Standing Alone

Lately it seems that I am the only one to be speaking the obvious at my most recent client. I'm again at an organization that is actually treating me like I'm an employee rather than a temp. There are benefits to that as well as some downside.

I don't believe in blowing smoke. If an executive asks my opinion, I give it. More often than not I have found that I am the only one in the room stating the obvious. The rest waits until they see which way the wind blows and then moves in that direction. I'll admit it's an uncomfortable position, but it is not one that I will abandon.

Since I've been with this client for close to a year, you would think by now they would have accepted that I am not a Yes Man. I find it interesting that the executire that made the decision to hire me on is the one most likely to challenge my position yet also the one most likely to absolutely agree with my assessment. It's as if he is challenging his own thoughts.

Which brings me to the point of this post.

For some inexplicable reason tonight I suddenly recalled one of the first times I remember being the only one in the room taking a position where the leader wanted one outcome and everyone just went along.

When I was 13 or so, one of the more popular girls decided she would invite several of us to her church. For the life of me I cannot remember who she was nor any of the other girls that were there. It seems that there were about seven of us.

After church they had some youth meeting in the basement where some youth leader was giving us all a lecture. I recall the guy was giving lectures on the evils of smoking. From the time I was around four and my Aunt Rita had decided to let me have a puff of her cigarette, I have never touched one again. And to this day, that is the only one I ever touched. If you want to teach your kids never to smoke, let them have a puff when they are 4 or 5 and I guarantee you they will never touch one again.

This church leader then wanted all of the girls in the room to pledge they would never touch a cigarette. I distinctly remember I was sitting among the "cool kids", those girls that barely spoke to me at all and the same girls that were well known for finding places to smoke at school.

I suppose the church youth leader thought exerting some peer pressure would get the thirty young girls in front of him to never smoke again.

I wasn't buying it.

I knew that I had no desire to ever smoke, I knew the cool girls next to me would be at it again as soon as they had another chance to prove they were cool and I knew what he was asking everyone in the room to pledge was nothing but a bunch of bull.

He asked all the girls in the room to raise their hands to pledge they would never smoke a cigarette.

Every hand in the room went up, except for one.

I felt awkward, but I also felt a mixture of defiance and honesty and power. With that one act of leaving my hand down when everyone around me was lying, I felt like I was making a decision about my life.

Not about smoking. I was fairly certain I would never touch a cigarette, they seemed as disgusting to me then as they do now.

I felt like I was making a decision that I would not follow the crowd. Whether it be jumping over the cliff or smoking because it was cool or raising your hand to lie in a church.

Not everyone appreciates it when you are the only one in the room saying the Emperor has no clothes.

That's okay with me. I will not be a Yes Man.

I Believe

That is the name of a Brooks and Dunn song that took me back 45 years to a man that significantly impacted my life. Before I started this blog thing, I hijacked my sister's blog and wrote the post below.

I Believe

It’s going to be rainy tomorrow. The date is in some unknown time in the early sixties. How did I know it would be rainy? Because the weather dog told me. The weather dog sat on the window sill in Ode and Katherine’s house and changed colors according to the weather. I remember looking at the weather dog one day when one of his “weather specks” came off in my hand. I carried it back to my house so I would always know what the weather would be. Katherine died when I was very young, but I still remember one thing about her. When I would go across the road to visit them, she would say, “Olen, go get her a candy bar.” I can still hear that voice to this day. They kept Mr. Goodbars in their refrigerator.

Ode was the “old man” across the street. I loved him. By the time I arrived on this earth both sets of my grandparents had way too many grandkids to care much about me. To be honest, I probably wasn’t the easiest little girl either. I remember being much too whiny and sensitive. And my grandparents lived over an hour away. Ode lived just across the road. I don’t remember Katherine dying, but I know she did and Ode married Romanza.

Also on the window sill was a small white church. I remember also loving that small church. I don’t really know why, except that it embodied everything Ode was. He was a good Christian man, the old fashion kind. As a very small child I loved going over to their house. As I remember it, there were only four or five rooms in the house. One of the bedrooms was actually a hallway into their kitchen.

What I remember most is that I would sit for what would seem like hours with Ode on the couch. He had old spiral hymn books and he would teach me the songs. Old-fashioned hymns that I had never heard in the Catholic church. “I’ve got a mansion, just over the hilltop, in that bright land where we never grow old. And someday yonder, we will never more wander. But walk on streets that are purest gold.” I loved Ode and I loved those old songs books.

Most of the songs that we sang together were from those old songs books. “As I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore. Very deeply stained within. Sinking to rise no more. But the Master of the Sea heard my despairing cry. From the waters lifted me, now safe am I. Love lifted me. Love lifted me, when nothing else would do, Love lifted Me.”

I can still hear Ode’s creaky voice singing those last few high versus. He taught me those and the old time song, “Oh do you remember a long time ago, two poor little babes whose names I don’t know. Were stolen away on a bright sunny day, and lost in the woods, I’ve heard people say.”

I don’t know why or how, but there was an evening at EUB church where Ode was a member when he and I got up to sing in front of everyone. I couldn’t have been six at the oldest. I still remember the two of us getting up and singing in front of that church. I was a little nervous, but I also felt safe with Ode leading the way. I was proud he wanted to have me sing with him.

In hindsight, I can just imagine what the people in EUB church thought. I mean, really how cute to have an old man and a six-year-old singing old songs that he taught her? I would give anything for video cameras back then so I could have that memory forever. I suppose the memory I have inside my heart is better than any video could have been anyway.

When I was a teenager, they took Ode away to a nursing home. I probably hadn’t visited for years and I felt bad. My mother would go to see him and tell me how “out of his head” he was. I could not force myself to go (today, I would know better). I believe he was in the nursing home for a few years and I never visited him, I justified it by saying he wouldn’t want me to see him like that. I believe he died when I was 17 or 18. I was all full of myself and thought that in my mind he had already been gone for years, so I also didn’t attend the service either. I'm not proud of that. He and Romanza really didn’t have a lot. They had lived a simple life in that tiny house. But when he died, it seemed that relatives came out of the woodwork wanting the simple things they had in the house. I remember feeling so upset that these people who hadn’t bothered with either of them for so long were now raiding their house while Romanza was still alive, and just grabbing what little they had.

I think about those song books and the white church and weather dog. I would have given anything to have had them. They meant something to me. Ode and the song books formed a significant part of my life, my faith. I knew those small items were not worth anything and probably ended up in the trash. It’s the “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” truth. The songbooks were my treasure. They were something I shared with a man who was significant in my young life. His grandkids lived just next door, but they were busy being kids and didn’t realize how special it was to have your grandparents right next door.

I miss you Ode. Thank you for teaching me a quiet faith—one that doesn’t require looking down at people “lesser” than you. Thank you for showing me that while some families are created through blood, other families are created through the heart. I’m sorry for not visiting you in the nursing home or attending the service. I was young and selfish and I regret not getting to give you a proper goodbye. Thank you for giving me some of the most pleasant memories of my childhood and for politely sharing your amazing faith with me. What I wouldn’t give now to be able to tell you what an impact you made on my life. You will always be the grandpa made from my heart. I loved you so much.

"If there was ever anybody desevred a ticket to the other side It'd be that sweet old man who looked me in the eye, said

'I raise my hands, bow my head I'm finding more and more truth in the words written in red They tell me that there's more to life than just what i can see.

Oh, I Believe'.

I can't quote the book The chapter or the verse You can't tell me it all ends In a slow ride in a hearse You know I'm more and more convinced The longer that i live Yeah, this can't be No, this can't be No, this can't be all there is."

Damn Right, "Shoot him again"

Beware if you are a woman protecting her kids tonight in New York. Nanny Bloomberg will now take away your ability to protect your children.

Oh.... And the idiot legislature in New York were in such a hurry to pass their idiotic legislation that will not stop criminals FORGOT to exclude the police officers and military from their weapons ban.

So tonight every police office in NY is a criminal and every criminal now has the ability to outgun the police.

Remind me not to visit there anytime soon.