A God Story #1

Do you believe in God?  I do.  He keeps popping up on me.  Or, maybe it's His angels--my angels.  Anyway, I don't mean to get mushy on you, or mystical.  It's just that I have empirical God stories.  I'm going to tell you one of them.  It just happened, yesterday.

I have a password book.  Dumb.  Lose the book, and lose my life.  You know how it goes.  In the meantime, I have the book.  Hundreds of passwords.  I've done a lot of re-arranging and moving lately, because I moved my office home.  (We'll talk about that another time.)  

As things began to finalize/be finished up, I began to relax and to get comfortable.  Hundreds of papers, books, new items and doo-dads, everywhere. I'm not used to where everything is yet, because I'm not used to having all this Stuff in my house to know that it's here; let alone where it is!

Time passed. Maybe a couple of weeks.  Very hectic in the meantime, with company, the holidays, getting caught up with the business, my daughter's care, etc. 

Then, last week, I focused on Facebook--figured I'd make my mark there.  It had been months and months, and it was time to catch up. 

I went to look for the password book:  Absent and unaccounted for.  Odd, I thought.  I know it's' here...

I wasn't so worried, because I knew it had to be Somewhere.  Slowly and methodically, I began to look. The days went by.  I looked harder.  At first, it was topical.  Then, beneath and into and under. Oy...  

I was reminded of the little story, Where's Spot?  Is he here? No.  Is he there?  Not there.  Is he over in the other place?  Nope.  Not in the other place, either... 

Uh, oh...

After a week, I recruited my daughter's nurse.  Search, search. search. Under furniture, in drawers, throughout closets; peculiar places that it couldn't be--but might.  I checked, cleaned, and swept the spots in the garage; every where in my three offices.  The trash, the shredded papers.  I called places I thought maybe I took it and left it.  The good news is that it had been about a month, and no one had tried to log in as me: Another reason to think the book was at home.  

Nevertheless, no password book.  

It wasn't just the newspaper or the stock market check-up passwords, you understand.  It was serious: Social Security, insurance, the computers, banks--you know, important things.  It occurred to me to get frantic.  Yet, I still and all, couldn't fathom that I had lost that book.  I kept looking.

On Wednesday, I went for luncheon with a friend.  Delicious belated birthday, at a swell Italian restaurant. Maggiano's. (Ever been there? mmmmmmmm...  The one I like best is downtown, and old in feel--lots of photos of historic Denver.  Leather booths, checkered table cloths...  Black and white parquet floors in the bathrooms.  Dark wood trim and wainscoting with white striated marble walls.  Brass trim.  Perfect.  But I digress.)

My friend and I eat.  It comes time for dessert. The waiter brings it, gratis, for the special occasion, and with the skinniest pink birthday candle I've ever seen.  Twine dipped in wax and straightened.  About 6" tall.  He lights the wick, and I make a wish.

Wishes over birthday cakes, at least for me, don't mean much; I don't take them seriously.  (Just between us.)

This time, however, in all the years of wishing, I figured I really had a good, legitimate wish.  Instead of saving the world, or the environment, or the poor and starving--wishes that couldn't come true in a million years from my or anyone's birthday candle--I had a serious thought.  Not just a wish--a fervent request.  In fact, a prayer.

I'm not one to ask God for things.  I figure He's got a lot on His mind with the weather, wars, and all; and the best I can do is to have Him grant me the strength to help me help myself.  That's my usual petitioning prayer. With a "Thank you" up front.

I think, OK, this is a birthday wish, and By Golly, I'm going to take advantage of the occasion.  I'm desperate. (I hope God doesn't mind the imposition, too much.)  

My wish had become a prayer, and I asked for help to find the password book.  (Of course, you guessed this.)  I say "Thank you" first--up front--as I prayed.  

From the birthday candle fairy, I had transitioned to God:  "Upper Management."

Losing a password book is serious business.  I needed to rely on Someone more powerful than I.

I wish, I pray, I hope and hope and hope.  Omain.

*

Five minutes later, as my friend and I begin to start in with the dessert, Hillary's nurse calls me at the restaurant. No kidding.  No. Kidding.

"Hello!" she says cheerily.  "I have something to tell you."

I smile inwardly.  I know what it is.  "You found the password book," I return, quietly.

"How on earth did you know?!"  She is stupefied.

"Because I asked God to find it just minutes ago, and He did,"  I said.

Our nurse of 29 years, 77 years old, whose husband was pastor of their church, is abashed.  "When did you ask God to help you find it?" she queried.  

"About 5 minutes ago," I said with a smile.

The nurse didn't question for a moment.  She knew this was right.  The book had been stuck in the couch, under the cushions.  I had searched the couch twice.  The nurse had searched the couch herself, a few days ago.  For whatever reason, today, she went back and looked in the couch, again. Bingo.  There was the book.

So you go figure.  But I figure God found it.  I figure He knew right where it was, and when I asked Him, He couldn't refuse.  So He found it for us.  The nurse got the credit.  Albeit, she refused the promised monetary reward. Her reward came from Heaven.  She was humbled to be the servant of the Lord, as they say.  You can just bet that she saw the entire procedure as a testimony to God's existence, which she has known all along.  

She's right.

*

And, there you are.  One of my God stories.  You might say, "Aw, that's just a coincidence."  

My response to that:  Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.  

"If I Am Not For Myself, Who Will Be For Me? If I Am Only For Myself, What Am I?" ...Rabbi Hillel (Essay)

The biggest problem facing humanity today:  Its own inhumanity--hubris. 

Before technology began to replace human interaction, science overtook religion to explain unknowns, secularism eradicated the notion of God, the family unit imploded; there was a bottom line--Morality.  For over 4,000 years, Judeo-Christian ethics--(Do unto others as you would have others do unto you) have been the watchwords by which people have treated one another fairly, supervised by a morally supreme being. 

Far from perfect, mankind nevertheless has done its best to live by these moral precepts, with recognition that one's fellow men, and the past/present/future, all have bearing.  

Today, we live only for the present:  What feels good for me, now;  not what I think is best for the greater good, over the long-term.

Our world swirls around us faster than we can comprehend; we are losing our way. Without morality to guide our actions and behaviors, and a moral being more knowledgeable and powerful than we; we cannot survive. We are without responsible leaders, heroes who respect laws or one another; someone to guide us/set standards/or point the way.  The biggest problem facing humanity today:  The naively arrogant belief that we outrank God.

Am I Retiring, Transitioning, or Re-Inventing?

We've been in business for 77 years.  I sold my building: Offices, showroom with fitting area, the actual factory.  Not a huge place as manufacturing plants go, but figure a big fish in a little pond.  Since 1936, ain't bad.

The garment industry in the United States is all but dead; the custom garment industry is dead.  I have business, I have customers.  But not enough to earn a living.  Labor today is all off-shore for any kind of tailoring expertise and decent pricing; what our custom shop has always been about. As one of the last shops in our line of manufacturing--if not the last--it was time to bail.

I had to move.  I got rid of the overhead (Thank God), and I got rid of all those things I am responsible for but can't control; eg: The Facility, the Equipment, and the Help.  You don't want to own a factory in this day and age, if you can help it.  I'm telling you.  At least 50% of my professional life has been about apologising for this mistake, or that mal-function.  The only honors I got out of the deal were the joys of saying, "I'm sorry," and giving courtesy discounts. Mazel Tov.

But OK.  So, now, I'm moved.  Where?  I don't want to go through the entire process with you, but trust me; it wasn't a charmer.   The cost of renting a new space, buying a new space, adding a new space onto my home, squeezing everything I needed into my house as is; were all possibilities.

I have a friend who thinks I ought to have had a Plan.  Are you kidding? What plan?  I needed to get out of the building in order to save the overall   company--you know, the proverbial handwriting on the wall:  I needed to stop the financial hemorrhaging, and the mistakes.  This wasn't something that was self-contained and dependent on my decisions, alone; rather it demanded that all the outsiders' chips fell in their own proper order.

One day, a guy makes an offer on the building.  OK.  I figure it all out.  Get it all ready.  Then the sale falls through.  Plan?  So I continue on, in my original operational mode.  Six months later, another offer.  OK. This time, the thing goes through but with closing in four weeks.  An entire--if small--77 year old manufacturing operation--close down, sort, and pack up in 20 days; all the while with orders in work.  

In the meantime, the folks I was going to take with me to a new, littler shop, decided to retire, altogether. Surprise...  

So that's the end of the factory.  In all fairness, one former worker is 80, another is 73; we're not talking Spring Chickens, here.  But between the first and second purported sales of the building, everything changed, including any kind of income projection.  Thus, rentals/purchases of smaller manufacturing facilities, were out the window.  How now, Brown Cow?

The bids to add on a home office came in at $35,000.  For 10'x10'.  No kidding. Small volume pricing. Thus, I rented: An inside storage facility unit. Same size as the home add-on, but for $181/month including insurance.  At this rate, I can keep my new "satellite office" for almost 17 years, before I come close to the $35,000 addition.  

You would love the satellite office.  It's two blocks away, so Sydney--my dog--and I can walk to work.  It's done in used brick with Columbia blue and white trim, and looks like traditional model homes.  (The complex cries out for red geraniums).  The place has all the comforts of home except electricity (other than the bare bulb overhead); and the bathroom that is three buildings away.

It's almost perfect.  I have Kleenex, a chair, a shipping table with a scale, my boxes/tape/wrapping tissue/labels, a broom and dustpan along with a wastebasket, step-stool, 15 file cabinets of payables and receivables, and over 200 aprons that I couldn't bear to part with (let me know if you're interested in purchasing...)   It's the best.  A mezuzah is on the doorpost, along with a Jewish calendar for the year, 5774. The UPS office is down the street; I pack up the uniforms in this petite shipping department, and schlep box after box rather than paying extra for the driver in the big brown truck, to pick up.

My family-room at home in the basement, along with my upstairs study, comprise the rest of my corporate offices. Downstairs are the "accounting and business offices."  Everything I need to run the show, as long as I don't have to cut cloth in my own shop.  I can cut cloth with other folks; I can press; I can sew--all outside. I can screen-print and embroider.  Same thing. But I can't cut in-house.  So far. That's my limit.  I have others who can do the manufacturing in their own shops (aka contractors and sub-contractors), or I can sell ready-to-wear (uniforms from other manufacturers that are made off-shore and merely pulled from shelves, and shipped.)

Upstairs is the "creative/executive" office with all the business machines.  Yes.  I'm writing to you from this office, right now.

I'm continually getting settled, as the days go by.  Still working like mad to squeeze it all in.  Adding new activities, as my hours and time are now my own. No one I have to apologise for or yell at.  No machines to fail or be damaged by well-intentioned "experts."  I'm working every day and so far, longer than I ought. Just to get caught up and get on some kind of schedule. (Sometimes, a customer may get a call from me as late as 1:00 a.m....)

Now, you tell me.  People say, "Ohhhhh, I'm so happy you retired!"   Am I retired?  I have 3 office spaces, separate phone/fax/email /business cards, and UPS bills.  "Well, but no, you're at home, now, so that's not really working." Maybe if I drove around the block every morning before I sat down at my desk so that I could "arrive" at my offices by 8:00, that would help.  

Others write books about "transitioning."  My own "transition" either must be because I've morphed from young to old, and/or because America has given up the ghost where blue-collar skills are concerned.  It's the same business, the same name, the same Stuff.  No in-house factory to be sure, but in every other way, it's the same.  We've always had cottage industry. Even this isn't new.

Tell me, what have I transitioned besides my moving from my factory to my home?  Still feels the same to me.  I answer the phone the same.  I dunno.  I guess the transition is in the loss of overhead and liabilities, and I don't have to apologise so much, any more.

Finally, and best, are those who insist I'm re-inventing myself.  Um, I lost 10 pounds.  Does that mean I'm re-invented?  Trust me: I'm still the same impossible person I have always been, which is why I'm not a team player and work for myself.  I'm in the same business, doing the same thing: Fashion.  Only, I'm more relaxed now because I can focus on selling the clothing, rather than putting out all the fires and rescuing the help.

Talking It Over

My daughter is severely and multiply disabled.  However, I've raised her at home for 31 years, as a "well," "normal" child.  I refer to her as a "child," because she's 5'1", weighs 100 pounds, is quite boyish in appearance, and lives in the world of Mario, and Sonic the Hedgehog.  She really is a child.

I also have Sydney, the pooch.  It's taken about a year and a half for the two to bond; for Hillary to realize that sibling rivalry is not necessary between the two of them, and that I can care about both the dog and my daughter differently but equally, at the same time.  No one loses; I don't play favorites.  Except sometimes...

Yesterday, it came time in the dog's routine to go outside and pee; alas, it was raining.  I told Hillary to let Sydney go, but to watch him and not make him stay out there, drenched, any longer than necessary.  He is only 10 pounds, after all; just a little fellow.

She lets him out.  Then, she follows him.  In the rain.   Because Hillary is deaf, we speak in Sign language. Hillary also has a tracheotomy tube, so she cannot vocalize or utter a sound.  "Away! Away!" she flaps, her arms outstretched, and pumping up and down at the wrists.  Syd, who by now has gotten the gist of things with Hillary, understands what this means without a single spoken word; he obediently pads down the stairs of the back stoop.

With a backward glower, it is clear that he is not happy to go out in the rain; nevertheless, he unwillingly lopes toward the middle of the grassy yard.  Hillary's next move is to sign to him, "Toilet! Hurry!"  Being a fellow of few words, himself, Sydney looks at her with a, "Who, me?  What was that you said, again?"

Hil thinks about this, and figures it out.  It all happens in a second.  She will have to be more explicit; more direct.  In her mind, it is Sydney who is at the disadvantage.  After all, he has paws and not fingers; Sign language comes more slowly for him.

Thus, in an effort to help him understand, Hillary gracefully lifts her left leg into a full hoist, while she stands there at the top of the stoop.  As if to pee.  Sydney, wet and circling there on the grass, looks up at her in the rain, considering this.

Hillary has no time to lose.  The rain is coming down faster, and she is getting wet, too.  She moves closer to the dog, edging toward the lawn.  She lifts her leg again higher, at least two feet off the ground, and shakes it so that Sydney will be sure to observe the posture he is supposed to take.

Still, however, no results.

This time, Hillary considers a change of plans.  Perhaps a metaphor, she thinks:  She puts her "hind" leg down, and from both knees, squats, girl-style.  Figuring that perhaps Sydney isn't used to seeing her pee like a male dog, he might relate better to her peeing like a female dog.   Interestingly, this move inspires him, and he begins to circle and sniff more seriously; the rain is ever-present.

Observing that she has made progress, but not quite enough--and particularly given the wetness of things-- Hillary stands upright again, lifts her left leg, then her right, and back to her left, holding each for a moment or two--high up and extended--bent at the knee.  What do you know?!  Sydney stops, stares, and processes what the message is all about.  Looking at Hillary, as if looking at his instructor in a ballet studio, Sydney, too, lifts his leg, and makes the effort to pee.  ...  Success!

Hold it!  Maintain that position!  Ahhhhh.  Both child and hound lower their legs in tandem, together: Smoothly, rapidly, finally. She smiles, in charge; he relaxes, obedient.  Now, they may go inside; both pleased with themselves and each other.

The rain continued to fall and, quickly both hurried for dry comfort.  Hillary gave a backward glance toward the grey sky and pouring down heavy drops of water.  Her arms flew up, and once again her hands bent at the wrists, flapping up and down at the out of doors; the original motion she had made, instead of signing Away, marked, "Finished!"

Reflecting Upon the Assassination of JFK, 50 Years Later: Intermountain Jewish News

Neftali/Shutterstock.com

Then, it was time for the World War II generation to take its place as leader--not only of the free world, but of the entire globe.  He was paradigmatic of the American Dream.  He tried his best, grew as he learned, was gracious and witty, intelligent and cosmopolitan.  His breeding and eloquence never lessened his sense of the people.

No matter his failings, he personified the new and greatest generation.  When the War was over, the old men stood aside; he stepped up to bat.  America was the top of the heap; he was proof that we had arrived.  In the years that proceeded him, his generation remained the best of the best; what this nation was all about.  "Ask not what your country can do for you;" he counseled.  "Ask what you can do for your country."

She, on the other hand, was beyond compare:  Strikingly handsome, bright, at once unafraid to lead and be feminine, she was all that he was and more.  I saw her at the theatre: Radiant--an aura.  Dressed in white in the darkened audience, she was a lovely golden glow.  She savored being a woman, a bon vivant, a certain kind of unspoken ethereal power.

Yet, uppermost were her efforts and joys as a mother, safeguarding her children's wellbeing and independence.  Never mind her reigning duties, her peccadilloes; her children were her focus.  She understood that as her personal legacy, they were her responsibility.  "If you bungle raising your children," she said, "I don't think whatever else you do, matters very much."

In the shadows, an underside of the flourishing Dream was the insistence of entitlement that came with a realization of success.  Signaled by his demise, that darker visage continually expanded itself, extinguishing those ideals of integrity, determination, achievement, gratitude.

It took almost 200 years for him to epitomize whom we were inspired to become.  It took less than a generation for us to implode upon ourselves.  He is dead, his generation almost gone, the United States as it was intended to be, is done.

Of this, I am always aware: He was but a symbol; what might have been.