IN THE DAYS OF LINDEN HALL [Sat, 9-13-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—IN THE DAYS OF LINDEN HALL [Sat, 9-13-25]

 

Today is the 70^th anniversary of my first day at Indiana University, the start of orientation week in 1955. The 13^th was a Monday that year.

As we get really old, and are less able to do things that make memories, we depend upon memories we’ve already stored up, especially the memories of the hinge times in our lives—a wedding, the birth of a child or grandchild, taking a courageous stand, the moment we felt called to a vocation, the first day of college…

There are very few people left for whom the song below will make sense, but some of my best memories are from the first week, orientation week, of my freshman year at IU, Sept 1955, especially working in the dining room at Rogers Center, where grad students lived, and even more especially “…walking back to good old Linden Hall.”

There are some new dorms named for trees now, even a Linden, but the old Trees Center--hurriedly-built officer training barracks left over from WWII--has been long since demolished. The Education Building stands there now.

Linden and Pine were the dorms for kids on The Residence Scholarship Plan, smart kids who wanted to go to college but didn’t have the money to do so. Unlike kids in the other dorms, we furnished our own sheets and pillows and such, and did our own maid and janitorial work, and worked at least ten hours per week, and maintained a B grade average. [Jon, am I right about that grade average?]

After working breakfast or lunch, we denizens of The Residence Scholarship Program who worked at the Rogers Center dining cafeteria, would walk “home” together: Mary Winstead, Phyllis Brown [I officiated at her wedding to Henry Oakes], Susie [Sara] Hayes, Bill Ridge, Jon Stroble.

The girls had donned their yellow uniform dresses before going over to work. The boys slipped on short white jackets once we got there.

This is to the tune of Love Letters in the Sand.

IN THE DAYS OF LINDEN HALL

On a day like today, when skies were never gray

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

The girls were dressed in yellow

Our hearts were young and mellow

Walking back to good old linden hall

 

The air was full of hopes and dreams that fall

As we walked, we always had a ball

Now that I can barely stand

Wouldn’t it be grand

To be walking back to good old Linden Hall

 

The days were always fair, there was romance in the air

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

Only the sky was blue

There was nothing we couldn’t do

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

 

Our hearts back then were always young and free

We gave no thought to what might come to be

Now as I live in memory

It is so sweet to be

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

 

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

 

BEST & WORST OF TIMES [R, 9-11-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Times of An Old Man—BEST & WORST OF TIMES [R, 9-11-25]

 

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” That’s the famous opening line of Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities.

It has taken me more than two cities, more like eighteen, but I live in the best of times and in the worst of times. The 1950s is the best of times. The 1960s is the worst of times. I live in them both. Nothing since then makes much sense to me.

That doesn’t mean that good things didn’t happen for me in other decades. In the 1970s and ‘80s I got to wear leisure suits and a mint-green tuxedo. [1] In the ‘90s my daughters got married and my grandchildren were born. In the 21^st century, I’ve gotten to live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where the winters are 13 months long, thus preserving us old people with cold, the way hamburger spoils less rapidly in the refrigerator or at room temperature.

It’s easy to see why anyone would want to live in the best of times. But the 1960s, the worst of times?

Okay, I probably don’t have to go back to the ‘60s to live in the worst of times. It’s quite possible that right now is the worst of times, at least for America. Democracy is under siege and almost gone. Culture is vulgar. Hate is patriotic. Education is propaganda. The world is heating at an unsustainable rate. Yes, one could make a very good case for right now being the worst of times…

…but all these current bad times had their seeds in the 1960s. To make it even worse, we were warned about them, right then, by folks as disparate as Rachel Carson and Dwight Eisenhower, and we paid no attention.

Failing to pay attention to the warning signs always produces the worst of times.

The 1960s gave us the Viet Nam War, which in turn gave us drugs and an abiding mistrust of government and public institutions. The 1960s gave us new insight into the deep roots of racism and the perils of global warming. The assassinations of JFK and RFK and MLK showed us where a gun culture would lead. The 1960s gave us Barry Goldwater and the anti-communist domino theory, and the corruptions of Richard Nixon. The 1960s gave us Ronald Reagan and the “trickle down” economic theory and the start of the great wealth divide. [2]

In each new generation, each of these problems has gotten worse.

I live in the present age, but the present age doesn’t live in me.

On my good days, I live in the 1950s, with the joy of “Oh, What A Beautiful Morning” and the innocence of “I Believe.”

On my bad days, I live in the 1960s, with the sarcasm of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” and the warning of “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Yes, here I should provide a note of optimism, but I have outlived optimism. The best I can offer is… well, it’s from the ‘60s…

Keep the faith, baby.

John Robert McFarland

1]I didn’t choose the mint green tux with the ruffled shirt. I had to fill in as a groomsman at the last minute when my associate pastor, Bob Morgan, married Nina Cogswell--thus becoming the Morwells--and the tuxedo was part of the position.

 2] Yes, Reagan was not president in the 1960s, but he was honing his war on the middle class then as governor of California.

ON BEING OPEN [T, 9-9-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—ON BEING OPEN [T, 9-9-25]

 

Recently, on two successive days, with two different groups of friends, I was asked, “How did you handle telling other people about it when you had cancer?”

This arose because each group was concerned about someone who has significant health problems but is secretive about it. “Isn’t that bad for their health?” they asked.

The answer is “Yes.” We have a better chance of getting well if we are open about our difficulties. But…

…there are problems with being open, especially for women, who are often accused of being hypochondriacs if they are open about their symptoms, and accused of being hysterical if they are open about their feelings.

When I was going through cancer, I was totally open about my disease and treatments, and about my feelings. I think it was an important part of my healing. Some folks, though, thought I was too open, and I probably was. I undoubtedly talked too much about throwing up, but that was a regular part of chemotherapy in those days, before the great new anti-nausea drugs were developed, and I felt I needed to be honest about it.

Also, I tried for humor in my openness, because a laugh, or even a smile, makes folks more comfortable, and “puking” or “calling Ralph on the big white phone” or “tossing cookies” is in the humor division, at least the groaning sub-division.

As I contemplated what my first oncologist indicated, that I’d be dead in “a year or two,” I read that cancer patients who kept a journal of their feelings had a 50% better chance of getting well. I read someplace else that patients who went to support group had a 50% better chance of getting well. I’m no dummy; that’s 100%! So I kept a feelings journal and went to support group.

You can be open automatically in a support group, because everyone else has the same problems. No judgment, just understanding.

I had no intention of writing a book about my experience, being that open, with the whole world, but as I wrote in my journal each day, it began to read like a book. I thought, “Okay, this is a way I can be open and be helpful to others, and help with my own healing, too.” [1]

Yes, I think people need to be open about their maladies and feelings. But sometimes that is dangerous. One of the great things about keeping a feelings journal, or just a daily journal, is that you can be totally open, because nobody else sees that openness. Actually writing, on a page or a screen, “I feel like crap,” does something for you that just thinking it does not.

[My great, late friend, Bob Butts, once said to our mutual physician, Dr. Raluca Vucescu, “I feel like crap.” She said, “Bob, you’ve got to give me a symptom I can work with.”]

I was once asked to be the program for a group of old people in my church. I went through Erik Erikson’s 8 stages of psycho-social growth with them.

Erikson points out that each time we enter a new stage, such as moving from intimacy vs isolation to generativity vs stagnation, we have the opportunity to rework all the previous stages. Anything we did not get done at industry vs inferiority, for instance, we have a chance to go back and get right when we start final integrity vs despair, the last stage, the old people stage.

A dignified and intellectual woman approached me after the program. “When I was three,” she said, “my infant brother died. No one talked to me about it. I just knew that I had a little brother, and then I didn’t. I think I’ve carried that as a secret weight in my soul for 77 years. I need to be honest with myself about that. I need, finally, to grieve his loss…”

Old people have some particular problems in trying to be open. Writing, either with a pen or keyboard, might be difficult because of recalcitrant eyes and arthritic fingers. But I recommend trying it. Just do the best you can. Old age is not a disease, but it is our final chance to be open, to ourselves, about who we are.

John Robert McFarland

1] Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel]

 

HOW SHALL THEY HEAR? [Sun, 9-7-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Preacher—HOW SHALL THEY HEAR? [Sun, 9-7-25]

 

As I write this, it is early Sunday morning, and I am thinking about what I’ll preach, even though there is no chance to do so. Because preaching is important. As the Apostle, Paul, said, “How shall they hear without a preacher?” How will folks hear the Good News of Christ, and have the chance to respond to it, unless someone can present it in a helpful fashion?

Unfortunately, preaching is at a low ebb.

My theological alma mater sent all alums an invitation to mentor current students. I was intrigued. I once wanted to teach preaching in a seminary. I thought this mentoring was something I could do even in my old-age decrepitude.

The invitation listed all the areas that might be included in pastoral work and asked us to mark the ones where we could mentor. I ran through categories such as Faith & Culture, Educational Leadership, Pastoral Care, Public Ministry, LGBTQ Studies, Peace Studies, Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care, Ecological Regeneration, Evangelism & Church Planting, Social Organizing…looking for Preaching. It wasn’t there.

Not surprising, really. Very few students at my old alma mater want a career as a parish pastor, and if they do, their interest is in pastoral counseling or church administration, not in preaching.

The assumption seems to be that everyone already knows the Gospel and so, there is no need for preaching. Now we just need ways to apply the Gospel to the world.

 I don’t think that is true.

For sure, traditional forms of preaching are outmoded. One person standing up in front of others for 20 minutes, to educate and inspire… that is totally foreign to the way we do communication now. Yes, even with video clips on the now ubiquitous sanctuary screens, who can take that seriously?

Frankly, I think that the church, and the world, is ready, even yearning, for a renewal of preaching. Yes, I mean one person standing up in front of others and speaking the Word in words.

It’s actually a novel concept in this world of little screens and big screens and all screens in between. I mean, a real person? Just talking? Right to us? No filters? Telling stories? No explosions or dances or flashing lights? How intriguing!

It’s too bad that no one understands what an exciting job that can be.

John Robert McFarland

“How shall they hear without a preacher?” Romans 10:14.

RIP, MARK COX [F, 9-5-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Poignant Griefs of An Old Man—RIP, MARK COX [F, 9-5-25]

 

I don’t have any sons, boys who bear my genes or whom I raised, so I can’t really say what losing a son would be like, but I think it would be a little like losing Mark Cox, who died August 29, 2025.

It was about eight years ago that this tall [6’4”], handsome man, dressed in a three-piece suit, white shirt and silk tie, slipped into our row at church just as the prelude ended, and sat down beside Helen. He crossed his legs. Helen nudged me and nodded at his socks. They were reticulated, pictures of giraffes, his legs so long that they displayed the whole animal. Then we started singing the first hymn. He had a beautiful baritone voice and sang with gusto. Helen had him adopted even before exchanging names after the service.

Michael was with him that day. He, too, was handsome, but dressed more like a special ed teacher than the manager of a men’s clothing store. They hadn’t been together long, and were church shopping, not an easy thing to do for a gay couple. But they had come to the right church. St. Mark’s UMC accepts everyone. As Mark himself complained a few years later, “We’ll accept anyone, as long as they’re not Christian. What’s the point of being included if all you get out of it is good coffee?”

Mark was that rare Christian, gay and born again. As he said to me in an email not long ago, “It’s important to me to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is my savior.”

The church tried to keep Mark out, but he would not go, because he knew Christ was his savior. Mark understood that you can’t separate Christ and Church, because Church is the post-resurrection Body of Christ.

Not just the earthly institution/organization that we call church, although the organization is a part of Christ’s Body. So even if the institutional church treats you badly, and tries to keep you out, if you are a follower of Christ, you can’t give up on it.

Mark never gave up on the church, even though so many of its ways, and so many of its congregations, told him that he was not only a sinner but an “abomination.” They tried to keep him out, and he would not have it, because he knew that he was saved through Christ. With that salvation came membership in the Church, even if the church didn’t like it.

Mark and Michael got married at St. Mark’s. I was pleased, but a little worried. I knew that Michael didn’t share Mark’s emphasis on Christ as Savior. To him, the church was primarily a place to do good for others. He participated in all the many helping activities of our congregation, what Methodists call “social holiness.” Mark was into the moral and spiritual aspects of faith, “personal holiness.” I think that was what split them apart in the end.

We were close to both of them, emotionally and socially. Before covid isolation, when Helen and I were still able to get around, we often ate together, at our house, or theirs, or some restaurant. They came to us for a listening ear when they were down, or struggling with some personal or medical problem. When Covid 19 isolated us, they brought groceries to us. It was that kind of relationship, the kind you’d have with sons.

Indeed, one day after worship, a man there for the first time encountered Mark in the aisle and started chatting. He noticed Helen standing there and asked, “Is this your mother?” Mark just said, “Yes.”

At a Quarryland Chorus concert, where Mark was singing, Michael brought one of his teacher friends. We chatted. After we went back to our seats, another friend overheard the teacher say, "Who are those people?" Michael said, "They think they're our parents." Well...

As they were getting ready to leave Bloomington, to move to North Carolina, the late Dan Hughes, one of our Lay Leaders, said, “We’re going to miss Mark so much. He’s a beacon.”

That he was. In the words of one of those old hymns he loved so much, Let the lower lights be burning. Send a gleam across the wave. Some poor fainting, struggling saman, you may rescue, you may save. Mark was that kind of beacon, especially for other gay folks who had been hurt so badly by the church that they were frightened to keep trying. But when they saw him, towering above the crowd, singing out, they knew they had a home.

The beacon has gone out. It’s way too much like losing a son. But I trust that his salvation, in Christ, is sure.

John Robert McFarland

Mark and I talked frequently of what hymns we wanted to sing in church. We most often longed for: “He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me, and talks with me, along life’s narrow way. He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart. You ask me how I know he lives? He lives, within, my heart!” He wanted to lead it, making the congregation draw out that last “He lives” forever and ever…

 

THE IDEAL PATIENT [W, 9-3-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Adventures of An Old Man—THE IDEAL PATIENT [W, 9-3-25]

 

The main social life of old people is medical appointments, so I went to see our doctor last week. She’s smart, insightful, diligent, and pleasant. She’s managed to stick it out with me for ten years. I thanked her for that.

As I thanked her, I admitted that I am not the ideal patient, because I am not cooperative. I have sometimes rejected tests that she wanted me to take, not because I think I am smarter than she is, or even that I know my body better, but because I do know best what I want out of life. That is more likely to include drinking coffee and watching ballgames than colonoscopies and heart monitors. After all, I’m a busy guy.

What any doctor wants is to help people have better health. Sometimes, though, that is not what we patients want.

That’s especially true with old people. If we want to zip line or parasail, why not? Yes, it would be embarrassing to die from a fall on a mountain, when we are supposed to die from a fall on the doorway rug, but, cremation costs the same, either way.

Even though I am not her ideal patient, our doctor did once say that I am “the perfect patient,” because I tell her my problems in the correct order of symptoms, and stick to the order without distractions. She says she doesn’t even have to take notes.

That’s not surprising; I was a narrative preacher for almost 70 years, and a narrative person for almost 89. I know where to start a story, and where to end it.

So, she was probably expecting one, or more, of those narratives when, after I told her my hip was now better, she asked what else was wrong.

“I’ve got a lot of stuff wrong,” I said, “but I’m not going to tell you about it, because you’ll want to do something about it. Medical people and wives, you dare not tell them anything, unless you want to go through all the annoying bother and pain they’ll put you through to fix it.”

I told her about my encounter with the physical therapist for my hip. I was getting along fine, when one day he had me start all kinds of really exhausting exercises that didn’t seem to have anything to do with my hip. “Why are you making me do this?” I moaned. “I’m dying.”

“Well, you said you wanted better balance.”

“No, I didn’t,” I protested. “I said I have bad balance. I didn’t say I wanted better balance.”

He thought about it and said, “You’re right. You only said you have bad balance. I just assumed that meant you wanted better balance.”

My doctor listened to that, nodded, and said, “Yes. Sometimes we do not listen well. So, we’ll negotiate, you and I. What tests are you willing to do today?”

A breakthrough. She has always just handed a note to the nurse and told her to take me to the lab and have them do the tests on the note. She started reading the stuff on her list. I agreed to some of it. She marked off the rest of it.

 

I was happy that I agreed to some testing, because I got to spend time in the lab waiting room. I had a good time there being pastoral with a young woman who was waiting for a scary test. When the lab woman told me I could go, I said, “No, I want to talk some more.” I didn’t want to leave the young woman in that small room by herself.

I have a bit of a reputation in the doctor place. Once, a nurse stuck her head into the lab waiting room and said, “The word is out that you are in the building.” They have an early warning system, apparently.

As I checked out this time, and made my next appointment, the computer lady asked if I wanted a summary of my visit. I said, “No, I just told her jokes.”

“Oh, tell them to us, too,” she said.

“No,” I replied. “They were all bad jokes. Old men always think they are funny, but they aren’t.”

“Actually,” she said, “you sort of are.”

John Robert McFarland

“Everybody you meet will be either better off or worse off because they spent time with you, even just a moment. Help them be better.” Bill Lennon to his daughters, The Lennon Sisters.

STAYING HUMBLE-WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR [M, 9-1-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man--STAYING HUMBLE-WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR [M, 9-1-25]

 

It’s Labor Day. School starts tomorrow. Well, school has been in session for close to a month now, but back in my day, we started the day after Labor Day, like it says to in the Bible.

I was class president for three years. I was principal bassoonist in the band and orchestra and “loud, clanging cymbalist” in marching band. I was editor of the school newspaper. I was a cleanup-hitting first baseman. I set the all-time record on comprehensive exams [1]. I set the all-time record on the entrance exam at the Potter & Brumfield factory. [2]

What my classmates remember, though, was that I once tried to catch a run-away typewriter carriage. That is ALL that they have ever remembered!

It was our freshman year, in typing class, with Mr. Manford Morrow. I had never experienced a typewriter before. These were manual Royals, with a strong reflex. The first time I hit the “return” button, the carriage raced from left to right with great alacrity, so fast that it was clear that it was going to come right off the machine. I dove for it, ending up on the floor out in the aisle between desks, and I definitely was not just trying to get a better look at Linda Luttrull’s legs, although that was the view I had once down there.

Despite my best effort, I did not catch the carriage, since it, of course, had not come off. How was a farm boy, unused to advanced technology, who even plowed with horses instead of a tractor [3], to know about such things? In my world, if something flew fast from left to right, it came off.

Whenever the class of 1955 has gathered--the class Miss Grace Robb said was more closely involved with one another emotionally than any she ever saw in her many years of teaching--that is the story they have told, with great jocularity, of the skinny farm boy and the run-away typewriter.

They have kept me humble all these years. Whenever I have been tempted to think of myself “more highly than I ought to think,” I remember the laughter of Mike and Bob and the other three Bobs and Shirley and Hovey and Linda and Jack and Kenny and Bill and Donna and Jim and Nancy and Jarvis and Phyllis and Wally and “Rowdy Russ,” who, of course, was not rowdy at all, and the rest of my 61 classmates. And that run-away typewriter.

John Robert McFarland

1] Until James Burch turned his test in 30 minutes later.

Comprehensive exams took a whole day, covering the material of all four years of high school.

2] Until James Burch took the exam the next day. I missed one question. James, of course, got a perfect score.

I love James Burch. He was always willing to take the “smartness” pressure off me. We called him “Wally,” after the Mr. Peepers character of Wally Cox.

When we went to the Dog ‘N Suds in Ft. Branch, he tried to pick up girls by saying things like, “Hey, baby, want to hear me spell parsimonious? No? How’s about antidisestablishmentarianism?”

3] We later had a tractor, an orange Case. I kept a model of it on my book case, until I gave it to my grandson. It’s time to do things like that.

JESUS & JUSTICE [Sat, 8-30-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Activities of An Old Man--JESUS & JUSTICE [Sat, 8-30-25]

 

[Following up on the recent column about my attempts to work for fairness… and to increase the use of ellipses…]

In this old age, my ability to work for fairness is diminished to the point of nothingness. I am reduced to voting, donating, and sending ignored letters, and signing useless petitions. Voting and donating are important, but not very satisfying to one who has devoted his life to action to achieve fairness.

Now that may sound strange for a preacher. After all, was not my life supposed to be devoted to building up the church and getting people saved? Yes, which is why I had to work for justice.

We got people saved [a very bad phrase theologically] so they could go to heaven. But they couldn’t go to heaven if they didn’t work for justice on earth. Don’t blame me; that’s what Jesus said. [Mt. 25:31-46; Mt. 6:10.]

 

Anyway, looking back on my life, as old folks must do when we don’t have any life to live in the now, I am asking: Did I work for justice? The answer is affirmative. I wasn’t always effective, but I did try. I was never a ground-breaker. Other folks started justice movements, and I joined at some point. But followers are important, too. A movement doesn’t move without followers.

I think back to the movements I joined and am pleased that I got to be part of them… Integration and Civil Rights… voting rights… Vietnam… abortion rights… equal rights for women… women in the ministry… Central America… cancer… gender equality… veterans… the environment… democracy…

None of these movements has been completely successful. Well, I suppose ending the war in Vietnam… it did end. But we are still dealing with the damage it did to people and families and trust. The other movements…they will be necessary forever, because there are always counter movements by those who do not want justice, who want unfair advantages for themselves and those like them.

One of the great problems we have in achieving fairness is that folks who are working for unfair advantage often don’t know that is what they are doing. It is true that “…if you’ve always had advantage, fairness makes you think that you are a victim.”

I know that I have no reason for pride in my actions. I joined those movements, not from a position of understanding from the inside, what those forms of injustice do to people, but from a position of privilege. It’s true that I grew up in poverty, but that’s only a minor inconvenience if you are a tall, white, straight, bass-voiced, intelligent, good-looking male. [Well, some of that may be questionable; I’m not as tall as I used to be.]

No, I am not proud of my participation in those justice movements. I’m just grateful that I got to be a part of them.

John Robert McFarland

“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Amos 5:24

 

SURPRISED BY COURAGE [R, 8-28-25

BEYOND WINTER: The Surprised Revelations of An Old Man--SURPRISED BY COURAGE [R, 8-28-25

 

Daughter Katie Kennedy, the author [1], recently told of how impressed—if that is the right word—her pastor was when she learned that I had started preaching at 19, and went on until I was 87. Pastor Dani had the good sense to wait until she had graduated seminary, and had grown up a little, before she started to preach.

It is true that I had not intended to start preaching at 19, with a regular, every-Sunday, appointment. It is true that when I told the District Superintendent that I was thinking about being a preacher, that he said, “Good. You can start next Sunday.” It is true that I started preaching just because I did not know how to say “No.”

As I have thought about it these 70 years later, though, I realize that by 19 I had learned that I was competent. Growing up on the farm, and the affirmations of my Oakland City schoolmates, had shown me that even though I was too young to know how to do something, that I could learn how. I could learn by doing, and from those who were with me in the doing. [2]

I said this to Katie when she told me about Pastor Dani’s look of shock, upon learning how young I was when I started, and she said something that surprised me: “Yes, you knew you could learn, and also you did it because of your natural courage.”

Natural courage? I have never been a courageous person. I have been afraid most of my life—afraid of pain, of embarrassment, of failure, of judgment, of being rejected, of hurting someone’s feelings...

I have been courageous on only one front: unfairness.

I don’t mean equality. People who want to be unfair always accuse us fairness people of wanting equality. “Equality is not possible,” they say. “People are born with differing amounts of brain power, and physical power, etc.” Of course. Everybody knows that.

But despite different personal inborn speeds and different spots on the starting line, everyone can be given a fair chance to run the race. Fairness is always possible, even though equality is not.

I started early in my war on unfairness. I was barely four. We were living with my grandparents, because of The Great Depression. My four-years-older sister, Mary V, was allowed to eat white bread, because she was a mature eight-year-old and did what she wanted anyway, but my mother required me to eat brown bread, because, she claimed, it was healthier for a growing boy.

That was unfair. If Mary V got to eat less healthy bread, I should, too. I decided to protest, to demonstrate. I pushed my head into a niche of a wall, since that was the obvious way to protest brown bread. It got stuck.

I learned that protesting had a price. But I also learned that there are those who will join you if you protest. My five-foot grandmother pulled at the wall, content to tear the house down to save her favorite [only, at that time] grandson.

That disgust with unfairness never left me.

When I was growing up, racial prejudice was the great unfairness. I did not think that all black folks and all white folks were equal. Goodness, those big black ball players and sprinters were way more than equal to us skinny white boys. And it was manifestly unfair to say that they should not be allowed to play and race because they were “inferior.” Clearly, they were not.

Equality of opportunity, and treatment--by the law and the school and the church and every other public institution--are matters of fairness.

Racial unfairness is still with us. So is economic unfairness, and gender unfairness, and tax unfairness, and…

Unfairness still rankles me. Always has. I guess it brought out courage in me. Still does. But I like brown bread now.

John Robert McFarland

1] Katie’s most recent book, Did You Hear What Happened in Salem? will be out in about a week. Workman Press, so available wherever books are sold. All her other books are still in print, of course.

2] I have often said that I learned more about ministry from Catherine Adams in 3 months on the Chrisney Circuit than I did in seminary in 3 years. 

UNCLE LOVE [T, 8-26-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Family Musings of An Old Man—UNCLE LOVE [T, 8-26-25]

[Continuing my musings about having a brother…]

 

I think I wanted a brother so much because I had seen the way my father and his brothers lived together…quite literally.

Dad had five brothers…and one sister, Helen. When I married Helen Karr, Aunt Helen [Bell] told her, “I enjoyed being Helen McFarland. I hope you will, too.”

Aunt Helen was second in birth order, Glenn was first, and my father, John, was third. After him came David, Bob, Randall, and Mike.

In addition, they had a sister, Bob’s age, who was actually a cousin. Genevieve was four when her mother died and her father married a woman who did not want her. I doubt that Grandma Mac even blinked when her brother asked her to take Genevieve; she just sent her husband, Harry, to fetch her, with my six-year-old father along for the ride in the Model T. My father said she was wearing a pair of overalls, and that was all she brought with her.

That family survived the Great Depression by living with Grandma and Grandpa Mac in a big old farm house on the edge of Oxford, OH. My mother named it Cedar Crest. The younger boys—Robert, Randall, and Mike—could not get jobs, so they couldn’t marry, and thus were still at home. So was Genevieve.

In addition, Glenn and Mable, and their daughters, Joan [Joann] and Patty; and Helen and Harvey Bell, and their daughter, Elizabeth; and John and Mildred, with Mary V and John Robert; all lived at Cedar Crest whenever they were out of a job, which was most of the time.

No, David, and his wife, Ella Mae, were never in that group. He always had a job.

I think that is why my father never liked David much. He liked all his other brothers, and his sister, but not Dave. [My father was the only person, in family or out, who called him Dave instead of David.] I don’t think Uncle David lorded it over his brothers, that he always had a job and could be independent when they could not, but my father was always aware of it. Daddy was the hardest working man in the history of the world.

To him, hard work and supporting your family was the essence of being a man. It seemed wrong to him that an effete office-work kind of guy--whose wife was always so “frail” that she could not participate in family activity--should be able to support his family while he could not.

Don’t worry. I loved my father, and I respected him. But he was human, and so he had flaws. Some were products of his time, like thinking black folks “should stay in their place.” Another was resenting people he felt had an easy time during the Great Depression.

I never saw my father interact with Dave, since Uncle David never lived at Cedar Crest, or later, since he went off to live in Arizona, for Ella Mae’s health. I did see the way he and Glenn and Bob and Randall and Mike talked together, worked together, puffed their pipes together. There was something comforting, something whole, about that.

So, I always wanted a brother.

John Robert McFarland

I am named John not for my father, but for my mother’s youngest brother, and Robert for my father’s brother, Bob. Uncle Randall felt I should be named for him, since he was my primary care-giver at Cedar Crest, and I would have been fine with that. I did honor him by using his name for the hero in my novel, An Ordinary Man.

 

 

 

BROTHERLY LOVE [Sun, 8-24-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Family Relations of An Old Man—BROTHERLY LOVE [Sun, 8-24-25]

 

August is my brother’s birth month, so I think about him a lot in August, because I really like having a brother. Jim tries to lay low when his birthday comes around, not because he’s vain, but because he doesn’t enjoy attention. He’s a hermit. Married—to the world’s second-most patient woman—but a hermit, nonetheless.

He’s kind of like Daniel Boone—seeing the smoke from his neighbor’s chimney means people are too close, even in the environs outside Santa Fe.

So, he is renewing his passport. He lives in New Mexico and wants to start spending winters in Old Mexico. I guess all the folks from there are now in detention centers in the USA, so he won’t have to deal with people.

I figure if you’ve seen one Mexico, you’ve seen ‘em all, but I’m probably prejudiced because of that bad burrito.

Since he and his wife will be together, he can’t name her as his emergency contact in the US, and they don’t have children, so he’s named me as the emergency contact.

I have looked up the town where they will be staying and gotten a list of “The 15 best things to do in…” I figure when they call me to come down there, I’ll need some stuff to do while they are figuring out if it’s a bailable offense.

It may sound like I’m expecting trouble, but… well, I did decide to watch “The Magnificent Seven,” for pointers, just in case. He’s 9 years younger than I, and you know how little brothers are.

It’s not that Jim intends to be a trouble-maker. In fact, he tries to stay out of trouble, by avoiding people. But people sometimes misunderstand Jim’s silence, think he is planning something nefarious in all that quiet.

It’s the McFarland hermit gene; all McFarlands have it, especially the men. Jim and I haven’t spoken to each other in years. We have a good relationship. We love each other. We even like each other. But we live a long way from each other, and neither of us likes to talk on the phone. We’ll talk, though, if there’s a good reason to say something, like “I’m in jail in Mexico…”

I was the youngest child in our family for 8 years. My sister, Mary Virginia, was four years older. I enjoyed the perks of being youngest. Then Margaret Ann came along. I wasn’t happy about being displaced from the throne of youngest, especially by another sister. [1] If I had to have a younger sib, I wanted it to be someone I could teach baseball, a brother. So I was quite delighted when James Francis entered the world 18 months later. The only problem was that he hated baseball.

I hope I haven’t made you jealous. It’s understandable, if you don’t have a brother. I don’t just love my brother; I love having a brother. When people brag about how much money and fame they have, I whisper to myself, “But I have a brother!”

John Robert McFarland

1] Don’t worry. It didn’t take long to accept Margey. She was awfully cute, and if your little sister adores you as her big brother, you don’t mind being manipulated into doing whatever she wants.

 

 

NEEDY OLD PEOPLE [F, 8-22-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Curmudgeon—NEEDY OLD PEOPLE [F, 8-22-25]

 

We are told that one of the dilemmas of old age is needfulness [not neediness, although that can be a problem, too]. People need to be needed, they say. When we are old, no one needs us anymore. Adult children and social workers seem to think that is a problem.

Some old people, of course, are still needed far too much. There is an amazing number of not just grandparents but great-grandparents who are raising children. Not just caring for them, but full-time rearing, surrogate parents. I have seen those people in action, both as a pastor and in public settings. Did a funeral for one. One of them is a cousin. I stand in awe of them.

Most of us, though, enter a need vacuum as we age, which is why younger people think up so many volunteer opportunities for us. Either that, or they’re trying to get out of work and assume we’ll be gullible enough-because our brains have become mushy with age-to fall for their constant mantra of “You’ve got to stay active, or…” and thus gladly take on burdens from which we’ve worked long and hard to escape.

As a young pastor, I saw retired people as a wonderful source of church volunteers. They were mature, experienced, competent… and unwilling. I railed at them: “Don’t you need to be needed?”

It was retired math professor Larry Ringenberg who set me straight, as he was declining all my pleas that he accept a place on one committee or another. He said, “Nothing good ever happens after midnight or at a committee meeting.”

 

Having had a lot of committee meetings and a lot of after-midnight calls from hospitals and police, by the time I retired, I understood.

Personally, I’m past the need to be needed. I’m delighted no one needs me. But if you feel the need to be needed, Helen has a list of chores I can hand on to you.

John Robert McFarland

“I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my own life and not be ashamed.” Anne Lamott

 

ONE MOMENT AFTER ANOTHER [W, 8-20-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—ONE MOMENT AFTER ANOTHER [W, 8-20-25]

 

Our HOA sent us a letter: “Get rid of those weeds in the pea gravel flower beds around your house or else!” They also posted a notice on our garage door, so that all our neighbors would know what miscreants we are and could put pressure on us to pull our weeds.

We are old and decrepit. We know that Helen can’t pull weeds, because the last time she did it messed up her knee so badly that she had to have a cortisone shot, and it still hurts. And when I lean over, there is a good chance I’ll just keep going until my face is in the pea gravel with the weeds. So we contacted an HOA-approved lawn service to pull the weeds, for an adequate fee, of course. That was three months ago.

So, to avoid being put out on the street, even with the face-plant fear, I have started pulling the weeds myself. One at a time. Each time I pass by the pea gravel beds, as I go to the mail box, or out to walk.

It’s not really a problem, because I’m an incrementalist.

I put the laundry away one item at a time. Whenever I am in the bedroom, I take one item from the basket and put it in a drawer. Back when I could climb a ladder, I put the ladder up under the gutter and cleaned out what I could reach. Then I put the ladder away and got it out again another day, to put it where I could clean a different part of the gutter. I read many books on any given day, often only one page per book. I do the same thing with washing dishes. I don’t read the whole Bible in one day; why should dirty dishes be more important than the Bible?

I was most famous for incremental lawn mowing, since lawns are publicly visible. Chemotherapy made me sun sensitive, and being a fair-skinned farm boy who grew up shirtless before sun block, I’m prone to skin cancer anyway. So I mowed only in the shade. The shade has various shapes at different times of day. So my yard usually had grass of 5 or 6 different lengths and forms, according to where the sun was the last time I mowed. A neighbor, knowing my profession, once asked one of our daughters if there were a religious significance to the triangles and trapezoids of differently heighted grass in our yard. She said yes, apparently figuring it wasn’t as embarrassing if there were a religious reason.

Other people in my family are not incrementalists. They are projectists-they do the whole project at once, be it mowing the lawn or washing the dishes or pulling weeds. They finish what they start…right then and there.

They are sometimes dismayed by my incremental approach. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to clean the whole length of the gutter once the ladder is out? Yes, but efficiency is not the only virtue.

Sometimes I wonder if it would not be better to be a project person, and maybe it would. But I think I’ll just continue to be an incrementalist. It fits me.

Life is made up of moments, one bite of pumpkin pie, one game of trotty horse, one kiss, one prayer, one walk down the aisle. One final farewell…

John Robert McFarland

I WONDER AS I WANDER [M, 8-18-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Folk—I WONDER AS I WANDER [M, 8-18-25]

 

I heard John Jacob Niles in person when he was 72. I was his reverse, 27.

I listen to him now not in person but on a CD, his high almost ghostly voice wandering along my ceiling, wandering as I wonder.

I wonder, as I wander, out under the sky, how Jesus, the savior, came for to die, for poor, onery sinners, like you and like I, I wonder as I wander…

His voice now is a gift from my daughter, Kathleen, who was only a year old when I sat in the auditorium at IN State U in Terre Haute, listening to John Jacob Niles in person.

The folk music revival was well started then, but only a few came to hear the man who had been singing folk music forever, who was probably the greatest folk singer of them all. Because John Jacob Niles was old.

The folk music revival was about young people, groups like The Chad Mitchell Trio and The Kingston Trio, and individuals like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan and Judy Collins. The Weavers were not young, but they were newly discovered after their McCarthy era blacklisting, and they were in their prime, not old, like John Jacob Niles.

Some years ago, I attended a folk concert at which I was introduced as a folk poet/lyricist. I mentioned John Jacob Niles to one of the young singers. He had never heard of him. That is like an American who has never heard of George Washington.

John Jacob Niles didn’t know he was old. He kept composing and singing for another 15 years. That night, though, in the INSU auditorium, the only light a bare spot on his white head, as he sat by himself on a folding chair in the middle of the stage, I was embarrassed. Not for him, but for all the empty seats that surrounded me, for all the people on that campus who thought he was irrelevant because he was old.

The Chad Mitchell Trio came to town a few months later. Their concert was too big for the INSU auditorium. Helen and I listened to them in the basketball arena, part of a sell-out crowd.

Strangely, and sadly, one of the widest gaps between generations is musical.

I put John Jacob Niles’ voice onto the CD player again now, and I know that music is neither young nor old. I worry about young people who don’t have the opportunity to wonder as they wander. John Jacob Niles will always wonder as he wanders, and so will I.

John Robert McFarland

SING ME NOT [Sat, 8-16-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Embarrassing Memories of An Old Man—SING ME NOT [Sat, 8-16-25]

 

Tomorrow is Sunday, the sabbath, the day of rest, the day I devote to recalling all the stupid church stuff I did over 70 years as a preacher.

I’m sure there is no one besides me who has even the slightest memory of the Sunday evening worship service at Mineral City, IN [1] when I sang “Pass Me Not” as a solo, but when I remember it, I cringe. Literally. Why is that? Why should it still be embarrassing after 71 years, when no one else remembers it, when anyone who could remember it is probably dead?

I was preaching at the Methodist churches in 3 tiny Indiana villages, Solsberry [2], Koleen, and Mineral. They were scattered geographically, so I could get to only two of them on a Sunday morning. That meant an evening service at the third church. So that none of the three would always have the early morning or evening service, the services were staggered. I went to Mineral at 9:30 on the 1^st and 3^rd Sundays of the month, and 11:00 on the 2^nd Sunday, and 7:30 pm on the 4^th Sunday. Solsberry and Koleen had similarly irregular schedules.

The evening service at Mineral was rather poorly attended, so in one of those fits of stupidity that I would like to blame on youth, but which is misplaced blame since I kept doing such stupid things my whole career, I told the Mineralites that I would sing a solo if they ever got 50 people to worship at their Sunday evening service. Why I thought that would be an incentive for people to come to church I don’t know, but I didn’t have enough money to promise them something like ice cream. I wasn’t worried, though; 50 people for evening service was a remote goal.

You can guess the next chapter. I counted carefully to be sure. It was actually 51, not even including babies.

I wasn’t a bad singer, but I was not a confident one. I had a decent voice, but a very limited range. I had gained confidence in my singing ability, though, because of Jim Barrett. Jim was a year behind me at Oakland City High School, and my roommate my junior year at IU. He was a music major. When he did not have other responsibilities, he went to church with me and played piano. When he accompanied me, he simply transposed as he played, keeping my voice in range. I didn’t know that; I thought I was getting better.

On that particular Sunday evening, the Mineral folks had borrowed people from all over Greene County to come up with 51 at worship. For some reason, Jim had not gone with me. Instead, the gracious and sweet 90-year-old lady with no music education but plenty of arthritis was playing piano.

I had not prepared anything, of course, for I did not think they could ever get 50 people to church. Only a year before, however, I had sung in a quartet. “Pass Me Not.” A great hymn, and I sounded pretty good when Bob Robling and Dave Lamb and Bob Wallace, real singers, were covering up my wavering bass. So, I asked the pianist if she knew “Pass Me Not.” She thought that maybe she did.  

I suspect that song was never again selected in that church.

It was a disaster. She knew nothing about transposing to fit my range. I switched, almost word by word, from one octave to another, from key to key, even clef to clef, trying to find some common musical ground between voice and piano.

Well, I started this meditation to try to figure out why that incident is still cringe-worthy. It’s no worse than many other embarrassing moments to which I have subjected myself and those who had to witness them. I really have no answer to that, so I’ll just have to let it go.

That’s one of the real advantages of old age. If there is no one else left to remember the stupid stuff you did, you don’t have to remember it, either.

John Robert McFarland

1] It was usually just called Mineral instead of Mineral City, since a church building and three houses don’t really constitute a city.

2] At the time, I thought Solsberry was just a misspelling of the English Salisbury. Later, when I pastored at Arcola, IL, and Jim Cummings was in the congregation, I learned that the town was named for his grandfather, Sol. 

THE DEMANDER [R, 8-14-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—THE DEMANDER [R, 8-14-25]

 

When I was twelve years old, I was once relegated to spending the day at the home of an older relative. I’ll call her Aunt Rhodie. One of my cousins was also parked there for the day.  I’ll call her Paula.

Aunt Rhodie’s care was only a matter of convenience. She was not the type to entertain children. She was willing to give us a simple lunch, but certainly not help us bake cookies or play table games. She didn’t even have things like table games in her house. She wanted to sit and listen to the radio and leave Paula and me to entertain ourselves.

That was okay with me. I could entertain myself just fine. I had a new comic book that I was eager to read. A new comic book was a luxury. Rarely did I have a nickel--or a dime for the really good comic books, like Captain Marvel or Classic Comics. And if my parents saw me reading, it reminded them of all the chores I could be doing instead. Aunt Rhodie’s was a good place to read a new comic book.

Except for Paula. I was a mature and sophisticated twelve-year-old. She was a bratty and entitled seven-year-old. The age and gender gaps were enough, of course, in themselves, to make it a bad day for me, but in addition, Paula was a demander.

She didn’t just demand that I play with her. She wanted to direct every step of the play. “You stand over there, and hold this just so…”

I knew how to play with younger kids. I had a little sister and brother. But they were really little kids then, four and three. I had lived with them, helped to take care of them, even changed their diapers, from the time they were born. If they wanted me to play with them, they begged, not demanded. And I was willing to play with them. Taking them off Mother’s hands was the one thing that did not remind her of chores she wanted me to do.

I sympathized with Paula. She was bored, too. But I was not used to dealing with demanding people, folks who felt they could order you around when they had no right to. Yes, my parents ordered me around, all the time, but they had a right to.

I never figured out how to deal with the demands of the arrogant. [Arrogance is not haughtiness, the way it’s often used, but the assumption you have a right to be in charge.]

The obvious way, of course, to deal with demanders is to say No. You “…draw your own boundaries,” or some other psychological phrase like that.

But if your whole life has been devoted to staying out of trouble, as my twelve-year-old life had been, you really don’t know how to say No. So, with Paula, and so many others through the years, I was passively resistant. I tried to make excuses why I could not meet demands, or act like I had not heard them, or didn’t understand them.

It's a poor approach. It’s dishonest, and so it takes a lot of psychic energy.

I did not ever want to say No because I am a people-pleaser. I want everyone to like me, or at least not cause me trouble. Not surprising, I suppose, that I spent my life in a career where pleasing people [and failing to do so] is part of the job.

But you’re old enough that you know this already. And if you’re a people-pleaser, and you haven’t learned how to say No by now, this is probably irrelevant to you.

About twenty-five years after that day at Aunt Rhodie’s, I officiated at Paula’s wedding. She was a highly accomplished professional woman by that time. I was reluctant. I didn’t think the marriage would last. But, I wanted to please everybody, including Paula’s mother, one of my favorite relatives.

So I stood before them and gave then their vows. I’m sure they were sincere in their answers. But the marriage did not last. It’s hard for demanders to change their ways, be they Paulas or presidents. Especially if no one ever says No.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

REMEMBERING STARDUST [M, 8-11-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—REMEMBERING STARDUST [M, 8-11-25]

 

I’m having trouble with stardust. No, not because I might be stardust before long. I think that would be neat. I mean the song, “Stardust.”

It should be easy. In fact, I have known those words in the past. But if I don’t keep singing them regularly, I forget. No, not the words. I know all the words. I just don’t know where they go in the song.

It’s like “The Old Rugged Cross.” I was doing a memorial service in a funeral home. No problem, because the organist was my church organist, and we knew how to work together, even when things went sideways. [My late great friend, Bob Butts, was from Mississippi and didn’t like it when people said that things “went south,” so…]

Yes, Beth and I could get out of jams in worship, but the family had asked for a soloist from another church. Still, okay. We knew her. Lynne was a nice woman. A good singer. She knew the assigned hymn well, had sung it at many funerals, so she didn’t use a hymnal. And she got one line out of place.

The problem with Old Rugged Cross” is: Any of the lines in “Old Rugged Cross” will fit with any of the others. There is no narrative progression that tells you what should go where.

Lynne sang and sang, experimenting with one line after another, trying to find her way back in. It went on and on. I thought about mouthing words to her, but by that time, I had no idea what line went with what other lines myself. Beth’s arms were drooping, so I gave her our signal, and she did those things organists do to say that the thing is going to be over. Then one long last amen. Lynne looked very relieved.

Songs and poems don’t have to be narrative. Stories do. But that makes non-narrative songs hard to remember. Which verse comes next?

Which brings us back to “Stardust.”

I sing as I walk. On Fridays, I sing a song for each place we have lived. I can’t go home until I’ve done the whole repertoire. I use “Indiana, Our Indiana” for my days as a student at IU. I use “On the Banks of the Wabash/Back Home Again, in Indiana” for when we lived in Terre Haute, since Paul Dresser was a Terre Haute boy.

That leaves me with “Stardust” for Bloomington.

Hoagy Carmichael was the quintessential Bloomington/IU boy. “Stardust” is the quintessential Bloomington melody. [1] But Mitchell Parish was a New York boy, a lyricist for Tin Pan Alley. [2] His lyrics are wonderful. They fit “Stardust.” They fit so well that most people assume Hoagy wrote the melody and lyrics at the same time, even though the melody preceded the lyrics by years, and Hoagy was only a composer, not a lyricist. But Parish’s lyrics aren’t narrative!

Narrative songs and story songs are not necessarily the same. Story songs, like Tom T. Hall’s “The Year that Clayton Delaney Died” is exactly what it says—it tells a story. A narrative song doesn’t automatically tell a story, but it has a beginning and a middle and an end, like “Love Letters in the Sand,” or “Moments to Remember.” It makes narrative sense if you’re trying to remember it.

I’ve always had a good memory. I enjoy learning and reciting poems like Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” I guess I’ll just have to bite the bullet. “So now the purple haze of twilight time…”

John Robert McFarland

1] I’ll never forgive Willie Nelson for doing a concert in the IU Auditorium--with the statue of Hoagy Carmichael right beside his bus--and not doing “Stardust,” which was such a hit for him. Bob and Julie Hammel got very good tickets to Willie’s concert as a welcome “back to Bloomington” gift for us, and Willie didn’t sing any Hoagy songs. You know how Jesus talked about the unforgivable sin?

2] Journalist Monroe Rosenfeld named it that because all the music publishers were bunched together in NYC in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Every office had a string of composers auditioning their newest tries on out-of-tune upright pianos all day long. Rosenfeld said it sounded like beating tin pans together.

THE JOY OF SAYING NO [F, 8-8-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Nos of An Old Curmudgeon—THE JOY OF SAYING NO [F, 8-8-25]

 

Every once in a while, I like to search online for auto insurance. I’m not about to change companies. It’s too complicated and time-consuming. They all use the same algorithms anyway. But I have ulterior motives. [Actually, I don’t have to search online. If I just think about car insurance, I begin to get offers…]

We pay a dollar a mile for insurance, because we drive no farther than the mailbox. That doesn’t matter to the insurance companies. They only want to know how old you are and how old your car is, not how many miles you drive. And what your email address is…

That’s where I get my gleeful revenge. Once you have looked online for car insurance, it’s like an email tsunami. Even people who don’t do car insurance want to give you a quote. Companies with names like Flybynight are as interested as State Farm. Every day in my in-box, I get six or eight offers of insurance, each assuring me that theirs is better than any of the others.

And, one by one, I click on those little boxes to delete them. No, I don’t use the box at the top, where one click obviates all such emails at the same time. I want to click on every one of them, individually. There is such joy in that!

Yes, I know that nobody at those companies knows, because it’s all robotic, but that’s not the point. I’m not trying to get any insurance company execs fired [since I don’t know how]. I do this for my satisfaction and enjoyment.

The aging-well people say that it is important as we age to stay socially engaged. What better social engagement could there be than rejecting car insurance offers?

Well, it would be fun to reject life insurance companies, too, but life insurance companies don’t want to sell to old people, anyway. I got a cold call from one of those companies. I let the woman talk, anticipating the enjoyment of telling her I didn’t want any. She told me what a wonderful plan they had for me and didn’t it sound grand. I allowed as how it did. She asked how old I was. When I told her, she hung up. I mean, didn’t say a thing. Just a solitary click. That just wasn’t fair. I’m supposed to be the one who gets to do that.

Health insurance companies don’t want to sell to old people, either. So I can’t reject their offers. But car insurance is fair game for rejection.

I don’t mean those car repair plans, the ones that keep saying they are about to run out, even though you didn’t even know you had them, and want you to reup right now. They aren’t interested in selling to people who really need them. Our friend, Joan Newsome, got tired of their calls and said “Sure, I’ll buy.”  When they found out how many miles she had on her car, they hung up.

I’m not against insurance. It’s necessary and useful. But I figure at the price we pay, I should get the enjoyment of saying “No” once in a while.

John Robert McFarland