Philosophical Questions

Having two twelve-year-old tweens in the house has generated a lot of "deep philosophical questions."

1. Why are the rules different in different families?
2.  Why do we have to do homework in the summer?
3.  Why is important what religion you believe?
4.  Why do parent's teach their children that only one religion is right?

That was just some of them for this one week.  My question is, "Why do they start asking them so late a night?"

I just thought the why's finished when they turned seven.

Here is Elan's discussion starter. The Story of Stuff ("Ignore the commercials, Nana.")   http://youtu.be/mXx1qHEgmqY 

 I hope some of you will share the deep philosophical's happening at your house this summer.

Leadership 101.3

Success can be defined as the progressive realization of a predetermined goal.  The discipline to prioritize and the ability to work toward a stated goal are essential to a leader’s success.  –John Maxwell

Organize or Agonize

High importance/High urgency

High importance/Low urgency

Low importance/High urgency

Low importance/Low urgency

Choose or Lose

LEADERS	FOLLOWERS
Initiate	React
Lead; pick up the phone and make contact	Wait; listen for the phone to ring
Spend time planning; anticipate problems	Spend time living day-to-day; react to problems
Invest time with people	Spend time with people
Fill the calendar by priority	Fill the calendar by request

Evaluate or Stalemate (3 R’s)

What is required of me?

What gives me the greatest return?

What is most rewarding?

To keep your priorities in place

Evaluate (3 R’s)

Eliminate (what am I doing that someone else could do?)

Estimate (put it on your calendar)

Until the Twentieth Century, priority was only used in the singular. – Jorja Davis

You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything. – Tony Campolo

The good is the enemy of the best – make all decisions based on your goals. –Jorja Davis

When little priorities demand too much of us, big problems arise. –John Maxwell

MEMORIES

I was four and you were six

Uncle T gave us twenty-five cents

And sent us down to the corner store

To buy a watermelon so big

That the wagon that had bounced behind us as we ran

We had to play push-me pull-me to get the watermelon-filled wagon home.

We ate slices of watermelon and drank red soda pop

Until we were sweet and gummy from head to toe

Uncle T washed us down with the hose

We danced in the spray and chased the rainbows

Our mothers sent us to play shadow tag until we were dry

All the while we were waiting and watching for the first lightening bug

You gathered for me a jar-full so that I would have fireworks too

While you waved both our sparklers over your head

As the Milky Way washed the sky

I loved you then

When I was six and you were eight

You could run backward

Balancing on one foot then the other

As you ran backward from driveway to driveway

Down the curb

The wind seemed to lift your outstretched arms

And to anchor your feet as you scampered along

I tried to balance walking forward

Because you told me that was the way to learn

I spread my arms like a fledgling bird

But no matter how hard I tried

I ended up where I started

With nothing to show but scraped up hands and bleeding knees

Our grandmothers together wiped the tears on their aprons

And splashed the grit away

You blew on the Merthiolate as it dried

As the fireflies sparkled and the Milky Way filled the sky

You wanted to teach me how to balance

On the rope you tied from elm to elm

I loved you then

When I was eight and you were ten

Our grandmothers’ yards were filled with the clash of pirate swords

With swashbucklers that boarded ships on ropes tied to the elms

With the whoops of wild Indians riding wild mustangs on galloping feet

With cowboys shooting their cap pistols into the fray

Circling their wagons made of crates and piles of gathered brush

With soldiers moving stealthily behind the rose bushes weapons at the ready

Faces painted with mud for camouflage

I never understood why I couldn’t be a pirate or an Indian or a soldier or a cowboy

I could swing on a rope

I could paint my face with mud

I could gallop with Misty and Black Beauty and Flicka on the playground at school

I even owned my own cap pistol and Davy Crockett raccoon hat

But I was always the damsel in distress or the nurse caught behind enemy lines

You and David said it was because I was girl of course

So I was tied to crates in the bilges of a ship

Or caught under an overturned Conestoga

Or held in a lone teepee

Or tied in a hay loft

Waiting to be rescued by rugged men

Dancing in the chicken coop as the rooster pecked at my ankles

Hoping the fireflies would soon come out

So we could play tag beneath the Milky Way

Until it was cool enough to go to bed

I loved you then

When I was ten and you were twelve

Your grandmother’s back porch no longer held jars of green beans set from the canner to cool

Instead you had trains and track all waiting to be unboxed

Some days we did nothing but lay out track

Looking for the perfect combination of circles that interconnected and intertwined

So two engines could run at the same time

Some days we built a station shed of lumber scraps and nails and left over track

My Papa-Dada helped us in his workshop that smelled of cut wood and small engine oil

Some days we made plaster hills and mountains in Nanny’s washtub

Our hair spiked and our clothes stiff and the grass speckled with white

Some days you let me paint the trees and roofs

While you did the more intricate painting of people and storefronts

When bridges finally crossed over painted streams waiting for trains to rattle across

When the track was tied and the lamp posts and buildings were lighted and wired

The summer had slipped away

I think I expected the rumble of the Santa Fe as it passed my house in the night

But when you turned the switch and finally the trains huffed and puffed from the station house

Lights on street lamps and in stores and houses lit the way

I and the stationary people lined on the station platform raised our hands

At the magic as the caboose passed our way

We celebrated that night by chasing fireflies

And lying on the grass so you could show me

All the constellations and we wondered about the number of stars

In the Milky Way

I loved you then

When I was twelve and you were fourteen

We spent our days talking about our dreams and our hopes

And seeing who could set my Little Grandma and our Aunt Laura arguing

About who fell off the wagon

During the Oklahoma Land Rush

They would argue all day we never really cared nor found out who

While we laughed and played Scrabble (you always won)

And worked Aunt Irene’s crossword puzzles (I was better with the crossword dictionary)

Once a week we walked all the way downtown

By ourselves

To watch the Saturday matinee

You held my hand as we passed the bars

Where the doors were open to catch a breeze

We could smell stale beer

And hear the honky-tonk music from the jukeboxes

And the clink of heavy glass mugs

I shivered when you told me about the one-eyed men

Who carried long knives in their cowboy boots

And who might come out fighting at any time

You were right

We saw it played out on the big screen week after week

While we sat on the back row

But still the time I loved the most

Was when we sat in the porch swing

Watching the fireflies flicker

Listening to stories

Dreaming along the Milky Way

I loved you then

When I was fourteen and you were sixteen

You tried to teach me to drink coffee

Black

I did my best to keep up

But there wasn’t enough sugar in the sugar jar

Or enough milk in the bottle

But I was impressed

We would all go out to the homestead

Where we would explore the falling down

Four-room shotgun house

Where your grandmother and my grandfather were raised

With brothers and sisters

You went squirrel hunting and frog gigging with the men

And I was content

Reading in the shade of the cedar tree

Little Grandma watered with her dishwater after every meal

Then you decided I should learn to shoot a rifle

Uncle T lined up the cans on a built up berm

I watched as your bird shot knocked them off one by one

You showed me how to aim and reminded me about the kick

So I would hold my shoulder tight around the butt

I think you and Uncle T forgot to tell me to keep my eyes open

I pulled the trigger

Missed all the cans

And landed on the buffalo grass

But I killed the lizard that picked the wrong time

To sun himself on the rock

That wasn’t even near the berm

You helped me gather the pieces of his shattered body

At least those that we could find

And together we buried it beneath the cedar tree

I was still crying when the fireflies and the Milky Way came that night

I loved you then

When I was sixteen and you were eighteen

You went to war

You wrote me letters about the people you met

And the dreams you dreamed

About what you would do when you got home

The boys who lived next door went to the same war

Darrell was too close when the napalm flared

He lost his sight and his hands and his feet

He was in a field hospital waiting to be shipped home

To a mother waiting for her broken child

Darrell’s big brother was headed for the air field

To see his little brother before he left

Donald was killed by a sniper

I was so afraid

You promised me that when I was ninety eight and you were one hundred

We would stand outside

You would hold me so I wouldn’t fall down

We would watch for the first firefly

And marvel at the Milky Way

I loved you then

When I was eighteen and you were twenty

You went back to war

You wrote me letters about the people you met

And the dreams you dreamed

About what you would do when you got home

You made me promise that I wouldn’t be afraid

But I was

You reminded me to be brave for you

But I couldn’t

You had to be brave enough for all of us

So my letters were filled with questions

I’d met a boy who gave me roses

A boy who took me on long walks on a beach in the moonlight

A boy who caught fireflies and marveled at the Milky Way

This boy named Bill wrote me letters the summer he was tagging turtles

When he came back he drove three hundred miles to find a chaperone

So we wouldn’t be alone together

You told me to go ahead and give my heart away

I think mostly because of the fireflies and the Milky Way

I loved you then

When I was twenty and you were twenty two

We both made vows

Bill and I honeymooned by coming to your wedding

I told her (and I suspect you told him)

That they were caretakers of a very special heart

With much to pay for if it was broken

I shared with Bill the places where we had played

You told the stories of what we used to do

As we sat among the fireflies underneath the Milky Way

I loved you then

When I was twenty four and you were twenty six

I held your shattered heart for just a moment

While you held my first child

You blessed Chariti with your crooked smile

And you blessed me when you told Bill

She was as beautiful as her mother

Her heartbeat was as gentle as a firefly’s blink

Her skin as soft as the light of the Milky Way

I loved you then

When I was forty and you were forty two

We met in Cleveland

Once again you were alone and empty

Yet you blessed me with that crooked smile

When you told Bill and I that our family was without compare

You told us that though child number two didn’t look a thing like me

Josi certainly had my flair for the dramatic

And a father who loved her

As mine had me

And him

We watched as she and her sister paraded by with the clowns and mimes

At the time we used to see fireflies

But the lights were too bright in the city to see the Milky Way

I loved you then

When I was forty four and you were forty six

You surprised us for Josi’s surprise seventeenth birthday

We sat in the piano bar

We listened to Josi and Chariti sing

We both cried for what you had had and lost

You squeezed my hand in a way that made me know

That even in the depth you were still there

If we wanted we could still dance among the fireflies

Or meet somewhere in the Milky Way

Someday

I loved you then

When I was forty six and you were forty eight

You drove eight hours after work

To care for me after I had surgery

And was going to be alone

You packed me up and took me to the aquarium

To the Inner Harbor to sit in a wheel chair to watch the tall ships come in

We ate lunch and fed the sea gulls

We laughed and people watched

We remembered

At the end of the day

I sighed as I settled into my recliner

I could see the fireflies through the windows

Dancing among the flowers

Too many clouds to see the Milky Way

But it was reflected in your eyes

As you kissed me on my forehead

And told me “Thank you”

I loved you then

When I was forty eight and you were fifty

You met us at Penn State for Chariti’s graduation

We sat on the porch swing

You and Bill and I

And listened to Chariti and Josi reminisce about their childhood

About the fireflies they had chased

About the moonbeams they had climbed

To sleep among the stars of the Milky Way

When their mother told them stories

You knew

You understood

You had shared the same stories with the one you loved

I loved you then

When I was fifty four and you were fifty six

You had lost and found and lost again

The loves of a lifetime

You had buried yourself in a bottle

And your mother had to wake you up when Bill and I arrived

We rode the tractor over a sea of buffalo grass

To the pond where the ashes were scattered

A place so dark and deep that not even fireflies

Or the Milky Way could shine

All you could do was apologize to Bill

And hold me in your arms

I loved you then

Now I am sixty two and you are sixty four

You have found a lifetime love

My heart has relaxed

You now have children and grandchildren to fill your heart

They surround you with unconditional love

Because of genetics or Agent Orange or just because

You are living the Alzheimer that will take you away from all of us

I suspect that should we even make it to ninety eight and one hundred

Neither one of us will be able to stand

We probably won’t even know what a firefly is

But I am sure we will still marvel at the Milky Way

So I promise you I will not be afraid

I will be brave

I love you now

When the days and time are gone

We will find each other again

There will be new games to play

More family and loves than we can imagine

Both those who have gone before

And those we will wait to greet

No pain, no fear, no tears

Surely God won’t leave out some fireflies

As we walk along the Milky Way

I love you

Then

Now

And forever

For Donnie and Linda

Jorja Perkins Davis

August 2011