When I look back on those years I see a lot of different faces. When I take the time to look at my class yearbooks and see those faces staring back at me I wonder what happened to all those dreams. Did some of those dreams come true? Did they get all they hoped for and more? Did some give it their best shot and found their best shot wasn’t good enough? How many left and came back? How many left and got lost along the way? How many are gone from us forever whether it was from illness, tragedy, or just from the daily trials that come to each and every one of us?

When I graduated I moved out. Then I moved back in. Then I moved out again. This seemed to repeat itself a time or two. I had no idea what to do with my life. I had dreams but not the means to make them come true. I eventually ended up working a few different jobs but I ended up in radio. It was not something I planned on or dreamed about or even intended on continuing but I liked it and I seemed to be pretty good at it. So until I figured out my life I decided to just continue working part-time at that little hometown radio station.

I think there were only a handful of girlfriends from high school that I hung around with in those days after graduation. We spent some time doing the usual things that kids in the late 70’s did but eventually marriages, jobs and other obligations seemed to get in the way of face to face time and we started drifting apart. I ended up getting a full time job in Sturgis and moved out of town. Not far but far enough. Eventually I ended up married, divorced and then I packed up my 5 year old son and U-haul trailer and headed south to Baton Rouge. I had no idea what life held in store for me but considering the situation I was leaving behind it didn’t really matter. Anything had to be better. Over the years there were several more moves and several more jobs. I had turned into a radio gypsy, moving on and up chasing that “number 1 market job”.

With each move it seemed that those ties to home just unraveled more and more. Even the threads to my closest friends seemed to get weaker and weaker until they just fell apart from neglect. When I did go home to visit family I would try to make time to visit one or two friends but eventually even that stopped. I did make it to our 10^th class reunion and it was kind of odd. I didn’t feel like I knew these people at all. I had moved on in my life and it felt like some of them hadn’t. It felt as if they were still 17 and 18 years old and still had no idea what to do with their lives. I went back home to Little Rock thankful that I had left that small town and had made a life for myself. I had a great job in radio. I was doing some TV. I was meeting lots of country stars and getting to interview them one on one. But in reality my personal life was no better than those back in my home town. I was struggling with another bad marriage and getting involved with people I should not have been getting involved with.

Eventually it all became too much and I left that marriage with pretty much the same things I went into it with. A kitchen table and a, now, 9 year old son. It wasn’t long before I moved to Houston. Now this was big time! A major market radio station. Things would be perfect here. I had reached the top! I am not really sure what I expected to find but whatever it was I as looking for wasn’t to be found there. And major market radio wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I was doing evenings and we were doing some TV but I was so lonely. I had a best friend that moved with me to Houston from Little Rock and we had some great times but I was lonely for home, family and something that I just couldn’t name.

Two years later the station was sold to our cross town competition and I had been offered a job in Cincinnati as an Assistant Program Director and Evening Air Talent. With very little hesitation I took the job. Cincinnati was so much closer to home without being home. I could drive home on the weekends and my family could drive down to see me. It sounded ideal. It didn’t take long to find out that wasn’t the way it was going to be. I was working from 10am until 1am. I was never home. My friend from Little Rock that had moved with me to Houston had also moved with me to Cincinnati. She was really my saving grace. Since I was never home at least somebody I trusted was watching my son. I lived there for nearly two years and I don’t think I made it back to Michigan once. I was always working weekends. My folks came down to see me a time or two but it wasn’t like I had hoped. Eventually I just refused to work so many hours. I needed so spend some time with my son. So of course I was fired. I was never more relieved in my life when I got that news. I hated the job and had felt like an outsider from the time I walked in those doors until the time I walked out. I walked away with no regrets and only one friend. Funny that she was from the south too.

I thought about moving back to Michigan but here just wasn’t any jobs available. I ended up doing data entry for a trucking firm for a few months until I could find something else. I turned down some radio jobs that involved management positions because I didn’t want to end up in the same boat as I was before. My son was now 13 years. I refused to take a job that involved me working nights. I needed to be home with him. And that was how I ended up in Macon Georgia. I loved the people, I loved the south, I loved my new boss. It was a perfect fit. I felt home.

I think when you hit your late 30’s and early 40’s you start evaluating your life. You start to realize the important things that really matter. The regrets start to creep in and begin to nibble at you and you start asking “what if?” I started feeling that way during this time. I felt guilty that I moved my son away from all our close family. I am so thankful that every summer he went back home and spent those few months on the farm with his grandparents. He was able to spend time with his cousins and to this day they remain close. When I moved to Macon I told him that I would not move again until he graduated high school. I realized that close friendships were important. It was something that I didn’t have in my own life. I had never opened up myself enough to let others in and the older I got the more I realized how much I missed by keeping that door closed.

When it was time for our 25^th class reunion I was ready. I was going to go with an open mind and reconnect with all my classmates but after 25 years what do you say? I seemed not much had changed. It seemed there were still those typical high school groups. The Jocks, The Cheerleaders, The Pretty People, etc., they all stuck together. There were some quick hellos, some awkward conversations and then it was back to the table of familiar faces. It seemed it was too late. Too many years had gone by and we all still looked at each other as if we were the same kids we were in high school. I went back home with some great pictures of people I hardly spoke to.

A few years ago I discovered Facebook. I had a Myspace page but it was more for work than anything else. I decided to open up a Facebook account since so many of my family members were on it. About a year later a funny thing happened. I started seeing some old classmates popping up. At first when I saw them my thoughts were “if we weren’t friends in high school why should I add them now?” but then I thought why not? It was a slow process. For while I felt like I was just looking through a window. Observing their lives one status update a time. Every now and then checking out some photo’s they posted and taking a peek at their husbands, wives, children and grandchildren. Eventually there were comments left and comments made and suddenly they had become a part of my life. After 30 years friendships were being made without the drama of the high school backdrop. We found we could look at each other as people who have grown and matured, who have suffered with divorce, illness, sadness, happiness, death, births and just the every day ins and outs of living life. These women are strong and beautiful! They were filled with experience and knowledge and I wanted to meet each of them again.　

I knew that I would be going home this month. A couple of the girls asked at different times if we could get together . Since my time was going to be limited I suggested maybe we should have a “girls night out” get together. I really only expected a few to come since there had just been a big “50^th Birthday Bash” for all the classmates the month before but in the end there was 16 or 18 of us that showed up at Frankie’s that night. And one guy who had the privilege of being our mascot. I think it was an eye opening experience for him! There was a lot of girl talk and a lot of laughter and it’s funny but I didn’t hear a lot of reminiscing. There was talk about the here and now and I loved that. The angst of high school was gone. There was unconditional support and concern for those that were dealing with some tough issues in their lives and it seemed genuine and heartfelt. We moved on from the restaurant to a pub and some husbands joined the group. There was dancing and some toasts to old friends and more laughter and I think everyone had a great time.

I drank way too much and probably talked way to much but I don‘t think it matters. It was the perfect way to end a day that had brought heartache into my life (but that’s another story!) and was a great reminder that there is more to life than my own little world and the pain that one suffers is only one raindrop compared to the deluge that others have endured. I am thrilled that each of these women chose to join us that Friday night. I just wish I could have spent more one on one time with them. I hope that we can do it again and it will continue to grow. I am sure that there are still some from the class of ‘78 that still hold the old mentality of who does and does not belong in their circle of friends and that’s really sad. They are limiting their treasures. I feel so much richer by having spent those few hours with these wonderful ladies and by the friendships that are growing online.

So take a chance. Break down the old barriers and reach out to your past. Just don’t live in it . There is nothing there anymore. All that matters is the here and now and what can be found if you just take a minute or two step outside your walls and embrace what is waiting there for you.

It’s funny sometimes how God will put something in your life at just the right time. I am reading a book by Sue Monk Kidd called “When The Heart Waits” . It’s about finding yourself at the point in your life when you realize that you aren’t the same person you used to be. You realize that you are of an age where the things that once made you happy don’t bring the same joy as they once did.  Possibly the people you once spent time with no longer bring the laughter you once thought would never end.  This is where I am at in my life.  It’s feels like dangerous territory and one wrong move could send me over the edge.  The book is actually 20 years old. 20 years old! Ancient in terms of “self help” books. But it came to me at the right time. 20 years ago it would have been meaningless to me.

I found it while I was house sitting. I picked it up and I liked the title. But the book looked a little dated and the pages were starting to yellow.  I looked at the publication date and saw that it was written in 1990. So even before I began reading my mind traveled back to where I was in 1990. I had just left my marriage and moved to Houston, Texas to take a job at a country radio station. It was an exciting and frightening time since I was taking on new challenges.  My son was 9 years old and I was 30 years old.  After looking at the date I texted a friend.

“It’s kind of shocking to pick up a book and see that it was written in 1990 and then realize that was 20 years ago!! Where has the time gone? That was when I got divorced, Josh was only 9 years old! I have wasted so much time on things and people I should not have. I regret that I let some good years go by spent in bad relationships. I feel like I wasted me!”

Yes. I am a long texter. And when I am in deep thought they get even longer.

My  Friend texted back:

“I feel like I have wasted years too. Don’t mean this as a cliche, but all things work together for good…God is/will use what we consider ‘wasted’ for good and for his glory. There are many do’s and don’ts you can now share with others”

My response was;

” I understand that I can mentor others and know that God has a plan but I have been ‘alone’ for so long even when I was with someone. It seems like I have been waiting for SOMETHING for such a long time. I want to share my life with someone who feels that I have worth. I think that’s where I have felt ‘wasted” knowing I have so much to offer and not having someone to give it to. Or having someone who didn’t appreciate the good that I had to give!”

All this introspection even before I read the first word or even the back cover! So imagine my surprise when I started reading and found out the book was about navigating the times in your life when you feel your life has lost meaning and you just aren’t sure what you should do about it. Sue Monk Kidd went through the same thing so many other men and women go through.  A mid-life crisis. When you question your worth as a spouse, a parent or a person. You start with the “What If” questions. What if I had taken that other job. What if I had married that other person. What if, What if, What if.  You look back and wonder if you have made an impact at all. I have spent the last year or so asking those questions of myself. What kind of impact have I made? What has been my purpose?  You are staring 50 in the eyes and it’s looking back at you.. and behind you. Down that long road you have been on and there isn’t much to show for it.

I think we all choose to handle this moment in our lives differently. We have all seen the 50 year old male with his 25 year old girlfriend and sporty little car. Many women start injecting themselves with fillers and  botox and buying fancy clothes. Now there are almost as many women chasing younger men, trying to hold onto their youth the best way they know how.  But it isn’t possessions that fill that hole in our lives. It is something much greater then that. It’s learning who we are and what we are capable of becoming. And “becoming” takes time.

We need to slow down, or even stop, and let God begin.  Waiting. Who has time for that anymore? This is a world of instantaneous gratification. We don’t wait for anything and we feel we shouldn’t have to. We feel we deserve to have everything we want when we want it. But that’s not the way nature works . Who is nature but God? For true change to happen it takes time. It takes 9 months for a child to be born, it seems like endless waiting. From the time a seed takes root until it becomes a beautiful flower, takes time. Everything good and pure takes time. I have always loved the line in scripture “be still and know that I am God”.  It means stopping and acknowledging the Almighty. To let His work begin in you.

How often do we pray for Gods will in our lives and when we feel he hasn’t answered us fast enough we strike out on our own?  I am guilty of this just as so many men and women in the Bible were guilty of the same thing. We think that God needs a little help. A nudge to get the ball rolling. But he doesn’t need our help. He just needs us to be the host for the seed and he will do the rest.

Sue Monk Kidd encourages waiting. For as long as it takes. While we wait we must sort out who we are. Get rid of the old things that held us back. That takes some serious soul searching and when you start digging in those deep dark places you are likely to find some things you would rather have left undiscovered. I think that getting those things out in the open, and really examining them is a good way to move that junk out of the way, so that you have more room for the good. One of the lines I liked in the book was “….the soul is more than something to win or save. It’s the seat and repository of the Inner Devine, the God-image, the truest part of us.” When we have cleaned out the old we have opened a clearer path for God to make his way into the Inner Devine.

It reminds me of my 17 month old grandbaby. One of his favorite things is going to the bookcase 

Separating the wheat from the chaff.

 and looking at all the dvd’s on the bottom shelf. He will take each one out individually and carefully examine it. He looks at the front and then the back as if examining them for their worth. Then when he is done he tosses it over his shoulder into what becomes a rather large pile. This is what we need to do with the clutter in our own soul.

When I was in my 20’s what I wanted from my life was the Happily Ever After that most girls want. It doesn’t take long to figure out that happily every after is just a fairy tale. The reason relationships fail at this stage is that we depend on someone else to provide those happily ever afters for us and if you rely on someone else to make your life what you want it to be, you will only see unhappiness. When I reached 40 it became all about me. I will make things happen. I will not depend on anyone else. I can do it all myself. For a while that worked but the closer I got to 50 I realized that I no longer wanted it to be all about me but I just didn’t know what I DID want.

You spend your whole life living for others, being the good girl who does what she is told to do or in some cases the complete opposite, rebelling against everything. This morning I was back to texting.

“from the book…’When we give ourselves completely over to the idea and images of parents, husbands, wife, church, social organizations, friends or, ‘prominent’ persons, and silence our own voice of soul in the process, we allow others to create our sense of who we are rather than growing our own identity within ourselves.” Very true. So many people, especially women, suffocate their inner thoughts and desires in order to be more pleasing and desirable to others. I think even more so today with the media telling us what we need to be rather than allowing what and who we are to really shine through.”

How much of your time in life was spent trying to be what others wanted you to be? I know that I have tried to be what others wanted of me. I am not sure how successful I ever was but I know that even just trying to live that way made me cranky and probably unpleasant to be around. But never to the point where I could just abandon the trying, which is too bad, for I probably would have been a better person for it.

“…I am realizing that it’s not the parts of my life that I feel were wasted it’s more about opportunities that were lost or never utilized.  I think the greatest sadness for me isn’t that I didn’t have a great love in my life but that I didn’t have a true companion to share life’s journey with. I think that is the true ache of the lonliness I have now. The lack of intimacy in my life. Not being able to share the deepest soul stirring emotions with someone. I know I have kept that part of me locked up, not trusting anyone enough to share that fragile, breakable part of me. Not feeling strong enough in myself to let words and feelings flow freely from my lips for fear of being struck down with words and actions. How freeing it must be to be able to speak whatever is on ones heart!”

My friend answered back with;

“…it’s very difficult to find someone that fits that description and you don’t know if they fit that description until you test the waters by becoming vulnerable by expressing your thoughts and desires. But it’s difficult to reach that level of trust because trust grows in the soil of vulnerability nurtured by acceptance. “

So here I am. Waiting. I am going to let God work in me and see where it goes. I will try not to be impatient. I won’t open the cocoon before it’s time. I won’t try to push God into the drive-thru lane. I will be still and know that he is God and remember, good things come to those that wait. Yes I am almost 50. I am single and I can share the do’s and don’ts of life. But I know that most times the reciever of that knowledge won’t listen to a word I say. Just as I wouldn’t have 20 years ago.

OK, that headline might be an overstatement. But For thousands of lonely hearts out there technology has made a marked improvement in their social and dating life. With so many Social Networking sites available your chances of meeting someone interesting to meet for coffee are pretty good. Of course with that comes the caveat of “Beware of Strangers”. 

I did a little bit of web research to find some statistics on dating and social networks and it seems a lot of men and women have moved from the more traditional online dating sites to Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and the other networking sites.  Why?

I don’t want to be accused of stealing what somebody else wrote about the topic so I am telling you now I got this off one of the sites I visited called Social Networking Watch:

Mark Brooks, a social networking and online dating analyst, says safety may be a driving factor. Pew Research reported earlier this year that 20% of adults on social networking sites are there for dating, while 49% are there to make new friends. So people want to extend their social networks, but aren’t ready to date. “Online dating sites offer a level of anonymity, but social networking sites, you can see a person’s friends, how they interact,” says Brooks. “More and more we’re defining ourselves by the company we keep on social networks. It creates a sense of accountability, of safety.” http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/stephanie-schomer/write/more-women-use-social-networking-sites

So this got me to thinking, just how are we meeting new people online? I suppose if you put in your profile you are open to meeting new people, or dating, then you will have droves of eligible (and not so eligible) men and women wanting to be your friend and you have  increased your chances of finding the love of your life. Or at least getting a date for Saturday night.  But I know there are those that are meeting new people not by putting “I need a date!!” in their status updates but by just being who they are every day, day in and day out.  

I have about 250 friends on one of my Facebook accounts. Yes, I have two. One for business and one for family and friends. On my personal site there are probably a few people on there that I had no idea who they were when they made their friend request. After a little backtracking I found they found me either through a mutual friend or they thought a comment I made on someone elses page was stunningly brilliant and just knew that they if they didn’t become my friend their world would be the lesser for it. What? It could happen!

250 friends is a drop in the bucket for some. There are some people out there that must have made some really spectacular comments because their friend list is in the stratosphere! Of course that made me wonder how they keep track of them? And do they really communicate with them? Do they ever look at their page?  5000 friends! If every one them makes a status update a few times a day you would never see them all. 

Here comes another verbatim quote , this time straight from Wikinews.

According to Wikinews; the human brain can not handle more than 150 friendships. More research was done by Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford.  Dunbar compared the online activity of those with thousands of internet friends and those with hundreds, before concluding that there was no appreciable difference in their levels of activity. He defined a friend as someone that the individual cared about and made contact with at least yearly. “The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world. [...] People obviously like the kudos of having hundreds of friends but the reality is that they’re unlikely to be bigger than anyone else’s”.  http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/People_limited_to_150_friends,_despite_Facebook,_says_academic?dpl_id=149591

So what I am getting at is that out of those people who found you so interesting there are bound to be a few that think “if she/he is so witty on line, they must be even better in person!” and a shy “poke” is given (I still dont’ know what that is all about!) or they start commenting more on your posts and soon a request for coffee is made, a movie is suggested and a month later the relationship status changes to a little heart that tells the world you are taken! You are among the many that found love via a social network!

It is interesting to watch relationships come and go. It is so public! Through Facebook you can watch the first ember of romance bloom and die all within a few weeks. I believe that most individuals would rather not put their status up for display and many do it just to please their significant other. “What? I’m not good enough for you to change your relationship status? You don’t care enough about me to tell the world that we are together? You’re ashamed of me?” Who can put up with the pressure? So you cave in and then what happens when you break up? Do you leave the status as is? Do you want to tell the world that you made a bad choice and didn’t heed the warning signs? But if you leave it as is what if the perfect “one” is out there and passes you by based on that “In a relationship” status?

Not all matches are made ON a social network. Some are made because of it. You meet someone at a club, the bowling alley, through work and they decide they want to know you better. Instead of just picking up the phone to call you they do a little digging first. Your name goes into Google and suddenly  your life history is there for the reading. You didn’t know your Myspace was open for the world to see, you wrote a paper that was published, your name was mentioned on your business website, your family tree is online,  and this person can find out more about you in an hour than he or she could in six weeks of dating you.

Hopefully everything they discovered about you was great and it made them want to meet you even more. One thing for sure is it will give them plenty of material for those first normally awkward conversations.  “So you went to Greece last summer? Tell me about it.” If your not fleeing the restaurant in fear that he is a stalker he can ask you about your Grandma Tilly who died 3 years ago while water skiing on her 93 birthday. He read that in the online obituaries. You were listed as a survivor.

Yes love in the age of technology can be complicated but it can shorten that “getting to know you time” by weeks! You may want to go delete those photos of you draped over a toilet surrounded by beer bottles with your best friend holding your hair away from your face so there can be no mistaking it’s you. Or maybe that picture of you sitting on the fence post mooning the passing cars. That’s really not the best way to make a first impression. Is it? I suppose it depends on the kind of person you are trying to attract.

Excuse me now. I need to go Google myself.

Technorati Tags: dating, facebook, humor, love, myspace, relationships, social networks, twitter

Tags: dating, facebook, humor, love, myspace, relationships, social networks, twitter

Forgiveness. Sure we know what it is, we know that when we petition God our sins are forgiven. Many of us count on that forgiveness when we head out of the house Saturday night! We expect those that love us to forgive our little transgressions, our occasional lapses of judgement, our angry words, our little white lies. But when it comes to forgiving others some of us have a difficult time.

Why do we expect forgiveness and then are so stingy when it comes to handing out those pardons ourselves? Why do we think we are so special that the mere fact that somebody hurt us, real or imagined, is beyond the realm of believability?

I know that I have been on both the needing of and the granting of forgiveness. And as much as I swear “I will never forgive” I always do. Time and Time again. I have been called a dreamer, an idiot, blind to the facts of life, a doormat and a fool but I have decided I don’t need to apologize anymore for believing in the healing power of forgivness and power it has to transform a life.

I have discovered that it is much easier to live life without the anger that seethes in your heart when you feel you have been wronged.  I have seen the bitterness, the deep seated torment that oozes out of people who can’t forgive. It eats them alive and they constantly relive their hurt over and over again. Why? When you learn that fire burns you don’t keep putting in your hands in it do you? Do you constantly cut yourself with sharp objects? This is what the unforgiving person does every day. That memory comes up and suddenly they are reliving the moment again. They plot their revenge, they practice their words in their head, planning the perfect off the cuff remark meant to cut and hurt the other person. I don’t know about you but 99% of the time those moments you have been dreaming of never materialize. Unless you are seriously unstable, you don’t stand outside their house with a can of gasoline and book of matches waiting for them to appear.

I bring all this up because once again I have been put into the situation when I needed to make a choice. Do I forgive? Or do I open my heart up to this person and love them with the love of God, who sees this person as a flawed child in need of compassion and direction. Well, if I listened to those around me I would have written this person off as a lost cause, not worth my time. I should make a list of the terrible things this person has done, write them on my bathroom mirror and recite them back to myself every time I felt myself weakening.  Thank goodness listened to my heart and the voice of my God not the voice of my friends and family.

I certainly understand their concern. This person put me in a terrible situation. It could have turned out very bad. And believe me I was angry. Very angry. Very, Very, Very Angry! For 6 months I had no contact and when I talked to people I would rehash the hurt and my righteous anger.  But then there this person was in my life again and I realized they needed me. Not to support them or for them to lean on me, or even to forgive them. I don’t really think this person expected me to forgive and wouldn’t have blamed me if I hadn’t. But I knew I needed to love them. To show them the love of God through me. 

It didn’t take weeks for the anger to leave me. It took one face to face visit. I told this person how they caused me pain, how angry I was, how disappointed I was in them for putting me in a bad situation. But the more I talked the more the anger dissipated. I was left with sorrow and then compassion and finally peace.

I want to say it hasn’t been easy, that I am still angry at times. But that wouldn’t be the truth. The truth is I allowed the love of God to pass through me and as that loved passed through it took the bitterness and anger with it and left only a real desire to understand, encourage and stand by this person.

It’s hard to explain to others who ask me how I do it. How can you so easily forget? Well I haven’t forgotten. But I do believe we have choices in our lives and everyday we choose how we want to live, in anger and bitterness or with the peace that passeth understanding. I don’t know about you but there is so much in my life that I don’t have a choice about why complicate it even further but choosing to add more heartache?  I would much rather move on and  embrace what little happiness there is in life than to wallow in the trenches moaning “why me”.  With prayer and firm grip on God’s hand it’s just a matter of saying “I forgive you” and allowing God to do the rest.

Technorati Tags: forgiveness, friendship, God, mercy

Tags: forgiveness, friendship, God, mercy

Tumble thoughts. We all have them. You start off with one simple thought and that tumbles to something else and a few thoughts later you land somewhere that is nowhere near where you started!

That happened to me tonight. I was thinking about my grand-baby. I had picked him up the other evening from being watched by a sitter. When I got home he was soaking wet. So my thoughts tumbled to soaking wet diapers, to throwing disposables into the trash, to being dumped into landfills and how we just bulldoze dirt over landfills and forget about all the trash that is seeping into our surroundings and poisoning everything around us.

Then my next thought was how “human” of us to take the ugly garbage in our lives and cover it with something more palatable. We either dress it up or completely put it out of our site so we don’t have to think about it. Whether it is garbage that we throw away or the garbage that we bring into our lives or our own garbage inside of us.

How often do we bring things into our homes, our families and workplaces that don’t belong? We try to “cover” it with lies, half-truths, denial and we feign astonishment that someone would call into question something that we find desirable, or fashionable. Things we lust after that really have no place in our lives.

We often bury our own “ugliness” with fancy clothes, stylish hair designs, and the best cars all so people won’t see what is really underneath the exterior and into the festering garbage that lies in our hearts. Wouldn’t it be awful if suddenly everyone you know could see what is really hidden in your heart? It doesn’t matter what you do, how good you are or whether you go to Church every Sunday there is greed, envy, deceit, hate, rage and more that is oozing like a long a forgotten landfill in your soul.

Luckily there is One who can take away the guilt and shame of the secrets we try to hide and will always see us as pure and beautiful when we give our lives to Him. He not only puts up a barrier so the bad stuff doesn’t seep out to poison those around us, He can remove it altogether! I am so thankful to know that my God can make me beautiful on the inside even though the outside might not be so great to me or others. I am beautiful to the one person who really matters. It takes a lot of time and energy to keep those around us from seeing the ugliness inside of us. What freedom it is to rid yourself of the walls that we build to keep others out and then allow yourself to the let the Light shine through you for the whole world to see.

I attended a memorial service for a dear friend today. He passed away way too soon. I had spent many an afternoon chatting with him and talking about family, work and life. We worked in the same building. He at one radio station and I at another. His studio was across from mine with nothing but a small room between us.

There could have been a bigger gap between us. After all he was born in Mississippi in 1945. I was born in Michigan in 1960. He was black and I am white.

To me his name was Willie, to others he was Shurrod, King Juan, Don Perry, Cobra, Sensei, Smooth and Big Daddy. All those names meant something different to whomever you talked to. But the one name that best describes him is genuine.

Willie did a tour in Korea while in the Army from 1965-1968. But I never heard about that. After the Army he received a basketball scholarship from Lane College where he studied liberal arts and later communications. But I never heard about that. I learned today that he released a record many years ago that was big hit locally. I never heard about that either. So does this mean I didn’t know him after all?

No. What I did hear were the things that Willie found important in his life. I never knew a man more proud of his family. I heard about his son, Shurrod, and the dreams a father has for a son. I heard how this wonderful son was the best son ever. I heard how this boy was going to go to the Olympics and earn a gold medal. He had a poster of Shurrod in his studio with a hand written note. The poster was a picture of Shurrod running in a track meet, leaping in the air, sunglasses flying off. It was a picture of determination, grit and drive. Willie knew that his son would one day be an Olympian. If the dreams of fathers could make it so it would have come true. But Shurrod found other dreams in the arms of a woman named Joi. And those Olympic dreams became a wistful memory for Willie but his love for his son never wavered. Soon there was a wedding and a beautiful baby girl named Faith.

I saw lots of pictures of Faith and Big Daddy and then Faith, David and Big Daddy. I heard lots of Big Daddy stories and saw the love of a father passed down to his grandchildren. It was heartwarming to see a man so full of love.

This love wasn’t only reserved for his son and grandchildren. Willie had his Goddess. Alma, his wife. Alma came along late in Willies life. She was younger and Willie worshipped the ground she walked on. Willie and his Goddess would take cruises, they would head to the islands and take time to revel in one another. I would get the pictures and the details when he got back to work. Theirs was the kind of love that most people only dream of.

When Willie and Alma bought their new house he was so proud and promptly invited me over. I got the grand tour and dinner with he and his Goddess. We watched movies and hung out. Of course I had to have them to my house and the were kind enough to come. One of the nicest compliments I got was from Willie when he told me how comfortable he was in my home. He said it was just so “peaceful” and cozy.

Willie was one of the healthiest people I know. He ran marathons, worked out, was a black belt in Karate and taught many youngsters about honor and hard work. So it was a surprise when he found out he had to have heart surgery. He made it through but it changed him a bit. He was much more cautious and the marathons were put aside.

Time passes and the radio station was bought by a large company. Folks were let go when the new company took over and unfortunately Willie was one of them. We tried to keep in touch, phone calls, a few visits but it seemed that before I knew it a year had passed. I tried calling him several times but wasn’t able to reach him. I thought about stopping by but didn’t want to just drop in on him. Then I lost my job too. More cutbacks and I escaped into my own misery for a while. But Willie and The Goddess were always in my thoughts.

The past 6 months or so I had felt such a prodding to call him. Every few days I would get that gnawing feeling that I needed to pick up the phone. But it always seemed to happen when I was at work or in the car and by the time I got home my mind would be on other things. A few days later, again, that gnawing feeling. Then I got the news from another old coworker. Willie had passed. He had been sick for quite a while. I was heart sick. I had let my chance to tell him how much he meant to me slip by.

God gives us signs, he uses people, events and sometimes a 2×4 to get our attention. We often don’t pay attention. This isn’t the first or even the second time I have ignored the nudges. I have two other friends that time seemed to get between us. One was a person I hadn’t spoken to in years. I kept getting the feeling to find him but I had no idea where he was. The last I had heard he was in California trying to make in the movies. Then one day I did a Google search and found him. In the obituaries. He had died 2 days before. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had made that call earlier if something different would have changed for him. Maybe we would have gotten a chance to meet up again and start fresh and he wouldn’t died the way he did. All the what if’s start rolling through your head. The other was pretty much the same as Willie. He was also a good friend from the radio station and he had been ill and in the hospital. He had been in the hospital many times and I thought, like the other times, he would be home again. But it wasn’t to be.

I found out after Alma, the Goddess, called me that Willie had been ill for the past year. He had spent several weeks in the hospital, rallied and came home but this past week there would be no going back to his earthly home. His Goddess would have to wait. I understood that his body had been failing him and he wasn’t the robust Willie I had known. I am glad that the memory I have in my head is of Willie conquering the world, bragging about his son, grandchildren and wife. Gearing up for the Labor Day run. Telling me about the movies he loved and the few he actually had small roles in. Those are the memories I will carry with me and cherish.

My previous post was about listening to your Mother, your Father and those that are wiser than you. It also should include your Heavenly Father. He is not a silent God. He will try to guide you in the way you need to go. The Holy Spirit is not silent either. Those nudges, those urges I felt were the whispers of Heaven offering me a chance to let someone know that I care. That they were important to me. That I loved them. I hope I won’t ignore those whispers again.

Technorati Tags: death, friendship, God, heaven, Willie Dickey

Tags: death, friendship, God, heaven, Willie Dickey

Today I want to talk about listening to your Mother. Or Father. Or the person in your life who has a little more time on this earth and, believe it or not, has been through what you are going through.

This all started a few weeks ago. Well, really it started nearly 29 years ago when my son was born. But for the sake of brevity we’ll only go back a couple of weeks. OK, strike that, lets go back to November when my son and his wife moved out of my house. They had been staying here temporarily to save money for their first home. When they moved in they brought their two labs. Not a problem for me but the dogs didn’t like it much since the were relegated to the outdoors.

Now these dogs had been raised in an apartment. Being outdoors was a new and not so exciting experience. The female adapted pretty quickly. The male, well you know how hogs when they escape from their pen into the wild revert to their wild boar ways? That’s pretty much what happened to Blaze. Suddenly he was escaping under the fence, then over. Eventually an electric fence had to be erected. That and the barking were driving everyone crazy. So bark collars had to be purchased. She chewed his off and he, being a male, decided he preferred her quiet and was quite content to leave hers intact.

When my son told me they had found a house it was with mixed feelings. I loved their company and I loved having my Grandson with me every day. But I knew they needed to spread their wings and get out on their own without “Mom” interfering. Of course I had to see the house.

It is an adorable little house. With a small yard and a privacy fence. The fence seemed to have a lot of space between it and the ground. So I said “it sure is nice to have fence but do you think the dogs will stay put?” I was told “Sure they will. The can’t see out so and they have lots more room to run so I am sure they will stay put.” “You know, your neighbors are really close, I don’t think they are going to appreciate all that barking. You might need to buy another bark collar”” Noooo. They can’t see out of the fence and if they can’t see anything why would they bark?” I laughed and said “Riiiiiight”.

So the move was made and a few days later Blaze had already dug up and under all 4 sides of the fence. Quite frequently you could look out the back door and see one dog and look out the front and see the other. She seemed to be pretty content to let him wonder and she would stay in the back yard and wait for her man…er…mate to return.

Again I said, “You know, you have the electric fence back at my house why don’t you put it up so you can eliminate his wondering and the headaches?” “Oh..he always comes back and I don’t want to string an outdoor extension cord across the yard.” I shrug my shoulders again and say “Ok. It’s your dog”.

Now we get to a few weeks ago. Apparently the female, Finley, decides she is going to follow her mate and see just what it is that he finds so enticing. He comes home a few hours later and she never shows up. A search is done, calls are made but she is nowhere to be found. My daughter in law calls the pound to see if anybody brought her in and leaves the information. The next day she gets a call from a very nice gentleman that tells her he has their dog. They called the pound to see if anyone had reported a missing dog, got the information and called the kids. Finley, not being used to gallivanting around the neighborhood had no idea which house was hers. So she started digging under fences until she found one she liked. This house had a nice German Shepherd so she decided to hang with him. (Let this be a lesson guys, you go out to often and leave the lady at home she just might find someone else to take your place!) Not only did she have a nice German Shepherd to snuggle with, she got a bath and lots of loving from the family that found her.

So my son decides that maybe it he just might need that electric fence after all. And probably those kennels under my house to keep the dogs in until he can get the fence up.

As you know the East recently underwent record cold temperatures. We didn’t have snow but we had rain and sleet and 20 degree temperatures.

I am sitting in my house and I hear a roar. It sounds like a truck in my yard. I dash out the front door in time to see my son backing his Ford F-150 down the side of the house into the backyard. My house sits on a small hill so he has to go down that small incline. I wave my arms and holler at him to stop but it was too late. He was half way down. He roll his window down and asks me what the problem is and I tell him “It is not a good idea to go down there. It is a mud pit and you will get stuck.!” He tells me “Well I am already this far, I’ll be fine”. Mm Hmm. Famous last words.

You know the rest.

He can’t get back up the hill. The tires just spin. So he backs up even farther and I say to myself “Well that’s that. He is never going to get out now!” And sure enough his tires sink even further into the muck. Did I tell you it’s 10:00 at night? And 20 degrees?

So we start putting plywood under the tires, rocks, whatever we can find to get some traction and nothing helps. He did set the wood to smoking with the friction. If he would have done it longer we could have had a nice bonfire going to keep us from freezing our butts off. After an hour of useless labor he finally threw in the towel and went inside to warm up.

It was time to call in reinforcements. So he starts calling friends. You know how friends are. They are always ready for a good time. “Want to go to a game?”” Sure! Want to head to bar?”” Sure!”” Want to help me move?” “Sur…uh…did you say move? Gee…well…let me check my calendar.” “Can you come pull my truck out of the mud?” “ Hey bud, do you know what time it is? How did you get stuck anyway? Are you sure you can’t get it out? It’s 20 degrees out, can’t it wait until morning? You know I had a few beers a little while ago, maybe you better find someone else to help you.” Uh huh.

So while he is trying to convince his friend to help him I jump on Facebook and put the word out that help is needed. 20 minutes later I hear the roar of engines again and look out the front door to see 3 four-wheelers pulling in the yard. My neighbors from the down the street have come to check out the situation after hearing of our plight via Facebook. I love Facebook.

There is nothing better than watching 3 men ,plus a 9 year old who tagged along , assess a problem and the best way to fix it. Well they try pulling it from the front and it’s a no go. They scratch their heads and talk back and forth and debate a bit more and try again but it just ain’t happenin’! So they switch tactics and try from the rear and we start to see some movement. Slowly the truck begins to move and once the four-wheeler gets out of the mud he digs in and the truck is up and out and back in the driveway. Finally after 2 and ½ hours of standing in below freezing temperatures the truck is free and I can finally say what I have wanted to say from the moment he got stuck.

“You should have listened to your Mother!”

Technorati Tags: dogs, Mother, mud, sons, trucks

Tags: dogs, Mother, mud, sons, trucks

Life changes, Nothing ever stays the same. So I am about to begin a new chapter in my life. All the chapters leading up to this one have been filled with great memories, sadness, happiness, adventure, mistakes, you know, all the things that make a story great.

Chapter One

My radio career began at the tender young age of 17. I worked from the time I was legally able. My first job was at River Forest Nursing Home. It was run by some sort of Mennonite group. My best friend in High School was already working there and convinced me that we would have “great fun” working together. So my weekends were spent clearing slop off the plates and trays of the residents of the home. First of all, the food that these folks got was nursing home food. For old folks. So it was soft, bland and not very pretty. If you thought it looked bad going out you should have seen it coming back in. I believe these poor souls were so unhappy that they were dumped into “the old folks home” that they took out on us lowly kitchen workers. Napkins were shoved down into the glasses with mashed potatoes dumped in on top of that. It was like a parfait of regurgitated food and paper.

Each tray had a small metal holder, like you would use at a party to designate the seating arrangements for your guest. You would put a pretty little card in the holder and everyone would ooh and ahh over how cute it was. Our card holders would hold the patients name card and all the dietary limitations that they had. After every meal we had to dig them out of oatmeal, eggs, squash, milk, coffee and potatoes again. They were laminated and we had to wash them off and stick them back into the holder for the next go round. I was 16. Not the romantic adventurous job I had in mind for my first foray into the working world. I will never forget the smell of urine and disinfectant that permeated that place.

One of the residents that I will always remember is Ike. Ike was somewhat senile. But he was still a randy old man. He had a cane that he used and anytime a pretty girl would walk by he would take that cane and smack her on the butt. Come to think of it she didn’t have to be pretty. We learned to stear clear from him and cling to the other side of the hall when he was making his way down it. He also had a tendency to let it all hang out on occasion too. If you know what I mean.

One bright spot in my day was talking to one elderly lady who still had it together. I wish I could remember her name. I think it may have been Olive. Both she and her husband were living in the facility. They weren’t in the same room. It seems the Mennonite woman frowned on that. Women in one wing, men in the other. But every waking hour those two spent it together. It was so sweet and it made me dream of having a love that would endure forever.

One thing that I did not want to endure forever was being a dishwasher at a nursing home. So I scoured the want ads. In my little town that would take about 10 seconds. Or less. But lo and behold I found something I thought I could handle. Being a dishwasher…..at the hospital! So I hauled myself up there after school one afternoon and applied. I didn’t have a car and getting use of the car was an act of congress. But the hospital was about a mile or so from school so I could walk every afternoon and my mother or someone would pick me up. I believed that this job would be much better than the nursing home. Wrong. Now when trays came back we not only got the food parfaits but syringes that nurses would forget to dispose of properly. This was before the AIDS epidemic so things were a little more lax. Band aids, Gauze, finger splints, whatever. It would end up on a tray for the dishwashers to take care of.

The hospital was old. The elevators were like something out of a horror movie. Well the staff elevator was. There was nice bright shiny one in the bright shiny lobby for guests to use. I dreaded having to ride that thing upstairs and down. It was dark. The hallway TO the elevator was dark. What was worse was having to go down to the basement to get supplies. Dish washing soaps, towels, cleaning supplies. Another horror movie set. Dark and mysterious. I always thought there might be dead bodies down there. The morgue. But to be honest I have no clue. And since the hospital only had something like 50 beds the chances that there Zombies were running rampant in the basement hallways were pretty slim.

My hospital bright spot was a boy. I don’t remember his name. I remember he was cute. You know, the important stuff. Unlike the nursing home the dish washing area was in a separate room off the kitchen. He and I would have water fights with the spray nozzles. We would laugh ’til we cried and the “mature” women in the kitchen would roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders and then ignore us.

The hospital is where I first learned to wrap baked potatoes in aluminum foil to keep them from drying out. Hey were talking 1976-77 here.

But even then the economy fell and I got laid off. It was back to the nursing home. Part-time. So in what would become a lifetime habit of mine I got a second job working at Jim Vetter Ponitac Buick as a receptionist/bookkeeper. For some silly reason they wanted me to help out with bookkeeping. I had to enter figures into a ledger. Me. The queen of transposed numbers. Then they expected me to reconcile it. Me. The queen of bounced checks. Ok..again. This was before everyone used computers that did all that for you. Needless to say I did all my entries in pencil. Eventually they threw up their hands and just had me on the phones. It was at this time that I had my first clue that I had voice people liked to hear. I would have great conversations on the phone with customers who called and who would tell me how much they enjoyed listening to me talk. I had so many compliments that I thought I always wanted to be receptionist.

So I was working part-time at the car dealership and part-time at the nursing home when the full-time position of cook came open at the home. I was offered the job since I had been pretty much doing all the cooking when I was there anyway. I was just out of high school 17 years old and I thought it sounded like a pretty good move for me but I wanted to see what else might be out there so I checked the help-wanted ads in the paper and saw an entry that intrigued me. Our local radio station, WLKM, was looking for part-time weekend help. Now this sounded like fun. Much better than poached eggs, dry toast and the other “gourmet” dishes I was cooking up. So I drove out to the studio on the outskirts of town and applied for the job.

I was taken into a studio, a mic was placed in front of me and I was given some news copy to read. I recorded it on a reel to reel machine and I was fascinated by the big black board with all the knobs, switches and dials. I loved the sound it made when you clicked the mic toggle switch. “SNAP”. I was hooked.

Amazingly, they took a chance on a 17 year old girl with no experience and hired me. It was a whole new world.

Stay tuned for Chapter 2 coming soon.

Hello, welcome to my page.

Some of you may be familiar with my other page www.gailforceproductions.com. I have decided to move some of the content from that page to this one and use that one more for my voice work.  So I guess I will just be chatting on here and giving voice to the many thoughts that roll through my head. Please sign in and leave comments. I want to hear from you and your experiences too.

Technorati Tags: gail daniels

Tags: gail daniels