Handle Hard Better

There’s a women’s basketball coach at Duke University whose mantra has become an attitude and a testament to strive for in life, “Handle Hard Better.”

I saw the Sports Center special this past Sunday. I was immediately drawn and impressed by how she and others handle the pressures of everyday life, not just a sport or sports team but to be a successful human being. It’s not a hard attitude to achieve. It takes willpower, perseverance, and discipline to achieve goals that may appear unattainable. 

Kara Lawson’s goal as she prepares her freshman class on the first day of practice, is not to be a great basketball player, but a contributing force for humanity at large. Her intent was to mold her student athletes toward something greater than the sport of basketball.

We have all handled adversity in our collective lives. Many have dreams they want to advance toward but come up short. In the Author Miller Play, Death of a Salesman, Willie Loman’s dreams of success is marginal at best and he reminisces about what could have been before he planted seeds in a garden at night just prior to him committing suicide. His jealousy of his brother, Ben success following his success as a miner compounds his feelings of worthlessness as a human being and father. Though Willie could have gone that tract, he declined and ended up there and gave up on his dreams.

Others, like Job from the Old Testament lost everything, yet persevered to serve a higher power. Once Job had done that God blessed him in his second life ten-fold of everything he had loss. Though the odds were against him, he found a path to personal and spiritual happiness. Most important Job didn’t give up.

I still struggle myself with my dream of becoming a successful writer, making good money and retiring happily in my older years. I too have to handle hard better I know that and also realize that financial success doesn’t equate into person satisfaction of a job done well. When I finished any project, the satisfaction of doing that job with the best possible outcome, is what I strive for more than the royalty check that may come as a result. The monetary benefit will come in time.

The one thing I will not do, ever do, is lose hope and give up on my dream. I made that mistake in my first life. I want to be bestowed those same riches that Job received by tenacious and stubborn perseverance. I intend to handle hard better.

Remembering Someone Special

Yesterday I received sad news concerning an aunt who was dying from Alzheimer’s. She’s now there in Heaven with God. But I want to go back to the first time I met her. I was seven and a half and she was sixteen. Naturally, I was too young to even consider her as anything more than an older girl who I had become used to as my neighbors’ babysitters who were that very age. She had those oval, black framed glasses that I think she had her entire life even after she graduated and went to college.

It was the first time my parents and sister traveled from Wenatchee, Washington to Childress, Texas. I remembered it was always hot down there and Grandma had an assortment of Mason and Ball jars of vegetables, fruits and something I never heard of black-eyed peas stacked in her pantry.

Mom was all emotional about meeting Grandma. She left Texas back in 49, which I considered ancient history. They hugged, kissed, and cried. She then met her youngest sister, Brenda Sue. The whole routine replayed itself and I just sort of stood there not sure what all the fuss was about.

“Jerry, this is your Grandma Lulu Easley, and this is my sister Brenda; your aunt!” She literally had to push me into their circle because back then I was extremely shy and lacked self-confidence. I reluctantly allowed the two to hug me and kissed my cheeks. I’m sure I blushed a crimson but from the sunburn I experienced, no one noticed.

I remembered Grandma, though the years in between have clouded my perception of what she looked like. I also assumed that anyone over thirty were old, so I had a preconceived notion of what she was supposed to look like juxtaposed to how she actually appeared. I remembered gray hair and cat-eyed glasses just like my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Gilstrap, who was also old.

Brenda was slender and looked like a teenager with black bobbed hair, the before mentioned glasses and pretty face and nice smile. She took me by the hand, and we walked about the small bungalow house and outside.

“You ever seen a horny toad?” She asked me in her usual Texas drawl. I shook my head. I hadn’t said a word to her since our meeting with Mom and Grandma. As I mentioned, I was extremely shy. “Cat’s got your tongue?”

“No,” I replied, finding my voice for the first time. “I don’t see any cat around here.”

She laughed then pointed down to the red clay field in the back yard. “That there is a horny toad.”

I looked down and looked in awe at this lizard about half the size opened palm, with horns all over its body, reminding me of one of those dinosaurs Mrs. Gilstrap introduced to us before we departed for summer vacation. “Is that real?”

“You’re funny. Yes, he’s real.” She then reached down and grabbed for him. She missed the first time as it scooted just out of her reach then she entrapped it with both her hands snatched the little bugger and proceeded to show me, offering him to me.

“Does he bite?”

“No, silly, he don’t bite. Go ahead, pet him.”

I petted him and then eventually I got the nerve up to actually hold him in my small hands. I looked up at her my grin belying how this simple and single act actually affected me to this very day as tears water my eyes. Goodbye Brenda, love you always.

Rites of Spring

Oh, Spring is finally around the corner: warmer temperatures, St. Patrick’s Day sales and promotions, and springing forward with daylight savings time. I was never really a fan of moving our clocks and watches forward, being from a time before satellites that automatically changed our times for us, if we possessed that type of technology. I still need to change my clocks on the microwave, my personal watch and my car radio. Having to do this rite is not something I relish.

One other thing I always felt was a bit odd was who and how and why the four time zones and the odd, peculiar way they were set up. I guess Indiana was the worst where a portion of its residents are in eastern time and another percentage are in the central. Idaho isn’t any different except for the caveat that Idaho really should be in the Pacific Time Zone, and I’ll explain my position.

When I moved to Gooding for a short period in 2021, I noticed though we were in the Mountain Time zone in Southern Idaho, the times appeared no different than Pacific though it was just an hour later. In other words, I saw the sun rise around five in the morning, though where I lived in Washington the sun peaked over the horizon at four, but when the sun set at nine or 9:30 in Spokane it was well after ten at night when the sun disappeared. 

I think if the government genuinely wanted to make changes that makes sense, remap the time zones. It’s the kind of gerrymandering that no one in this day and age even see as sensical. The other is eliminate changing the clocks altogether. We don’t need a daylight savings time anymore. It messes with our health for one. It messes with how we calculate our rhythms, biological and psychotically for another.

While it does help farmers work harder at harvesting crops later in the evening while the sun is still out, it can easily be argued that the farmers of America merely have to get up earlier. After all, most people don’t want to be outside in the heat of the day if they don’t have to. I would imagine farmers do that for the most part anyway—work until it became too hot and take a siesta until it cooled down.

The other night my local news station begged the argument asking an interesting question. “How will we know to check our smoke alarms if we go to just standard time year-round?” The weather lady or meteorologist suggested setting dates that we all celebrate such as New Years and Independence Day. Sounds good to me, I say.

The Confession

“Forgive me father for I have sinned,” Joey Maccoullah, told the elderly priest in the confessional while crossing himself reverently. “It has been several years since I confessed my sins to you and to God, though I’m certain, He knows.”

“Unburden yourself my son,” the father’s breath smelled of garlic and white wine that came from the slight opening of the partition. Since Joey was old enough, his family and friends called him Mac. He held himself with large boned, Irish stock with curly red hair that he kept covered with a baseball cap, though now he removed it prior to entering the confessional. Though he sat, his knees came well up past his lap, nearly touching his chest. He wore a flannel checkered shirt and dungarees of navy.

“My sins are many, too many to count,” Mac replied being purposefully evasive. “But dear father it’s the sin I’m about to do that will unforgiven.”

“Please, my son, bare your soul to me.” The holy father sounded impatient.

“When was the last time you saw the sun set?”

“I’m sorry? Um, I guess it’s been a while. Lately I haven’t left til very late in the evening.”

“Would you like to see the sun set, Father?”

The silence on the other side of the partition became apparent. Finally, he replied, “My son, you bewilder me. For me to forgive past transgressions, I must here your confession.”

“It’s now or never, Father.” Mac heard the priest shift about on the other side, as if the position he sat had become uncomfortable.

“At least give me one, your most urgent transgression, then I can give you solace through God, Our Holy Father.”

Lone Bouquet Outside Marshall Cemetery

The other day I drove along Melville Road outside Cheney and just outside the chain link fence of Marshall Cemetery laid a lone bouquet. I’m sure it was more than likely left behind or discarded following a service the week prior. I could tell it more than likely appeared fake.

I’m sixty-five years old now and that day is slowly creeping up on me too. It is something I both dread and of course look forward to because after all, death and taxes are inevitable. When we’re young we don’t think about death or dying. We have grown accustomed to that being something our grandparents experience. Now I am that grandparent.

I looked out at the gravestones and flat grave markers and some crosses where the eternal residents reside. How they died, what their thoughts of things passed and yet to come, where they would go in the afterlife, whether their children and children’s children will remember them, and why here of all places.

It’s not a bad place; idyllic and serene, surrounded by pine and fir trees of varying lengths and shapes, and in the warmer seasons a lush lawn of green grass covers their eternal homes. I noticed many of the headstones were in disrepair. I wondered if the cemetery association or grounds people hired to tend this place also cared for the headstones, or was it the responsibility of the surviving family members? If that responsibility did rest with the family, then that will only last as long as that family member or children there after were well enough and able enough to do that necessary chore of love for their dearly departed.

Both my parents reside at the bottom of a couple of lakes near where my sister and I live. I know both mom and dad wished to be cremated but did not elaborate on what to do with their remains. We all just assumed they preferred what we did, rather than go through the added expense of placing them in a mausoleum. After all, after we are gone, who will take the time to clean their brass plaques? Who will lay a bouquet of fake flowers in front of their vault? Who will remember them in two hundred years?

All the cemeteries I ever happened upon, be it curiosity, a service, or no reason at all, such as today, those flowers are on those graves are there for as long as the living are not also residing next to them. After that there are no more flowers. Unless one is a veteran, as I am, no flags will adorn those graves either. They will be forgotten. The headstones will slowly deteriorate and fall into disrepair. Eventually, some real estate corporation will make an offer on the land and those graves will be removed and placed somewhere else.

My love for history dates back to when I was a young boy of ten and eleven when I took my dogs for long walks to an old cemetery far away from the town of East Wenatchee. The history of pioneering families coming to that part of Washington in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries spoke volumes to my young imagination and I was hooked.

After I graduated from Washington State, I took a job working for a cemetery, getting the gravesite readied and looking appropriate. After all, death is inevitable, but no one wants to be reminded of their own mortality and doing the various maintenance and lawn care tasks required to make this final resting place look welcoming. The hardest job I ever experienced, and to this day it still makes me emotional was the day I hand dug a grave for an infant. The soil was rocky, as if God had preordained this spot where His babies would find solace forever. Everywhere else on that cemetery, the earth had little to no rocks, but not here. Not on this spot where children from after birth to ten years old rested.

After I’m gone, I too intend to be cremated and I wish my ashes to fly freely in the winds where I can be remembered for the words, I wrote not a gravestone for fake flowers.

Hole in a Heart

It’s the title of an Eagles song that hold meaning to me because of the loss of our mother back in 2009. It became a theme song of sorts. Last week when I got back to work from my usual two-day break, I discovered during our morning meeting that there was a sympathy card for us to sign for a fellow co-worker. Having not gotten the news I asked why. 

“Her daughter passed away,” my supervisor told me.

I personally consider this co-worker more of an acquaintance than friend. More to the point she is mostly a pain that I sometimes tolerate because to tell her how I honestly feel toward her I would be written up or terminated. But, upon hearing this news I was shocked to the core and my hyper emotion came out as a choked a sob of sadness at her loss.

To lose one’s relative is tough enough, but to lose a child, it must be the worse of all. Your child is expected to outlive you. They’re the ones who cry over your memorial or funeral, not the other way around. This really is no word to describe the person upon losing a child. Spouses become widow or widower; a child becomes an orphan.

Saturday, she had a memorial service at the Kalispel Ballroom for her daughter. I never met her, but my co-workers and I went there to ay our respects to her, our co-worker. The place naturally was packed, and we found a spot toward the back of the room. 

People, her friends and acquaintances came up to the front and delivered testimonials of her life and how she affected them, a typical service. Not more than maybe five minutes later, our co-worker, wearing a black and white dress and clutching a handkerchief came out to the hallway and we came out and greeted her. My emotions came out fully as I saw the devastated expression on her face. We all went to her and gave her a flower and cards, then we all hugged her individually. Some of us expressed heartfelt condolences and sympathy, while others, like me simply hugged her tightly and tearfully let go.

Later as I walked out to the parking garage to get into my car, that song came to mind. There truly is a hole in her heart now.

Effects

Yesterday, I had no idea what to present in my blog. Today someone, maybe more, decided to shoot firearms at people in a parade.

But, like you my loyal readers, I’m tired of reporting about mass shootings of innocent people. I mean, anymore we all have become numb to this madness. Politicians either don’t or can’t do anything about this. Obviously, they are weak old men and women who rather put out press releases and promising something must be down someday.

Anyway, my beta reader, after finishing reading a manuscript, I had written some time ago gave me a critique that gave me pause. The gist of the story is that the protagonist, a woman detective ends up being the victim of an abductor who, along with another character sexually abuses her, culminating in her eventual rescue and the demise of one of the antagonists. 

Her criticism ranged in the idea of how I treated the female detective’s adjustment following her abduction. I went into the internet archives and discovered that though I might have skimmed over the aftermath too generally, the effects as I described and what the article’s author noted were mostly the same.

Like any trauma in our lives, we must cope and learn to adjust, adapt and overcome, as my drill sergeants instilled into me at both basic and advanced training. One thing the author of this article explained was that the victim needed time to adjust to their abduction for full recovery to take place.

My protagonist by every notion and description, is strong and strong-willed who took charge and led the detective agency with a velvet glove. When I first introduced her, she was a young woman who had self-doubt issues stemming from her belief she was obese and unattractive. Her one true ability that gave her confidence was being a sure shot with a handgun. It was something her grandfather taught her, and that ability got her into the FBI and later as a private detective.

I argued that point to my beta reader that her confidence made her overcome the trauma she experienced at the hands of these men. I have since rewritten the parts of the book that she explained didn’t ring true in her mind and resent it back to her to review. Hopefully, I got it right this time.

End of an Era

There was a building years ago on East Sprague in Spokane that catered to the sex industry, calling itself Déjà vu, an adult dance club, where as my son in law described so eloquently Sunday morning was a haven for all things bad. As many of you my loyal readers know, the sex industry comes in many guises and human trafficking is all but one that I have pointed out in my writings.

Two, yet to be released manuscripts dealt with two separate but equally heinous episodes that I had my protagonists put an end to. But, this is real and what made this event so wonderful was the fact that this building won’t be torn down, but instead made into something better and more positive.

The owner and his son, and grandson, who founded and operate Union Gospel, are the organizers of this former strip club who will make this into a house of worship, a sanctuary for women and girls, men and boys trying to escape these traffickers, and clinic to treat the abused victims through medical and psychological practices.

He went there on Saturday evening and according to him he fell to his knees feeling the holy spirit grip his heart and he openly wept for all those women and girls who allowed themselves to be bared and publicly humiliated. Later, he walked inside and began to use a sledgehammer to help destroy the dance stage where the strippers would flaunt themselves. Finally, the cross was brought in, and each man there touched it and helped lift it onto what remained of that stage. They prayed over it and blessed the new church and the new mission of this building once known for sin and immorality.

As the spokesperson stated on the Facebook page, “Yes, the stage was removed, and we are moving forward with a new day and new purpose for the building, but the last thing we want to do is have people we deeply care about think we want to hurt them.”

I’m not a religious person, but I do believe in the moral compass of life and what is right and wrong. At one point, I basically had the attitude I didn’t much care about morality because I always equated morality with conservative Christian philosophy where everything you believed that wasn’t their belief was wrong. I have lately changed to one who believes that like all things, there are many shades of gray that we are all confronted with. My belief is more rooted to my spirit and how I view the Bible in my way.

This event affected me because as many who read this know, whether Christian or whatever religion, faith or spirit your compass presides, human trafficking, sex exploitation, and sexual abuse have no rights, no more than those drug traffickers or organized crime.

This spokesperson ended by stating, “Don’t get caught up in the hate or the noise. Don’t get sidetracked from what God is really doing. He is on the move! This isn’t about us versus them. This is about Him loving all of us and wanting to set captives free…at the end of the day, these women were created by God, too. He deeply cares for them and so do we!”

What Border Crisis?

We have all seen the news reports, the images of migrants from the southern borders attempting to come into Texas, New Mexico, California, and Arizona wanting a better life than what they endured in Venezuela, Honduras, and Guatemala. Yet, though many on the Republican side demand that President Biden do something, there seems this other side that wants the chaos to continue so a certain candidate for President wins and can take credit and then asks, “what border crisis?”

If as many have stated this crisis is so critical then why is it now that Trump has told lawmakers on his side not to pursue this, though it is earmarked as a bipartisan agreement just waiting for a majority vote in both chambers of Congress and a Presidential signature? Of, course, its our national election cycle and Trump is relying heavily on chaos at the border so that he will be seen as the champion of immigration policy while Biden appears weak and ineffective.

Of course, like marketing the next great product, timing is everything. Biden should have made this deal possible last year. Then the former speaker, McCarthy, Senator Schumer, and Biden, or their surrogates could have hammered out a deal and potentially averted this potential disaster waiting to occur.

Instead, we have a demagogue who is such a narcist that he is more willing to put this country in complete disarray so he can become President for life and deal with the immigration problem his way. It is of course something that would remind everyone of Hitler’s Germany and the Jewish problem.

So long as we have these kinds of issues come where one side demands action from the other side, then turn around and do a 180 degree to say there really is not a serious problem and refuse to do what they perceived is the right thing, then our democracy truly is in peril. We cannot just sit on our hands just so someone else can take the credit because that person happens to be of the same political party demanding something be done. What border crisis, indeed.

I’m So Tired of This

I’m so tired of people. I’m sure you my loyal readers feel that way too. I’m not just talking about politicians who could care less about us, but rather things such as guns, oil, lobbyists and the corporate big wigs and shareholders. No, I’m talking about people in general who don’t listen to a word I or you say. Where having to repeat what you already told them is becoming common place anymore. Or you come on to someone who for whatever reason is upset, angry or frustrated from no fault of your own and he or she retaliates against me, or you because we just happened to be in their cross hairs.

Today I’ve had to deal with a pair of individuals who apparently had more important things on their mind than me and whatever my concern was. As I always do when talking professionally to someone, I start by introducing myself, “Hello, I’m Jerry Schellhammer, etc.…”

I shouldn’t have to repeat my name. That is a given, yet in both cases, they weren’t listening to me, but, rather, their minds were obviously focused on another issue or conversation before mine and they asked me, “Who is this?” No, their next question should have been, “How can I help you Mr. Schellhammer?” Or “What seems to be the problem?” Not. “Who is this?”

On Sunday afternoon, while I was at work, I came upon a situation. The security guard at the casino I work at informed me as he stepped outside the rest room, I was about to go to clean that I needed to see something first. Now this particular restroom was recently renovated with new faucets, toilets, and urinals. It’s state-of-the-art stuff, something to be proud of. 

I walked inside and low and behold one of our wonderful guests decided that we made him spend all his hard-earned money gambling and rewarded us by defecating in one of the urinals. All it did for me is reinforce my opinion that humankind is made up of ignorant pigs who don’t deserve a nice place to come and entertain themselves.

Needless-to-say, I’m really, really tired of this; lack of respect, lack of empathy, lack of common curtesy and sense that has seemingly plagued this country these last few years. It’s not just the politicians I’m tired of, it’s people who generally come across as having their own personal agenda and to hell with everyone else. They feel like they’re entitled and how dare I even acknowledge them unless I’m groveling at their feet. If you want to make America great again, start with acting like you actually give a crap about anyone beside yourselves.