The All-State All-Star Football Game

The Snow Globe got dumped upside down, and everything fell to the top and stuck there. And no one turned it back over. So there didn't seem to be any sparkles in the air. Here's what happened: my husband Tom is on the city council in the Globe, and if you have ever been involved in small town politics, I probably don't need to say more. If you haven't, you should. Because you will find out really fast how not glamorous it is and you will understand once and for all that changing the world must be a doozy of a job if you can't even pass an ordinance saying Dick's dog shouldn't chase Jane's kid down the street and into the corn field, because if you try Dick will defend his dog with threat of force and his third cousin the lawyer. It gives you a great deal of respect for people who, amazingly enough, do change a little bit of the world every day in all different ways.

So while taking his turn on the council, because somebody has to do it after all or we'll be buried in unmentionable stuff because no one waded their way through fixing the infamous sewer problem, Tom has angered the town's small hornet nest. Mostly they just buzz. Sometimes they sting. This time one winged his way into Larry's Caribou Lounge and started a stinging rumor. Then I got a message; my dear childhood friend said our mutual friend said that his step-dad said that the hornet told everyone in the bar, all four or five of them (blank ugly rumor) about Tom and I. Ouch. Add to that a long, scathing, half-informed opinion piece in the local newspaper (I use the term newspaper with hope in the possibility rather than belief that the current publication deserves that title), saying not-nice things about Mayor Pastor and Tom. Mayor Pastor is a thoughtful, mild-mannered, intelligent man, a former Nazarene pastor new to the position of mayor who has quietly but firmly become a hornet exterminator.

I wanted to forget about the whole situation and go about my little business, but stuff that wasn't sparkly kept coming in the door when other people came to my daycare, and so I was feeling uncharacteristically grumpy about living in the Globe. In fact, I spent some time in the Pretty Little City over the weekend and couldn't stop thinking about how much I liked it there, chatting with strangers in the elevator, being pressed into a cheerful crowd at an outdoor concert, seeing people of many varieties, feeling blissfully anonymous. I'm a loyal and loving fourth generation resident of the Globe; I don't actually want to live anywhere else. It's just that a series of downer small-towner things, combined with my own 40-something issues, led to my admittedly bad attitude. I had begun to gripe. I don't know if y'all gripe in other places, but we've got it down around here, and I'm susceptible; once I start I have trouble stopping.

So I was going with Tom every evening to take the dog on his walk (armed with pepper spray against Dick's damn dog), and alternating between the type of happy conversation married people who like each other and are raising a family together have, and griping. On an evening last week the conversation was about our son Devin and his invitation to play in the All-State All-Star Football Game. The invitation came with a need for him to find a sponsor to pay $400 for his participation in the game. We were wondering about how to make that happen since we also needed to send in the payment for "this," had "that" coming up, and couldn't forget about "the other thing." The walk ended with me thinking we had to solve the sponsor problem right way because the deadline was just over a week away. A couple days later I paused on my way to the same son's district basketball tournament to make a quick Facebook post asking if any of my friends knew of a business that might be willing and able to be his sponsor.

That's when the Globe started to be gently tilted towards the upright position, and a couple of sparkles drifted down. One friend commented on my post, "What about individual sponsors?" and I joked that maybe we should get 80 sponsors at $5 each and say Dev is sponsored by his community. By the time we got to the game, the magic of social media had cast its spell and our fellow basketball fans greeted us with hugs and, well, with cash! The Globe was firmly on its base and sparkles were floating down in a blizzard of good feelings.

Send Devin to the All-State All-Star Football Game took on a life of its own. The treasurer of our community events committee made plans to coordinate the whole effort over coffee with the long-time school secretary/extra mom to years' worth of graduates. From all across the community people were reaching out to help. Like the person at church who handed me $10 and a note saying she had once helped a young man get to Hungary for a wrestling event, which taught her "it takes a village" to get a kid to Hungary…or to the All-State game. There was the science teacher caring for a husband who can no longer care for himself, who says her job teaching in the Snow Globe saves her and that she loves her students, especially my son. There was the former high school football star from the Globe who is clear across the country getting ready to embark on his training as a Green Beret, calling to ask Devin how much he needs, because he understands the importance of that All-Star moment. There was the coach who doesn't work in the Globe anymore, but continues to coach his players long-distance whenever they need him, because small town ties are the kind that stretch but don't break. There's my friend in Seattle who once visited the Globe and became a lifetime fan; she says Devin is now sponsored by the "Greater Northwest Community."

Now, at first I felt embarrassed. In fact, I planned to delete the post but it took off without me and I couldn't catch up. It's not like this is a grave illness, a tragic accident, or the opportunity of a lifetime. People in the Globe have faced all of those things and more, when helping was the only right thing for all of us to do. But as I peeked in at the Facebook conversation thread, folks making arrangements, extending good luck wishes to Devin, joking with one another, telling us how loved we are, the embarrassment settled away. Yes, given a little more time we could have stretched our budget to send our son to the game ourselves. But the spirit of community sparkling in the air we could never have created on our own. It swirls around me, shining soothingly on stinging rumors, clarifying small-town politics, warming up my attitude, and illuminating all the reasons why I am right here where I belong and right-side up again.

The Simple Things

This is a piece I wrote that was read at my Grandpa's memorial service years ago. A friend recently commented to me that she had a copy of it and was sad that she'd lost it, so I posted it here to share with her.

Harold Naylor was a builder.  He took good straight 2 x 4’s and nice pine boards and made whatever we told him we needed.  Strong pieces that we still use every day. And while he was building Holly’s bookshelf and grandma’s kitchen cupboards, he was turning houses into homes and folks into a family.

Among the things I’ve come to know by being a part of his family is my understanding that times can be hard, and things can be good even so.  Thanks to Grandpa, I almost feel the dust of a Kansas farm under my bare feet.  I hear the laughter of his brother and sisters as that old billy goat pulled them around in the cart their dad built.  I see the tumbleweed they decorated for Christmas, and feel the mischievous mood that led him and Buddy to go fishing in the stock tank and catch all those goldfish.  

I know about responsibility from a man who took care of the girls in his family when his dad passed away, and kept right on taking care of them later, when his stepsisters were widows and we visited with them while he helped with one project or another around their houses.  They paid in good home cooking and he never wanted anything more. 

I learned about hard work as I watched for him to come walking home in the evening from his job with Union Pacific Railroad.  He wore a bright yellow hard hat and carried his lunch box, and he worked 40 years without a single accident in the heat and in the snow.  Steady and strong was his way, and straight the path he followed.   And things just didn’t get in his way!  When he set his mind to something, we all knew we didn’t really stand a chance of changing it.  We’d roll our eyes and grumble to each other. “Grandpa’s got it all planned out,” we’d complain.  But chances were we’d eventually have to admit that it was a pretty good plan, and the truth was, it didn’t matter whether we thought so or not!

I felt the power of his devotion to Grandma.  Though he teased her about her “suitcase” of a purse, and grumbled about her knick-knacks, he often told us what a sweetheart she was, and if I ever saw him worry, it was about her.  During World War II, the troop transport train he was on just happened to come through Notus.  He was on duty in the kitchen car and he quickly scribbled out a strictly forbidden note to her and threw it out the door.  He was always grateful that the officer in charge said he hadn’t seen a thing, but if he’d gotten reprimanded, it would have been worth it.  He needed to let his sweetheart know that he was okay.   He came home from the war and married her and spent 60 years doing little things to make her happy.

He taught me about family.  My mom was his “babe” even when she was a parent herself, and my dad was absolutely the son he never had, who called him Dad and knew it was true.  He held each of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the first hours of their lives, and loved watching the family grow.  He had funny stories about each of us that he could pull out to tease us with around the campfire.  He accepted us for who we were and recognized the best in us.  He said if you loved your kids they were going to be spoiled plain and simple, and though grandma is the spoiler, he often got caught helping her do it.  As I climbed in the get-away car after my wedding, it was Grandpa who snuck the cash into my hand for our honeymoon.

As I worked with Grandpa over the years, raking leaves into nice straight rows, snapping beans from his beautiful garden, painting his house, the size of my task growing as I grew, I began to understand the quiet joy of his simple world.  Grandpa liked vanilla ice cream.  He liked a good cup of coffee just black.  He took pride in his small aluminum fishing boat with a fresh coat of green paint on the inside, and was happy to take it to the same lake every year, where the memories were as good as the fishing.  He took great pleasure in sitting in his yard as a hot summer day cooled into evening.  To see countryside he hadn’t seen before, even if it was only a short drive from home, was as enjoyable as any dream vacation.  In this world we are often working to have more, to go further, and when we get there, we find it’s never quite enough. 

Grandpa understood the value of life’s simple things, and to spend time with him was like finally catching your breath. Of all the gifts he gave me, the one I gain the most strength from, and the one I most hope to share with others, is the gift of contentment.  I have never met a soul more content to walk the path laid before him.  When diabetes damaged his eyesight more than 20 years ago, he calmly turned in his driver’s license--a man who had been a driver in the army and a driver for his railroad crew—content to travel the path of his life without complaint.  His values were straightforward, he knew a good person when he met one, and he didn’t doubt that heaven was at the end of his path.  I don’t doubt it either.  

Harold Naylor was a builder, a builder of simple things that last.  Go out for ice cream with your family this summer, and order plain vanilla.  Nothing fancy, just pure and sweet.  In remembering my grandpa, let him remind you no matter what life brings, the simple things are within your reach, and they are good.