Joe L. Wheeler's Blog, page 12

BLOG #40, SERIES 4

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

A NEW “LOST GENERATION”?

October 2, 2013

The most famous “Lost Generation” was the post-World War I generation who came of age in the war and Jazz Age that followed. The term was coined in a letter Gertrude Stein wrote to Ernest Hemingway, “You are all a lost generation.” Hemingway then incorporated it into his 1926 novel, The Sun Also Rises, that captures the attitudes and life style of the hard-drinking, fast-living, hedonistic, and disillusioned young expatriates living in Paris (authors such as Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, e. e.. cummings, Archibald Mac Leish, Hart Crane, and others).

These writers considered themselves lost because the unbelievably brutal so-called “Great War” had stripped them of their illusions, turned them away from religion and spiritual values, and left them in a twilight world in which nothing made sense. Not surprisingly, it segued into theater of the absurd writers such as Pinter, Ionesco, Brecht, and Beckett, who wrote plays in which little or nothing made much sense.

On the front page of the weekend Wall Street Journal (September 14, 15), was a jolting article by Ben Casselman and Marcus Walker titled “Help Wanted: Struggles of a Lost Generation.”

In it, the writers postulate that the economic meltdown of the last five years has created a group of young people who have come of age during the most prolonged period of economic distress since the Great Depression. Only this time, unlike the earlier “Lost Generation,” today’s young people are lost because the economic underpinnings they assumed their education prepared them for, are no longer there now that they have graduated and are looking for such jobs.

They are worse off in another respect: they are saddled with student loans that, in good times, they could gradually pay off, but in bad times (think no job at all, minimum wage, or part-time jobs), they don’t see how they can ever pay them off! The writers note that the unemployment rate for Americans under the age of 25 is two and a half times higher than the rate for those 25 or older. But even that rate ignores the hundreds of thousands of young people who are going back to college, enrolling in training programs, or just sitting on the sidelines.

The writers, backed up by Pew Research studies, feel that today’s young people are likely to suffer long-term consequences for their current inability to get full-time decent-paying jobs: “Economic research has shown that the first few years after college plays an outside role in determining workers’ career trajectories: about two-thirds of wage growth, on average, comes in the first ten years of a person’s career. In weak economic times, graduates are likely accept lower wages and work for smaller companies with fewer opportunities for advancement. And in many cases, they never move off that second-tier track.”

They also note that our weak economy is leading to potentially seismic societal changes: “An

entire generation is putting off the rituals of early adulthood: moving away, getting married, buying a home and having children.” 56% of 18-24-year-olds are living with their parents.

In earlier times, young people could at least look forward to a strong recovery, however all the current projections are for a long weak economic recovery, and by the time it finally does happen, the bloom will long since have been gone from the degrees of untold thousands of young people caught in the backwash of today’s global fiscal collapse.

In Europe, it is even worse today for this age-group: “Over 23% of the European Union’s workforce under age 25 is unemployed, and youth jobless rates in the worse-hit European countries approaches 60%.”

* * * * *

Although Casselman and Walker’s economic study contains plenty of doom and gloom, it appears to me it is nowhere near as bad as the generation that graduated in 1929 and had to face the Great Depression when things were so bad life could be summed up in that generation’s six-liner: “Brother, can you spare a dime?” (A dime could get you a simple meal back then.)

Perhaps we shall need to re-evaluate the entire educational construct. With four years of college now costing $100,000 – $200,000, it may be necessary to come up with an entirely new method of preparing our youth for their adult life and careers.

BLOG #39, SERIES 4

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

DR. JOE’S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB #23

VICTOR HUGO’S LES MISERABLES

September 25, 2013

Last month, I let you relax, walk the beach, and regenerate your batteries. But now autumn is here, school is in session, and it’s time to lower the boom on you! It’s time for one of the world’s greatest heavyweights. Heavyweights indeed: depending on a number of variables, an unabridged copy comes to somewhere between 1400 and 2000 pages.

But remember this: Don’t ever waste your time reading an abridged copy of any book worth reading! I always wonder when I look at an abridged book, How can any human being have the gall to conclude that s/he knows more about what is important in a book than the person who wrote it?

So I expect you to read every word in the unabridged version. But I am not a Simon Legree: Because I want you to take the time to really savor the book, I am permitting you to take two months to complete it. There won’t be another Book of the Month until December. First of all, purchase an unabridged you can mark up, reason being Les Miserables is one of the most quotable books ever written. An additional word of warning: In recent years more and more publishers have committed what I call a crime: publishing abridged versions of classic books without indicating inside the book that it is incomplete. So, do your homework in this respect.

* * *

Victor Marie Hugo (1802-1885), French poet, novelist, dramatist, and leader of the Romantic Movement in France, lived life on the grand scale. Since his father was a Bonaparte general, Hugo’s early years were lived in luxury; but then came the fall of the Napoleonic Empire, and life got much harder. Suffice it to say that he is generally considered to be one of the towering figures in world literature.

Since it would take years to fully digest all that Hugo accomplished, I won’t even try, leaving such a fascinating journey to you. Most of the growth in my own life has resulted from just such side trips of discovery as I am suggesting to you now.

If you only tackle a few of Hugo’s books, I suggest you seriously consider The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Toilers of the Sea.

Hugo spent fourteen years laboring on this monstrous book. I don’t want to deprive you of the pleasure of discovering the novel on your own, so I certainly won’t spoil your reading pleasure by giving away the plot of what is almost universally considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written. I might even go out on a limb by admitting I have yet to read a more powerful or deeply moving book than this. When I completed it for the first time, I wrote down this summation: I am numb. It is a book to go back to again and again, for it is inexhaustible and it is suspenseful—a great read!

I think the best summation of its power was penned by the English scholar and critic, Algernon Charles Swinburne:

Les Miserables is the greatest epic and dramatic work of fiction ever created or conceived. The epic of a soul transfigured and redeemed, purified by heroism and glorified through suffering; the tragedy and comedy of life at its darkest and its brightest, of humanity at its best and at its worst.

Vincent Hopper and Bernard Grabanier, in their two-volume Guide to World Literature (Barron’s Educational Series, 1952), declared that Les Miserables “is one of the most moving appeals ever made in the history of literature to our common humanity; only a great soul could have written it.” They also point out that it is more a collection of novels than just a novel.

Don’t be tempted to lose interest when Hugo appears to have forgotten what he was writing about, and wanders off in what will seem to be a totally irrelevant direction. Those side trips will all prove their relevance later on; and if you failed to carefully read them, I guarantee you will end up failing to internally capture the power of the novel! Indeed, those side-trips have developed world-wide fame on their own—especially the passages depicting the Battle of Waterloo, the sewers of Paris, the flight of Jean Valjean, the portrait of the Bishop, the drama of the candlesticks, and the description of the Benedictine monastery. Indeed, the book might aptly be likened to a vast mosaic or puzzle: as you read along you will keep slotting in images, many seeming not to fit in anywhere, but by the moving conclusions, all the pieces will finally be placed—and you’re left with the completed masterpiece. Interestingly enough, John Steinbeck, much later on, borrowed from Hugo in his own sidetrips in The Grapes of Wrath.

Welcome to one of the world’s greatest books. I look forward to hearing back from you after you return from Victor Hugo’s world, from experiencing first-hand the French Revolution.

BLOG #38, SERIES 4

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

THE THOUSAND-YEAR-STORM

September 18, 2013

Yes, that’s what Russ Schumaker, a Colorado State University researcher, is calling this storm of biblical proportions. Here is what happened: most of Colorado has been in a prolonged multi-year drought. The Colorado summer monsoons usually end by August. Early September was hotter than usual–a sweltering 97̊. But then monsoon rains blew east into the Front Range. The high pressure system that had brought the heat, shifted northeast, allowing the low pressure system to move in just as the rain arrived. The collision produced a giant stalled wet weather system, the energy from the cold front and the humidity from the monsoon created that rarity–the Perfect Storm.

Another reason for labeling it a thousand-year-storm is that a 150-mile-wide stretch of the Front Range [the Colorado foothills that divide the high country of the Rockies from the Great Plains to the east] producing this much torrential rain (most in 48 hours) statistically wouldn’t happen again in a thousand years.

Let me give you a bird’s-eye view of what it was like to experience it. We were lucky: perched at 9700 feet in elevation near the top of Conifer Mountain, we weren’t likely to be troubled by rising floodwaters.

The rain began last Tuesday–and it just kept raining, eventually totaling over six inches at our house, but that was nothing compared to how much fell elsewhere. A number of areas were flooded by ten to fifteen inches of rain in six days (as much as their normal yearly total). Boulder, at last count, received 18.55 inches (most of it in 48 hours)! Almost every river and creek from Pueblo to the Wyoming border flooded and creeks swelled to river-size: Fountain Creek, Rock Creek, South Platte and North Platte rivers, Bear Creek, Coal Creek, Boulder Creek, St. Vrain River, Big Thompson River, and Pouder River–they all went into demolition mode.

In Lyons, water rose in the black of night, around 2 a.m. sirens blared, people pounded on doors, as citizens were warned to flee the rampaging St. Vrain. High up in the mountains, at 2:27 a.m., in Jamestown, townspeople awoke as water and boulders roared down a usually mild-mannered creek. Both towns were soon all but cut off from the world. Same for the resort community of Estes Park. Not since the terrible Big Thompson flood of 1976 when 144 people had perished by a tidal wave of water thundering through the canyon had anyone seen the like. It didn’t take much time before the torrent washed out roads and bridges along a seventeen-mile stretch, scraping off everything on the riverbed down to bare rock. Since Estes Park was cut off from the world, with no cell coverage, the only way out was to escape over the 12,000 foot high Trail Ridge Road down into the Frazer Valley, and then find a crossing into Wyoming. Both Loveland and Longmont were cut in two by raging streams.

The City of Boulder got far more than its share of the cataclysm. Residents were both mesmerized and terrorized by epic rainfall and engorged creeks that tore away roads and ripped homes off their foundations. According to the Denver Post, “Boulder Creek turned into a roiling, coffee-colored beast, smelling of sewage, carrying tree branches and swamping parks.”

Bear Creek in Evergreen was flowing at such a pace that people down below in Bear Creek Canyon feared for their lives should the dam give way below Evergreen Lake, which would have also inundated the City of Evergreen. All traffic through the town ceased.

Boulder Creek usually flows at a rate somewhere between 100 and 300 cubic feet per second; at its flood peak it was moving at a mind-boggling 4,500 cubic feet per second! The City of Boulder, including the University of Colorado, spreads out over 25 square miles. By Friday, it was awash in 4.5 billion gallons of water. At one point, 280,800 pounds [140 tons] of water a second were roaring through, at a velocity equal to a class IV rapid. To get that force in perspective, in flash floods, it only takes two feet of water to wash away a car; car engines can flood when the water is half way up its tires, much less than that if the car is moving, because the water then surges up. Just six inches of flood-strength water can knock a full-grown man off his feet.

The news has been full of stories of thousands of people stranded, trailer-houses floating away with pets in them, livestock caught in rising waters; because of contaminated water, people being unable to drink water, use their toilets, take baths, etc.; marooned children in youth camps have had to be either bussed out of Estes Park over the Divide or helicoptered out of Jamestown. Thousands of people have been rescued by helicopters since hundreds of roads are now closed, washed away, or bridges washed out.

The Big Thompson hits flood-stage at six feet; it now reached 10.55 feet, higher than the 9.3 feet in 1976.

No one yet knows how many people have died. So many other towns and cities remain flooded, it is going to take a very long time for Colorado to recover!

But, in times like these, the human spirit shows its resilience, and people realize that things are but things; as long as they still have each other, health, sweet life, and God, everything else is expendable.

SOURCES: The Denver Post, Sept. 13, 14, 15, 16, 2013

BLOG #37, SERIES 4

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

DOES ANYONE GO THE SECOND MILE ANY MORE?

September 11, 2013

No law was hated more during the long sway of the Roman Empire than the one that forced all citizens to shoulder the burdens of any Roman soldier for an entire mile. Back in those days of iron armor and weaponry, carrying such a burden in the hot Mediterranean sun would have been a real ordeal. Whoever lived in the empire, citizen or not, had no option: if asked to carry such a load, they had to comply! Or else. And it was an “else” that no one in his right mind would want to face.

Then Christ, according to Matthew (in Chapter 5, verse 41), added insult to injury by declaring that if you are forced to carry such burdens for a mile, carry them for two miles. That had to be about as welcome as two foxes in a henhouse.

But that was His point: We ought to go far beyond the letter of the law: Only as we give more than the law demands of us, can there really be a gift at all.

* * *

With this historical preamble, let’s turn to today’s world. The norm, at least in America, is not only to avoid if at all possible the demands of the law but to hire lawyers to help you find legal loopholes so that you don’t have to pay any of it.

Who among us has not ruefully discovered (usually after the fact) that something we thought we had (protection, coverage, product, amenity, etc.), the legalese in the contract—which we didn’t read because we couldn’t fully understand the murky legal gobbledygook anyway—took away all or most of what we thought we had.

No matter what, rare is the case when weasely legalese doesn’t take away the very protection and coverage (think insurance) we conscientiously paid for so that we and our loved ones would be safe in cases of loss or disaster. Our howls of outrage get us nowhere: “if you were naive enough to believe our contract, you deserve to be taken to the cleaners.”

ENTER MORSE EVERGREEN AUTOBODY

I’ll have to admit I was more than a bit suspicious of Tony Perry when he guaranteed his body shop really stood behind its word. Especially was I gun-shy after a recent experience my brother-in-law had with a well-known new car Denver automobile agency, for after he purchased a used car from them, and paid for extra guarantee protection, the agency fiercely fought him when he later discovered problem areas that were clearly defined—he thought—in the extra guarantee protection he paid for. And that is but the most recent case of disillusion where today’s business world is concerned.

Another has to do with insurance: you may faithfully pay insurance premiums to a certain company for ten, twenty, thirty, forty years without a claim; then dare to submit two claims within a three-year period, and they threaten to cancel your insurance! It does make you a cynic about current American business, doesn’t it!

So, when one of our vehicles spun out in black ice and turned over on its side, near Evergreen, last winter, I checked around among our friends to see what people had to say about area body shops before I accepted Tony Perry’s bid at Morse Evergreen Autobody. Since we loved our 2002 Oldsmobile Bravada (the company now sadly extinct), we decided to pay whatever it cost to restore it to original condition rather than merely total it. We gulped at the price-tag, but paid for it.

It took some time to repair it; since Oldsmobile no longer exists, body parts were hard to come by. But finally, it was done. All cleaned and shined up too. So much so that people said on seeing it, ‘Oh, you bought a new car!”

There were a couple of minor problems afterwards. Morse fixed them, and charged us nothing.

But there developed a peskier problem: an original piece of Oldsmobile molding on the driver’s door insisted on warping over time. I brought Cosette (my name for the SUV) in and showed them the problem. They fixed it, no questions asked.

Almost half a year later, the perverse piece of molding warped again. This time I was embarrassed to bring Cosette in, for Morse had been so faithful to their word. Surely, there had to be an expiration point to a guarantee, verbal or paper. So when I brought it in this time, I pointed out how much time had passed, and said I’d gladly pay for whatever it cost to fix the problem.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was told to come pick it up. They’d really beaten that piece of molding half to death hammering it into shape. It was beautiful once again. Same for the paint job. It was even detailed, washed, and looked brand new!

“No charge! It was the original problem, not something new—so it’s on us.”

Thus, we are faced with a graphic refutation of what has become all but standard in America today: Not standing by one’s word.

I’m having a hard time getting over it.

All we can say is this:

BLESS YOU, TONY . . . AND YOUR CREW!

BLOG #36, SERIES 4

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

DOES GRAMMAR MATTER ANY MORE?

September 4, 2013

What triggered this blog is Mark Goldblatt’s column, “Welcome Back, My Ungrammatical Students” in the September 3 Wall Street Journal. Mr. Goldblatt teaches English at State University of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. Set off in bold type is this jolting line: Unlike your friends, who will excuse your errors, your college professor may or may not like you.

Goldblatt, in his very first line, leaps into the heart of the matter: “The fall is mere weeks away, another college semester either under way or soon to be. If you’re one of thousands of freshmen nationwide, you’ve just discovered you’ve been placed in a remedial English class.

“‘How can this be?’ you’re asking yourself. ‘I got straight A’s in high school! I love writing stories and poems! I’m good in English!’”

Needless to say, Goldblatt postulates that it does matter whether or not a student uses correct English.

But I must confess I am a tad grateful I’m now a full-time writer rather than being an English

teacher barraged by poorly written essays that have to be daily evaluated and responded to. But I put in my time–34 years worth. However, no English teacher is ever permitted to escape his/her calling. Just ask any English teacher this question: “What’s it like when your introduction to a group of people includes this line, —is an English teacher.” What do you get? How right you are: dead silence. The ultimate example of clamming up. And it’s even worse if you happen to be an “English Professor.” To be an English teacher is perceived to be at least human; but to be an English Professor is perceived to be someone possessing grammatical infallibility. Whatever you do, don’t even talk to such a sage–you’re sure to get zapped!

But there are other downsides to being an English Professor, chief of which is the sadistic delight people–especially one’s former students–take in catching grammatical mistakes you may occasionally make. Case in point, my last week’s blog. By the time I got to the last line, I was too tired to re-check the exact meaning of a word I’d used before. Sure enough, here came a zinger from my dear friend and fellow writer, Elsi Dodge, chortling with glee that she’d caught me confusing “enervating” with “energizing.” What could I do but grovel and promise to mend my ways?

THE LONG, LONG GRAMMATICAL FUSE

Goldblatt, in referencing “grammar,” does so in these words: “to refer to the overall mechanics of your writing, including punctuation, syntax and usage.” And he negatively singles out those who don’t know how to put sentences together in ways that clarify, rather than cloud, what they’re trying to say.

Permit me to approach this issue pragmatically. The inability to write or speak correctly is not likely to hurt you too much among your peers and friends. Not in the short-term, that is. And especially not if you are charismatic, cover-girl-beautiful, or a candidate for sexiest man alive hunkhood. If you’re perceived to be one of these “golden ones who seemingly can do no wrong, you’ll suffer little more than winces from such disasters as “me and Joanie were like, wild about like see’n Tony.” But, in life, there are such things as fuses. When one’s proverbial “fifteen minutes of fame” are over, and the long descent takes place; when you are no longer drop-dead beautiful or headturningly handsome, what then? You may have been hired because your looks and contours were impossible to ignore, but inevitably there will come a day when your looks can no longer make up for your embarrassing mistakes in writing and speaking. When one more mangled syntax, misspelled word, or misplaced punctuation mark costs the firm one of its most valued clients—and out you go.

The problem is this: there is no one-day-seminar that can possibly fix such deficiencies. It is anything but an easy fix. Even if you memorize Strunk and White’s timeless masterpiece, Elements of Style, you’d only be part way there. Only by reading widely, reading selectively, and avoiding slangy, slovenly, poorly structured prose whenever possible, can you begin to improve the quality and enhance the power of your writing and speaking.

Which is a good time to reference another Goldblatt zinger: “While there definitely is such a thing as good writing, there’s no such thing as good grammar.” I agree 100%. One does not become a good writer by simply mastering grammar. Untold thousands of potentially significant writers have lost their love of writing because teachers sold them a bill of goods: that, unless they mastered grammar first, they’d never become good writers. Which is only partly true. They are on far safer ground if they are encouraged to write, write, write, even with occasional grammatical mistakes, and deal with one problem area at a time, not all of them at once. As problem areas–one at a time–are called to their attention by wise and empathetic mentors, who value substance over grammatical correctness, and, most important of all, consider the individual’s God-given one-of-a-kind voice sacrosanct, and not to be tinkered with, they can, over time, become “great” writers. Here I must qualify “great,” for I often say and write, “There are no great writers–there are only great stories.” By this I mean that no writer ever “arrives,” but rather we continue, as long as we live and breathe, to be works in progress. If we take too much time off–at any age—inevitably we lose our edge and become irrelevant and not worth reading any more.

So in conclusion, I invite each reader of this blog, to take grammar seriously. By so doing, you will avoid devaluing the substance of what you have to say. Recognize that effective communication is the key to success in almost every area of endeavor one may think of. Believe me, today’s world is almost desperate in its searches for men and women who are capable of writing coherent, persuasive, and interesting sentences and paragraphs.

What none of us want is a long-fuse, a ticking time-bomb, that is guaranteed to explode down the line. And let’s face it, if you are someone who is afraid to open your mouth or write an opinion on a piece of paper, then you do a grave disservice to the God who created you to do less than your best in correcting the problem–in becoming all you can be.

If this describes your condition, make today the first day of the rest of your life; if you are one who is already there, why not mentor someone who is not?

BLOG #35, SERIES 4

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

KPOF RADIO, AM91, THE POINT OF FAITH

STUDIO IN A CASTLE TURRET, ROUND TABLE BROADCAST, MARDEL’S,

OWLS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, COFFEE, AND DAWN OVER DENVER

August 28 2013

How is that for a mouthful of a title?

It was still dark when my alarm clock shattered my dreams that morning of August 14, two weeks ago. I was out the door of the Grey House high on Conifer Mountain by 5:20. By 6:30, I could see the castle with its red-lighted beacon silhouetted against a cloudy dawn. As I approached the Westminister destination, I stopped, got out of my SUV, and unlimbered my legs so I’d be ready to sit down for the two-hour broadcast.

Afterwards, as I walked up the time-weathered steps, dawn’s gilding paintbrush gave the castle an otherworldly glow. Inside, all was already in progress for “The Breakfast Table Show: table-in-the-round, headphones and mikes, cups of steaming coffee, Roy Hanschke and Gordon Scott,–glaringly absent: Denise Washington Blomberg—, and an empty chair for me. How often, over the years had I thus joined this precious circle!

Fortunately, Denise would be back; but I gained a renewed sense of the fragility of life when Roy later shared with me the story of the dark days and nights when cancer came way too close to ending his part of the morning broadcast.

I thought back to the day in March when the station celebrated 85 years of broadcasting of KPOF Denver. 85 years under the same ministry ownership sharing the same gospel message.

What a milestone!

My thoughts drifted back even further, as I looked out the turret windows, to the days when the castle was a stagecoach stop. Yet here it still was, an anachronism when compared to the steel and glass skyscrapers just waking up to our southeast.

My reveries were abruptly terminated by a motion from Roy: In seconds, the commercial would end, and we’d be on the air. Ah the magic of radio! Still magical even in this age of nano-technology-driven instant obsolescence.

Once again, I was introduced to the listening audience–only, for the very first time, I was not here to talk about my latest Christmas in My Heart® book, but rather about my just-out Abraham Lincoln Civil War Stories (Howard/Simon & Schuster). It was also announced that, periodically during the two-hour broadcast, we’d be giving away copies of the book to listeners who called in when invited to do so.

And, it was noted to listeners that I’d be sharing several stories with them each hour.

Denise’s empty chair reminded me each time we missed her effervescent presence–which was every time we looked in the direction of that chair–how irreplaceable each of us is. For each of us is a one-of-a-kind: in eternity itself, there has never been, nor ever will be, another Denise, another Roy, another Gordy, another me, another you.

Even without her, the old electricity re-ignited, having flared again and again during years past. What one didn’t think of, another did: thus there were no awkward pauses, but rather a continuous flow of Abraham Lincoln, the gentle giant who still rules over our hearts–both in America and around the world.

Every so many minutes, just before a commercial break, it would be announced that next, I’d be reading a story from the book–and so the conversational flow would stop: for “How Lincoln Paid for His First Book,” “Only a Mother,” “Tenderness in a Ruined City,” and “The Heart of Lincoln,” four of the shortest stories in the collection, yet each simple little story deeply moving in a unique way. Each revealing another dimension of America’s only Servant President: accessible to all, be it a broken-hearted little boy, a shy little girl pleading for her brother’s life, a dying young man in a makeshift hospital, or a young Confederate wife and baby in the still burning city of Richmond who apprehensively opened her front door, only to see a tall gaunt figure standing there, who, to her stunned exclamation, “The President!” simply responded, “No, ma’am; no, ma’am; just Abraham Lincoln, George’s old friend.” [“George,” being the now near immortal general, George Pickett, who led the greatest charge in our history, Pickett’s Charge, in a losing cause at Gettysburg].

We could all hear the voices of listeners as they called in, overjoyed that I’d be personally inscribing their books. We’d also hear the voices of those whose calls were relayed in from the switchboard during commercial breaks. More often than not, calls from those who were deeply troubled about illness, privation, inner torment, each asking for intercessory prayers.

It was at such times that I became more fully aware that this was not merely a commercial radio station, but rather a group of dedicated prayer warriors, each, from station manager, Jack Pelon, on down, committed to selfless service to all God’s sheep who looked to those inhabiting the Castle on the Hill as undershepherds to the Great Shepherd. All across the great city of Denver, they were listening to every word we spoke.

I thought too, both then and later, about the station’s 85-years of daily struggling to remain alive in an increasingly secular age, especially in recent years when Christianity and those who believe in God are openly mocked by a society that has apparently lost its spiritual moorings.

Every so many minutes, it would be announced that I’d be signing the Lincoln book at two locations that week: downtown Denver’s Barnes & Noble on Friday and Mardel’s Christian Bookstore on Wadsworth on Saturday.

It would be at Mardel’s where I’d fully realize the power of KPOF’s spiritual ministry to the people of Colorado: All day they came, all but two there because they’d heard Wednesday’s broadcast, they loved Lincoln and yearned to learn more about him in the new book and in my earlier biography, Abraham Lincoln: A Man of Faith and Courage–, but mainly, they were there because they trusted those dear folk in the Castle they listened to so faithfully, day in and day out; spring, summer, autumn, and winter, year after year. And, because they’d heard me before, heard my voice breaking in deeply moving stories, they opened up their hearts to me, considering me also to be another undershepherd. What greater honor could there be? Furthermore, they were at Mardel’s because it was one of that dying-breed: an overtly Christian bookstore, courageously day by day fighting the forces of secularism determined to eradicate such spiritual holdouts as this one.

After we’d sold out all the Lincoln books early, I debriefed with Dana Oswalt, long-time Mardel’s bookstore manager, about all I’d experienced. Since she’d tuned in to the broadcast herself, she knew they’d be coming. She now confessed how deeply moved she’d been by what she’d seen and heard at my booksigning table.

* * * * *

But back to the Castle. All too soon, we took off our headphones, breathed giant sighs of relief that we’d made it through the two hours without a glitch–even without Denise. But mainly, we were almost incapable of speech because of the intensity of it all. Then G.M. Jack Pelon came in to thank us. Which led to some needed semi-comic relief. “Have you seen our owls?” His office, it turns out, is full of owl photographs he’s taken. Serendipitously, even though it was now day, several of the owls, high up the castle wall, blearingly peered down at us–but their owlet babies were evidently taking a nap so never got to see them.

It is said that owls are wise birds. Judging by this family of owls that condescends to share their castle with its human inhabitants, it appears that they too can sense the calming, peaceful, yet enervating presence of the Great God of Us All in the rooms below.

BLOG # 34, SERIES #4

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

DR. JOE’S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB #22

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL’S HAPPINESS HILL

August 21, 2013

Yes, another summer is giving way to autumn, and here in the Colorado high country, on serpentine Conifer Mountain Drive, splotches of yellow in the aspens signal the coming autumn.

For several weeks now, ever since I first turned the calendar page from July to August, I’ve wrestled with our August book. Since so many of you have told me you’ve faithfully sought out and purchased each of the 21 previous titles in the series, I take each new selection seriously. Which brings me to you: what are your responses to the series, based as they are on my own favorite books? I’d like to know.

August. It’s a lazy month. For the young, at the end of it is that dreaded yet longed-for thing called school. For the older, it’s “back to the grindstone.” In Europe half the continent can be found on the beaches during magical August.

So it isn’t the month for a heavy read – but a light one. But for me, the hanging question has been, “How light?” So I searched through my library, trying to find a book that while light still held within its pages something enduring, meaningful, heart-tugging, worthy of the last days of summer. Took me three separate reads before I found it.

copy of two books.

First I read Emilie Loring’s Give Me One Summer. I read it because the lighthouse/seashore cover promised summer romance. It was a good read, but in the end, it left me empty. Perhaps because the romance seemed so superficial. Next, I turned to another seacoast novel, Grace Livingston Hill’s Rainbow Cottage. I liked it very much for it featured wonderful seacoast and floral imagery. Plenty of suspense. But its over-the-top preachiness bothered me some; but what bothered me even more was the protagonists’ lack of growth at the end: just float on old money and live in a castle in Ireland. In short, it was little more than a Christian fairytale. All the female protagonist did was be beautiful and genteel and be taken care of by a virile young man who also lived on old money.

So I turned to Happiness Hill. Grace Livingston Hill’s Christian romances have always intrigued me. For one reason, perhaps because for more than a hundred years now, Christian parents have considered them a safe “Sabbath read” for their children. Grace Livingston Hill (1866 – 1947) was born in Wellsville, New York to Presbyterian minister Charles Montgomery Livingston and his wife, Marcia Macdonald Livingston, both of them being writers; as was Grace’s aunt, Isabella Macdonald Alden, who became a famous writer for children writing under the pseudonym, Pansy.

Wikipedia describes Hill’s novels as “quite simplistic in nature: good versus evil. As Hill believed the Bible was very clear about what was good and evil in life, she reflected that cut-and-dried design in her own works. She wrote about a variety of different subjects, almost always with a romance worked into the message and often essential to the return to grace on the part of one or several characters. . . . A secondary subject would always be God’s ability to restore. Hill aimed for a happy, or at least satisfactory, ending to any situation, often focusing on characters’ new or renewed faith as impetus for resolution.”

In my own escape-reading (after I read serious, heavy reading, her books are just that to me) I think that what weakened the power of her books, at least in my eyes, is how stereotypical and formulaic most of her plots are: in essence, at the end of much travail and torment, the Christian and the wealthy protagonist walk off into the sunset hand-in-hand, into a happily-ever-after existence, all their troubles left behind. Clearly, Hill’s noblesse oblige plots worked, for millions of her books have sold down through the years. Almost always, too, her books contain one or two almost unbelievably nasty and cruel villains.

Which brings us to Happiness Hill. In it I found what I’ve too often missed in Hill’s novels: a strong work ethic coupled with a strong family with character being a constant. Thus, in this novel, Hill managed to create a heroine who belatedly realizes that only as she anchors her ship of life on one side, with the anchor of a strong loving family; and, on the other side, with the enduring anchor of a personal relationship with God, will her ship not founder. For if all one has is a line from one’s ship with an open loop on either end, then that romance is no stronger than a flip of the loop on either end.

And this, my dear friends, is what makes Happiness Hill enduring, lasting, and a joy to both read and re-read—for it contains two very strong such anchors.

* * *

You shouldn’t have any trouble finding a copy of this book, either in hardback or paper. But let me encourage you to spend a little extra effort and time searching out one with a dust-jacket such as the evocative one depicted in this blog.

BLOG #33, SERIES 4

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

TEN TIPS TO PARENTS TO STIMULATE

CHILDREN’S READING

August 14, 2013

Often parents ask me what they ought to do to encourage their children to fall in love with reading.  When the Child Study Book Committee was requested to come up with answers, this is their response:

1.    Choose books related to the child’s personal interests.

2.    Offer books with appealing illustrations.

3.    Offer several choices without imposing your own preferences.

4.    Invite children’s opinions on books they have liked or disliked.

5.    Read aloud or read together an interesting part of a book.

6.    Help child-readers to choose books within their reading range, abilities, and comprehension level.

7.    Encourage a child to choose a book to read aloud to someone else.

8.    Broaden children’s horizons by helping them select from a wide range of subjects.

9     Encourage children to memorize things they really enjoy.

10.    Celebrate reading and instill pride of ownership by giving them books on special occasions.

–Sunshine

BLOG #32, SERIES 4

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

MAKE MEMORIES WHILE YOU STILL CAN

August 7, 2013

It has been said that when each of nears the end of our earthly journey and looks back, almost always the one thing we won’t regret is making memories.  As we get older, invariably we begin to downsize; in the process, ruefully discovering that out of all of our multitudinous possessions, other than family heirlooms, there is little our children want.

When someone dear to us dies, how often we say to ourselves, while we sadly travel to the funeral site, Oh how I wish we’d spent more time with Dad—or Mom—while they still lived.  Now it’s too late!  Too late to ask them to identify people in old photos; and now some faces will never be identified.  Too late to spend more time with them—time the folks yearned for, begged for.

But always we were too busy.  Time enough to be with them later on.  But suddenly—there is no “later on.”

Which brings me to a discussion Connie and I had at a family get-together last weekend.  It was triggered by a question: “Does anyone remember when Grandma had that terrible stroke”?  Since no one was certain of the date, I rummaged around in old journals until I discovered it.  Which brought us to the next question: “When was it we took both sets of parents on that memorable trip through New England?”  Once I found the journal entries that answered that question, my how the memories flooded back!

It was early in 1989, when we were living on the banks of that serene Severn River just a couple of miles west of the Annapolis Naval Academy.  I’d asked Connie if she could take time off work for ten days in late spring, in order to travel through New England with me as I investigated hotel sites for the fall New England Study Tour I co-directed at what was then Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, Maryland.  Once she’d cleared those dates with her boss, we began fleshing out our proposed trip itinerary.

Then came an epiphany: Both my folks and Connie’s folks love traveling, but for one reason or another they don’t get out much any more.  Wonder if they’d like to go along with us?

We phoned them, and while my folks leaped at the opportunity, Connie’s folks did not.  As the academic year wound down, everything began to fall in place for the trip.  Then that phone call from Connie’s folks who’d begun to feel left out: “That New England trip you invited us to take with you….is it….is it too late for us to go along too?”  Of course it wasn’t, and so it was that my folks flew in from Oregon and Connie’s folks drove from Texas, and we caravanned out early Friday morning, May 26 of 1989.  We’d rented a burgundy Mercury Sable in order to give us more room than our Toyota Supra or Celica; Connie’s folks followed in their blue Honda.

As I re-read my journal entries, those days all came vividly back to me.  That Friday, we’d stopped at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, followed by a tour through the Hancock Shaker Village, then on through Rutland to Killington, Vermont.

Next day proved especially unforgettable to my minister father, for we joined a small congregation in the Washington, New Hampshire Adventist Church.  When the presiding elder discovered who Dad was, he asked if he’d be willing to preach.  Dad agreed.  I sat on the platform with Dad.  None of the foursome had ever been there before.  As Dad stood, his mind time-traveled back almost a century and a half to his great great grandfather Frederick Wheeler, a Methodist circuit-riding pastor who’d been convinced by the now famous William Miller that Christ would return in 1844.  Those who agreed with Miller’s biblically-based reasoning were called Millerites.  Historians call that time-period when Christ failed to come, “The Great Disappointment.”

Today, tourists from around the world visit this particular small wooden church where the Methodist-driven [though other Christian denominations were well represented in the movement, Methodists were the most numerous] belief that Christ was coming in 1844 was preached by Frederick Wheeler, a man who later became the first Seventh-day Adventist ordained minister in this same church.

Well, you can imagine the thoughts running through my father’s mind as he stared out at this perfectly-preserved century-and-a-half old church, with its original biblical end-time charts still on the wall, his hands resting on the very pulpit his great great grandfather ( a man he never knew) preached from.  Everyone could see how deeply moved Dad was.  Especially me, sitting right behind him.  In the afternoon, we visited the William Miller home near Hampton, New York.

By the following morning, Connie’s folks had rebelled at missing all the conversations taking place in the Mercury Sable; so they left their blue Honda at the Killington hotel, and all six of us henceforth rode together.  It was a stunningly perfect day at Newport, Rhode Island, where we were guided through the famed “Breakers,” the palace constructed for the Vanderbilts on the ocean-front.  Eerily appropriate to the setting, our guide was more than a little snippy.  That night, the folks reveled in their oceanside hotel rooms.

By Monday morning the foursome was so excited by all they were seeing and experiencing that when Connie and I opened our door, there the foursome would be in the hallway, some sitting on their suitcases, having been there since 6 a.m., wondering what took us so long to get up and get going.  That pattern continued for the for the rest of the trip.  They were a close-knit bunch—always had been, for being childhood friends, Connie’s father had sung at my parents’ wedding.  That morning, the folks experienced living Colonial history on board the reconstructed “Mayflower II” and then in the rebuilt Plymouth Settlement.  From there, on to Walden Pond, made famous by Thoreau; and then to the Alcott House in Concord.  That evening, we can never forget the shrieks of joy that came from both our mothers as they entered their Bass Rocks motel rooms in Gloucester, and looked out the windows at the Atlantic Ocean waves crashing in on the rocks.  And then the sunset view of the ocean at dinner from the Best Western Twin Towers Restaurant.

Next day, it was on to Whittier’s home.  My mother, an elocutionist stage-performer who had memorized thousands of pages of short stories, poems, and readings—some penned by Whittier—was ecstatic at seeing the place where so many of Whittier’s poems were written.  Afterwards, everyone reveled in the Robert Frost home and farm in Derry, N.H.; then on to Portland, Maine’s iconic lighthouse and rapidly becoming iconic L. L. Bean, before moving on to Camden and Bar Harbor.  By now, my Mom was beginning to feel her son walked on water, for each night we stayed in beautiful (and generally expensive) lodgings, where our rates were either extremely low or comp (because of my yearly visits with a busload of students).  Both sets of parents, having always lived frugally, felt they were traveling in fairyland.  We stayed in Bar Harbor’s grandest hotel that night. And that night the tide (being near the Bay of Fundy) dropped almost fifty feet).

Next day, in the rain, we drove up to the top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the East Coast.  Then it was on into the heart of New England, including stops along the way at Scotland by the Yard and Merrill Farms.

June 1 was the Palmer folks’ 55th wedding anniversary, much of which was spent on the road, for a special reason: There, near West Monroe in western New York, we finally found Frederick Wheeler’s weathered gravestone.  Dad was struggling to keep tears from running down his cheeks, for coming here had been a lifelong dream for him.  That night we stayed in Buffalo.

June 2, we all experienced “The Maid of the Mist” at Niagara Falls on the Canadian border.  We breakfasted in Canada, then it was on through Michigan to Berrien Springs, where we stayed with Connie’s sister Marla and husband Gary Marsh for the weekend.  Here we were joined by our own son, Greg, and our daughter, Michelle, who were then students at Andrews University.

June 5, en route back to Annapolis, we stopped at The Limberlost State Historic Site in Geneva, Indiana.  Mom, having always loved Gene Stratton Porter’s nature romances, was in her element.

Then, we reached home, exhausted, at 2:15 a.m.

* * * * *

AFTERMATH

How incredibly appreciative our parents were for our making the time and effort to take them on this “wonderful” trip.  But, ever so apropos to this blog, only four months after our New England trip, Mom Palmer was crippled by a terrible stroke, and not long afterwards, my father died, followed by my heartbroken mother escaping into dementia.  Connie and I had thus, unwittingly, picked the last possible time when we could have brought such joy and fulfillment into the lives of our parents.

So…, when you have an opportunity to make memories with your dear ones – make them!  while there’s still time.

BLOG #31, SERIES 4

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

A HONEYBEE ALLEGORY

July 31, 2013

In the tenth and last of “The Good Lord Made Them All” animal story series is a fascinating story that will appear in the book next January. As I was preparing to write this week’s blog, a subject prominent in today’s media (both electronic and print): the current standoff between the forces of entitlement and the forces of job-creation came to mind. Keeping in mind, of course, that both opposites are always with us, each serving a purpose. For some strange reason, I felt impressed to take some lines from the story, and use them as this week’s allegory, leaving the application, if any, to our readers.

Until now the sycamore hollow had been strictly a female domain, but in early May there emerged from the central brood cells a limited group of double-sized, stripeless bees who conducted themselves in a decidedly loud and lordly manner. To some extent, this arrogance was understandable. From the very first they were pampered by the household legions. They toiled not and neither would they rule, yet the queen herself received scarcely more attention.

These males, numbering perhaps three hundred, each resplendent in a velvety jacket of golden brown, grew fat and sleek on the choicest sweets from the honey pantry. By June they were spending their hours mainly in a sluggish stage of honeyed drunkenness. But the thousands of toil worn harvesters and domestics pursued their ceaseless duties….

There nestled in the carefully guarded center of the brood nest a half-dozen cells much larger than the rest. By the second day after the old queen had been swarmed away from the sycamore, one of these cells pulsed with life. There was a stirring within, a faint, gnawing commotion somewhat like a chick pipping an exit from its swaddling shell.

Excitement quickly simmered throughout the queenless colony. A corps of nurse bees hurried to the a-borning cell, and lent their aid. Soon a new queen, as pallid as alabaster, crawled forth into her mysterious new world. Nature, ineffably wise, had not forgotten Apishontee.

Even the drones, who until now had shown little concern for the queenless condition of Apishontee, perked up noticeably. Twirling their fine sensitive antennae – somewhat as ancient suitors were wont to flourish waxed mustachios – the males crowded toward the royal brood nest.

For once, their arrogance was resented. Jealously ministering nurse bees drove them back, swiftly and unceremoniously. Whereupon, recoiling sullenly, the drones marched back grandly to the nearest honey cups.

The new queen of Apishontee emerged into daylight two days later. Pausing on the threshold of her honey-scented domain, she chanted a muted drone of motherly affection, while her joyous thousands of subjects thronged about her. The queen presently took to the air and made a series of calm, slow flights about the slanting sycamore tree.

It was now that the phlegmatic males quit their sulking and made their appearance. Heads glistened in the bright sunlight like buttons of ebony. On each proud back gleamed an irregular dark crest – that mark of bee royalty found also on the queen, but not on her daughters who wore the gold-striped livery of toil.

Drumming up their deepest bass of male importance, the drones wheeled about in songful courtship. The queen, for a time, seemed unimpressed. The drones continued to circle. They rose and dived, spun and droned with magnificent song, strutting in their most handsome behavior.

Abruptly the shining new queen zoomed into the air. She spiraled steadily and rapidly into the cloudless azure sky. The drones, momentarily bewildered, perhaps reluctant to attempt such dizzy heights, finally coursed after her. But of the several hundreds of them, scarcely a dozen of the lustiest continued their pursuit. These whistled on into the blue – up, up.

* * *

July burned its course across the countryside. Apishontee the Younger had quickly regained her busy stride. The new queen, moved by that serene gravity imposed by her station in life, set herself to bee-queenly tasks. Eggs multiplied with a machinelike prolificity, a thousand a day, two thousand a day. The numbered strength of Apishontee grew steadily.

But not so the golden stream of new honey. There came hot, rainless weeks. Wild bloom, which normally laced the swampland, withered and dropped. Nectars, so scarce, so scattered, were gathered more and more tediously. Honey came into the sycamore more and more uncertainly.

Finally it ceased.

Apishontee grew frantic. During this lean season of drought only the handsome drones remained unruffled. The thousands of busy harvesters, ranging farther afield, worked themselves ragged. Busy little legs became worn to a wirelike smoothness. Small striped abdomens took on the dull, harsh sheen of worn satin. Gossamer wings became dusty, torn. Hundreds died.

But the drones, born to a life of ease, knew but one thing to do – eat. This they did, and kept luxuriously fat. Early each morning they descended from their comfortable perches in the highest sector of the hollow. They promptly gorged themselves on honey, then thrust an indelicate and wobbly course through the humming household legions, to gain the outside.

For the handsome drones, though at first pampered and allowed choicest foods and privileges, had come to suspect that their importance in a busy household had somehow vanished. As difficulties afield stirred a subtle change of attitude among the toilworn workers, the drones seemed more and more anxious to make themselves scarce while daylight lasted.

True drones, they were strict, however, in maintaining dignity. They thrust a way past the sentinels at the entrance and took to the air in grandest manner – bound, their pompous actions assured everyone, on an important mission for the day. Safely beyond sight of the tumultuous hive, they promptly dropped their air of high purpose.

Shiveringly careful of the dew-damp woods, they loitered awing. But as soon as the sun had dried away the dew, they settled themselves comfortably in open spots, where during the busy morning hours they might remain pleasantly stupefied on fragrances that they could no longer hold in substantial form.

The drought was broken in late August. Black clouds bilged up at sunset. By midnight, rain again lashed the swampland, and again the wind blew violently. Apishontee huddled inside her sycamore hollow, feeling no complacency tonight. The sycamore rocked before the wind, groaning fitfully. Apishontee, the Many-in-One, huddled together anxiously, perhaps fearful lest another blast of sky-fire might demolish their home.

It happened an hour later, but it was not by lightning this time. It was the steady pressure of driving wind. Each rocking motion of the leaning sycamore bent it farther, left it slanting at an increasingly perilous angle.

Apishontee sensed this unexpected threat with a sort of collective despair. No more flowers to harvest. If the hollow were broken asunder, the precious store of honey lost, the colony could never collect enough to survive the coming winter.

The wind continued its fury. Rain ceased, and started again; but the wind came on unceasingly. Lower bent the sycamore. Then, under a violent surge of rain-chilled wind, the bee tree was abruptly uprooted. It began falling – a dizzying sensation even to the hollow-huddled bees.

But the sycamore top had slanted only a foot before there came a grating, sliding sound. It ceased falling and came to a dead rest. Its central bough, sturdy and crooked, was caught in the solid crotch of a giant water oak near by. Instead of her home being demolished, Apishontee now sensed that it was made permanent, even more solid, by this chance stroke of storm.

* * *

Rain brought belated life to the scorched earth. Late season flowers sprang up. The harvesters of Apishontee plied them eagerly, willingly, for soon winter would be upon the swampland. The drones were undismayed. The drought had not worried them.

It was on a crisp, chill morning in October that they were made to give close heed, however, to their laggard existence. Descending as usual toward the nearest honey store, they brushed through a collective mood distinctly hostile to them. The drones tried to ignore it; they galloped hurriedly down the narrow corridors between the honeycombs. The domestics, wings aflutter, voiced shrill resentment this morning.

It happened swiftly, then. The workers surged upon the glittering-bodied drones. Tumbled legs-over-wings, the males tried to right themselves, sought futilely to retrieve their dignity. But the outraged honey harvesters and work-worn domestics were firm. In a seething pattern they fell upon the gorged, oversize members of Apishontee.

A few reached the outside with injury no more serious than a deflated ego. Many, alas, came into the early day sans wings, or minus certain of their glossy black legs. These were hearsed away by the zealously determined house cleaners, and dropped to the ground with grim finality.

Apishontee of the sycamore tree as simply, as sternly as that, rid her colony of those members who had long ago served their one purpose in life, who could thereafter contribute no mite to its perpetuation. Winter was soon upon the swampland. Apishontee went to sleep, content in the knowledge that she had at last reached a proud peak of wildwood civilization.