative hole in our heart. The heart may be the hardest to heal. It unfortunately, at the very least, takes time. Sometimes it requires that we must find a reason to move on. We cannot replace what we lost but we can use the memories to help us find the strength to move on.

And then there is the soul. To talk about healing the soul, we must first understand what it is. The soul is the essence of who we are and who we are meant to be. It is not a physical organ. We don’t know where in the body it resides. We feel it rather than see it. We use the term, “nourish the soul”, but what do we feed the soul. I believe we feed it a dose of purpose, faith and positive thoughts. Stress, lack of faith in people or processes, hopelessness and negative thoughts or behaviors, diminish the soul.

I began this piece with the statement that these four concepts were intertwined. That to truly heal, the prescription must treat all four. To focus on one and ignore the rest, leaves us only partially healed and vulnerable to a relapse. If we are to heal the body, we must heal the mind, heart and soul as well. The prescription must include the medication or repair that the body needs, the help necessary to calm the mind and then restore it to full function, the time needed and a reason for the heart to carry on, and finally, attention to the soul to restore our purpose and provide the nourishment to strengthen us for the process. Just as the doctor will recommend a regiment of medication for the body, knowledge and understanding of the healing process, including the time needed and the ups and downs that will inevitably occur, will help to mend the mind. For the heart, the prescription must include a positive attitude, the opportunity to both face and deal with the healing and strong belief that the people around us truly care and hope for our complete healing. As to the soul, we need to want to heal. We must restore our soul to the strength it will need to regain who we were meant to be and the reason to heal.

I have, over the past several weeks, experienced healing of body, mind, heart and soul. The surgeon fixed the worn out knee while the nurses and physical therapists helped me regain my mobility. Through the early stages of the recover, I fought with the anxiety of sleepless nights, recovery that seemed too slow and the stress of fighting through the pain. The physical therapists were there to encourage me and to calm my anxiety when it would block my ability to heal. My heart was dealing with the loss of my independence and mobility, but my friends and family, and especially my wife were there to listen and remind me that they cared. Their concern reminded me I was never alone and that I could feed on that concern to find the strength to keep working toward my recovery. As to my soul, it never left me. I knew the road ahead when I had made the decision to have the surgery. Each and every person who became a part of the healing strengthened my soul to regain what I had been losing; the positive attitude that had existed before the pain had begun to diminish it.

At sometime, we all face the need to heal. When it is the body only, the process is faith in the diagnosis. But never lose sight of the other three; mind, heart and soul. Each can be dealt with alone or addressed as a group. But in any case, we don’t really need to nor do we accomplish the healing alone. Remember that the people around us are the prescription we need to complete the healing.

First Days

Posted on by kwundrow

This week our children and in my case, grandchild are headed back to school.  Summer is over in some sense and play time is being replaced by school time.  I came across this quote by The Prophet, Khalil Gibran that my sister had shared in a post.

“Your children are not your children, they’re the sons and daughters of life longing for itself. They come through you but they are not from you. And though they are with you, they belong not to you. You can give them your love but not your thoughts. They have their own thoughts. You can house their bodies but not their souls — for the souls are in a place of tomorrow that you cannot visit. Not even in your dreams. You can strive to be like them, but you cannot make them just like you.”

As I read these words and felt them resonate within me, I knew I had to write about my version.

Twenty two years ago this week, I prepared to walk my daughter Kathryn to her very first day of school.  At five years old she was our stubbornly independent challenge.  There was seemingly nothing she didin’t feel she could do on her own.  As we prepared to leave the house, she declared that she did not want me walking her to school.  She was fully intending on taking the five block walk on her own.  As I insisted that it wasn’t going down that way she dug her heels in harder.  After some intense negotiations, I managed to carve out a compromise.  I would be allowed to walk with her to the end of the block before her school but there would be no hand holding.  I accepted this compromise fully believing that she would soften on the way and allow me to go that last block to the school doors.  And with that folly in my head, we set off.

There was no hand holding and as we approached the last block I was being allowed to walk, she informed me she was going to say goodbye and I needed to go home.  The look on her face told me there were no further negotiations to be had.

Now before you think badly of me leaving my precious daughter to walk that last five hundred feet all alone, I at least had one last trick.  As I turned back toward home, with a handshake goodbye, I ducked behind the tree that would hide me from her view.  From my vantage point I was able to watch as she approached the school.  My heart ached as I saw the line of parents standing there with their children, holding hands and hugging them close.  And there was Kathryn, in her first day dress and that Pretty Pony pink backpack.

And then it hit me.  What was the one thing I had wanted for her as I held her tiny body in my arms just moments after her birth?  I wanted her to be independent, to have her own mind about things and the courage and determination to follow her dreams where ever they would take her.  And now, watching her from my hiding spot behind that tree, I realized that she was going to be just fine.

All of this leads me back to the words of the prophet.  We can try to relive our lives through our children. We can try to mold them to the form we would have them take but the truth is they really aren’t ours to keep.  Our role is one of slowly moving away from center stage and back to the wings, where if we are wise, we quietly observe the wonder of life through their eyes.  We understand that we can bring them into this world but it is their world from that moment forward and they belong to it.  They will carve their path and leave their mark and if we trust them to walk that last block alone, the mark they leave, just might be great.

So as you take those first day photos and bid your children goodbye, trust them, trust yourself.  They will succeed if you let them and they will flourish if you encourage them.  This is their first day.