The Good Old Red, White, and Blue
Barbara Schwartz
Way back in the “ole days” when I was a youngish married woman with a couple of kids, there was a public park in the middle of the city where we lived. The city was a big city with a small-town feel. In the fall, there was a Fall Fest in the park where numerous vendors came to sell their products and/or food. It was great family fun and was the perfect end to the summer season. The leaves were turning colors and the schools were just getting started to a new school year, and change was in the air.
In the middle of summer, however, there was a massive Fourth of July Party in the park. The city acquired a choir made up from the local church choirs, and members of the armed forces choirs were enthusiastically welcomed every year. The city engineers erected a HUGE platform for the musical performance that was held not once or twice but three times over the holiday period.
The platform was a rectangular shape with round cutouts arranged in a very obvious pattern. The choir stepped behind the platform and climbed the many levels of steps. It became a living flag! The field of stars singers wore blue while the red stripes of the flag had red shirts and the white stripes wore white. It was pretty spectacular to see this flag in motion! But when they started singing, the entire audience was speechless. To see the “flag” waving while hearing all of the patriotic songs being sung was amazing. And they somehow managed to get all the patriotic songs that 99% of the audience not only knew, but could sing along with the choir.
About a week after this performance, I was having lunch with a group of ladies. One of the ladies was having a birthday (she was turning 70) and we were many years younger than she. All of a sudden she announced that she could not sing any patriotic songs without getting weepy. We all thought she was insane—how could age make one feel weepy when patriotism comes around?
Several of these ladies are still in close contact with each other even though there are many miles separating us. And we are all older than the birthday “girl” of so many years ago, But now we get it.
The Pledge of Allegiance, ANY patriotic song, the national anthem of this wonderful country all make us develop lumps in our throats and weepy eyes.
I think it is called maturity? Or a deep desire to keep our priorities of humanity straight? Whatever it is, I like it! I like the feeling this provokes in me and in my heart.
Make Time for Nonsense
Kris Szlauko
The happiest people on earth are very young children. In childhood lives are simple and completely uncomplicated. Children play, eat, and sleep at will. Nonsensical games like jacks, marbles, jump rope, hopscotch, rock-paper-scissors, tag day dreaming, and more are a child’s delight.
The only concerns that children have are the concerns that are placed on them by good intending adults. It is the responsibility of those adults to make sure they play away from the water, don’t eat dirt, get hurt, get lost, run into the street, and that their bedtime is reasonable.
From the moment the wishes and constraints of adults become dominant in their lives, children start losing their ability to divert into their nonsensical world. As we mature into men or women nonsense is deemed as a loss of common sense which is forbidden. Reasonable, responsible, mature people don’t act nonsensical, it is childish.
Losing that child in ourselves presses us into a world filled with deadlines, appointments, duties, concerns about health, bills, looming world events, and more mounting stresses.
Our bodies are programmed to handle both good and bad stresses. Both stresses cause a surge of adrenaline which in the short term is useful in the emotional response to stress. However if stress is continuous that same absolutely necessary adrenaline becomes a burden on the body causing more dangerous health problems. Before long all of those health problems become not only the result, but the reason for our stress.
How long has it been since you put everything aside and stopped using your brain for a few moments and did something that just uses your senses? The only true way to step off of the stress merry-go-round is to find our nonsensical child once again.
Even a planned vacation can become a reason for stress. Vacations often only give us a change of venue and little else in the way of stress relief. I am suggesting that we take a nonsensical vacation. No prep needed. Just stop; settle down and let your senses take over for a few moments.
Try backing up 60 or 70 years to find your nonsensical child. Take off your shoes and feel the grass. Make a paper airplane and fly it to destinations unknown. Fly a kite. Make faces in the mirror. Play a game with a grandchild or get a group of friends involved in your nonsense. Laughter is the best stress relief when shared.
Make time to watch clouds. I challenge you to watch them without trying to decide if they are Stratus or Cirrus. Be a child for an instant and study the clouds’ shape. Is it shaped like a cowboy hat, a puppy, a dinosaur, or maybe a grandma with all of her fluffy white hair and little wispy white hairs on her chin?
Let your mind wander. Remember this is nonsense! FIGHT THE URGE TO FALL BACK INTO RESPONSIBILITY, WONDERING IF YOU NEED TO CHECK YOUR OWN CHIN FOR HAIR!
Oh well, so much for momentary childish nonsense!