Joe L. Wheeler's Blog, page 4

BLOG #15, SERIES 6

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

REMAKING OUR BRAINS

April 15, 2015

This was the weekend of our annual Conifer Kiwanis Reading Celebration for the third-graders who attend six mountain elementary schools here in the Colorado Rockies. Also for a large consortium of homeschoolers.

Before we honored the kids for their reading improvement, I gathered close to 90 third-graders on the floor around me, and urged them to make reading central to their lives. Since I poured thirty years of observation and research into my 1992 book, TV on Trial, and one of my main doctoral concentrations had to do with the relationship between reading and writing, and since those areas have remained central to me during my entire academic teaching career, I felt this occasion offered me a golden opportunity to plant seeds in these young minds.

I pointed out to them that there are two ways they can feed their brains: Reading and Electronic Imagery. Reading has been with us clear back to ancient times, but most significantly since the advent of printing, some six centuries ago. Electronic imagery is much more recent: around the turn of the twentieth century with the advent of moving pictures.

Today, electronic imagery has become so ubiquitous it increasingly has pushed reading onto the ropes, with some even questioning whether it can survive at all.

So, I pointed out to the third-graders that there are two significant differences between reading and electronic media: Reading is a creative process; electronic imagery tends to be creative only for those who create it. Reading is connotative. In other words, every time a person opens a book and begins reading, something exciting happens: that person���s brain shifts into its creative gear as the reader cranks out non-stop inner imagery that has the potential to actually change the brain into a powerhouse.

I introduced two contrasting word processes: ���denotative��� and ���connotative.��� Denotative has to do with the dictionary definition of a word. Let���s take, for instance, the word ���father���; the dictionary definition is ���a man who has begotten a child.��� That���s all there is to it.

But the connotative process is so explosive it borders on the mind-numbing, for it has the potential, over time, to remake the brain. I pointed out that as you read the word ���father,��� if you have a loving father you adore, the mental image you create will tend to mirror that; but what if you have an abusive father? That would contribute to a much darker mental image. And no two readers ever create exactly the same mental imagery from the same words! For each individual is one-of-a-kind. That is why cloning would be such a terrible thing. As a person reads, word after word after word triggers the creation of mental imagery in the reader���s brain. So much so that just one book has the potential to create seismic differences in the reader���s outlook on life. But that���s not all, by any means. Each author writes in a different way from other authors; this is why Google enables teachers to catch plagiarists so easily, and why it borders on the impossible that an anonymous writer can long remain anonymous. The reader reads works by Alcott, Tolkien, Blume, Milne, Seuss, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Twain, or Martin Luther King, Jr.���; those stylistic differences are stored in inner templates, each of which may be drawn from when the reader begins to write herself/himself.

Depending upon whether the reader reads from a wide variety of books, stories, essays, etc. written by authors worth reading as opposed to stalling out on mental pablum; the former is likely to develop into a powerhouse and the latter into straitjacketed narrowism.

* * *

But what if individuals read no books and little of anything else, and instead feed the mind with electronic imagery (the norm for untold millions today), what happens to their minds? When one is watching television, cinema, video, or other electronic genres, whether one person is watching a given source or a billion people are watching it, every last one is internalizing the same picture! Reason being that the receiver���s brain has had nothing to do with the image���s creation���someone else did that. In fact, the receiver���s brain is completely bypassed: BAM! The image is blasted into the receiver���s brain. But it is not internalized for it is a foreign object. It is a self-standing entity that just sits there. Over time, as these foreign objects take up more and more space in the receiver���s brain, that person all but loses the creative potential that individual was born with.

In the collegiate freshman composition classes I���ve taught over the years, I���ve seen replayed the two species again, again, and again. When I tell a class, ���Take out a blank piece of paper. We are going to write. . . . Now write!��� It matters little whether I give them a subject to write about or let them choose, the results are the same each time: the reader, having all the internalized imagery of many authors��� books and stories synthesized into the memory banks, stylistic templates too, can hardly wait to start writing���and then the pen races across the page. The non-reader, almost invariably, just sits there glassy-eyed, like Bambi on ice. Since there is precious little in their brains that wasn���t created by someone else, there isn���t much they can draw from. And since they don���t read, they don���t know how to write either. Structurally, they are equally at sea. Since electronic imagery explodes at them from all directions, little of it structured, their thought-processes tend to be equally unstructured and disjointed. This is also true when they speak in public.

Furthermore, even in the business world, non-readers are handicapped. Studies have shown that when employing CEOs test them to see which applicant would be the best fit for a job, they are often given a task composed of, say five, steps in which to reach desired completion. Deliberately and unannounced, the CEO leaves out a step. So a reader moves from step to step: A to B, B to C, C to D, D to E, and E to F���only D to E is left out. The reader reaches this abyss, is puzzled , but doesn���t give up. Since the reader has developed a part of the brain scholars call the ���library,��� in which the brain talks to itself, the applicant, much like a spider, launches filaments out into the void, seeking for a terminus on the other side. Sooner or later, one of the filaments touches solid ground; the applicant now bridges to the other side and moves from E to F, and completes the task. The non-reader never can complete the task. Even when both applicants are college graduates with 4-point grade A averages, the results are still the same. A neighbor of mine, an executive himself, and a veteran administrator and employer, when I shared this study with him, explained, ���So that���s it! I���ve long wondered why some top graduates could problem-solve and others failed so dismally. It makes sense!���

* * * * *

Sadly, our society has yet to recognize just how essential reading is to life and career success, even in areas that are not generally considered as demanding a reading background.

BLOG #14, SERIES 6

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

LIVING TO BE 100 YEARS OLD

April 8, 2015

The cover story in the April 5, 2015 Parade was titled ���Living to 100.��� The author, Ginny Graves, notes that there are 53,364 centenarians in the U.S. today; however, experts predict that number will skyrocket to 600,000 by 2050.

There has been much publicity recently about the so-called Blue Zones (areas with the highest concentration of centenarians). Most prominent are Sardinia; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and, in the U.S., Loma Linda, California.

Graves notes that journalist Dan Buettner has become a longevity guru, thanks to books such as his new one, The Blue Zone Solution: Eating and Living Like the World���s Healthiest People (National Geographic Books).

Here are some of Buettner���s conclusions about Blue Zones:

������� They tend to hang out with individuals who share their healthy living philosophies. A Brigham Young University study confirms this: those with strong connections were twice as likely to outlive those who do not.

������� They exercise regularly, often choose to walk with friends three, four miles a day at least four times a week. Their lifestyles encourage physical activities rather than sedentary ones.

������� The world���s most robust centenarians stick with diets that are 95% plant-based; eating some fish but little meat. In a major study, British researchers found that those who ate seven or more portions of vegetables and fruits every day, lowered their risk of dying from cancer by 25%, and from cardiovascular disease by 31%. Many drink a glass of wine each day. They eat smaller portions.

������� They generally belong to a faith-based community. Buettner notes that attending services four times a month can extend life span by 14 years.

������� Marital commitment alone can add up to three years to one���s life.

������� Extended family interaction significantly extends life.

������� Crucial to longevity is having a purpose, reasons for facing and living each day.

* * * * *

My own research confirms all this:

1.���� Studies confirm that there is an extremely strong relationship between mind and body. If the mind tells the body, I���m retired now; so I can just loaf and veg out each day, the brain sends out a mandate to the body���s defense armies (the white blood cells): Dismantle the defense system for there are no longer any dreams or goals to protect. And you die. Often in a short time-period. Only those retirees who establish new goals, create new passions, find new hobbies, and dream new dreams, are likely to live long.

2.���� There are no plateaus where health is concerned. One is either getting stronger (the body essentially rebuilds itself every 100 days) each 100 days, or one is getting weaker. Consistent daily exercise is absolutely essential.

3.���� Vibrant Blue Zoners work hard each day to remain relevant intellectually. By continued study and voracious reading, they stay current with the Zeitgeist; thus their writing and speaking can have a profound effect on society. This is why aging luminaries such as Warren Buffett remain so iconic, and their wisdom is sought after.

4.���� Blue Zoners never feel old. For them ���old��� remains a long way off. When my great aunt, Lois Wheeler Berry was 105 years old, she continued to maintain that ���Old is fifteen years older than you are.��� She was right: age is a state of mind; some are old at 10 and others remain young at 110!

So each of us has the potential (short of unforeseen calamaties or diseases) to live long vibrant lives, on past 100 years. But no one can slide or veg into it. It demands daily VIBRANT LIVING and perpetual joie du vivre.

BLOG #13, SERIES #6

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

DR. JOE���S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB #39

ROBERT BARR���S A PRINCE OF GOOD FELLOWS

April 1, 2015

For April, here is an easy-read after the monumental War and Peace. It is one of the earliest books I ever bought with my own money; I purchased it in 1953. It had everything my boyish mind reveled in back then: history, royalty, intrigue, danger, romance, and a likable protagonist, James V, King of Scotland.

Back then, I knew nothing about the author. Several days ago, browsing in my library for our 39th book selection, I spied the battered, stained, and discolored copy of my old friend, picked it up, and decided to re-read it to see if it would still have its initial hold on me.

It did���and it didn���t. What was different was that I now had over half a century of historical and literary research behind me, including bachelor���s and master���s degrees in history, a masters in English, and a doctorate in English (History of Ideas concentration). Back then, I read it for the adventure and romance of it; now, I read it with the critical eye of a scholar. In other words, even though I knew it was fiction, I now wondered if it was fiction based on fact (back in the fifties I didn���t care the proverbial ���two hoots��� whether the book was accurate historically or not���I was just looking for a good read). But now, that wasn���t enough.

Now, remembering how I was captivated by the concluding romance back then, I discovered that I still was, but now I wanted to know if that was accurate. I almost wished I hadn���t checked, for though the book still appears to be historically accurate, there wasn���t to be a happily-ever-after scenario for the king and his bride.

I���d long ago discovered in my historical research that there was precious little real romance in royal marriages down through the centuries. Marriages took place for dynastic reasons and the principals had precious little to say about it. If they wanted romantic love, society would wink at their many extra-marital escapades. In fact, James V was the only legitimate child his father ever had. Note Charles and Diana���s disastrous marriage. In fact, it was said that Charles was the only man in the world not in love with Diana. Instead, he found love with Camilla, another man���s wife. In the case of William, Kate represents one of the very few cases in British history of a future monarch being permitted to select his own mate.

Now, in my research, I discovered that James V���s bride died during the first year after marriage; he remarried���and out of that union came one of history���s saddest heroines: the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, doomed to die at the hands of Elizabeth I, her cousin.

But having said all this, I���m still glad I prowled around in actual history after having re-read this book, because now that I���ve authenticated the core story, I���m more fascinated than ever with James V; his nemesis, that rascal Henry VIII of England; and so many other fascinating real-life characters.

Now for the author, a most fascinating real-life figure himself. Robert Barr (1849-1912) was born in Glasgow, Scotland. When only four years of age, he emigrated to Canada with his parents. After being educated in Toronto, in 1881 Barr decided to relocate to London, then the most exciting and powerful city in the world. He would go on to become an educator, journalist, editor, publisher, and novelist. By the 1890s, he was publishing a book a year (mostly novels, short story collections as well), and was close friends with literary luminaries such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, Bret Harte, and Stephen Crane. Barr was especially prolific in writing historical romances and books about crime.

He was a real craftsman with words. According to his close friend Jerome K. Jerome, Barr will ���often spend an entire morning constructing a single sentence. . . . If he writes a four-thousand-word story in a month, he feels he has earned a holiday.���

* * *

Now that I���ve learned all this about Barr, I���m intrigued enough to track down more of his books and read them. I���ll be interested in your reactions.

Look for copies on the web: A Prince of Good Fellows (New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1902).

BLOG #12, SERIES #6

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

50 TAKES ON WISDOM

March 25, 2015

What would you get if you asked fifty of the world���s most eminent people to share with you the most significant insights into wisdom they���d gleaned from this thing called ���life���? That���s exactly what photographer and film-maker Andrew Zuckerman did in his wondrous volume titled Wisdom (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2008).

Interviewees included the likes of Richard Rogers, Chuck Close, Madeleine Albright, Burt Bacharach, Andrew Wyeth, Buzz Aldrin, Desmond Tutu, Judi Dench, Clint Eastwood, Michael Parkinson, Ted Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Robert Redford, Frank Gehry, Henry Kissinger, Rosamunde Pilcher, Jane Goodall, Alan Arkin, Dave Brubeck, and Vaclev Havel.

In his insightful ���Afterword,��� Zuckerman explores the evolution of his concept:

It is very hard to tell another human being that he or she is an icon, and that you���re there to extract the wisdom out of their iconic beings. It doesn���t sit well. People are people. We���re sitting down to have a conversation. I���m a young person conversing with an older person and there���s a certain human engagement. I thought: what no one has a problem with is being a human being. Everyone is human. I kept thinking about this idea of setting out on this amazing adventure to create a field guide for navigating one���s life. I wanted to explore what it is to be human, to hear from people who have lived for a long time and have an enormous amount of experience. . . .

I���m thirty years old and at this point in my life most of my generation, my peers, are creating work that is a mirror of youth culture. Our society is obsessed with youth. I have never understood that. My whole life, I���ve enjoyed meeting accomplished older people���it just seemed logical to me that these are the people who had done it. They have all the secrets. Why wouldn���t you ask them? ���What secrets does youth hold? How did you do it? And how do you feel now about how you did it? And what did you learn?

* * * * *

It took me most of a week to fully digest all this, and the several hundred 3 x 5 note cards on which I copied quotations. I���ll be sharing with our readers in our daily quotation tweets.

C O D A

I take very serious these daily quotations. Quite candidly, one of my biggest fears is that my reference field would be too narrow, reflect my own reading too much, my own academic fields of expertise too much, my own era too much. With these concerns ever in my mind, even though I already have millions of quotations to draw from, I���m constantly seeking new sources of fresh wisdom.

Consequently, I consider it providential that our son Greg already had this seminal book in his personal library so that I could immerse myself in it.

I���m hoping you���ll agree.

I���ll start out with a longer quote from the book ��� too long for a tweet. On being asked what sessions stood out to him most, Zuckerman responded with:

One was Chuck Close, who spoke of the enormous amount of information contained in the topography of a face. He said, ���If you���ve laughed your whole life you have laugh lines, if you���ve frowned your whole life you have furrows in your brow. Sometimes you have both, and most people have a kind of duality of life experience, some tragedy and some great moments of extreme happiness, and I don���t want one of those to overwhelm the other.��� It���s true. There���s an enormous amount to communicate in a portrait that can���t be communicated in words. The face reveals the journey traveled. And one of the incredible things about photographing people at this stage in their lives is that they���ve had quite a long journey and the information in the face was really what I was there to capture with the utmost clarity.

BLOG #11, SERIES #6

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

DOCTOR OF HAPPINESS

March 18, 2015

Serendipitously, while still sifting through thousands of stories in my archives, I found the perfect companion piece to last week���s blog, ���How to Be Happy?��� When I checked the source, I knew I had to incorporate it into this week���s blog, for the story was featured in the November 1935 issue of Sunshine magazine, published by Sunshine Press in Litchfield, Illinois. Sunshine has long been one of my favorite magazines, both for its stories and for its quotations. I���ve anthologized many of the stories, and in my daily quotation tweets, few sources do I raid more often than Sunshine magazine.

During the last period of its existence, it was published by Garth Henrichs, and he and I became good friends. When I told him of my love for the magazine, he sighed and said, ���Your words mean a great deal to me ��� especially since age is catching up with me and I have no one to carry on after I���m gone.��� We stayed in contact until the late 1980s, when Garth was finally forced to close the doors of Sunshine Press, founded by his father Henry Henrichs. But before he died, he entrusted me with the legacy of keeping Sunshine alive in my writing and books. Neither blogs nor tweets existed back then. Thus, I���m confident Garth would be filled with joy to see this story by an unknown author live again.

Enjoy!

���MARY ANN, Ph. D.���

Mary Ann was a scrubwoman. But that didn���t prevent her from being a philosopher, although she did not know herself by that designation. It is not uncommon these days to find excellent wisdom wrapped up in odd and unpromising packages.

Mary Ann did a lot of thinking as she scrubbed, which did not hurt the scrubbing. Her conclusions may not have matched the classic cogitations of the collegiate or his companions in wisdom, but they were ideas that had the spice of sense in them. And that���s something.

It was one of those depressing, damp days too prevalent in the great city. Mary Ann was scrubbing the imposing stone steps of a well-known banking institution, when a banking official known to the scrubwoman entered. He paused for a moment, as he often did, to exchange a bit of conversation with Mary Ann. He hoped she might be happy and well. She was well, and had a good appetite, thank you. And she had a ���right smart amount��� of happiness, too, but not any too much.

Mary Ann often had pondered that matter with a view to discovering a satisfying conclusion. At the best, she found it a somewhat complex affair, but not wholly confounding. She had evolved what might be called a philosophy of happiness ��� she had to have one to keep going and hold up her end of the day���s demands. Life would be unbearable in a city tenement, and crushing to a scrubber of bank portals, without some definite ideas about happiness and contentment. Her philosophy might not conform to the most logical reasoning, nor blend with the poet���s dream of bliss, but it satisfied Mary Ann.

Looking up at the banker from her kneeling position, Mary Ann quaintly said, ���There ain���t no happiness in this world, ���cept what we makes ourselves.���

���Quite a chunk of wisdom,��� thought the banker, but he said nothing. Mary Ann hesitated, expecting the banker to pass on, but he did not. Instead, he stood there and just looked at her.

Mary Ann raised up on her knees. ���You see,��� she continued, ���happiness, t��� me way o��� thinking, is something inside o��� you. A lot o��� folks ���spect somebody t��� come along an��� fill ���em full o��� happiness, an��� all they think they got t��� do is jest t��� do nothing. You know, Mister, that makes me feel kinda ���shamed o��� meself ��� jest like we humans can���t take care o��� ourselves.���

���Seems to me,��� continued Mary Ann, seeing that the banker friend was still listening, ���seems t��� me what we git from other folks, what some call happiness, is something cheap, an un���ungenuine. What you git from inside yerself is all good, and it sticks.���

The banker looked enviously at Mary Ann. He found little genuine happiness in his relationships with people. Certainly he found pleasure in business���when it was good. As to happiness from the ���inside,��� as Mary Ann had said, his responsibilities and worries were altogether too heavy to admit of it. Hence, Mary Ann���s philosophy was somewhat perplexing, effective as it appeared to be.

���Are you happy, Mister?��� questioned Mary Ann, unexpectedly.

The banker was embarrassed, and he hesitated before he answered. ���Oh, yes���why, yes, of course,��� he stuttered, ���Maybe not the kind you are talking about. You see, I depend on society���business success, you understand, to supply my happiness.���

Mary Ann looked up at the banker, laughing, ���aw, you ain���t had no happiness at all. All you git that way ain���t happiness���it���s nothing only pleasure. That ain���t happiness. I bet it don���t last no longer than it takes you t��� git away from it.��� And Mary Ann laughed again.

The banker walked slowly away. ���Mary Ann, Doctor of Philosophy,��� he muttered. ���The half of all I own would I give to experience the happiness Mary Ann possesses. My money entangles me in snares I cannot break. Would that I might cast it off, but my family and my friends live on the fruits of my investments. I cannot forsake them. I live in fear of something, I know not what. I am worried ��� worried��� ���

When Mary Ann finished scrubbing, she hummed a little tune all her own. Weary in body, to be sure, but happy because the portals were shining ��� a work well done ��� and she was earning an honest and respectable living, and she could look the whole world in the face. The contagion of her happiness shed a ray upon her surroundings and brightened the outlook of those near by.

The banker, wise in many things, foolish in the greatest, experienced a bit of Mary Ann���s brand of happiness when, on the early morning of Thanksgiving Day, he deposited at Mary Ann���s tenement door a huge basket bulging with good things. It was in material things, such as these, that he had sought his own happiness, but in his own possession rather than in the possession of others. Suddenly he realized the folly of his own philosophy.

In the basket left at Mary Ann���s door, hidden among the profusion of good things, she found a note written in the banker���s own hand. It merely said: ���It is more blessed to give than to receive. Thanks to Mary Ann.���

BLOG #10, SERIES #6

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

HOW TO BE HAPPY

March 11, 2015

During recent weeks, I���ve been sifting through thousands of stories that we���ve filed away during the last half-century. One day, I asked God that, if it was His will, He���d help me notice nuggets of wisdom that might be a blessing to our blog readers. Several hours later, I came across this, originally published in Girl���s World, later in a 1926 Youth���s Instructor. In order to better understand its significance, you���d have to know that, back then, in the days before air-conditioning, during summer months, cities often turned into furnaces. Everyone who could escape to the mountains or seashores, did so. The rich would leave home in early summer and not return until fall. Consequently, in a real sense, the poor were left to keep the cities going. And their babies were taken care of by their sisters. The story has to do with Alice Freeman Palmer (1855 – 1892), one of the most loved and admired educators in American history. It was during her years at Wellesley College, first as professor of history, then Dean of Women, then President, that she was catapulted into national eminence; and later at the University of Chicago, also as Dean of Women. Deans of Women are legendary thought-leaders: again and again people have told me of unforgettable stories they first heard from the lips of such deans. So naturally, I was curious about what Dr. Palmer might have said about happiness, a subject, even today, that so many millions of people are feverishly searching for. Here is what she had to say:

This is Alice Freeman Palmer���s recipe for happiness and the way she happened to tell it makes a delightful little story. It was in the years of her beautiful home life, after she had finished her great work at Wellesley. Almost every week through the hot summer she used to leave her peaceful, calm retreat in the country, and go to Boston to talk to children of the slums at a vacation school. The story is her own, but much condensed.

It was a very, very hot day, even in the country, but in the city, oh my! Yet, when I reached my destination, I found many girls in the room, and more babies than girls, for each girl was holding one, and there were a few to spare. ���Now,��� I said, ���what shall I talk to you about this morning?���

Then up spoke a small, pale-faced, heavy-eyed child, with a great fat baby on her knee, ���Tell us how to be happy.���

The tears rushed to my eyes. Happy in such surroundings, with such burdens, too heavy to be borne! Yet, while this flashed through my mind, the rest took up the word, ���Yes, tell us how to be happy.���

���Well,��� I said, ���I will give you my three rules for being happy; but mind, you must all promise to keep them for a week, and not skip a single day, for they won���t work if you skip one single day.��� So they all promised that they wouldn���t skip a single day.

���The first rule is that you will commit something to memory every day ��� something good. It needn���t be much ��� three or four words will do, just a pretty bit of a poem, or a Bible verse. Do you understand?���

One little girl with flashing black eyes jumped up and cried: ���I know; you want us to learn something we���d be glad enough to remember even if we went blind.���

���Yes,��� I said, ���that���s it exactly.���

���The second rule is: Look for something pretty each day: a leaf, a flower, a cloud ��� you can all find something. And stop long enough to say, ���Isn���t it beautiful?��� Take it all in. Can you do it, every single day?��� They promised to a girl.

���My third rule is: Do something for somebody each day.��� I thought that would be the hardest of all, but they said: ���Oh, that���s easy! Don���t we have to tend babies and run errands every day, and isn���t that doing something for somebody?���

���Yes, I said, ���indeed it is.���

So I went home, and came back at the end of the week, on a still hotter day. Suddenly, on a very narrow street, I was literally grabbed by the arm, and a little voice said, ���I done it.���

���Did what?��� I exclaimed, looking down at a tiny girl with a baby in her arms.

���What you told us, and I never skipped a day, neither.���

I made her put the baby down on the sidewalk while she told me all about it.

���Well,��� she said, ���I never skipped a day, but it was awful hard. One day it rained, and the baby had a cold, and I thought sure I was going to skip, and I was standing at the window, ���most cryin���, and I saw��� ��� here her little face lighted up with a radiant smile ��� ���I saw a sparrow taking a bath, and he had on a black necktie, and he was handsome.���

���And then there was another day, and I thought I should have to skip it, sure. The baby was sick, and I couldn���t go out, and I was feelin��� terrible ��� and then I saw the baby���s hair!���

���The baby���s hair!��� I echoed.

���Yes: a little bit of sun came in the window, and I saw his hair, an��� I���ll never be lonesome any more.��� And with a radiant face she caught up the baby and said, ���See; isn���t it beau-ti-ful?���

���Yes,��� I said, ���it is beautiful.��� And I took the baby, and we went on to the meeting.

And the best thing about the story is that the three rules for happiness are good any time and anywhere.

I read this, and at first it seemed too simplistic to work, but then, as I thought about it for a while, I realized that the three rules were more profound than I���d thought, for the first rule would necessitate rummaging around for some time in books and magazines before one would find lines worth memorizing and internalizing. Internalizing the second rule would necessitate a continual search for beauty in everything one picked up through the senses (sight, hearing, touching, or smelling); over time, as one concentrates on beauty rather than ugliness, one���s character would reveal proportional upward growth. The third rule (helping someone else rather than brooding about self) would open up a continuous succession of doors into joy.

Try them ��� and see if they won���t work for you.

BLOG #9, SERIES #6

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

WHY IS BREVITY SO RARE?

March 4, 2015

I really didn���t know just how difficult it was to be brief until one day, in Colorado Springs, when I delivered a one-minute short for Focus on the Family. There, in that broadcast studio, the sound people were all business. Their injunction all too precise: ���We need a 60-second short from you���not 59 or 58, and not 61 or 62. Just 60 seconds.��� And so we did take after take after take before I finally completed my task in exactly 60 seconds.

As a story anthologist, I���m always searching for powerful short stories I can read on the air. Believe me, they are mighty rare!

Same for poems. One of my favorite poets is the late Edgar A. Guest, one of the most beloved folk poets America has ever known. In one particular poem, he pulled off a twelve-line masterpiece that captured the essence of one of the most difficult words to perfectly define in the English language. Here it is:

WISDOM

This is wisdom, maids and men:

Knowing what to say and when.

Speech is common; thought is rare;

Wise men choose their words with care.

Artists with the master touch

Never use one phrase too much.

Jesus, preaching on the Mount,

Made His every sentence count.

Lincoln���s Gettysburg Address

Needs not one word more nor less.

This is wisdom, maids and men:

Knowing what to say and when.

From Guest���s A Heap O��� Living Along Life���s Highway (Chicago: Reilly & Lee, 1916)

BLOG #8, SERIES #6

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

ARE BOOKS DEAD?

THIRD-GRADE READERS AT THE CROSSROADS

February 25, 2015

February 8, 2007

It appears to be a national consensus that unless a child falls in love with reading by the third grade, it is extremely unlikely that the child ever will. Because of this, thirteen years ago, the Conifer, Colorado Kiwanis Club launched out on uncharted waters. We had no guidebook, no map; we just knew something ought to be done about it. After all, every week, we recited the Kiwanis mantra, our reason for being: ���Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to changing the world���one child and one community at a time. Kiwanis is for kids here, there, and everywhere.���

Over time, gradually, we felt our way, as we adopted five elementary schools: Deer Creek, Elk Creek, Marshdale, Parmalee, and West Jefferson [Jeff, for short]. Recently, because there are so many homeschooling families in the Mountain Corridor, we added them as well.

Each year, we raise money for books; not bureaucracy or infrastructure���just books.

Because for us, this one thing we do, we have had an impact far greater than the size of our club would warrant. All our fund-raising is centered on reading. In my own case, every December, because every penny above cost of my books goes directly to third-grade readers, the largest grocery stores in the area permit us Kiwanians to set up inside the store. Kiwanians man the table and I inscribe from a very large selection of our in-print and out-of-print books. We also raise money by sponsoring a rest stop for bikers in the annual Triple Bypass Bike Race (���triple��� meaning that it features three passes over 11,000 feet); drawing 4,000 – 6,000 bikers every year. And we also seek other sources of funding.

And every year, we Kiwanians hold a Reading Celebration for third-graders and their families, as well as their teachers and principals. On that occasion, the kids get to see Mr. Ron Lewis���s buffalo herd close up (he���s our club president), partake of refreshments, receive certificates of reading achievements, have one of my books (chosen by the child) personally inscribed as a gift from me. They will also join their teachers and principals, school by school, and tell us how last year���s money was spent, and how they feel about reading. They are then awarded the check for the upcoming year.

February 27, 2014

That���s the fun part for me. During the past two weeks I have made appointments with area principals and third-grade teachers, to enter the classrooms and personally invite the third-graders to come to the Marshdale Reading Celebration. I brought with me fourteen of my books: ten collections of animal stories (series titled ���The Good Lord Made Them All���), Showdown (sports stories for boys), Bluegrass Girl (horse stories for girls), The Talleyman Ghost (mystery stories for girls), and The Secrets of Creeping Desert (mystery stories for boys). Each attendee will choose one later, after first receiving parental permission to do so. Then I leave full-color posters depicting the 14 book covers with each teacher. By the time I leave, the kids are excited.

Often the teachers grant me time to talk with the kids about both reading and writing, and how they go together. At that age, being an author is a magical thing to them. When they���re told that I���ve written/edited 89 books so far, they are in awe. When I ask for questions, they are so excited, almost every hand is raised. Believe me, when all the third-grade sections are brought into one room for my annual visit, one section seated at their desks and the other sections seated on the floor (50 – 80 kids at a time), and seeing all those hands waving for my attention, it is an exciting thing to behold. Third-grade is a perfect grade to target for they are still excited about life and reading; fourth grade is too late.

This year, one of our schools, Elk Creek Elementary School, is being honored because its students made the 98th percentile in state-wide reading scores! Which gives Kiwanis validation for the thirteen years we���ve partnered with these area schools. And with parents���for unless they are partnering with us at home, our efforts are limited. But together, we can accomplish miracles!

As I see it, if my entire life were to be judged by just lighting the eyes of these children, one at a time, with the joy of learning, reading, writing, creating���it would be worth having lived.

BLOG #7, SERIES #6

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN

ARE THEY STILL RELEVANT?

February 18, 2015

Are they ever! Again and again, I hear back from readers of my two Lincoln books: Abraham Lincoln, A Man of Faith and Courage, 2008; and Abraham Lincoln Civil War Stories, 2013 (both published by Howard/Simon & Schuster), comments such as these: ���Do we ever need another Lincoln today!���, ���I was deeply moved by your new Lincoln book.��� Just ten days ago, a Parmalee Elementary School fourth-grader who walked up to me and asked, ���Are you the writer of the animal books���? When I answered that I was, his face brightened as he said, ���I have all ten of them���I love them all!��� When I then asked him which one he liked best, without a moment���s hesitation, he said, ���Best of all? . . oh, that has to be the Lincoln book���I read it over and over!���

Though I haven���t yet put together a Washington story anthology, over the years I���ve gradually tracked down many of the most powerful such stories���they���re hard to find for they were written for a much more patriotic age than ours today. Sadly, neither civics nor American history are taught much any more.

Washington���s role in our history is every bit as significant as Lincoln���s, for he was the reason why we (with the timely help of the French fleet) eventually won our independence from England. Furthermore, without him, it is doubtful the perpetually squabbling colonies would ever have agreed to support any one leader as President.

So one man, more than any other, made possible the establishment of our republic, and another man, more than any other, made possible the preservation of our republic.

Which brings us to a key question: Just what are their most significant character traits?

I���d say, selflessness . . . persistency . . . determination to see something through to its desired end, no matter the cost, no matter how long it would take . . . strong belief in God and Providence . . . Humility (Washington refused to be crowned King) . . . Solid as a rock Integrity . . . accessibility to all . . . Fear of Power . . . Consideration for others . . . Ability to motivate thousands of people to join him in common cause . . . organizational skills . . . tact . . . love of family . . . far-seeing . . . ability to see the forest as well as the trees . . . fear of a permanent military establishment . . . visionary: could see far ahead . . . kindness . . . empathy . . . loyalty . . . willingness to be used, then gladly step aside for others . . . Wise foreign policy . . . fiscally astute . . . wise use of spoken and written words . . . consistency . . . unwillingness or reluctance to abridge freedom for longer than necessity demanded . . . no daylight between the talk and the walk.

These qualities and more are the key reasons so many people wish Lincoln and Washington were still with us today.

Of course, in a very real sense, they still are!

* * * * *

Should you wish to pick up a copy of either or both of my Lincoln books from us, here���s how:

Abraham Lincoln Civil War Stories: $22.99 (plus shipping – $6.00)

Abraham Lincoln: A Man of Faith and Courage: $22.00 (plus shipping – $6.00)

Both books are dust-jacketed hardbacks. Specify if you wish them to be personally or generically inscribed (no extra cost).

Our mailing address: Sage & Holly Distributors, P.O. Box 1246, Conifer, CO 80433.

BLOG #6, SERIES #6

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

LOVE ��� WHAT IS IT?

February 11, 2015

Valentine���s Day is upon us once again���and merchandisers are hoping to milk it to death before it passes. Romance is in the air ��� everywhere. Is not that a good thing? Of course it is! I ought to know: of our 89 books and counting ��� 74 being story anthologies���, love predominates. It is a key reason the Christmas in My Heart�� series will turn 24 this fall. Readers young and old turn first to the love stories, and re-read them most often. They tell me about it in their letters to me.

But love ��� at least in America ��� is not what it was when I was growing up. Because of our so-called ���Hookup Society,��� in which sex is instant, bypassing all the traditional preliminaries and totally divorced from commitment or even long-term friendship, disillusion and heartbreak is almost a given. Ergo the current epidemic of suicides among the young.

Perhaps it is time for me to revisit one book that features my favorite love stories: Heart to Heart Stories of Love (Focus on the Family/Tyndale House, 2000). Specifically, the Introduction: ���The Many Faces of Love.���

What is love anyhow? It is the magical ingredient that no scientist has ever been able to isolate, the yeast that can transform a friendship into love, marriage, and family.

One of my favorite definitions of love came from the pen of Washington Irving, one of America���s first great writers. His only love, Matilda Hoffman, died when Irving was twenty-six. He never married but authored one of the most romantic books ever written, The Alhambra. The book contains one of my favorite love stories, ���The Pilgrim of Love��� (a little bit too long for this collection). In it, a prince who has been shut up in a palace tower learns the language of the birds, and a little dove teaches him what love is:

���Love is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three, . . . the great mystery and principle of life, the intoxicating revel of youth, the sober delight of age. . . . Every created being has its mate; the most insignificant bird sings to its paramour; the very beetle woos its lady beetle in the dust; and yon butterflies which you see fluttering high above the tower and toying in the air, are happy in each other���s love.���

One of the loveliest summations of what love is was written by my cherished friend, Arthur Gordon, in his great book, Through Many Windows:

���Love . . . is a shining thing, like a golden fire or a silver mist. It comes very quietly, you can���t command it, but you can���t deny it, either. When it does come, you can���t quite see it or touch it, but you can feel it���inside of you and around you and the person you love. It changes you; it changes everything. Colors are brighter, music is sweeter, funny things are funnier. Ordinary speech won���t do���you grope for better ways to express how you feel. You read poetry. Maybe you even try to write it. . . . Oh, it���s so many little things. Waltzing in the dark, waiting for the phone to ring, opening the box of flowers. It���s holding hands in a movie; it���s humming a sad little tune; it���s walking in the rain; it���s riding in a convertible with the wind in your hair. It���s the quarreling and making up again. It���s that first drowsy thought in the morning and that last kiss at night.���

THE STAGES OF LOVE

God designed us to take joy in natural stages, including the natural stages of love.

His plan is simple but beautiful. First, we watch our parents: the love they show to us is the love we shall pass on. Second, we experience the love of God, which becomes the catalyst for our philosophy of love. Third, we love the innocent and pure love of childhood���friendship in its most disinterested form. Then there is the love of adolescence. If we preserve our virginity until marriage (God���s plan for us), this teen period will be a time for developing some of life���s stronger friendships. In this time of seasoning, of gradually developing values to live by, there is no place for sexual passion, which can do nothing at this stage but destroy, disillusion, and rob us of one of God���s greatest gifts: coming to the marriage bed as virgins. Adolescence is followed by young adulthood, time for us to be blinded with the rapture of first love; time for us to get to know each other as friends and soul mates; time for us to compare our pasts, presents, and futures, in order to see if we are truly compatible; time for us to see if our families would be compatible���for we do indeed marry families; time for us to discuss God and church and how big a role we would allocate to them. Then and only then are we ready to think seriously about marriage and family. God designed the process to crescendo as the marriage day nears, culminating in a wedding without guilt, stigma, or regrets.

Today���s media leaders seem determined to destroy all of this. They sell us a bill of goods. They tell us, as did the serpent in Eden, that God lies, that instant gratification will make us gods. They tell us that modesty, virginity, purity, and integrity are for fools. They tell us that minds and hearts and souls don���t matter at all; all that really matters is self-gratification, gusto. They tell us���over and over and over���that sex has nothing to do with friendship, love, respect, commitment, or being soul mates. Instead, they claim that sex is an acquired skill, like golf or hockey, and the more teachers we have in this respect, the better. They tell us that preliminaries are for the simple: five minutes after we meet, it���s time to disrobe and show the other ���how good we are��� in bed!

What the media doesn���t tell us is that virginity is an absolute: one can no more be partly a virgin than one can be partly pregnant. They don���t tell us that Eve���s first response after eating the apple was not godlike euphoria but a guilty realization that she was naked. They don���t tell us that, with the sexual act, all of the illusions, all of the progressive beauty of getting to know a soul, heart, and mind prior to getting to know the body���all of that is irretrievably lost. They don���t tell us that even the marriage ceremony itself is anticlimactic if we have already lived together.

Permit me to quote here from one of my books, Remote Controlled (Review and Herald Publishing, 1993):

Last year in my world literature class we read and discussed Victor Hugo���s Les Miserables. I have asked many previous classes to read the book, but it had never before elicited the response of last year���s class: ���Dr. Wheeler, what naive innocents Cosette and Marius are! . . . Sitting there on a park bench day after day, just talking and looking at each other!��� And for the first time it really came home to me what the media has done to our conception of love���in this case, romantic love.

There is no magic to love anymore. No hauntingly beautiful, gradual unfolding of the petals of love, leading up to the ultimate full flowering of marriage and a lifetime together. No, in today���s fiction and celluloid portrayals, there are no courtships. There are in today���s music and MTV, in today���s advertising, not even any preliminaries! Boy meets girl, man meets woman, and bam! If the chemistry is ripe���and it apparently almost always is���before the relationship is more than minutes old, before they so much as date awhile in order to see whether or not they even like each other, before they so much as hold hands, before they so much as experience the rapture of that first gentle kiss . . . before any of this, within minutes they are nude and in bed with each other! This is what my students were really responding to in . . . the courtship of Marius and Cosette.

The truth that seems to have been forgotten in our modern era is that sexual purity before marriage nurtures and preserves the magic of romantic love. . . .���

Even though this book is today out of print, we still have new copies available. The price is $13.99, plus shipping of $4.50; $6.00 if you want priority mail). Specify if you wish the book to be personally or generically inscribed, and to whom. No extra cost.

Our mailing address: Sage & Holly Distributors, P.O. Box 1246, Conifer, CO 80433.