Month: September 2017

My Mom was a volunteer. It was a way of life for her. I suppose it came from being raised during World War II. As early as I can remember, she was involved in some community activity. My earliest memory was her service in the Ground Observer Corps at Dress Memorial Airport  in Evansville , Indiana where we lived.

The program  was administered by the Army Air Force during the war and in 1952 recruited 800,000 volunteers across the country to man watch towers to scan the sky for enemy aircraft approaching. Radar was still in it’s infancy and had holes in its coverage. So my mom  would don her steel helmet, hang her binoculars around her neck, a couple of nights a week, and Dad would drive her to the airport to spend the night. This went on for a few years even though my little brother and I were quite young. It was kind of weird cool to explain to the neighbor kids what Mom’s helmet in the coat closet was used for. The program was disbanded in the late 50’s and by that time there were already three small children in the house. 

One would assume that would have slowed down her volunteering somewhat. This was not the case, she immediately became a Cub Scout Den Mother and very active in our church. It is appropriate to remember the daily obligations of a Mother and Housewife with three children in the late 50’s and early 60’s. For one thing most meals were made from scratch. Which generally meant that when one meal was over and the dishes were washed and dried (no dishwashers), it was often time to start the next meal. This was at a time when  most meals were at least three course affairs, plus bread and dessert. Clothes were always in need of repair with three small boys. Not to mention the washing of those clothes and then hanging them on a clothes line in the back yard to dry. This is just to mention some of the chores that were so time consuming.

Volunteering however, was in Mom’s blood. Over the years despite raising five children, she managed to be involved with or Chairwomen of, over 15 different volunteer civic organizations. She also held several volunteer positions in our church. For several summers she taught English to migrant workers children in the camps south of the city. In her obituary there 14 lines dedicated to just her volunteer activities alone, and we missed a few.

What happened to Volunteering? Did we become so self absorbed when Television took over our life that living became Me, not We? It seems that once our homes became air-conditioned and we stopped neighboring on our front porches,  community responsibility became obsolete. It didn’t happen all at once, it was a slow deterioration.

Multiple vehicles  gave us the opportunity to split the families directions and fast food restaurants helped us perpetuate that life style. When you leave early in the morning and do not arrive home until late in the evening its easy to be oblivious to the neighborhood in which you live. Over the years we have calloused our feeling of responsibility for our own neighborhoods. It seems to me that volunteering for civic responsibility is one way to reverse the course. It may not be the most glamorous duty but it’s probably the most needed. One thing is for sure, it would reconnect us with our neighbors. Generally, the reason most often given for not volunteering is,   “I don’t have time”. 

If that is the roadblock to your participation, I would invite you to read my Mom’s obituary and get back to me with that excuse.

 

My parents didn’t smoke, but both my Grandpas did. There is something magnetic about being told not to  do something. The story is as old as the Bible. When you are a teenage boy and your parents specifically tell you not to do something, often times the result is the opposite. My parents were very clear in their opposition to me smoking cigarettes. So naturally, I was drawn straight toward the inevitable, smoking cigarettes. It started as just being curious.

Actually. I can blame it on LB1 my little brother. He had noticed that the neighbor next to us at the lake cottage we were staying in for the summer, often went to bed leaving his cigarettes outside on the umbrella table on their patio. So one night we snuck over there and swiped a couple of cigarettes. We hid them in our sock drawer for safe keeping until morning. After breakfast we headed for the old garage on the back of the property, with our contraband in tow. We couldn’t wait to light up and see what the big deal was, that had captivated our Grandpa’s attention for  years . With the first puff, I was hooked. Part of it, was the excitement of doing something forbidden, part of it, was appropriating the feeling of being grown up, but the best part for me, was the way it made me feel. As I sat on the ground with my back to the garage wall I suddenly felt 5 years older. LB1, on the other hand, was not having the euphoric experience that I had encountered. Actually, it was quite the opposite, he was turning a weird shade of green. His appearance took on a look of confusion and disappointment all at once. I urged him to take a bigger drag thinking that he could also experience the artificial growth spurt that I was having. It was not to be, he had begun to cough and could not stop. Positioning the cigarette in the corner of my mouth, like I had seen my Grandpa do hundreds of times, I began to pound on his back, which only increased his coughing. If he didn’t stop soon, Mom was going to hear us and come to investigate. I was seriously considering throwing an old boat tarp over his head when his lungs got a burst of fresh air. With the coughing abated and his cigarette extinguished, he just laid flat out on the ground like he was exhausted.  With his composure regained, he stated to no one in particular, that he didn’t see what the big deal was in smoking cigarettes. I tried to regain the  pleasure from my experience but the ambiance was gone.  After talking later in the day about our adventure, it was clear that LB1 was not interested in repeating our foray into forbidden territory. I was not so sure. I was intrigued.

A couple of days later, I swiped a couple of more cigarettes and snuck off to the old garage to enjoy them. I repeated this process a couple of more times in the next week, until one day when after my Dad got home from work.  We were setting down to supper when our neighbor knocked on the front door and asked my Dad if he could step outside. After several minutes he returned to the table obviously upset. It seems the neighbor had noticed that his cigarette package was regularly coming up a few short and he decided to investigate. One night after turning off the light on his patio he stood in the dark and watched me sneak over from next door.    Why he didn’t bust me in the act is one of those mysteries of life. What he did however, was  much more effective punishment. I was grounded for a week sent to bed without supper and restricted to my room. After supper when Dad came to my room for the inevitable lecture, I learned something that I have never forgotten. You see, his anger was not that I had smoked cigarettes, he had assumed that was coming eventually. It was that I had stolen something that was not mine. He was so disappointed in me that I would steal someone else’s property that I thought he was going to cry. I correctly assumed, that this was not the time to debate the difference between swiping and stealing. After extracting from me a confession of heartfelt guilt, he left me alone in my room to consider my actions. LB1 stopped by to make sure I hadn’t rolled over on him, which I had not, and assured me that he had never seen Dad that mad.

Those things were not a priority in mind at that point. How was I going to get another cigarette? At twelve years old I was hooked. I bought into the advertising gimmicks that highlighted the glamour. As it turned out, buying them out of machines that sat in the front of grocery stores and gas stations was the simplest access. If I was ever questioned by an authority figure, I just told them I was buying them for my Dad. In those days, that was good enough.

As that summer was coming to a close I was already growing weary of the deceit that came with cigarette smoking at twelve years old. Where to get the money to buy them, hiding them from my parents, sneaking off to a place to smoke them were all habits of which I was tiring. The one thing that I didn’t tire of, and to this day can not get out of my system, is the excitement that comes from doing something that is forbidden to do. Squaring that excitement with doing the morally correct thing is a challenge that I have continually struggled with most of my life. Fortunately as I have gotten older the need for that excitement has abated and the need to have a cigarette is one habit that I never did seem to acquire.