View from the Mountain

The last post of 2006

It's time to look backward while we're thinking about the future.  This has been a challenging year for many people on a number of levels.

While the future might not be cloud free, I can see plenty of blue sky.  I am hoping that 2007 will be a year to remember for many of us.

I am counting on this being the year that sets the stage for the rest of my life.  Tomorrow might have rain in the forecast, but it won't dampen my enthusiasm for the New Year.   

Welcome to 2007, don't forget your family and friends.

The cat whisperer

I have always loved animals.  My mother used to love to tell the story of Whiskers, a cat that eventually stole the heart of our family.  Whiskers, a black and white cat, that wandered into our life one day, wasn't supposed to come into our house.  In fact my mom specifically told me not to open the door for it.  It did not take me long to figure out that if I raised the screen on the screen door, that the cat could get in without me opening the door.  Whiskers went on to become a great pal, often helping me do my homework when I was in elementary school. 

Yet for most of my adult life I have a Labrador Retriever guy, and most recently my wife, Glenda, has been in charge of spoiling our cat, Malarky.  She has actually done an exceptional job of doing that.  The cat as you can see enjoys a fairly comfortable spot in our home.  He also has become very adept at drinking water from our bathroom sinks.  Still Malarky doesn't have a completely easy life.  He sometimes get visits from our youngest daughter's Lab-Boxer, Dozer, who thinks that cats are a lot of fun to chase.  Once a year he gets to endure the three cats of our oldest daughter when they come to visit for Christmas.  Malarky handles both Dozer and the visiting cats in the same way.  He retreats behind the sofa when threatened, hisses, puffs his tail, and just toughs it out.

Still the biggest challenge in his life is traveling between our Roanoke, Va. house and the North Carolina coastal home we share with some friends.  The first couple of trips we tried medicating him.  Fortunately he didn't have to pass sobriety tests since he ended up pretty tipsy.  After that we figured out that he would be mostly fine if he could ride in someone's lap.   Actually that wouldn't be too bad, but the drive is five hours and change.  That's turns out to be a lot of cat holding.

Usually I do most of the driving in our trips, but something unusual has happened recently.  Malarky has become a little difficult for my wife to handle on the trips.  For some reason all of my cat experience has come back to me.  I can rub his ears, tickle his chin, and in general work him over until he ends up being a calm cat after about two hours of riding on my lap.  I have decided that I am a cat whisperer.

I am not sure that buys me anything but a lot of cat fur all over me, and not much time under the wheel.  Our last trip down, I had to plead with my wife to let me drive.  She was afraid the cat was going to start climbing all over her if she relinquished the wheel.  Fortunately she gave in and my cramping leg got some rest.  Being a cat whisperer requires providing the cat with a very comfortable position cradled in my arm and resting on my leg.

So if you need some advice on unruly cats, send big checks, and I'll start working on it.

The steel magnolia and her lettuce patch

I grew up with a mother who was a strong southern woman.  The one thing that I learned early in life was to never under estimate one of the south's steel magnolias.

We recently visited my wife's aunt who lives in North Carolina near Mount Airy.  As we pulled into her driveway on a late December afternoon, the first thing that I noticed was a patch of leaf lettuce growing in her flower bed along with a few pansies.

I was not surprised.  Southern women are nothing if not resourceful.   My mother had little patches of things growing all around our house.  She also slept with a baseball bat by her bedroom door.  Of course my wife's aunt sleeps with a little more fire power since times have gotten tougher over the years.  In fact she keeps a pump shotgun in an easily accessible spot.  As she says, the sound of shotgun chambering a shell is one of those universal sounds that means you should consider your options carefully before making yourself a pest.  If you don't, it might be the last decision you make.

Most great southern women have had their character strengthened by adversity.  My mother and Glenda's aunt are no exceptions.  With that strong character came an absolute dedication to family and friends.

There's a certain honesty in our steel magnolias that can be freshing.  One thing to remember is to not be surprised by the answers to your questions.  As we were talking to Glenda's aunt something came up about men.  I mentioned that I remembered well what she had once told me.

I would rather have a good axe and a reliable lawn mower than another man around the house.

She looked at me, smiled, and said she wouldn't deny saying it.  There is one other thing you should know about strong southern women.  Never, ever get on their wrong side.

However, there can be no greater honor than to go through life with one of those steel magnolias by your side.  I should know, my wife is also one.

Mayberry Christmas

The holiday season would not be complete for us without a trip to our home turf, Mount Airy, NC.  Our little home town was the inspiration for the popular Andy Griffith show.  My late mother who moved to Mount Airy in 1926 called the town home for most of 75 years.

Lots of towns have watched their downtowns disappear as strip malls and Walmarts have sucked the business off of main street.  This hasn't happened to Mount Airy.  Main Street Mount Airy launched itself with help from Andy, Barney, Aunt Bea, Snappy Lunch, and Floyd's Barber Shop.

Yet today, you can find every thing from the shiny white Apple computers at CyberGear to Vera Bradley bags at Specialty Gifts.  Along the way there are some really interesting spots even for us guys.

One of my favorite spots is Holcomb's Hardware and Locksmith.  The window shot to the left was taken today.  There is some amazing stuff in the window.  Many of the things are a little hard to find today unless you know a place like Holcomb's.  But it you need a gasket for your pressure cooker or a special key done, Holdcomb's is the place.

You can enjoy many other shops from a bakery or bookstore to an Army surplus story and everything in between.  We even saw a Christmas tree decorated with toy John Deere tractors.

Then there is food and drink.  There are several sandwich shops including Snappy Lunch and a restaurant or two.  There's even a candy store, a winery, and a downtown Cinema which operates on limited hours.

One of the things I like the most about Mount Airy is that there are always people on the main street.  You will see a wide variety of people.  Mount Airy is no cookie cutter city.  Every time that I see a thriving downtown, I have renewed hope for our country.  While sometimes I like the ready availability of chain store merchandise as much as anyone, I'll always try to find my goods in a local store first.

While part of that resolve might be a distaste for Walmart parking lots, the rest is a belief that local service and support will alway trump the impersonal nature of the big box stores.

For better views of the pictures, especially the John Deere Christmas tree, try clicking on them.

The apology

Many of us have young adults visiting during the holidays. It's always a great pleasure, but something of a challenge. I read an interesting post this morning on the NY Times site.  The article, "The Power of ‘Sorry’," brought back some memories.  Some of them are very recent.

I'm not sure when you cross the line from getting more flexible with age to becoming inflexible. I'm still on the flexible side of the line.  As is the case with most parents, I will do just about anything for my young adults. Sometimes it is really hard to do that without getting into a situation that strains relationships and requires an apology.

We all go through a stage when we know more than our parents.  The unfortunate thing is that often by the time we really know more about some things than our parents, we might have missed learning about the things that they really know and understand.  It's one of the great challenges of modern life which often causes me to wonder if the next generation will be able to even fix a toilet that won't stop running without calling a plumber.

Time and space often add to the challenge of keeping holiday enhanced families on an even keel.  Families are much more widely disbursed these days so sometimes you end up trying to cram too much of importance into a short time.

Reality is that we all live very complex challenging lives which often intersect in unpredictable ways with other very challenging complex lives.   It would be nice if there were fewer bosses like the ones we see so often in Dilbert.  It would be great if we older ones who aren't quite to Medicare didn't have to worry about health care, but that's not going to happen easily or quickly. Just like the pointy haired bosses aren't going away anytime soon.

Sometimes we realize that one of the greatest blessings of the holidays is that the  wonderful times often end before they have a chance to turn into something not so wonderful.