THE BREATH RESET [Sat, 5-31-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Schemes of An Old Man--THE BREATH RESET [Sat, 5-31-25]

 

I am not very good at breathing. I mean, I don’t do it; it just happens.

It’s like the time our state trooper friend stopped a woman for speeding. She was not happy and would not stop haranguing him long enough for him to talk. There was a man in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead. Len said to him, “Sir, if you have any control of this situation, you need to use it now.” The man kept looking straight ahead and said, “I deal with this every day; you’re on your own.”

Well, when it comes to dealing with the breathing situation, my lungs are on their own.

Some people have control of their breathing. They take deep breaths to calm themselves. They take rhythmic breaths to remind themselves to stay in the moment. They do short pants until their breathing is in sync with the universe. They do chants as they breathe, like Joy in, anxiety out. Joy in, anxiety out. Joy in…

I admire them, but…

…I just let my lungs do whatever they want.

That doesn’t always work well. There was a time I was going to a deep-muscle therapist. She could get her fingers into my muscles so far they came out the other side. She kept saying to me, “Breathe! Breathe! Every time I go deep you stop breathing.” Well, what did she expect? Her argument was with my lungs, not with me.

I’m getting a little short of breath now, though, in my old age. My lungs let me know if we are walking uphill, or if I’m on the third rep of my leg swings for my physical therapy exercises.

So, I am going to try a suggestion of Dr. Andrw Weil, from his Healthy Aging book. He says I can reset my life direction by taking a deep breath. It’s good advice, because I need to reset my direction often these days. I get started down the path of anger at politicians and billionaires, and worry about children and other people that the politicians and billionaires are exploiting and damaging, and anger at the church for not being spiritual, and anger at myself for not being perfect, and… well, I can reset, Dr. Weil says, by taking a long, deep breath…

 

Nope. Doesn’t help a bit. I guess my lungs are just going to have to continue getting by on their own while I figure out what to do about this messy world.

John Robert McFarland

“Life is actually pretty easy. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.”

Happy 66^th wedding anniversary to the world’s best wife.

 

 

THE DESIRE FOR A DIFFERENT PLACE [R, 5-29-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Confusing Theology of An Old Man—THE DESIRE FOR A DIFFERENT PLACE [R, 5-29-25]

 

Daughter Katie Kennedy, the author [1], passed along this one told by her pastor, Dani Musselman: A ship was going by a deserted island. They saw smoke and stopped to investigate. They were met by a man who had been marooned there by himself for five years. “If you’re here alone,” said the captain, “why are there three huts?” “Well, one is where I live. One is where I go to church. And the other is where I used to go to church.”

This is Ascension Day, when Jesus ascended to heaven, forty days after Easter. In those forty days, he appeared to disciples and others in various ways and places. Apparently, that wasn’t working all that well, so he decided to go to a better place.

I understand Jesus wanting to ascend to heaven. There is always a tendency to think if we could just be some place else, that would solve our problems.

In the last years of his life, my father moved almost daily it seemed, from a nursing home to an apartment to a different nursing home to a different apartment… It was actually a few months in between each move, but it seemed like daily to Helen and me because we were the ones who had to do the work. He’d inform us that he had moved, and then we would get his utilities hooked or unhooked, get his furniture put some place else, change his mailing address with Social Security, etc. He was convinced, against all the evidence, that if he just changed his location, he would no longer be old and blind.

It wasn’t that I was unappreciative of that idea. As a young pastor I always thought getting to a different church would cure my problems. Sometimes it cured a particular problem, or person, but there were problem people wherever I went.

I didn’t mind people with problems, since there are no people without problems. But problem people are different from people with problems. You might be able to help a person with their problems. Problem people, though, are beyond help, because they don’t want help. It is their problem-making that gives them an identity.

That’s why heaven is so appealing. If we go to that celestial someplace else, our problems are over. “Just a few more weary days and then, I’ll fly away. To a place where joys will never end, I’ll fly away.” [2]

Didn’t work for Jesus, though, which is why I find Ascension sort of confusing. I mean, Jesus ascended to heaven, but resurrection means that Christ is no longer confined to the human body of Jesus, but is now available to everyone, any place, at any time, through the Spirit.

Poor Jesus. He thought he’d get to go to heaven, and take it easy, but he was resurrected, and now has to be everyplace all the time, going through everybody’s problems with them.

I like singing “I’ll Fly Away.” But I think that until I have ascended, I’m better off singing “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear…” [3]

John Robert McFarland

1] Her most recent book, Did You Hear What Happened in Salem? will be published in September and is available for pre-order now.

2] “I’ll Fly Away.” Albert E. Brumley

3] “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” Joseph M. Scriven

 

 

 

 

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNIE [T, 5-27-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNIE [T, 5-27-25]

 

Yesterday was Memorial Day, and I am thinking about my childhood hero, who was killed in WWII, Ernie Pyle.

His writing as a WWII correspondent endures, much better than that of Ernest Hemmingway. Ernie’s column on The Death of Captain Waskow may be the single most famous piece of war writing ever.

 

I wanted to be a writer like Ernie, because he wrote about my beloved uncles.

Bob and Randall and Mike McFarland were in the Army. Jesse Pond was in the Navy Air Force. Johnny Pond was a Marine. All the folks I knew—in person and on air—said that Ernie Pyle told the truth as he wrote about the common soldier. To me, common soldiers meant my uncles. My first memories were of wanting to be Ernie Pyle. I was too young to be a solider, but I figured I could write about them. I could tell the stories of men like my uncles.

My close relationship with my uncles was born out of The Great Depression. Until I was four, we lived with the McFarland uncles most of the time, because my father couldn’t get a job. Actually, we lived with Grandpa and Grandma Mac, in a big old farm house on the edge of Oxford, OH, that my mother named Cedar Crest, but Bob and Randall and Mike still lived there, too. They could not marry or move out on their own because they could not get jobs, either. Their room was a side porch. I thought it was wonderful. They were great playmates. Uncle Randall, especially, was my main companion and care giver.

We moved to Indianapolis when I was four, because my father found a job there. When Uncle Randall and his brand-new bride, Gertrude Robbins, came through Indianapolis on their honeymoon, headed for California, where he was to report for South Pacific duty, on a train crowded with so many soldiers than nobody had a sleeping berth and some even slept in the aisles, I took Uncle Randall to school with me [1], in his lieutenant’s uniform, to show him off.

 

World War II was the war of my childhood, the context for everything I understood about life—turning off all the lights for air raid drills, knowing the meaning of the color of the star flags in the windows of the houses on the streets I walked, growing a “victory garden,” saving tin cans and grease to help “the war effort,” buying Victory Bonds [Grandma Mac bought one for me that I later cashed in to get a used clarinet so I could be in the band], going without because “the boys overseas” needed stuff more than I did, singing rude songs and telling rude jokes about the Krauts and Japs, singing the stirring songs of every branch of the military, learning that America was always right, but also learning to hate injustice and racism and war, especially in a country that prided itself on being the beacon and model of freedom for the world, and, most importantly, we were one people, united in the defense of democracy and the defeat of Nazism and fascism.

To make my career and personal goal even better, Ernie and I were both Hoosiers. He had even been the first editor of the Indiana University [IU] school newspaper, The Indiana Daily Student. Naturally, I worked up to being editor of my high school paper, Oak Barks, and went on to enroll as a journalism student at IU, in the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism, in its eponymous building, with the idea of replicating Ernie’s career. [2]

 

I attended, with my wife and daughters, the dedication of Ernie’s childhood home in Dana, IN, when it was designated as a State Historic Site in 1976.

 

My dream, of being Ernie, was not fulfilled, since I got sidetracked into preaching. But I never lost that feeling that Ernie and I somehow belonged together, maybe because I also got to tell truth, to tell the same kinds of stories in the pulpit that Ernie wrote in his columns. A different war, but we both told the stories.

John Robert McFarland

1] Lucretia Mott Public School # 3, on Rural Street.

 

2] When I went to IU, The Ernie Pyle School of Journalism had its own building. Journalism has now been subsumed into The Media School, which resides in Franklin Hall, which was the main library in my day. Ernie Pyle Hall, because of its location in the center of campus, beside the Memorial Union building, has been turned into the IU Welcome Center. A statue of Ernie, sitting at his typewriter, now stands near the entrance of Franklin Hall.

 

THE GIFT OF BIG BILL [Sun, 5-25-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—THE GIFT OF BIG BILL [Sun, 5-25-25]

 

We called him Big Bill, mostly because there was another kid in town, a couple of years younger, with the same last name. He, of course, became Little Bill.

Big Bill really was big, from about 8^th grade on. A little over six feet, and heavy. Not fat, except in places. Primarily, he was bumpy. His body was pear-shaped, and lumpy. So was his head, which tapered upward to a lumpy point, a bit like a worn-down mountain range, with tufts of hair, like a burned over forest. And his teeth and nose and eyes and ears all had different ideas about what direction Bill should take.

His social skills were much like his body—bumpy, lumpy, uneven.

As we went through high school years, though, I learned that inside that bunch of lumps, he was a pretty smart guy, and as normal in his hopes and desires as any of the rest of us. So I was not as surprised as other folks when Bill tested well enough to get into the engineering program at a prestigious private university.

He didn’t last long, though. He missed home. He came back to the old home town and stayed, using his interest in engineering to become an auto mechanic.

Big Bill and I were never close, running around together, but we were friendly. When I was class president, I tried to be sure he was always inv involved in class activities, including encouraging him to come to class reunions after graduation. Sometimes I even threatened to kidnap him and take him if he didn't come on his own. That worked. So, through the years, he would call me from time to time.

He never married, although he had a girlfriend for many years. She matched him in size and lumpiness. He called me when she dumped him. “She just used me,” he sighed. “When I got diabetes, I had to stop cooking all the fried meats and sweet treats she liked.”

I guess it was the necessity of diet change that caused him to get into strange medicines, which led to conspiracy theories. He called me each time he had learned some new theory about the rays the government was using to control us, or about some new concoction you could eat or drink that would cure all your ills.

That, though, led to a new possibility. One of the off-beat doctors he consulted lived a hundred miles away, near my father’s nursing home. I asked Big Bill if he would visit Daddy when he was in the area to see the doctor. He did so. My father was so pleased. Here was somebody who knew all about Oakland City, and the curative values of drinking vinegar, something my father had gotten into.

Unfortunately, that relationship did not last long. Bill’s diabetes, or something, caught up to him. Although he was my age, he died before my father did.

His lumpiness and awkwardness were part of him. I guess the strange medicines and conspiracy theories were, too. I remember Big Bill with affection, not despite those qualities, but because of them. He trusted me to deal honestly with him as he was, and that is a great gift.

John Robert McFarland

“Watch to see where God is working and join him.” Henry Blackaby

 

QUIET GRACE AND SILENT MERCIES [F, 5-23-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Campus Minister—QUIET GRACE AND SILENT MERCIES [F, 5-23-25]

 

Going through old files and boxes, as old people should, to discard what is no longer meaningful, and spare others that task, I came across a letter in a small pink envelope. The return address noted that it was from Connie Sullivan. I am too proud of my ability to remember names, and so I was chagrined. I did not recognize that name at all!

There was a good reason for that. I had never met Miss Sullivan.

It was written in the last week of my campus ministry at The Wesley Foundation at IL State U. Connie acknowledged in her letter that we had never met. She felt like she knew me, though, for she had been coming to our Wednesday night communion service throughout her campus years. Now, as I was leaving, she wanted to thank me for that service.

Each Wednesday night, at 9:00, intending to be finished by 9:30, we had a simple communion service in the sanctuary at First Methodist Church. One of our students stood at the doors and handed a single sheet of paper to each person as they entered. The paper gave instructions on how we did the communion, and noted that all were welcome, regardless of religious affiliation. The lights were low, but light enough to read the paper.

A student organist played softly as folks gathered. The sanctuary was large. No one had to sit near anyone else. When the organist finished, we lowered the lights still more, so that it was basically only the chancel that had any light.

Although the light over the pulpit was dimmed, I was able to read a contemporary religious poem as an introduction, then a short scripture, and then I told a little story. Sometimes I wrote a parable. [1] Then I read the simple form of the communion liturgy

I reminded them that all were welcome and invited them to come to the communion rail, kneel, receive the elements, stay at the rail as long at they wished, then leave, or return to their seat for more meditation time.

Our publicity was almost entirely word of mouth. My first year we averaged 34 per service. My 6^th and last year there, we averaged 106.

If you’re averaging 106, that means some services are a lot more, and serving the elements kept me on the move. There was no order. Some stayed at the rail a long time. Some just took the elements and immediately left. They filled in wherever there was space.

I had to be alert to see who needed to be served, and what. I did not serve both elements at the same time. First I gave the bread, and went on down the line, waiting until the communicant had adequate time with the bread before returning and offering the juice. It was quietly hectic, but I loved going up and down behind that rail, with a tray of bread cubes in one hand, and a tray of little juice glasses in the other, watching each expectant face, remembering who needed what.

There were plenty of kids at that service that I never met. They did not come to any other Wesley Foundation programs, so I did not know their names, but I recognized them from seeing them on their knees before me, week after week.

Apparently one of those was Connie Sullivan. So, dear Connie, wherever you are, I pray for you, an old lady now, perhaps with bad knees, unable to kneel for communion, but, still, in spirit and memory, may it be, receiving quiet grace and silent mercies.

John Robert McFarland

1] I had a reputation for parables in those days, when “contemporary worship” was a new and exciting—and controversial—thing. Some of my parables were printed in collections of materials for “contemporary worship.”

WHERE ARE YOU IF YOU ARE NOT HERE? [W, 5-21-23]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Befuddlements of An Old Man—WHERE ARE YOU IF YOU ARE NOT HERE? [W, 5-21-23]

 

I sort of like having folks text their ETA. Especially those who are going to do work in the house. Plumbers and their ilk let you know that you need to get out of your pajamas. 15 minutes out, they text.

One of us especially wants to know when the cleaning lady will arrive, so that she can have the house sparkling before the cleaner gets here with her rags and mops. Don’t want her to think we are dirty people. Well, what other kind of people need her?

So, last week the cleaning lady texted Be there in 10. I quickly picked up all my underwear from the floor. Ten minutes later she texted, I’m here. That meant we should open the garage door for her. Helen looked out the window. Didn’t see anybody. No person. No car. No bucket of cleaning supplies.

She’s been here many times, so we assumed she knew where here is. Not so.

She thought she was here, but she wasn’t. We had no idea where she was, so it was hard to give her directions to get to here.

Often, I have thought I was here when I was not. Many times, I have been anyplace but here. It’s hard to get any cleaning done if you aren’t here.

 

John Robert McFarland

“Housework, if you do it right, will kill you.” Erma Bombeck

 

 

THE GIRL WITH THE BOOK [M, 5-19-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Haunting Memories of An Old Man—THE GIRL WITH THE BOOK [M, 5-19-25]

I am haunted in memory by a girl, around ten years old, walking across the school parking lot while I am waiting for my grandchildren. It’s May. She’s wearing a t-shirt and jeans and running shoes. Yes, even in Iron Mountain, Michigan, some May days are like that.

She is reading a book.

Not just reading. She’s being absorbed into the book. She pays no attention to cars or people in the parking lot. She crosses the street without looking either way. She is not just reading the book; she is in the book.

It was around 15 years ago when I actually saw her. Nowadays perhaps it would be a cell phone that has her attention, but I think not. I think she was a reader. She needed a book in her hands. She needed her nose in the book. She needed that mirror.

At first, I was pleased by the sight. She liked that book so much that she couldn’t put it down. Only two minutes out of school. A lot of kids would say they were tired of reading, only wanted to go get a snack or slump in front of a TV or video game, but not her. She was a true reader.

Then, I had a different thought, a disturbing thought. I know that too many kids dread going home after school, because home is not a safe place. I remember two talented young women, teacher friends of my wife. One was a champion gymnast. The other was an expert juggler. As children, the first spent all her time in the gym because she didn’t want to go home. The second went home, but she spent all her time in her room with the door closed, concentrating on juggling.

Was that fifth-grade girl I so admired for her devotion to reading just using that book as an escape? If so, more power to her. I hope she became a writer.

We have different ways of trying to make sense of life. Writing is one of those ways. Reading is another. Not all readers are writers, but all writers are readers.

When we say writer, we usually think of published authors. James Patterson is a writer. But you don’t have to have readers to be a writer. You just need to be willing to let the words help you learn where you belong.

Reading is a mirror. We can see ourselves in what we read. Writing is a two-way mirror. We see ourselves not just by hearing the story but by telling it.

I prayed for that girl that day, as I watched her walking through the parking lot. She had no idea I was there. She was aware only of the book in front of her face. I prayed not only for her, but I said a prayer of thanks for the author of that book. I still pray for that girl, that regardless of the reason she was reading then, that she can read now and find her place in a world that makes sense.

And if she’s writing, too…all the better.

John Robert McFarland

“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” Horace Mann

 

 

 

 

FEAR AND EASTER [F, 5-16-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Theology of An Old Man—FEAR AND EASTER [F, 5-16-25]

 

[Yes, this was intended for the Easter season, but it got lost. Still relevant, I think.]

Joan Borysenko tells of how she was terrified by monsters under her bed when she was a little girl. She did everything she could to hold them at bay—try to stay awake, keep lights on, beg her parents to stay with her or let her sleep with them, etc. Fear of the monsters took over her life. At last, it became too much to deal with. She finally said to herself, “If they get me, they get me.”

I face the end now with a surprising absence of fear. Perhaps it is just resignation, like Joan’s If they get me, they get me. After all, none of us has an alternative to dead. It’s not If it gets me, it gets me, but When it gets me, it gets me, it gets me.

Some see death as a beginning. I think I am in that number. I have hope for a fearless new “life” in that new “place.”

If hell is real, I suppose that’s the place I have earned. But I have no fear of hell. I used up all my fears in this place, in this life.

I feared everything. Especially criticism. Why did I fear criticism so much? No one likes criticism, but not everyone fears it.

I think I feared my reactions to criticism more than the criticism itself. You either deal with criticism or ignore it. If you ignore it, you are obliterating the critic, saying that person does not matter. But I could never do that to another person. So I had to deal with criticism, take it seriously, one way or another.

I did not want to do either, however, so I tried to avoid criticism entirely by being perfect. [This is where you say, How did that work out for you?]

Some say that the message of Easter is that we need have no fear because resurrection awaits. No, as long as we are alive, there will be fear, because in this world, there is evil. Christ does not take away our fears, but shares them with us, and when those fears are realized, shares with us the hurt.

That’s the point of the resurrection: the risen Christ is now available to everyone, everywhere, all the time, sharing with us—good times, bad times, all times.

The message of Christ—birth, life, crucifixion, resurrection—is not the end of fear. It is the beginning of Presence--the Presence of Christ, the one who is with us, even when bad things happen to good people, even when good things happen to bad people.

If they get me, they get me. So what? They don’t matter. You’ll probably find out they got bored under the bed and left a long time ago.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

THAT IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE [T, 5-13-25]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—THAT IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE [T, 5-13-25]

 

The TV has been out for three days. Two days ago, I spent a whole morning on the telephone, first with a robot woman, and then with a real one, with me crawling around on the floor, trying to get back up, doing all the plugging and replugging and unplugging and multiplugging that they told me to, reciting all the incantations that they knew, and some that I wrote on the spot—Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again…and curse this TV to hell… Finally, it was getting only the Yugoslavian wrestling channel… or something like that.

The real woman finally agreed to send a technician. They should have done that in the first place. After all, that’s why we pay monthly for a service contract.

 The technician came this morning. He didn’t tell me to do anything, or ask me to do anything, just let me sit there on the sofa and watch him work. Within ten minutes, he had everything working correctly, and…

…I learned the difference between good advice and a savior.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

ROME, BASEBALL, & HOME [Saturday, 5-10-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—ROME, BASEBALL, & HOME [Saturday, 5-10-25]

 

With the election of the Chicago pope, I have been thinking about my travel-study trip to Rome. I don’t intend to go to Rome again, to discuss the White Sox with Leo XIV, because the Swiss Guards have my photo on the wall at St. Peter’s Basilica, with a red slash mark through it. They threw me out of there twice in one day, but that’s a different story. This one is about trying to cross a street in Rome.

 

When we traveled, Helen and I often formed a trio with some person traveling alone. It’s just nicer for a solitary traveler to have others with whom to share meals and excursions. So, when we were in Rome, Columbia Seminary professor Will Ormond became our third person. It was great for us, because Will already knew a lot about Rome. So it was that he suggested the three of us go to L’Eau Vive for supper one night.

 

It is a beautiful atmosphere. Nuns from all over the world are the servers, mostly dressed in their native garb. From time to time, with no discernible signal, each stops where they are and they start singing. It’s like a choir of angels.

 

So we were feeling good when we started walking “home,” to the Faculta Waldensa, the only Protestant theological seminary in Rome, our home for the two weeks of our travel seminar sponsored by Princeton’s American Summer Institute.

 

That’s when the problem came, in the form of Rome traffic at night. Rome traffic is bad enough in the day time. Drivers pay no attention to red lights. If you are a pedestrian, and you have the green light, it makes no difference to the drivers. What you do is walk out in front of them, make eye contact with the driver, and make it clear that you intend to keep on walking. It helps if you hold up a furled umbrella to show your lack of fear. Make it clear that if the driver wants to keep on, he’ll have to run over you. That works most of the time, because the only thing worse than the traffic in Rome is the bureaucracy when you have to fill out papers after you have run over someone.

But Helen was a home economist. Will was a homiletics professor. They had no idea how to face down the Rome traffic, especially at night, when it’s hard to make eye contact with drivers, especially on the 8 lanes of The Via La Morte. [Probably not its real name, but it should have been.] I, however, carried an umbrella for just that reason. I said, “Come on,” held up my umbrella, and started out.

I got across to the other side. Helen, however, somehow got marooned on the “safety” island in the middle of the road, and Will had retreated all the way back to the start side. So, first, I held up my umbrella, went and got Helen and dragged her to the home side, then worked my way back to Will, got him by the arm, and forced him and the drivers of Rome to cooperate long enough to get us back to the side where we belonged.

I often think of our Roman escapade during baseball season.

Baseball also is all about returning home, after a perilous journey around the bases, with temporary oases of salvation at each base. Our feet are restless until they find their rest in… the dugout after reaching home. [1]

It’s not impossible. It’s not too late. Just hold up your umbrella, look the devil in the eye, and start across…

I think I’ll send this to the new White Sox fan at the Vatican…

John Robert McFarland

1] A riff on St. Augustine’s prayer, Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.

COLLEGE SPORTS: THE HOUSE THAT MONEY BUILT [W, 5-7-25]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Grievances of An Old Curmudgeon—COLLEGE SPORTS: THE HOUSE THAT MONEY BUILT [W, 5-7-25]

 

I don’t think people should be named House. I missed the first seasons of the TV show, “House,” because I thought it was one of those shows where girls in goggles use sledge hammers to destroy perfectly good homes so that they can add an interior bird bath. If they had even called the show, “House, MD,” I would have realized it was about the irascible Dr. House, played so cleverly by Hugh Laurie. I like that kind of show. I’ve always thought that if I were a physician, I’d like to be a cynical and misanthropic medical genius like Dr. Gregory House.

 

Now I’m confused because all the sports news is about the “House Settlement,” which sounds like the settlement house, Howell House, where I once worked, in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago.

 

No, it’s a law suit about paying college athletes, apparently brought by somebody named House, about who and how much money to pay students who like to play sports, and how colleges can maximize their profits while making it look like athletes are still students, and which athletes who weren’t paid in the past should get some bucks now to make up for their mistreatment back in the day when all they got for playing was a free education.

 

So, you can see why I think somebody should bring a suit to require all people with the name of House to change it, to something like… Domicile? It would get the same idea across, but I doubt that even TV people would be stupid enough to name a show “Domicile.” Well, maybe the House & Garden channel, but old curmudgeons don’t watch it, anyway, so we would not be confused.

I’m not entirely opposed to the new landscape of college sports. Transferring from one school to another, for instance. Why not? Some say because a student-athlete should honor hisher scholarship. I had scholarships in college, but there were no rules to keep me from transferring to a different school. Athletes, however, were required to stay at the school that gave them a scholarship. Until House complained.

Paying college athletes directly, though, is very different from just being able to transfer. “Paid” is the very definition of professional. [The obscuring attempt of NIL is already defunct.] College athletes are no longer student athletes; they are professional athletes.

 

Now, savants are floating the idea that college sports should be divorced from the university itself, live in a different environment and reality. Well, isn’t that already the case? As befits its academic reputation, The University of Kentucky has already split its sports department off into a limited liability corporation [LLC].

Indeed, I predict that within two years, athletes will not be allowed to be enroll as students because it will interfere with their “work” commitments. [Remember that you heard it here first.]

 

Now we have “students” who enroll in four different schools—that is not unusual at all—in their four years of “college” athletics, constantly hunting bigger bucks, a bigger arena to showcase their talents for the “other” professional leagues, where they aren’t bothered with having to go to class. [Actually, most college athletes don’t go to class, anyway. Their “sports marketing” classes are online.]

 

The main reason to go to college is to learn how to think. If you don’t learn that bigger bucks will not make you a better person, or if you don’t learn that a different place won’t solve your problems, you haven’t learned to think.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

HOW TO CHOOSE A DENTIST [Su, 5-4-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Choices of An Old Man—HOW TO CHOOSE A DENTIST [Su, 5-4-25]

 

I chose my new dentist because he has a magnificent beard. As one who has occasionally had his beard pulled, pushed, and pummeled by denizens of the dental disciplines, that is an important factor. Bearded people are more careful about not abusing the beards of others.

I had to choose a new dentist because my “old” one retired. She must be older than she looks. When we started with her, I thought we would die long before she retired. She did not have a beard, but she was okay, although I think she might have put a beard surcharge on my bill. Those things can be hard to read.

I was affirmed in the choice of my new dentist by learning that my old dentist now goes to him for her own dental procedures. 

I thought that my new dentist might reject me when I arrived because, even though I was punctual, I had not accessed “the portal” before coming.

I do not do portals. I think that word should be reserved for terror movies, like “The Portal on Elm Street” and “The Elon & Donald Portal.”

Especially I don’t do portals if said portal claims it will give me an access code but does not.

I do not like to tell ordinary people, however, that I refuse to access portals, because it makes me sound like a grumpy old curmudgeon. Oh…wait…

Anyway, when I went into the reception room, and gathered there were the dentist and the office staff and all the hygienists and a few random strangers off the street [They are across the street from Little Zagreb Steak House, which attracts an interesting array of people], I decided I should explain about my absence in the portal, before anyone could accuse.

“I apologize for not entering through the portal,” I announced, without preamble, “but I suffer from a rare brain condition, called portophilia. My brain cannot process the word port or any word that includes port. I can’t drink that 10W30 wine by that name. I can’t visit the capital of Haiti. I have to stay on the starboard side of ships.”

They looked intrigued. At least… maybe it was intrigue…  there was a lot of laughter, some of it the uncertain variety.

While I had their attention, I decided to press on. “One thing you must understand about my mouth,” I said, “is that I don’t need to look any prettier. [Dentists always want to improve your smile.] I don’t need to attract women. I’ve been married 66 years, and her vision is getting bad anyway. As long as I don’t scare little children, my looks are okay.”

They seemed to think this was an unusual entrance for a new patient.

“Besides,” I went on, “I’m old. I don’t have any dread diseases that I know about, but old age itself is sort of a terminal. I just need to be able to chew until I don’t need to. So, no improvements, just maintenance.”

None of the above is made up, and I recommend this approach to you, because it makes people know they can’t put anything over on you. We’ve been going there for almost a month now, and so far it’s cost us only $2,000.

John Robert McFarland

DEATH LANGUAGE [R, 5-1-25] [Happy May Day!]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—DEATH LANGUAGE [R, 5-1-25] [Happy May Day!]

 

When Bob Butts and I would talk about death in his last years, he always said, “I don’t want people to say I passed on, or that I went to my reward, that sort of crap. Just say, ‘He dead.’”

I preached at his funeral. I thought about getting up and saying “He dead,” and sitting down. He would love that. But I had donned my white pulpit robe, and it seemed like a lot of work for just “He dead.”

Especially in sacred and romantic and generally emotional times and places, we are tempted to go beyond plain language. That’s not all bad. Most of the time, though, even in moments of great poignancy, I suspect that simple language may carry the greatest meaning.

Most of us don’t feel comfortable with expressing deep emotions. Especially about death. Death is so final, and so distressing, if we cared about the deceased. Also, it reminds us that we ourselves are going to die someday, and that can be scary. So, we use euphemisms. We rest in peace, or meet our maker, or pass away. They don’t sound quite so final.

We are usually leery of talking about bodily functions, too. We don’t do it unless accompanied by uncomfortable laughter. So, again, euphemisms. The ultimate toilet euphemism was when our girls were small. There was a character in a book or TV show…can’t quite remember which…who always referred to the outhouse as “the euphemism,” as in, “I have to go to the euphemism.”

When I was doing a year of chemotherapy, before the creation of the effective anti-nausea drugs, I learned so many euphemisms for vomiting. Barfing. Tossing cookies. Heaving. My favorite was calling Ralph on the big white phone. [1]

But this column is about death language, not bodily function euphemisms, so we need to return to gravestone epithets, like I Told You I Was Sick, and last words, like If everyone is here with me, why is the light on in the kitchen?

What do you want on your gravestone? What is the last thing you want to say to your loved ones? Maybe you should write them down, just to be sure.

I’m not going to have a gravestone, but if I did, it probably should say I’ve told you this before, but…

For last words, I think I’ll look at my loved ones and just say, “Thank you.”

John Robert McFarland

1] When my father’s youngest brother, born in 1914, was in school, a kid announced that he had thrown up. The prim and proper school marm said, “Now, children what is the proper word.” Uncle Mike responded “I woulda said puke.”