Difficult Times

I had a few days this past year to travel back to my hometown area which shaped me into the person I am today.  Some of you might wonder about that statement, but it is true.  I cannot recall every learning moment of my youth, but I know they were there.  I learned humility, compassion, happiness, joy, achievement, and so many other good lessons for later on in life.  In that statement, you might discover that at the time, I may not have realized at the time when I was learning those life lessons that I was actually learning them - does that make sense?  

For instance, I may not have learned about my youthful decision-making processes until I actually had children of my own, who were faced with some of the same decisions that I had to make.  Even on into the autumn of my life (early autumn - more like the second summer of my life), I continue to realize things that I had gone through as a youngster and what it has meant throughout the years - how I have been shaped by those precious moments without even realizing it. 

One of the things which I have been thinking about a great deal lately is how I have always thought that life was simpler back then.  In fact, if you glance back through some of my posts on this blog, I'm certain I've mentioned that a time or two.  I know that each generation comes through challenging and difficult times.  In the 60's it was assassinations, Vietnam, racial strife, and the Cold War.  The 70's brought more difficulty - Watergate, drugs, high inflation and unemployment, energy crises, political scandals, and the still ongoing Vietnam War.  These issues contributed to a sense of national unease and a decline in public trust in government - something which has resurfaced and fueled the Make America Great movement in recent years.  

I could go on and on.  But this age we are in is an unprecedented moment in American history.  We have a government who is bent on making decisions and choices without the advice or consent of the elected people who are in Congress.  This government has carefully controlled the media to suit its own message - anything else is with fake news or just plain wrong.  We have our own military being dispatched to so-called problem cities to "police" them because the current administration thinks they are not doing their job.  We have sacrificed the dreams of many immigrants for something called safe borders, and our national leadership has allowed deportations to happen without due process.  It doesn't help matters much when the supreme law of the land has shifted its primary concern from the law and the constitution to the whims of the current administration.  I'm not saying anything new when I say that these are difficult times.

I purchased a tee shirt (seen here) that points a little fun at that message, but it is true nonetheless.  Being a music person, I thought it was funny.  On a serious note, I cannot remember ever playing a song that had a 13/8-time signature.  5/4-time - I came across that one a few times - the theme from Mission Impossible was one song which had that time signature.  No, it wasn't easy, but we learned how to play through it with practice and remembering the fundamentals of music.

So, yes, these are difficult times.

How can we expect to endure through them?  The message on the tee shirt might be cute, but the message from these days we are living in can be very frightening.  The way I figure it, the pathway ahead includes following the basic lessons of life we learned growing up.  We continue to respect one another.  We don't give in to negative practices or bullying tactics.  We might need to make changes, so, we need to work hard to make those changes.  And perhaps one of the most important actions we can take is to pray as though everything depends upon God and then work as though everything depends upon us.  Do it in that order.  Always do it in that order.

Eventually, I believe the times will straighten themselves out and an order will be restored.  I just need to return to the basics of a simpler life that I was taught long ago.  I wish everyone would do that.

But that's me.  Others might have a different time signature.

Batteries Plus

Every now and again life brings me to a moment when I am transported back to a simpler time.  It happened today when I was attempting to update the navigation system in my 2017 Ford Edge.  The online instructions seemed simple enough - download the files needed to a flash drive (make sure the drive is reformatted correctly), then with the car turned on, insert the flash drive into the USB and follow the instructions.  Seems simple, right?

Wrong.

When I inserted the flash drive into the car's USB port, I received an error message "LST_ERR05" which I immediately did not recognize.  Fortunately, there was an 800 number that I could call and they would help me with that error message.  Sounds simple, right?

Wrong again.

I called the 800 number which sent me through an automated system designed to make consumers lose their minds.  After what seemed like a maze of numbers, I finally heard a human voice, ever sweet and ready to help me.  This has to be the place where the story gets simple, right?

C'mon man... you know better.

I know this person was smart and gifted enough to help me.  I just had a very hard time trying to understand her grasp of English pronunciation as I hear it.  This isn't a racist thing at all.  I was trying very hard to catch every word, every phrase.  It just was difficult.  After about thirty minutes, I was finally able to get the proper files on my flash drive (the error message was all about not having the latest updated software system - it needed to be the 3.0 203.20.7 version.  I only had the 3.0 version.  Who knew?) 

So, let's go out to the car, start it up and get this update rolling.  Sounds simple now, right?

Seriously, you don't know hard it is to be me sometimes...

The car would not start.  I heard a familiar sound from my past of a clicking battery and what that meant.  The battery was dead.  No two ways about it.  My car was running just fine until I started this whole update navigation file thing.  I knew what I had to do.   I politely apologized to the woman who had been so patient with me for the past forty-five minutes and told her I would not be able to proceed until I got the car started.  She gave me my case number and went on her way to the next customer.  

I remembered where the hood release lever was and tripped it, opened the hood, and located the battery.  Here is where my Back to the Future moment happened.  A person used to be able to just remove the battery cables from the battery which was always located on the driver's side front part of the engine.  It was so easy to get to.  I was looking at the Edge's interior motor parts and trying to recall when the last time I had to take out a dead battery.  It was decades ago.  I used to have a Dodge Dart that I changed starters, alternators, batteries, oil, plugs... I was a regular Gomer Pyle at Wally's Service Station!  I wasn't the only one - we all knew how to do those things - and we did them!  Shazaam!

Fast forward to today.  When I looked at the Ford Edge engine, it took a moment to realize that the manufacturers had located the battery just underneath the back of the engine.  No longer easily accessible, it was wedged in a tiny space that was tricky to remove.  Anywhere else and I was going to get someone else to come and do this for me.  But I did get it removed and $243 tariff free dollars later (I hope), I was ready to install a new battery.  The installation went fine.  No hitches.  No glitches.  Just some blood, sweat, and tears along the way.

After all of that, the updated software never did get installed.  Not yet.  I guess I will wait for another reminder of a simpler time to accomplish that task.  At least my car starts - so, I got that going for me.

Faith Comes by Hearing

This has been a challenging week.  I'm not referring to anything that has been happening in the world.  I'm not talking about the fluctuation in the weather or the stock market.  I'm not even talking about the still high cost of eggs (and what are our plans for dying Easter eggs this year?  Someone suggested using potatoes.  I'm not seeing an Easter Spud Hunt.)

No, I'm talking about something that is really troubling in my life and there is nothing that I can do to naturally overcome it: it's hearing loss.  Yeah.  You heard it right.  Hearing loss.  This past week, it seems like my hearing has taken a turn for the worse.  I think it is the barometric pressure - a change in the weather patterns.  It could also be the tinnitus which I have self-diagnosed myself as having (I will know more in a couple of weeks because I have an appointment with a hearing specialist at Mayo).  I'm really hoping that this is a short-term deal, but I don't know.  It's tough to grow older, I guess.

Like I said, this week has been challenging.  And frustrating - for me and for others around me.  No one appreciates having to repeat themselves just because I haven't heard them.  They give you this exasperated look like you haven't been paying attention when you've been doing everything you can to try and hear everything that's being said.  And as one who is dealing with the loss, it's hard to sit in a room with others talking and not being able to participate because you cannot hear.

It's not a great feeling all round.  Nobody's happy.

Apart from setting up an appointment with a hearing specialist who can change the course of my life, there really isn't much I can do.  I can turn to scripture for help, but there isn't much that said in the Bible about someone who is losing their hearing.  The Bible doesn't explicitly address hearing loss as a physical condition, but it does use the imagery of "deaf ears" metaphorically to describe spiritual blindness or a refusal to listen to God's word.  While that might be timely for the world we live in right now, it's not really applicable to what I am dealing with.

I could study what it means to be patient.  The Bible encourages believers to be patient in trials, to wait upon God, and practice patience in their relationships.  Key passages highlight patience as a fruit of the Spirit and a path to peace and understanding.  One example of a biblical passage about patience comes from Romans 12:12: "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer".  I certainly could and will follow that advice.  

I can even appreciate how God makes it a point to single out the older adults among us (which I am now a part of) - listen to these words from Isaiah 46:4: "God promises to continue carrying his people through old age, stating, "And I'll keep on carrying you when you're old.  I'll be there, bearing you when you're old and gray.  I've done it and will keep on doing it, carrying you on my back, saving you" (paraphrased from The Message).  I know I have the gray hairs that are a requirement for this passage!

These are all helpful.  I know I will not always have weeks like this.  I'm actually looking forward to the results of my appointment and what it might mean - to hear clearly again.  And to my friends or strangers who are reading this post, I offer a word of encouragement and advice - please, do not take your hearing for granted.  It is just one of the precious gifts of being human.

You hear me?

The Betamax

It was sometime around the early 1980's, I believe, when one of my best friends at the time worked as a radio DJ and he had just started working at relatively new outlet store selling a machine called a Sony Betamax Video Cassette Recorder.  Mike must have been a good salesman because even though VHS had just come out, he insisted the Betamax was the perfect fit for our recording television show needs (up until they invented something that could record a television show, I didn't even know I had that need).  

So, I bought one.  A brand-new Sony SL-20 Betamax.  Over the years it has served its purpose - recording shows, movies, sports events - playing camera recorded events and the like.  But the VHS was a cheaper model which really took hold of the market and Beta taped movies became harder to find.  We eventually bought a VHS video recorder, and the Betamax was rendered idle, sitting unused for years.  Because we had recorded some family memories on Beta tapes, we couldn't get rid of the Betamax.  Plus, there wasn't a really good market for it.  So, it kept moving when we moved.

Advanced technology eventually caught up with the VHS companies... Compact Disks or CDs entered the market and before you knew it, VHS tapes were in danger of becoming obsolete as well.  CDs flooded the stores and homes became inundated with this new way of watching entertainment.  But it didn't take too long before the CDs were on the outs - the digital age had arrived and live streaming became the order of the day.  No more trips to Blockbuster or mailing the movies back to Netflix.

But what of the lonely Betamax?  My machine was still in pretty good condition - or so I thought.  I recall there were some precious memories on some of the Beta tapes and I wanted to convert them to digital files so that the kids and grandkids could enjoy watching them.  But there was a problem.  Who knew that moving eight times in 34 years would cause a machine to have some issues?  So, I found a guy who fixes these kinds of things (for a pretty high cost, I will say).  But I couldn't put a price on a memory now, could i?

I sent in the machine, and it just came back after about three weeks.  Works just a good as new.  Even looks new!  See the picture - mine is on the bottom - the brand-new model is on the top.  It was worth it because it had reminded me of a time in my life that I hadn't really forgotten but was grateful for the video reminder.   

The pictures you see below are just some of those precious memories. taken over one Labor Day weekend in northern Minnesota.  Yeah, they are a bit on the discolored side, but that is due to the age of the tape.  Goodness, those Beta tapes are over forty years old!  I took a few still shots of some of the kids' moments that are etched in my own memory.  The thing that is really cool is I see their movements, I hear their voices, I marvel at how small and precious they were at the time.  I would almost pay any price to preserve those memories.

Because kids grow up.  They have their own families and memories to make - as it should be.  This is not a lament over lost time or where has the time gone.

I am just grateful I have a reminder that tells me where part of the time was spent... good family time.  Spent together.  No devices in the way of conversation.  No worries but each day in and of itself.  It was a simpler time.  It was a joyous time.  Don't get me wrong, we had our problems of the day, like any other family.  But we had so many good days.  We watched our children learn, grow and become young people.  I am reminded of part of it because my friend Mike sold me a Betamax.  

Turned out to be a timely investment.  Thanks, Mike!