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I. THE END OF LIFE
—Thomas Wolfe
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“They had been young and full of pain and combat, and now all this was dead in them: they smiled mildly, feebly, gently, they spoke in thin voices, and they looked at one another with eyes dead to desire, hostility, and passion……and their memory was all of little things.”

“They no longer wanted to excel or to be first; they were no longer mad and jealous; they no longer hated rivals; they no longer wanted fame; they no longer cared for work or grew drunk on hope; they no longer turned into the dark and struck their bloody knuckles at the wall; they no longer writhed with shame upon their beds, cursed at the memory of defeat and desolation, or ripped the sheets between convulsive fingers. Could they not speak? Had they forgotten?”

“……They had known pain, death and madness, yet all their words were stale and rusty. They had known the wilderness, the savage land, the blood of the murdered men ran down into the earth that gave no answer; and they had seen it, they had shed it. Where were the passion, pain and pride, the million living moments of their lives? Was all this lost? Were they all tongueless? …..Or were they simply devoured with satiety, with weariness and indifference? Did they refuse to speak because they could not speak, because even memory had gone lifeless in them?”

“Yes. Words echoed in their throat but they were tongueless. For them the past was dead: they poured into our hands a handful of dry dust and ashes.”

-Thomas Wolfe “Of Time and the River”

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II. LIFE
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On Saturday evening, June 9, I hosted another one of my famous garage cookouts. It was about as perfect a June night as one could want, clear, cool and just a bit windy. This time, no family, just a diverse (not the PC version of diverse, just diverse) group of friends, some of whom had never met each other. Patrick and Mary June Miller, Vern and Rosie Stoltzfus, Steve and Ada Beiler, and Sam and Cathy Gingerich, all with their respective families. The total number of people, including children, was around twenty-five. My house is located on a ¾ acre lot on the corner of Rt. 23 and Voganville Road. There is a lot of road traffic and limited space in the yard for children to play. But they did an admirable job in playing with the various balls (football, beach ball, soccer ball, tennis ball) I have lying around, even though the balls had a pronounced inclination to roll across Voganville Road on their own accord. Occasionally there was a great clatter with the resounding roar of a little one reacting to getting whacked about while playing, falling down, or whatever. But it was good.

Master Griller (by self-acclamation)

Once again, I grilled “Steve Beiler” organic sausages, both smoked and unsmoked. They are simply the best around, in my opinion, and certainly the most nutritious. Each family graciously brought a covered dish, including fresh garden salad, Ohio potato salad (if you have to ask, you don’t know what you’re missing), a camp-cooked multi-bean goulash and carrot cake and ice cream, my favorite dessert. So there was ample food for all. Afterward, we all lounged around outside the garage and drank coffee and laughed and chatted and just had a good old time. Or I guess it was a good time, as nobody left until after 10 PM. As an added bonus, I was able to skillfully nab (all right, beg) some of the leftover food, so I’m good for the week. (The blue cooler still awaits any food donors in the garage. Just thought I’d mention that.)

After the enjoyable and pleasantly exhausting evening, I retired late and slept in until the shameful hour of 10 o’clock Sunday morning. No church for me, I decided, stumbling around bleary-eyed. I meandered about and cleaned the mess in the garage and generally communed with myself for the day and read the Sunday News and watched the rain-delayed Pocono 500 (which was won by the oily and resurgent Jeff Gordon). One has to have a do-nothing day every once in awhile.

The third and final Triple Crown Race, the Belmont Stakes, was run during the cookout. Again. We had just begun eating, when the starting gun sounded at about 6:30. Most of the men huddled around my little TV in the garage, while the women calmly sat outside eating, pretending our behavior was completely normal. At 1-1/2 miles, the Belmont is the longest of the Triple Crown races. The horses seemed to be almost trudging at the halfway point. At the end the filly Rags to Riches just pulled out by a nose in front of Curlin, the Preakness winner. She was the first filly to win the Belmont since 1905, more than a hundred years. Now THAT’S the last of my horse-racing stories until next year.

Did everyone hear about the new Nascar driver with Amish roots? For real. Working his way up the ranks, he is. Quite the crowd favorite, too. Yonie Beiler or Yonie Stoltzfus or some such Lancaster County name. His racing rig is pictured below. And we all know pictures don’t lie. I understand he gets a 1-to-50 lap handicap. His pit stops are unusual only in that he changes horses, not tires. It’s quite the sight; four Amishmen plunging around unhitching one horse and hooking up another. In 14 seconds. And he has to keep his flashing lights on at all times. Just like on our Lancaster County roads.

Amish Nascar
Thanks to Mark Markiewicz for forwarding this photo.

Baseball Update: Believe it or not, the Phillies swept the Mets last week (June 5-7). In New York. Even more unbelievably, I was cheering them on. I figured if the Mets lost, the Braves could creep up into first place. But no such luck. The Braves just putzed around and lost two out of three and five of six. And Bobby Cox, I think, has just set the record for most evictions for a head coach. But the season is long, not half over yet, and much baseball remains to be played. And I see that the ancient and decrepit Roger Clemens cast aside his walking cane long enough to win one for the Bleepin’ Yankees (may they rot). You gotta hand it to ’em, they never die until the stake is driven forcefully through their vile, black hearts. Hopefully the evil empire will be decimated this year well before the World Series.

General Sports Notes: The Anaheim Mighty Ducks pulled it out and won the Stanley Cup in five games. Not that anyone noticed. Hockey has spiraled from obscurity into oblivion since the unfortunate strike of 2005. In the eternally long but now blessedly shortened NBA playoffs, the Cavs were unceremoniously swept by the Spurs. Too bad, you Ohioans. In my opinion, basketball is the most unwatchable, imbecilic game ever devised. I can’t imagine anyone getting excited about it, but that’s just me.

Someone, I guess it was my nephew Andrew, commented that the Super Chip I installed on my truck will void the warranty. My response: What warranty? I bought the truck used from a private party. It has 56,000 miles. So no warranty exists. Besides, if you install a Super Chip on a warrantied truck, you can place all the settings back to factory standards when you take the truck in for service or trade-in, and no one can tell you ever installed the Super Chip. My last tank of gas got me 13-1/2 plus mpg, so I’m still very enthused about it.

Last week (actual date: Sunday, June 3), this site had its 10,000th hit. Whoever it was did not contact me, so I celebrate the milestone with the anonymous “man behind the mask,” even though the hit might have been made by a woman or a child. Thanks again to all my readers. Now let’s go for 20,000.

The 10,000th hit

Since March, I have expended considerable bachelor-strength energy in keeping my domicile habitable. (A little legalese there. It means “I’ve spent some time and effort keeping my house clean enough to live in.”) The flower beds remain untouched and are returning to the wilds. In the house, dust bunnies frolic and scamper to and fro, feeding on who knows what (dust, I guess). I am struggling to decide whether or not I should just tame them and keep them as pets. But I do swipe a broom about now and then, much to the dust bunnies’ disgust. Meanwhile, the ancient clothes-dryer has taken to squealing like a stuck pig lately; I am afraid to use it lest it burn down the house. And that’s about all I would need in my life right now. But at the cookout, none of the women seemed too horrified at inside-the-house conditions. Either that, or they hid their horror well, probably so I wouldn’t suggest a neighborhood “cleaning day” and they’d feel obligated to come back and help.

On June 8, I observed my 2-year anniversary being alcohol free. Not a drop. To celebrate such a monumental achievement, I mixed and enjoyed a large Fruited Plain drink (JUST KIDDING).

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When writing this blog each week, there are several options. I can discuss where I’ve been, where I’m going, or where I am. This week I take you where I am.

The details of how I arrived are not important. Suffice to say, after a series of surreal and strange and exhausting events that unfolded from Friday noon (June 1) to the time I write this, I realized that once again, with little warning, I was surrounded by a vast, unfamiliar wasteland. Too far along to retreat, I found myself trudging along on one more lost road, winding through one more barren and hostile landscape, extending into one more bleak and endless horizon.

The sun is hot and I am faint. Roiling storm clouds threaten in the distance. There are people around me, but I feel alone. A few close friends have my back, but cannot walk beside me. They speak and I hear. Words. Prayers. Some, who cannot think of an original thing to say, tell me, “What doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger.” I flinch. They mean well. But I think that is a vapid, trite cliché. What if it doesn’t kill you, but makes you weaker anyway? Entirely possible. Probable, even. For some, anyhow.

Responding to a recent blog, a reader emailed me, “I think that things don’t always make sense, they don’t always turn out for the better, and they don’t always happen for a reason. Although God has power to control everything, He doesn’t. We have much freedom, and we have to slog at times.” Slog. An apt word. Through the wasteland.

Saturday night. I watch baseball. Then Baseball Tonight. I think about a drink. It would be good. It would relax, mellow me. Take the harshness off the edge of what I have witnessed and heard. The bitter things I’ve just seen and faced. What I will yet face. What I’m feeling now. But it’s really no battle. I take my prescription drugs instead and go to bed at 11:30 and sleep the restless slumber of a troubled stranger in a foreign land.

Sunday morning. I awake. Get up. Stretch. Mix and drink my Superfood. Drink coffee. Eat a bit. Mechanically get ready to go to Westminster Presbyterian. Maybe the pudgy pastor will have some words of comfort, words of hope, a message of strength. I know the singing will be good, at least. Always is.

I am not disappointed. The choir is joyous and outstanding, as usual. We sing. We read through the responsive readings. Psalm 130: “Out of the depths have I cried…..,” the pudgy pastor rumbles dramatically. “Oh Lord, hear my voice…..,” we respond in unison. And so on. We read the answer to Question 1 from the Heidelberg Catechism. We pray the Lord’s Prayer. In unison. We sing again.

And then, something out of the ordinary. The pastor calls thirteen young people, five young men and eight young women, to the front. They are to be taken in as members. All but two young men have already been baptized. The whole group stands on the platform at the front of the church. Young, probably between the ages of twelve and sixteen. He asks questions, ending each with “Do you?” They answer in unison. “We do” or “We will.” And then the two young men awaiting baptism kneel.

Westminster Presbyterian baptizes by sprinkling. Like the Amish. I hadn’t known that. Interesting. Some Brethren churches I know of would have a severe problem with that. A deacon hovers close, holding the silver cup. The pastor dips his hand and waves it over an applicant’s bowed head. Drops of water trickle down. Solemnly he intones:

“I BAPTIZE YOU…..” (Who are these young people and what will their futures hold? What will they know and feel? Joy, right now. Pressure, maybe, from their parents or peers. Sorrow. Happiness. And pain, obviously, we all live with that. How much? How deep? Will they cause more pain to others than they themselves will be forced to bear? And what else? What makes them unique from the 250 million other people in this country, the 6 billion across the whole world? Nothing, probably. Except their souls.)

“…..IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER…..,” (Do they really know what they are doing, what they are promising, do they really grasp it? I suppose so. Enough to comprehend the significance of it, anyway. To know they are entering a new phase, a spiritual birth, a new beginning.)

“……IN THE NAME OF THE SON……,” (But they are also entering young adulthood and they will be savaged by the storms of life. They will betray. Be betrayed. They will bleed. They will cry out into the lonely canyons of the night and not be heard.)

“……AND IN THE NAME OF THE HOLY GHOST……, AMEN.” (They are now a part of the visible catholic (small “c” for you testy types) church, the family of God. Despite human frailties, they believe. They will stumble. They will fail. Spectacularly, even, some of them. But they have faith. And in the end, when death calls them, that will be enough.)

The pastor ambles back to the pulpit and begins his sermon. Today, to initiate the new members, they will have communion. The pastor’s sermon is entitled, “Communion Table Manners.” His message includes instructions on how to prepare one’s heart for the Lord’s table. His sermon is short. He concludes. The choir strikes up a pre-communion hymn. The ushers glide forward to distribute the bread and wine. I’ve decided not to stay. The wasteland beckons. I walk out.

For many years I have believed that, regardless of one’s surrounding circumstances, life is beautiful. Always. Easy to say, hard to live. But I hold onto and believe that more than ever. Even now. Especially now. Even in the wasteland.