tumbleweed

Name:
Location: Omaha, Nebraska, United States

Julie calls me "Sweetie". Finley calles me a variation of "Daddy". One of my friends calls me "Boo-Boo". Another friend used to call me "Mole".

Saturday, May 27, 2006

We Call Him Edward

We call him Edward. He comes into the restaurant where I work almost everyday with a bag in his hand. In his bag is usually a steak that he gives to our chef to cook. He will walk right into the kitchen and hand our chef the steak. Everyone in our restaurant adores Mr. Edward. He is the most unassuming, gently heroic man that most of we young people have ever known or likely ever will know. Over the last few months I have begun to know who this man is. Years ago when I worked here he would come in with his wife who at the time was barely holding on to her life. I didn't really know him then. I was more of an observer. He would wheel her to their table in her wheel chair and they would share a meal together. They were one of those couples that soaked each other up. They were it for one another. So when I returned to Joseph-Beth three years later I was sad to see that Mr. Edward was coming alone to lunch. While I was away his beloved wife had passed away. When I asked my friends at work about Ed's wife's passing they said that they felt like one of their family members had died. Upon my reintroduction to Ed I sensed a depth and purity of spirit that I have only witnessed in a few other people. So now when he comes in I make a point to sit with him and glean whatever I can from this eighty-one year old man. I have learned that he is a retired Professor of Agriculture at the University of Kentucky so he is really Dr. Ed. He is the father of four children. He lost his oldest child who now rests in the same cemetery as his wife does. I have witnessed parents mourn the death of their child. It is an unbearable grief. I have known men who have lost their one true love after sixty years of marriage. These men have died of a broken heart. Ed is definitely carrying around a broken heart but it has not killed him yet. He has transformed a large portion of his grief into compassion. Five days a week he either visits hospice and tries to comfort people who are dying or he visits Alzheimer patients and as he says "just holds their hands". Among all this he finds time to volunteer in the bookstore where I work reading books to little children. Recently he was named a Living Legend among ten other people in Lexington who live extraordinary lives. The man is an elderly saint full of miracles. He is a tall, pale, thin angel. He is an eighty-year old picture of Jesus. I am privileged to learn from him about what it means to be human and alive.

You Will Never Be the Same

Buy don't copy Sufjan Stevens' albums Michigan and Illinois. This is the best music I have heard in years. Julie and I can't get enough of it. Finley even loves it. Alanson, Crooked River on Michigan soothes him. If he is crying and we play it for him he stops crying. If you are happy this music will make you sad (the good kind of sad). If you are sad this music will make you happy. If you are despondent this music will make you hopeful. It is beautiful, haunting and downright amazing. It makes you want to live.

Why Now is a Terrible Time to Be Young

Generation Debt-Why Now is a Terrible Time to Be Young by Anya Kamenetz debuted in February. I pray that this book and its author get the publicity and attention they deserve. This is a timely treatise on the economic issues affecting my generation. If you are young you should definitely read this. If you do not consider yourself young anymore you should still read this. Kamenetz illustrates why now is a terrible time to be young: the soaring federal deficit; credit card debt; the lack of entry level jobs and the shrinking job market; rising health care costs; the financial burden placed on society by the baby-boomers' retirement; the shift from federal grants to private loans and federal loans for higher education funding which has increased debt loads for students; and among other issues corporations redefining what it means to be a full-time employee so they can cut pensions, health care coverage, and retirement plans. These issues are more than concerning and should be at the forefront of public policy. Please read this book.

An Empty Nest

My family has been in Texas for a week. It has been nothing short of awful. My wife is my best person and my son is my best human under two feet so my loneliness has been palpable. The duplex is too quiet. I think someone is living in the crawl space above our hallway. There might be a troll in the shower. Tumbleweeds keep rolling through the living room. Seventeen and a half hours until I get my family back. This was written on May 4th.

Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with their Moms?

I finished the book Freakonmics by Levitt and Dubner. It is fascinating. Freakonomics deals with the "hidden side of everything". If morality represents how people would like the world to work, then economics shows how it actually does work. This central idea is explained through chapters like: What do School Teachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?; How is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents; Where Have All the Criminals Gone?; and What Makes a Perfect Parent?

One of the most important lessons I learned concerns the idea of "conventional wisdom". Conventional wisdom follows the path of least resistance. However the most obvious answer to a question is not always the right one. The easiest way to explain something usually serves convenience and not truth. Generally people accept conventional wisdom because it helps explain an uncomfortable reality in an easy-to-swallow manner. Our current administration has done this at almost every turn. Our domestic and foreign policy are driven by conventional wisdom: the war on terror; immigration; the war in Iraq; and the suspension of civil rights in the name of national security. What has become the easiest and most acceptable way to explain our actions and policy in this land and other lands no matter how atrocious or ethically diabolical is to say that we do it in the name of national security.

Like Any Good Scientist

Like any good scientist I must attempt my experiment again. I am going to write on my Xanga and try and post most of all that I write on my blogspot because so many of my dern friends use Blogspot. I will transfer all of my old Xanga entries to my Blogspot.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

My Experiment Failed

I was going to attempt to post on Blogspot and Xanga but for now I am only going to post on Xanga. So come on over.