Kory's Van

It’s time for true confessions.  My husband is downright embarrassing.  Sometimes it’s hard to admit I married the guy and I’m thankful we have different last names so people don’t automatically connect me with him.  Case in point – his van.  If you’ve ever seen it driving around the valley, then you know what I’m talking about. 

It’s an old blue van that’s well dinged up.  In years past when he’s been hit by other cars, he just keeps their insurance money and forgets about getting any bodywork done.  It’s takes the stress out of having a nice vehicle that’s so vulnerable to the carelessness of others.  It’s the opposite of a status symbol for him – it shows the world his priorities are not wrapped around his possessions.  OK, so this part of him I like.  His van serves the purpose of getting him from point A to point B, and that’s good enough for him, but it’s the attachment he put on the roof that makes it look as if a clown should be driving it

Kory, my clown, took it to a whole new level a few years ago when Sarah Palin was making the news with all her talk of the Tea Party.  He liked what he heard and unfortunately, discovered a very large, old teakettle lying around in our garage.  It struck an odd nerve in his brain and he decided to stick it on top of his van, to show his support for the Tea Party movement.  I wasn’t in agreement with this unique way of making a political statement and begged him to take it off.  He refused.  

He then upped its absurdity factor by painting a five-gallon bucket with red and white stripes and blue stars lining the rim and placing the teakettle on top of that. It looked like a parade vehicle and I was sure it was a temporary thing.  But I was wrong.  Because he got such passionate reactions from others as he drove his Tea Party van around, it only egged him on further. 

He didn’t care if he got a thumbs up or flipped off, he was happy he sparked some emotion in people over it. That’s the kind of guy he is.  

This past year he “enhanced” this eye-sore of a political statement by constructing a new plywood base for the five-gallon bucket/tea kettle monstrosity to sit on.  He stenciled words around the sides of this base to even further make his point. “Individual Freedom,”  “Fiscal Responsibility,” “Limited Government,” and “TEA – Taxed Enough Already,” leave no room for wondering how he feels about governmental policies. 

The fact our son, nor I, will be seen riding around in that van, doesn’t affect him one bit.  Lately, he says, people have stopped flipping him off and he only gets “thumbs up.”  Many wave from sidewalks or take photos of his van from their cars.  He’s now considering the installment of LED lights for when he drives that thing around at night.  Lord, help me. 

Names

Our family took a little homeschooling tour around the state last week to learn what we could about Washington’s history.  This is the beauty of homeschooling.  Rather than try to teach it from a book, we loaded up our motorhome and went to see it all for ourselves.

Either I slept through Washington State history, or it’s just been so darn long since I’ve been in school that I don’t remember a thing.  As I’ve now lived through so much of Washington’s history I love learning facts about what came before me and seeing how everything fits together in time and space.  Some of my favorite things we learned were how places got their names. 

After making it to Walla Walla, we headed west following the Columbia River down the Lewis & Clark trail where we landed at Fort Vancouver.  It was there we learned that Oregon was originally spelled Ouragan, and in the native’s language means “great river in the west,” referring to what we now call the Columbia River.  After Captain Gray “discovered” the river and named it after his ship, the surrounding tributaries that feed into the river were then referred to by the white folks as “Oregon Territory.” 

We also learned that the city of Portland ended up with that name only because the two men who co-founded the city flipped a coin, best two out of three, to see whose hometown it would be named after.  If the coin had landed on the other side, that city would now be known as Boston.

I thought it was funny that Cape Disappointment was named that by Capt. John Meares who was looking for the mouth of the “Great River in the West” and when he happened upon it, mistook it for a bay and was terribly disappointed he hadn’t found the river. He’d actually discovered the right place but just didn’t know it.  I’d have renamed it Cape Double Disappointment after that realization.

Our own beloved Seattle was known as Du-wamps for at least a year in it’s history, until Doc Maynard changed it’s name.  He’d asked Chief Seattle if he could rename the city in his honor, but the chief wouldn’t go for it.  Maynard then offered him $500 a year for life for using his name, which then changed his mind.  Maynard wanted to honor the chief for all the help his tribe had provided the early settlers.  Five hundred bucks was a small fortune back then, but Maynard knew the chief was old and in declining health so he figured he wouldn’t have to pay out too much.  The chief lived on 17 more years.  Touché. 

And lastly, our own state of Washington got named so because those in charge of naming such things wanted to call it “Columbia,” after the mighty river, but someone felt it would cause too much confusion with the country’s capital being called “District of Columbia.” Oh, the irony, that we are now known as “The Other Washington.”

Bad Days

The tide comes in and the tide goes out.  Is one better than the other?  High tide washes interesting things up on shore; low tide exposes marine life not otherwise seen. Life exists at both extremes and everything in between.  High tide makes for one set of circumstances, low tide the other.  Are we not to fully enjoy the one while we have it, or do we sit and wait for the other to return?  As constantly as the tide changes, so do our lives and moods and circumstances.  Is not every moment to be cherished?  Without the valleys, we wouldn’t appreciate the mountaintops.

My husband used to call PMS “Pretty Mean Stuff,” as I was not the nicest person in the world on those days.  I didn’t even realize myself how much my hormones were raging until he said something and I opened my mouth to respond.  When something nasty came flying out, I felt as much a victim as he did. At least he could get away from me.  I couldn’t.  One of the benefits of growing older is that those days are finally behind me. 

Hormones are one of life’s mysteries that I’m dealing with again, only now as it pertains to my teenager’s life.  They can make for some fairly challenging days. 

There are other mysteries I’ve encountered that make little or no sense to me, too.  I watch the news and can’t understand all the violence around the world or the horrific disasters that claim innocent lives.  I don’t understand greed and the constant drive towards obtaining more.  Why can’t people be happy with what they have, if what they have is enough?  Why are some men so afraid of equality for women?  Why can’t our government just do things that make sense?  There seems to be no good answers to life’s mysteries.

One of my favorite song lyrics is a line by James Taylor that says, “The secret to life is enjoying the passing of time.”  It doesn’t matter what the day holds, what mood I’m in, what the news is, or how strongly the hormones are raging in my child, I try to find something to enjoy, something to thank God for, some reason to be glad to be alive, as I know all too well that things may change faster than the tide.  

Everyday is a miracle.  Everyday has beauty.  Whether the sun shines and we can gaze upon the mountains, or hear the birds singing, or whether it’s raining and we can be glad we have a roof over our head to keep us dry, there is always something for which we can be thankful.

And the way I figure it, if we were all easy to live with everyday, it robs the other family members the opportunity to show unconditional love, because one of the greatest gifts, as well as mysteries in life, is the gift of forgiveness. Especially when dispensed on those hormonal days. 

Nature

The sunny days we had last week drew me outside for some much needed yardwork.  The trumpeter swans flew overhead as I wrested with the roots of blackberry bushes on our hillside.  Snowgeese lifted in a majestic cloud over the brilliant yellow of a nearby daffodil field in full bloom.  Eagles squawked at each other at the top of cedar trees on our neighbor’s property.  It was hard to get any work done, as my senses were full to overflowing with the beauty and grandeur of the sights and sounds that surrounds us here in Skagit Valley. 

I love all the wildlife that share their home with us.  A huge raccoon sauntered by my front door the other day.  Rabbit pellets lie at the edge of our lawn.  I hear coyotes calling out and great horned owls hooting in the night when I sleep with the windows open.  Our birdfeeders keep the songbirds, squirrels and chipmunks as regular visitors.  We’ve seen opossums, skunks and even porcupines on our road.  Deer are frequent guests and even wild turkeys have made their way to our yard on occasion. 

My thoughts drifted back to my own childhood, growing up near Issaquah.  We had bears and cougars roaming our neighborhood in those days, so the wildlife wasn’t appreciated as much back then as the wildlife I enjoy now.  The creek that ran through our community kept me busy in the summer catching crawdads, minnows and tadpoles.  In the fall, I’d walk into the woods and watch the salmon fighting their way upstream to spawn.  I often reached down to pet them, as there were so many, and the water was so shallow.  All that is gone now, though.  

Development in the area has nearly dried up the creek so that only skunk cabbage and reed grass grows in the spot where it used to be.  No more salmon, tadpoles or crawdads.  My heart ached the last time I drove through there and saw what was left of the wide-open spaces where we used to play.  So many changes, and none of them seemed to be good.

As I was working out in the yard last week, I wondered how many of these sights and sounds of nature that are around us now, will be just a memory for my son when he is an old man.  Will he remember back to his childhood encounters with nature on Pleasant Ridge with the same fond memories I remember my own?  Will the snowgeese still be landing in the fields in front of our house?  Will the deer still be nibbling on the apple trees?  Will the chickadees still be eating from our hands?

Change.  It’s not one of my favorite words, but it’s inevitable. Sometimes change is good and that’s why it’s called “progress.”  While it may be progress for mankind, it’s not necessarily the case for nature, however.  One thing in nature I’m sure won’t change though, is that we will always have blackberries bushes. 

My House

When I was twenty, I lived in Astoria, Oregon.  I was involved in an abusive relationship, and back then, there was nowhere to turn for support.  I eventually walked away, enrolled in college, and got a degree. 

In my late twenties, I was working in Seattle and life was pretty sweet. I missed Astoria though, so I bought a 1905 salt-box style fixer-upper house there with the idea of making it a vacation/retirement home.  The progress was slow, but with the help of friends and family, it started taking shape. Three years into the project, however, my dreams were shattered.  

When I drove down to work on the house, I discovered it had been broken into and vandalized. Everything was taken, but worst of all, the classic old features of the house were trashed.  The little pantry window panes were smashed; the beveled mirror above the fireplace was broken; the pillars supporting the mantle were ripped out and even the stair case banister had the rungs knocked out.  My heart ached.  There would be no reason in the world to continue to fix up the house, as those were the exact features I’d fallen in love with in the first place.

My favorite promise in the Bible is “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose...”. There was not a thing that had happened to me, including the abuse, that I couldn’t say eventually worked out “for good.”  

I cried big tears, though.  What good could possibly come from this?  Many thoughts raced through my mind.  How could someone do this? Then the words came: “Call the Women’s Crisis Center and give them your house.”  It made no sense, since I knew there wasn’t a Women’s Crisis Center, but I walked to the nearest phone booth, and to my surprise, there was one listed.  I called their number.

Later that night I met with the director and explained what had happened.  I told her if she wanted the house ‘as-is,’ she could have it as a safe place for women and children.  I assured her I’d continue to make the payments. She was speechless.

An article appeared on the front page of the local newspaper, about this “battered house for battered women,” and volunteers rushed in to help fix it up.

When the house was ready to be occupied, household donations flooded in.  They had such excess they opened a thrift store in town to sell the abundance.  That store now provides work experience for women living in the house. The Crisis Center is going strong.

Years later, I got teary eyed when I had lunch with the director.  She said when I made that initial call in 1987, she had been hired on for three months just to close down the books because the community support wasn’t enough to keep even the phone line open. They were $16 overdrawn and several hundred dollars in debt.  She was three weeks away from turning off the phone. Then I called and everything changed.  

That beat up old house was a seed that got planted and grew into what it is today.  Now with a comfortable operating budget, Clatsop County Women’s Resource Center is a place where women find comfort, practical help and a new life.   

I was embarrassed I ever doubted God’s promise that, “All things work together for good.”

Bucket List

I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about “Bucket Lists” - those things people want to do before they “kick the bucket.” It’s good to have goals.

My friend, Debbie, is leaving soon on a trip to Sweden with her husband’s family as her father-in-law has it on his Bucket List to visit the farms where his grandparents lived before settling in Skagit County.  They plan to visit family members and learn a little more about their Swedish roots.  I’d say if a person is going to make a Bucket List, this should be the first thing on it.  It was on mine.

I’ve been able to visit all eight Norwegian farms where my grandparent’s grandparents came from, as well as the parcels of land they homesteaded in North Dakota.  On a few of the farms, I got a strange sensation as I stood there, looking out over the land our family had lived on for generations.  It was more than a sense of connection - it was almost spiritual.   As Americans, I think we miss out a little on the kind of cultural identity I’ve seen in other countries.  We’re the new kid on the block, with a very short history, and our culture is so diverse, I find it hard to identify with any of it. 

It was magical when I visited the farm in Norway where my mother’s maiden name comes from and met relatives still living there.  Buildings still stood from the 1600s.  Old tools my ancestors used were still in the shed.  I held a letter written by my great-great-great grandfather in 1852 telling his younger brother in Norway he could keep the farm, sell it, or give it away, as he was never leaving America.  It felt like walking into my own living history museum. 

Bucket Lists are good no matter what they contain.  At a memorial service I recently attended, the family of the deceased talked about how Lee had lived much longer than anyone thought he would, because of his Bucket List.  

Lee endured dialysis three times a week for years because he so wanted to make it to his 80^th birthday – a feat no one else in his family had ever achieved.  As he approached the day, his health was failing fast but he recuperated and went on to live two more years.  The next unachieved thing on Lee’s Bucket List was to see the Seahawks win the Super Bowl.  His love for football actually kept him alive.  After that big victory, he decided he’d had enough of dialysis.

As his family and friends gathered around him in his final days, lavishing him with all the love and attention he so deserved, his parting words were, “If I’d known dying was going to be this much fun, I would have done it sooner.”  The last thing on Lee’s List was to make it into heaven.  

Some lists are about looking back, others about the future, but the best ones involve living the present.

Memories

I spent part of last weekend going through old boxes of papers I’ve kept over the decades. College reports, high school report cards, every letter, birthday and Christmas card anyone has ever sent me.  I’m sure this isn’t normal, but I keep thinking when I’m an old lady, I’ll sit down and read them all again.  I read a few this weekend, relived the past, and shoved them back in the box.  

Why I kept copies of old checks, electric bills from 1976 and travel brochures from the 1980s, I don’t know.  Those, I tossed.  I whittled down my inventory just enough to feel I’d spent the time wisely, but not so much that I’m worried I threw out good memories.  But I still have too many boxes. 

Of all my favorite pieces of paper to save, however, are the ones I scribbled on when my son was young.  He rarely says things now that get me to laugh like I used to, but some of his earlier words are priceless. 

The Mother’s Day that Kaleb was three-years-old, I thought, just for fun, I’d throw him a question that I was sure was over his head, just to see what he’d say. “On a scale of 1 to 10,” I said, “how would you rate me as a mother, with ten being the best mother in the whole world, and one being the worst.”  I didn’t think he’d even understand the concept, yet he thought about it for a minute then said, “You’re a fiver.  Sometimes you can be a six or a seven though.” 

At age four, he kept getting out of his seat at the table and I got angry and told him to pretend his butt is “glued to the chair and to just sit there.”  Seconds later he got up again so I said, “What’s going on?”  To which he replied, “Oh, the glue isn’t sticking very good.”

Picking Kaleb up from preschool one day I told him I was very proud of him that he’d never gotten a “time out” there.  

He responded with a certain tone, “Well, you’ll have to ask Teacher Cindy about that.”   I was surprised, assuming he’d actually gotten one, so I asked, “What did you get a timeout for?” He replied, “How do you know I got a time out?”  I said, “I’m taking a big guess, based on what you just said.”  

When I dropped him off at pre-school the next time, I asked Teacher Cindy about his time out.  She said he’d never gotten one.  So I turned to Kaleb and asked, “Well then, what was that all about?”  He replied, “You guessed wrong.” 

Approaching his fifth birthday, completely out of the blue Kaleb said, “This year for my birthday and Christmas, I don’t want anything because I have enough.”  I questioned him a bit on that then he said, “Remember, be happy with what you have.  I have enough.”

Don’t we all.  I have more than enough.