Phlosophy for Life and Living

Haiku Philosopy of Life

Food and then water
All in the right proportion
Exercise and resting

What’s left is easy
We all need something to do
That is the first one

Then what is needed
A good place where you belong
That is the second

The third is likewise
And yes often forgotten
Someone to do with

Imagination
Remains as the final one
Expect something good

A difficult task
Stay awake to enjoy it
Distracted we miss

In addition to attending to his bodily needs, a person has to have a purpose, something to do; then a place where he belongs; someone for company, to do with; and some desirable future event to anticipate. The interstices of his time are often filled by distractions.

The Magic of Love

So old and frail
Far from home and taken ill

Alone at night in a hospital bed
Visiting hours long over

I'm such a bother
It's so sad to get old
The reaper is coming
Soon I'll be dead.
____
Do you have a pot
Cook the chicken

Add carrots and rice
Season and simmer

Now to the hospital
Quick 'fore it cools
Wake up mom, we brought you soup
Eat it while it's hot

Was it the soup
Or love

I feel much better now

What’s in Your Golf Bag?

Day’s over course closed
No balls lie in the fairways
Many in the rough

There they will remain
Till found by a sharp eyed hawk
To be played again

Some buy certain balls
They think that they are better
Only to lose them

Because, as it’s said
The best things in life are free
Some use only found

Losing one, weep not
There are thousands laying ‘round
Pick up another

Often what we need
Lies in our path as we walk
Look, then bend your back

Now here are eleven
It will be your starter set
Go find number twelve

Grandpa ‘09

February

The sun is on the rise
It has made the turn

Its light is still oblique
Its warmth at ebb

There is no redeeming event
No solstice, no new year
Neither Ides nor equinox
Only Lenten denial

Once we skied on slopes far away
In time and memory

But oh, what times they were
A French spectacle in Les Trois Vallées

The Romans took two days away
One for Julius, one for Augustus
From February the unprotected orphan
Perhaps to shorten winter

Little did anyone care
It’s simply that time of year

And two less days of blues

Eulogy for Mom

This is the eulogy delivered at the funeral of Johanna Lina (d. August 14) on August 20, 2009 at Our Lady of the Holy Cross in St. Louis, Missouri.

We’re here to remember Johanna, Mom, Grandma, Aunt Jo, and her lifetime of more than 100 years. I’m borrowing from Shakespeare:

Her life had seven ages.

First the youngster growing up in English Grove with her playmates who numbered more than fifty and creating memories that would last her lifetime;

Then as the schoolgirl, right here at Holy Cross, learning her ABC’s and becoming strong in her faith;

Then the career woman as a successful member of the Harris Polk Hat Company;

Until she became a wife and mother. The wife of Eddie for almost 65 years, until he died, and the mother of Barbara and me. She made sure we learned our ABC’s and many other things that life had to offer;

Then the Grandmother who gave us advice but only when we asked for it, and kept up with us through visits back and forth;

Then the caregiver for Pop as he became less and less able to care for himself and for Sally as long as she lived across the street;

Then finally, the Matriarch, as she presided over Christmas and birthday celebrations at our house in Louisville;

And now she knows something that no one else here knows, what happens to us when we die. And if it’s true that there is a life hereafter, she’s right here smiling down on the whole proceeding.

May They Rest In Peace

Mel Ignatow died mysteriously on September 1, 2008. He was alone at home and fell onto a glass topped coffee table. It shattered; he was cut and slowly bled to death.

 Twenty years before, he raped and humiliated, then tortured and finally murdered his girlfriend. He was acquitted at the trial. Some time later a repairman, working in the house, found a lost roll of movie film that showed him committing the crime. He then admitted it but couldn’t be tried again, double jeopardy. He was, however, convicted of perjury and, as a persistent felon, served time in jail. He was released a couple of years ago. He claimed to have been “saved” but was shunned in the community. The glass topped table was eerily similar to the one upon which he committed his heinous acts.

The incredulity of this doesn’t escape me. I am reminded of the family killed in the house across the street from us on Briar Rose Drive in Houston. A police detective, who was no relation to the victims, became obsessed with the murders. He lost his job, his wife, his family, and his sobriety but eventually brought the killer to justice. Afterwards he got his life back together.

Then there’s the mental image that sprang into my imagination at the very time Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, was executed. I had the sight of him walking toward the assembled group of his victims. He was allowed into their company without an emotional display, sort of matter-of-factly; they seemed at peace with him. This insight was a rare occurrence for me and I remember it well.

Is it that when we die we have an option to rest in peace or not? Is it possible that Mel Ignatow’s girl friend and the Houston family would not be satisfied after their death until the perpetrator was punished by society or other means? Did they and the bombing victims help investigators? Some of the improbable discoveries that were made in all three of these examples could be the spirits of the victims guiding those who are still here.

It seems possible that a victim could be so outraged at a cruel attack that a choice is made to see that truth is somehow revealed. Not all victims may want vengeance; some may be relieved to be finished with a particular lifetime. Others may be disappointed at being stopped short in their lifetime of development by the evil in the perpetrator and do what is necessary to stamp it out.

Evil may be a disease of the soul spreading from a carrier or one being infected by another. Like other diseases, a particular evil may even end with the carrier’s death, if that occurs before it is spread to another. Evil may exist in this world and not in the spiritual world to which we aspire. I don’t know but I wonder about these things.

End

The Battle of Spaichingen

My father-in-law and I were playing cribbage at the kitchen table in the middle of a hot afternoon during the summer of 1968. We spent hours playing that game; it fascinated him. It was funny because he would miss points and the rule is the other player counts the points that are missed, but stubborn Bert would refuse to allow it and would take the points that he missed. So I simply stopped telling him about them.

As we played he told me that there was, at one time, some money in Germany in Rose’s name that they could not take out of the country. It gave them a reason to go back every few years after the war to see everyone without spending their hard-earned money.

Here’s the story: In the later stages of World War II, as the Allies were closing in on Germany and forcing the German army back towards Berlin, the French were advancing along the route that runs north from the Bodensee (Lake of Constance.) Their hometown of Spaichingen/Hoven was on the way and it was under the control of a German colonel. It was evident to the world, and the Germans, that they were about to be defeated. The colonel, for this and perhaps other reasons, was drunk most of the time; perhaps he didn’t want to face reality.

One day, a message came that the French army was coming toward Spaichingen. He was drunk but roused himself from his office and charged into the square in front of the church and assembled his troops. There he was in his uniform pants with suspenders over his undershirt, wearing his boots, whirling around and around in the square waving his arms, telling his soldiers and the people of the town, to bring everything they could to build a barricade across the road to stop the advance. It was comical but they complied and frantically piled carts, boxes, furniture, and whatever else they could find, across the road.

Air patrols of the advancing army saw the barricade and called in a strike. A couple of bombs were dropped and the make-do barricade was blown to smithereens and so was the house that belonged to Rose’s family. After the war, the family was paid for the damages but she couldn’t take the money out of the country. The only thing left of the house is a street scene painted earlier by Rose’s brother Albert, which shows the house as it was before the war.

End