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

 

THE FIFTEEN MILE REACH T, 8-5-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter: THE FIFTEEN MILE REACH T, 8-5-25]

 

Acclaimed Indiana University prof Rebecca Spang [1] went to Harvard as an undergrad to study biology but decided she wanted to study history. Changing departments, though, was not automatic. She had to go through an interview. She told the interviewer that she wanted to study the history of common things, domestic things, the ordinary lives of real people. He said, imperiously, “Miss Spang, this is Harvard; you can’t study home economics here.”

That’s the common understanding of history, isn’t it? It’s about politics and war. And dates. Who was the first president? When was the War of 1812? Who invented gun powder? It’s certainly not about peasant wedding customs.

Our daughter, Katie Kennedy, the author [2] knew better, perhaps because of her mother, an oft-quoted home management expert. [3] Katie knew that politics and war come out of what we live and learn in the commonness of the everyday, within 15 miles of home.

That’s what she discovered when, as a graduate student at the University of Illinois, she studied Russian wedding customs. She wanted to learn how far the Bolshevik Revolution extended beyond the confines of the big cities. It was 15 miles. When you got beyond 15 miles outside the city, the folks still did weddings exactly the way they always had, the new atheistic culture and its anti-religion revolution be damned.

A fifteen-mile reach. It doesn’t have to be a place. Some folks have lived in many different places when growing up. But there is some emotional spot from which you never get more than 15 miles. The customs inside your head and heart are always within that range. You can study the outer limits of the universe or human behavior, but you do it within your 15-mile limit.

What’s inside your 15-mile range?

John Robert McFarland

1] Professor Spang is an authority on the history of France, the 18^th century, restaurants, and money.

2] Katie’s most recent book, Did You Hear What Happened in Salem? is ready for pre-order now. It will be out in Sept.

3] Helen is most frequently quoted for saying: “Men enter assisted living the day they get married.”

 

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS [Sat, 8-2-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS [Sat, 8-2-25]

 

As Trump’s immigration dictates rise and fall without much order or rationale, college students from other countries are often caught in confusion. Will I be deported? Can I go home for a visit and still get back into the US? Will my green card be honored? Will ICE put me in Alligator Alcatraz because I look Mexican even though my Italian ancestors came here 125 years ago?

I’ve known quite a few international students over the years. From those relationships, I have learned that having students from many different cultures and countries enriches a university.

I also know that they can bring problems with them. They don’t always mix well on campus with some other students. Jews and Muslims have long-standing controversies. Sometimes even hatreds. The same is true of Indians and Pakistanis. Russians and Ukrainians. Zulus and Pondo. Irish and English. Poles and Germans. Manchester United and Liverpool.

I’ve gotten to know students from Korea and Germany and Norway and Kenya and Pakistan and Japan. Mostly, though, from Zimbabwe and Ghana.

We interacted mostly around clothing.

The first was when I was an IU undergrad and also the preacher on the Solsberry-Koleen-Mineral Circuit. Preachers were expected, always, to appear in a suit and white shirt and narrow tie. I had one suit. For Christmas, the church folk gave me a clothing store gift certificate to get a new suit.

I told Loyd Bates, the campus minister about it. “You know,” he said, “Stanlake Samkange [Stan’-la-kee Sam-khan’-gee]is just about to get his doctorate. He needs a suit to graduate and go to an interview…”

The folks at the church were a bit miffed that I gave their gift certificate away, but Stanlake got his doctorate, and became “…the most prolific of the first generation of black Zimbabwean creative writers in English.” [Wikipedia] His best-known works are On Trial for My Country, and African Saga, a popular history.

Besides, you can’t wear more than one suit at a time, anyway.

Through the years, I had a lot of Zimbabwean students, like James Dhliwayo and Susan Sithole, in my Wesley Foundations, because Methodists were strong in what was still called Southern Rhodesia when I started preaching.

I also had several students from Ghana, the home of Clement Asare and Sam Asamoah.

Sam was a graduate student at Eastern IL U and a regular attender at the church I pastored. He got sick and was hospitalized. The doctors couldn’t find a cure for whatever ailed him. I went to see him at the hospital, of course, and prayed for him, like I did anyone else I visited. The difference was, he got well immediately.

“It was your prayer,” he said. “You cured me.” As a thank-you, he gave me a beautiful hand-made dashiki. I still have it.

I guess it was an African trade for that suit I gave to Stanlake.

John Robert McFarland

The photo above is Stanlake.

He and I were students in the IU History Dept at the same time, but we never met or had classes together since he was finishing his doctorate and I was still taking survey courses.

 

 

 

WHO WILL YOU BE IN THE ASYLUM? [W, 7-30-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Pretending of An Old Man—WHO WILL YOU BE IN THE ASYLUM? [W, 7-30-25]

 

English poet John Clare spent the last 23 years of his life in an insane asylum, a second stint since he had earlier escaped from another asylum. During those final asylum years, he thought he was Lord Byron or Robert Burns, and, according to Garrison Keillor’s “Writers’ Almanack,” did some of his best work.

Well, yes, if I could think I’m Lord Byron or Robert Burns, or even Garrison Keillor, I could probably write better, too. I don’t think I’d do well in an asylum, though, or even Minneapolis.

If you were committed to an asylum, who would you want as your asylum doppelganger? Apparently, you can do such much better work if you’re someone else.

When I was young, I did some pretending that I was someone else, especially when heaving basketballs at the netless, tilting, rusty iron hoop on the side of the barn. It never occurred to me that it was at least a bit unusual for a Southern Indiana white boy in the 1940-50s to pretend he was Meadowlark Lemon.

I pretended that I was Gil Hodges when I played baseball with Uncle Johnny in our orchard field. That made more sense. Gil and I both played first base, and he lived only a dozen miles from me before he went to play in Brooklyn.

And we were both polite young men. His real name was Hodge, but the secretary in the Dodgers’ office mistakenly added an “s” to his name on his first contract, and he didn’t want to embarrass her by pointing out the mistake. It was more polite to go by a different name the rest of his life.

I wonder if she ever knew about that? And, if so, did she then pretend to be some other secretary?

When I was in high school, I decided I to pretend I was someone who was interesting. I became Johney. The different spelling was so no one would think that I was my father or uncle or cousin or nephew, all of them John or Johnny.

I was really pretending to be Johnny Dark, a comic book action hero. It didn’t work. My friends kept me calling me John. As one said, “You’re too square to be a Johnny.” So much for my life of pretending.

If you want to be taken seriously as a pretender, to be The Great Pretender, you have to be persistent. [1] Like Bob...

When we lived in Mason City, IA, our daughter and her family had a neighbor, Bob, who claimed he was retired as “The # 2 man in the FBI.” He smoked a bent-stem pipe to prove it, as he leaned over his wire fence to tell anyone who passed by about his “real” identity.

It was a total fabrication. He had been a minor functionary for a railroad. But he told that to so many people that the FBI folks came around and told him to stop pretending. He did not, and in his obit, he was identified as the # 2 man in the FBI. That’s great pretending.

Well, back to the earlier question: If you were committed to an asylum—or even to your back yard, as Bob was--who would you want as your asylum doppelganger?

I think I can still hit a hook shot. They’ll probably let me have a nerf ball and a trash can at Peaceful Acres. I think I’ll still be Meadowlark Lemon.

John Robert McFarland

1] A great song, written by Buck Ram, and recorded by The Platters in 1959.]

 

FORGET FIRST; IT’S BETTER THAN FORGIVING [SUN, 7-27-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Preacher—FORGET FIRST; IT’S BETTER THAN FORGIVING [SUN, 7-27-25]

 

[This column is just a personal reminiscence, and a confession of sin, and twice my usual 500-word length, so read only if you have extra time on your hands.]

I wrote last time about my best friend from my time at Garrett Theological Seminary, at Northwestern University. I remember Walt Wagener so well. But when I saw the death listing for Gene Fields [not his real name] in the Garrett alum magazine, I didn’t remember him at all. The name seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t remember… then I read his obit. Oh, yes, Gene was my main adversary/competitor in seminary… and I had totally forgotten about him.

I was so proud. That’s progress, to forget someone you didn’t get along with. I had done the ultimate in forgiving, not just forgiven but forgotten. So I began to review all the reasons we had been competitors… That’s the wrong thing to do.

When I was at the height of my career years, a young woman preacher called and asked to see me. She said, “They say if you want to talk theology, you’re the one to go to.” I was pleased; apparently, I had a rep as a theologian.

We didn’t get to theology right away, though. A little small talk, and then she began to cry. “Why is it that you men preachers are so competitive?”

That’s when we got to theology: original sin. That competitive nature that wants the best for one’s own regardless of what happens to others. Even among preachers. And seminary students.

At Garrett, there were four of us in my class from the same state who were considered the ones to watch for success. I didn’t really feel competitive with the others, but they felt they had to compete with me. We were equal but I was more equal. I wore the bishop’s mantle. [1] I was the one to beat if you wanted to be the best.

I wasn’t really the one to beat, because I wasn’t better. I was just different. That, however, apparently made me look like the one to beat. If there is competition in your nature, you need someone to beat.

Back then, 99% of Protestant seminary students were 22-year-old white males. [About one % of seminary students are 22-year-old while males now.] Gene and Bill and Don were “normal.” They had graduated from small religious colleges. They lived in student apartments and went to school fulltime while their wives supported them—a very common arrangement in those days for guys in any kind of graduate professional education. They ate lunch in the cafeteria. They had church jobs, but only on Sundays, mostly youth work.

I stood out, and everybody knew who I was, because I was different. For a lot of reasons.

I already had a reputation as a civil right advocate. I had started at Perkins School of Theology, at SMU, and Helen and I had been thrown out of town [not the seminary] because we integrated the community center we directed.

I was the first transfer student at Garrett to receive a scholarship. They did not give scholarships to transfers to avoid being accused of stealing students from other seminaries. They made an exception for me because of why I had lost my job and thus could not continue at Perkins.

I pastored a full-time, two-point charge [two churches] while having two children and commuting 65 miles each way every day. No other student had a load like that.

I had graduated from the major state university, “the Godless state university,” in our conference, rather than from a small denominational college.

I commuted and took a sack lunch rather than eat in the cafeteria. That was purely for financial reasons, but the lunches Helen packed for me were far better than eating in the cafeteria. [2] And I got to eat with the elite.

The other brown bag guys were PhD students. There were just five of us, and I was the only one on his first degree. Tom Tredway became president of Augustana College. Ron Goetz became a religion professor at Elmhurst. Bill White became chaplain and religion professor at Ill Wesleyan. James Cone became the famous professor of black power at Union Seminary in New York City. And me. I was considered to be one of that elite group just because I ate with them.

I was a firebrand who took on the establishment. Sometimes the church establishment over pensions or organization. Often the cultural establishment over racism.

I was accused of being the favorite of our bishop because he protected me when I caused problems. But he protected me only because most of the problems I caused were of the “good trouble” variety that John Lewis espoused.

Even though I was young and supposed to keep my mouth shut and let the older and wiser voices prevail, I was a major voice in our conference for racial justice. I got into trouble with lay folks and preachers and even District Superintendents. Some were just gentle racists, advocating always for “more time,” hoping that the problem would solve itself. Others were downright real racists, claiming that black folk “should know their place and stay in it.” [3] They didn’t want to put up with some wiseacre young guy who was too loud and too sure of himself.

Bishop Richard Raines would call me in, tell me to be careful, and then protect me even when I was not careful. That gave me a special status. I wasn’t really Raines’ favorite. Anyone could get the bishop’s favor; you just had to get into “good trouble.” I looked like the favorite, though, because I was the one who wasn’t careful.

There were others, of course, who shared my concern for racial justice. In retrospect, I’m sure that Gene and Bill and Don were among them. But others were more careful about expressing it. Because I was loud, and too sure of myself, I was noticeable, and thus the object of competition.

Gene never gave up competing. Not with me. I hope he forgot about me, as I did him. But it was obvious that he had written his own obit. It was full of accolades and awards that no one else would even know about or care about. Even in death, he wanted everyone to know that he was the best, that he had won the competition. It’s too bad. He really did have a good and useful career. I don’t think he was ever satisfied with it, though.

The problem for me is now that I have been reminded of Gene, I’m going back to competing with him, rehearsing all the ways that he and the others tried to show they were better than I, and all the defenses I used to try to show that they were not. Including all the stuff I have written above.

Sometimes, forgetting is even better than forgiving.

John Robert McFarland

1] The Bishop’s Mantle is by Agnes Sleigh Turnbull.

2] I would not say that the cafeteria food was bad, but one day during lunch someone yelled at Mrs. Rice, the cafeteria director, “Hey, Mrs. Rice, the garbage man is here.” “Good,” returned a female voice, “tell him to leave three bags.”

3] I had a famous confrontation with the local high school principal where I pastored because he would not let the lone black boy in our church go to school there, but insisted he would have to go the city, 20 miles away, to a black high school, even though there was no transportation available.

 

 

 

 

HE BLOOMED WHERE HE WAS PLANTED: WALT WAGENER, 7/7/36-7/17/25 [R. 7/24/25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Hopeful Memories of An Old Man--HE BLOOMED WHERE HE WAS PLANTED: WALT WAGENER, 7/7/36-7/17/25 [R. 7/24/25]

 

Walt was a good listener. One of the people to whom he listened often was Wolfgang Roth, Old Testament professor at Garrett Theological Seminary. Wolfgang pointed out a place in the Talmud where we are reminded that on the day of judgment, we shall be called to account for every thing of beauty in this world that we failed to appreciate.

Walt loved to quote that. More importantly, he lived it. Walt was always the best example I knew of the maxim, “Bloom where you’re planted.”

Walt and I met at Garrett, when he still went by Wally. Strangely, it was after he had graduated, technically, before we met. I did not know many other students at Garrett, only the other daily commuters with whom I shared brown bag lunch time. Walt was a year ahead of me, and the essential home boy. He lived in the married student apartments just a couple of blocks away and went home for lunch. We had no reason to meet.

Yet, I was the only roommate he ever had. For college, at U of WI in Milwaukee, he lived at home and played tight end on the football team. Then he married, so lived in the seminary apartments, not the dorms…

…until the summer after he graduated. He still had one course to take to complete his degree. He was already appointed to be the Methodist campus minister at Whitewater State U. It was too far for a daily commute, so for three weeks, he had to live in the dorm at Garrett, going home only on the weekends.

It was the same three weeks that I could go home only on the weekends because I was taking two semester-length courses crammed into one summer session. Walt and I were assigned to room together just because we were the leftovers.

I know we must have gone to classes and studied, but it seems now that we spent the entire time just sitting on our beds and talking. We found that we shared in commitment to baseball and social justice. It was one of those “I’ve known and liked this guy forever” relationships. Thus it remained forever. We usually lived too far away geographically to continue our eternal conversation regularly. Walt was in WI or NE, I in IN or IL. But we talked on the phone, visited in each other’s homes, met in Chicago to go to baseball games.

That was one of the things we always talked about—baseball. Walt was a true Milwaukee baseball fan, the Braves when they came from Boston, then the Brewers after the Braves moved to Atlanta. But he always honored my love of the Cincinnati Reds and would suggest that our Chicago forays include games when the Reds were in town. He even had a photo made of the Reds’ ballpark jumbotron with a sign welcoming me to the stadium.

Walt’s commitments were few—family, friends, baseball, church, social justice. Through the years he lived out his commitments as a campus minister, a parish pastor, a seminary admissions director, and a hospital chaplain. Wherever those commitments took him, he lived in that moment, bloomed where he was planted.

Whenever we could, we got together on July 7 to celebrate his birthday. He was always seven months older than I. These last few years we celebrated first through the telephone, and when that became too much, through email from me that his wife, Judy, read to him, and email replies from him that he dictated to her. Walt died less than two weeks after that most recent celebration.

I rejoice for all the years he graced the earth with his gentle and caring presence, and I rejoice that he now graces that “great cloud of witnesses” with that same presence.

“For all the saints, who from their labors rest…”

John Robert McFarland

The photo is from Jan. 17, 2013, when Walt was speaking at the MLK Day celebration at Mitchell Community College, in Statesville, NC, telling about marching with MLK in Chicago to end school segregation.

 

BOB HAMMEL, 10/6/36-7/19/25, RIP [M, 7-21-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of an Old Man—BOB HAMMEL, 10/6/36-7/19/25, RIP [M, 7-21-25]

 

The first thing we think of at the name of Bob Hammel is “writer.” Particularly sports writer. That’s how most of us first came to know him. That’s the main reason for all those awards, accolades that would make the rest of us be full of ourselves. In the sports world, those in the know said that he was the equal of Jim Murray of The Los Angelos Times, or Frank Deford, of Sports Illustrated. Most folks didn’t know it though, because Bob wrote for the Bloomington Herald-Times. Acclaim never changed Bob, though. He was always that good-hearted Hoosier boy from Huntington. 

As Helen and I got better acquainted personally with Bob and Julie, we learned that the writing was enabled by that phenomenal memory. He said he retired when he did because he could not remember things like who was the second highest scorer in some 1924 junior varsity game between two schools that didn’t even exist anymore.

No one ever questioned the accuracy of Bob’s facts or the integrity of his writing.

His writing was enabled by his family, both the Huntington family of his youth, and the family he and Julie created over 67 years of marriage. They not only encouraged him and taught him about love but often provided unintentional fodder for his articles and columns.

His writing was also enabled by his faith, acted out in his church commitment and in his life of Jesus values. Bob felt a spiritual dimension in a typewriter keyboard. He once told me that he often felt like a concert pianist as he typed, with the musical notes of words flowing from his fingers, the words selecting and correctly spelling themselves as they came from his fingertips.

And his writing was enabled by his vast array of friends.

So, as one of those friends, I want to concentrate not so much on Bob, the writer, but Bob the friend.

Bob and I missed each other as IU students by only a year. He was only four months older than I, but he graduated high school when he was just sixteen, a year ahead of me. Had I been a year older, we might even have been roommates, for we both lived in the leftover WWII BOQ that served as a dorm for The Residence Scholarship Plan, for poor kids who were motivated but didn’t have the money for college.

We sometimes talked of how much we missed by not meeting then. Instead, forty years later, Methodist Bishop Leroy Hodapp introduced us. IU basketball coach Bob Knight said that Bishop Hodapp was his pastor, and that Bob Hammel was his best friend, most of the time, so the bishop thought Hammel and I should meet. When we met, we did our best to make up for lost time.

Bob was loyal to his friends. Sometimes he was criticized for that, as with his most famous friendship, with Bob Knight. Make no mistake, he recognized the faults of his friends. As a reporter, he always told the truth. But he didn’t let the faults of a friend affect the friendship.

Through the years, when Bob and Julie found out Helen and I were to be in town, they would host us in their home and at one or another of their many favorite restaurants. When we moved back to Bloomington, they welcomed us with tickets to a Willie Nelson concert at the IU Auditorium, and hosted us often for lunch or supper. After they could no longer drive and had to move to assisted living, Bob and I met weekly for coffee, until a bad hip hampered my driving and prevented my walking, and he had a long stint in hospital and rehab and then entered hospice care.

Perhaps I can sum up Bob, my friend, with this story: One day about 30 years ago, Bob and I went to lunch and then to IU basketball practice. Coach Knight was his usual famously profane self. Afterward, I said to Bob, “I wish he would be more creative. He just uses the same foul words over and over. Doesn’t even mix up the order.” Bob replied, with heart-felt Presbyterian gentleness, “Oh, I just wish he wouldn’t use those words at all.”

I thought, “Oh, wait. The preacher wants the coach to cuss creatively, and the sports writer wants him not to cuss at all. Isn’t that backwards?”

Not exactly. That was Bob Hammel.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

MY ESSENCE IS PERFECTION [F, 7-18-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Essence of An Old Man—MY ESSENCE IS PERFECTION [F, 7-18-25]

 

I am re-reading Healthy Aging, by Andrew Weil, MD. In Chapter 17, he talks about “unchanging essence.” [1]

He notes that all of us change as we age. Obviously, our bodies change, but so do our brains and our emotions. We learn new information, get new insights. We are not exactly the same persons today that we were yesterday.

There is, however, an “unchanging essence,” that which has always been and will always be the core of who we are. He gives a whole page of questions to help us determine what that essence is, for we shall age better if we know that personal essence.

It doesn’t take me a whole page to know my essential identity. I am still that little boy who always wanted to be perfect.

I didn’t want to be perfect for bad reasons, so that I could lord my perfection over others. I wanted perfection so that there would be no reason for anyone to criticize me or punish me. Especially, I did not want to have to criticize or punish myself. I wanted to be at-one-ment with God and with myself. I did not want to suffer, either the criticisms of others or the doubts and guilts of myself.

Yes, I wanted everyone to like me, but that is sort of a sub-category of perfection. When I was young, I did not know how hard it is for people to like you when you are perfect.

I learned early that perfection is not possible, but if perfection is your essence, you have to find excuses for your imperfection, because you are still going to try to be true to your essence, still try to be perfect, even when you know you can’t be.

[That’s how essence is: it keeps on trying even when it doesn’t work, even when it knows it doesn’t work.]

There are three excuses we use for not being perfect.

One excuse for imperfection is denial, but that’s never been helpful to me. I can’t claim to be perfect where there is so much evidence to the contrary, especially when there are so many folks willing to point out that evidence.

Another excuse for imperfection is the actions of others. My mother often said, “Look what you made me do!” It’s hard to be perfect when you are causing imperfections even in others.

A third excuse is circumstances. The weather did it. Or society. Or a dog tripped me, or ate it.

Well, there may be more than three excuses. So, you expected me to know them all? I’m not perfect, you know… [Oh, that’s the fourth one—blame others for their expectations.]

John Robert McFarland

1] Weil’s book was pretty good when it was published 20 years ago. He was a pioneer in integrative medicine. I don’t recommend it now, though. He’s not a particularly good writer, and he puts in too much extraneous stuff. Other writers are more up-to-date. However, if you like the food and cooking aspects of health, he’s very much into that.

“The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success.” Irving Berlin [Writer’s Almanac]

 

I’M WORRIED ABOUT YOU; PLEASE GO AWAY

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—I’M WORRIED ABOUT YOU; PLEASE GO AWAY [T, 7-15-25]

 

I recently had a very nice encounter with a man I’ll call Rick. Over ten years, we have occasionally met as we walked the narrow sidewalks of our pleasant neighborhood. Now that Heather has moved, we are the only early morning walkers.

He said, “I’ve been worried about you. I haven’t seen you for so long. I asked around about you, but…”

Asking around in our neighborhood, about anything, will usually result in, “But…”

We are good neighbors in our ‘hood. We greet one another. But if we know another’s name, it is only the first name.

I think the dogs are responsible for that. I know the names of all the dogs in the neighborhood, but they think they are celebrities, and use only one name, like Waggs or Blue, so we humans have begun to do the same, like Madonna or Lizzo. [Yes, I know who Lizzo is.]

I explained to Rick that I had not walked for several months because of my bad hip, but that I was able to walk now because of physical therapy.

Rick did what we all do in a casual conversation. He heard something that caught his attention and went with that, rather than remembering that he was supposed to be worrying about me, since he had not seen me for so long.

“My mother had to have physical therapy. She had a stroke at Thanksgiving time,” he said. He went on to describe his mother’s symptoms before and after PT. “Not surprising that she’s slow to recover,” he said, “because she’s almost 89.”

Almost 89? Guess who else is almost 89! [I thought that; didn’t say it out loud.]

I was dumbstruck. Rick is an old guy. Obviously retired. Yes, he walks better than I do. He’s faster, long loping stride. But I thought that he and I were the same age. No, his mother and I are the same age! That means he must be the same age as my children.

So now I have done it, the same as Rick, the same as we are all wont to do until we learn to listen--hearing that thing that caught my attention and took me away from the main point.

No, the main point is not that I misread his age, that I’m old enough to be his father. No, the main point is that he was worried about me. That is what I need to hear, not that I’m once again flummoxed by how old I am.

Here’s the point: It’s nice to have folks glad you’re present. And it’s nice when they notice your absence and worry about you.

I think a lot of the trouble makers in the world, nobody noticed them when they were absent, so they had to act out their frustrations in order to get attention, to get noticed. Those folks, we need to say to them, “I noticed your absence. I worried about you.”

Now, though, before we can say it, those folks will need to be absent, go away. We probably have the same folks in mind.

John Robert McFarland

My older sister used to work for a travel agency. Their business slogan was, “Please Go Away.” For cruises, it was “Please Go Aweigh.”

 

 

STARTING AT ONE [SAT, 7-12-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—STARTING AT ONE [SAT, 7-12-25]

 

Daughter Katie told us about a little child who called Grandpa to wish him a happy birthday. “How old are you?” she asked. “62,” Grandpa replied. There was a long pause, and then she said, “Did you start at one?”

I recently wrote [6-20-25] about the importance of counting down. Counting up is important, too.  

When I was in grade school, at Lucretia Mott PS # 3, in Indianapolis, we received a weekly “newspaper.” It was about four pages, and often had illustrated articles about what life would be like in the future, especially the 21^st century. The accompanying drawings would show flying automobiles, and people hopping from car to school in space suits, and kids eating a school lunch that was just a little tablet.

I thought it would be neat to experience that, at least a car that could fly, and I asked my mother if she thought I would live to see the 21^st century. After all, I would be 63 when that century arrived, an almost impossible age to comprehend, even though I was starting the counting up at a bit higher than one. Mother allowed as how it was possible that I would see the 21^st century. She was right, even though it took a lot more counting up.

Old friend and former student, Dennis Heller, telephoned recently. He congratulated us on our 66^th wedding anniversary. Then, without meaning to, I think, he gave us a goal. He told us of a couple that has been married 81 years! That’s a lot of counting up! [1]

I have now counted up 25 years into this 21^st century, this century which once seemed so far away. A lot of stuff in those pictures in my grade school paper has happened. I’m disappointed about the flying cars, though.

We could really use flying cars. The roads are clogged. No one can get anywhere.

We used to have trains and buses. What happened to them? Wouldn’t it be better if we had good public transportation? Our idea of public transportation is a Uber, just another car to clog the roads and foul the air.

Yes, but we don’t have public transportation. Or flying cars. We have to live in the reality of our own time. There are no time machines. We get no choice about when we shall live. Only about how…

We all start at one, and count up…

John Robert McFarland

1] They are each 99.