A Tribute to My Mother

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It will be my great honor and privilege later today to be a guest at a special ceremony honoring my mother.

Mom was a first–grade teacher in many places but exclusively in Dallas, Texas for the last dozen years of her life. It is also where my parents were brought up so when she and my father moved back to Dallas, they already had a built–in network of friends since most of their friends had remained in Dallas all their lives or, like my parents, had returned after living somewhere else.

I think that appealed to Mom's sense of order. She was back where her life began, helping a new generation gets its start. She might not have articulated it quite that way, but I think that is as good an explanation as any.

Mom also had a flair for the dramatic.

After she died, we received a letter from an old friend, who observed that Mom probably belonged on a stage — and I couldn't argue with that — but in the absence of a career on the stage, the next–best profession would be teacher. And I know how good Mom must have been at that. After all, she raised me. I know how she was with kids. When I was a child and my family took road trips in the summers, Mom always picked out a book to read to my brother and me to help kill the long hours in the car. She was very engaging, and although we always saw incredible things on our family trips, I always thought the best part of the trips was the trips themselves and Mom's spirited narrations of the works of C.S. Lewis and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Some of her friends undoubtedly will be in attendance later today. Unfortunately some of her friends have passed away in the 22 years since Mom died in a flash flood.

I don't know how well those still–living friends remember the weekend of that flash flood. I will never forget it. I was living in Norman, Okla., about a three–hour drive from Dallas, and I was about to wrap up my third year of teaching journalism at the University of Oklahoma. Looking back, I can see that I wasn't as good at teaching as I fancied myself to be, but at the time I liked to think of myself as carrying on a family tradition (my father's parents were also teachers).

It was a rainy Friday night in this part of the country. The spring had been unusually wet, and the ground was saturated. When the storm went through that day, there was no place for the water to go.

My parents were caught in a flash flood at a spot that had a history of vulnerability to rising water. My father was pinned between the car and the guardrail, which probably saved his life but left him with a pinched nerve in his left arm (and he is left–handed). My mother was swept away. Her body was found a few hours later.

Today's ceremony includes the presentation of a redesigned bridge at the spot where she was swept away. These changes are expected to prevent tragedies like the one involving my parents.

That flood changed everything for me. My mother was killed, and my father was disabled. I spent that summer helping my father and making plans to return to Dallas when my commitment to OU ended after the next academic year.

It also changed the way I think of death. I used to think a lingering death was the worst way to go, at least as far as the survivors were concerned. But after Mom died, I realized that an out–of–the–blue death is just as difficult but in different ways.

After a long period of painful reflection I concluded that loss is loss. Whether you see it coming or not. I also concluded that what matters is not how a person died but how a person lived.

I'm glad that time is behind me, and I am glad to be able to honor my mother today.

My Mother's Day

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Today is an important anniversary for me.

Yes, I know it is Cinco de Mayo, the commemoration of Mexico's victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla in 1862. It is also the anniversary of the flash flood here in Dallas that took my mother's life — an event that has had infinitely more significance in mine than the battle that was fought more than 150 years ago.

Now, I always think of Mom at this time of year — actually, she crosses my mind at least once every day — but, for some reason, memories of Mom have been especially plentiful for me this year. There is no particular reason for that, I suppose. This isn't what might be called a milestone anniversary. Last year was, but this year is not.

It took me a long time to come to terms with what happened — and, in some ways, I guess I still have work to do, but I have largely come to terms with it.

The time around my mother's death and funeral has been a blur for me for many years. The strongest memory I have of that time is how unusually green everything was. That was an indicator of the conditions that led to Mom's death. There had been so much rain that spring that the ground was saturated. When the rain began to fall on the night my mother died, there was no place for the water to go. Thus, the flooding. Nearly two dozen people died that night.

Now, it always gets green here in the spring as it does just about everywhere else. It is the intensity level that changes, depending upon how much rain we get. If we don't get much rain, the green can be kind of dull, bordering on brown — an almost sure sign of a scorched–earth summer to come.

But the green of the grass and the trees that spring was deep, rich, vibrant. I have lived here more than 20 years — and visited here frequently as a child — and I have only seen green like that around here one other time — last year, which, as I say, was a milestone anniversary. We had a lot of rain — and some flooding, too. Talk about deja vu.

The green this spring seems to be more ordinary, kind of an average green. There is nothing about it, really, that should make me think of Mom or the time when she died.

And it doesn't. In fact, it isn't a visual thing at all. It's the sounds.

We lived in the country when I was growing up, and the sounds of wildlife were all around us. Birds, mostly, I suppose, but there were also crickets — and sounds that I still can't identify. Those sounds were the sounds of home — like the sounds of my parents' voices coming from downstairs or the wind rustling the leaves in the trees outside my bedroom window.

When I was growing up, I guess I was what was called a morning person. I got that from Dad, I guess. He's always been a morning person.

Anyway, I remember many mornings when I awoke before the sun came up, and I sat next to my window and listened to the sounds around me. I remember hearing the birds. I never saw them, and I have never been very good at identifying birds by the sounds they made so I don't know what kind of birds they were. But the same kind of bird must have taken up residence near my apartment because the song I have heard in recent days is one I have heard before, and it brings back strong memories of being a teenager.

That brings me to another point. As I say, I was a morning person when I was a boy, and I guess I remained one through my college years, but I got a newspaper job when I was 24 that required me to work nights. It wasn't easy, but I finally made the transition that had to be made if a morning person by nature was going to work a job that kept him at the office until after midnight.

Then I made the decision to go back to graduate school, and I worked at the local paper, which was an afternoon paper. That meant I had to be at work at 5 a.m. I would put in eight hours in the newsroom, then I would work for three hours in the afternoon as a teaching assistant in the editing lab. Graduate classes always met at night so if I had a class on a particular night, that would take about three more hours.

I kind of lost track of whether I was a morning person or a night person under those 20–hour–a–day conditions.

I've been working jobs that had more standard daytime hours for quite awhile now so I kind of drift from morning person to night person back to morning person. Lately I've been more of a morning person — at least as far as when I wake up is concerned. As it was when I was in my teens, I am often up before daybreak, and I listen to the sounds around me. I live in a city now so the sounds are the sounds one hears in a city — car engines running, buses stopping at the bus stop in front of my apartment building, the occasional wailing siren from a police car as it goes speeding by.

But even those sounds, mingled with the sounds of birds, remind me of Mom. She was a first–grade teacher, and there were times when I visited my parents and I would drive her to school in the mornings while I was visiting. The sounds of the city and the sounds of the birds remind me of mornings when I helped her carry her stuff to the car, then drove her to school and helped her unload.

I had kind of forgotten those mornings, but I'm glad to be reminded of them. I guess there wasn't anything remarkable about those times, just that I shared them with Mom.

And that was enough to make them special.

Changing Times

My stepsister and I were talking about our vehicles the other night, and we discovered that we both drive standard transmissions. That, of course, is a vanishing breed.

I'm not sure when my stepsister bought her vehicle, but I bought mine about a year ago. It was used — a couple of years old — and it was a five–speed standard transmission. I saw it advertised on the internet and went to investigate on a Saturday.

The salesman was a friendly fellow — they always are, aren't they? — and he was glad someone was interested in the vehicle, but he hesitantly got around to mentioning (apologetically) that it was a standard transmission. Was I aware of that? he asked.

"Oh, yes," I replied. "That is what I want," and he seemed relieved to hear that. I explained that I have been driving standard transmissions nearly all of my driving life. I probably wouldn't know what to do with my left foot if I didn't drive a standard.

I guess the first car I drove regularly was an automatic. My mother and grandmother taught me how to drive. We went out in the country — there was a lot of it around where I grew up — and I practiced basic maneuvers. My parents had two cars, one an automatic and the other a standard. Mom felt I should learn to drive both.

She told me that there might come a time when an emergency would come up and the only vehicle that could be used was a standard. In such a situation, it would be good if I knew how to drive a standard. The other people around me might not know how.

That made sense to me — except that later, as I reflected on Mom's reasoning, I thought that, if I had not been the one who drove the standard to wherever this situation occurred, the owner of that standard must be there, too. Wouldn't that person be able to drive the vehicle? It seemed Mom had overlooked that detail. Perhaps not, though. Perhaps the owner broke a leg or was rendered unconscious. Then, by process of elimination, it might be up to me to save us all — or, at least, get us the hell out of Dodge.

So I could accept Mom's reasoning on that. Maybe she did touch all the bases in her reasoning based on what she knew to be true at the time — but she and I both failed to anticipate a time (in my lifetime) when standard transmissions would virtually cease to exist. That seems to be where we are headed. Standards, as I observed earlier, are dwindling. Someday in the future — perhaps the near future — a vehicle with standard transmission may be a special order kind of thing — if it still exists at all.

This vehicle I am driving now may well turn out to be the last of its kind for me. In the future, I may not have a choice about what kind of transmission to have in my vehicle. It might be regarded as a luxury option — luxury in the sense of additional cost.

That will mean yet another adjustment in my life, but that really doesn't bother me too much, I suppose. I've been through that kind of thing before.

What really bothers me is future generations, who are being deprived of more of the simple pleasures of life and not really getting something better — or even just equal — in return.

I saw a meme on Facebook the other day that pointed out that modern cell phone users will never know the satisfaction of slamming a telephone receiver to end a frustrating call. I'm sure it never sounded as dramatic on the other end, but it sure did feel good, didn't it? Pressing a button to end a call just never has been the same.

And future drivers operating an automatic transmission will never feel as liberated as shifting into fifth gear on an open highway and watching the countryside race by can make you feel.

Of course, these days, there is talk of driverless cars. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It is said that driverless cars will permit their owners to relax, perhaps read the morning paper, while being taken to work by someone who shares the same family tree with Manti Te'o's girlfriend.

I don't think I could relax or read with a ghost behind the wheel.

Christmas Musing: Why I Write

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It is early on Christmas morning, and I am awake, but it isn't like it was when I was a kid. I'm not up because I want to find out what is under the tree. I have no tree in my apartment.

Actually, I am up because I have had a touch of some sort of virus lately that has me congested, unable to breathe. So I am awake before sunrise on Christmas morning, like when I was a boy — although, clearly, not for the same reason.

It is cold and clear this morning. The forecasters have said it will be warmer today (but very windy), which would make it one of the milder Christmases I have experienced in Dallas. I didn't grow up here, but I spent most of my Christmases here visiting my grandparents and my parents' old friends, and I have spent most of the Christmases of my adult years here, too.

That doesn't make me an authority on Christmas in Dallas, but it's close! And, more often than not, Christmas in Dallas is cool — even cold at times. I remember a few warm ones when I was growing up, Christmases when my brother and I could go outside and play in shorts and T–shirts. We could climb the pecan trees in my grandmother's yard unencumbered by winter coats.

A couple of times when I was growing up, my family drove to South Padre Island near the U.S.–Mexico border to spend Christmas there, and it was always nice and warm (today, for example, the temperature is supposed to be 71° in Brownsville, close to 80° tomorrow and Saturday).

Anyway, this morning I have been listening to Mannheim Steamroller. I don't know how long they've been putting out Christmas albums — decades, I suppose — but I have one that came out nearly 20 years ago. It is the only purely Christmas album in my collection. I have Christmas songs that various artists have recorded, but they are always part of more general albums.

I remember when I got this album. It was about six months after my mother was killed in a flash flood. I was teaching journalism in Oklahoma and commuting to Dallas on weekends to see about my father. On one of my weekend trips, I heard "Pat a Pan" on the car radio and decided I had to have it. It has been in my collection ever since.

Listening to it really can be an exercise in free association. When I hear it, I think of those days after my mother died, and then I think about her (although I am sure that she never heard this album) — and that leads me to thoughts of my childhood. Mom was my biggest booster, and I am sure she must have encouraged me to take the path I took in life — writing. I have worked at other kinds of jobs, but writing has always been at the core of who I am.

It is a path that has led me to the job I have today as editorial manager for a stock–trading oriented website. I am very happy to have that job on Christmas 2014. Of course, I guess an argument can be made that, after slogging my way through the last six years following the economic implosion, I would be very happy to have any job. And I suppose there is an element of that. But the truth is that I like the people with whom and for whom I work.

Not everyone can say that, and I really am thankful for my job. It allows me to write for a living. I know some professional writers who fret about a lot of things, including writer's block, and writing becomes work for them.

Not me. Writing has always been fun for me. When I have some spare time, I would just about always prefer to write about something. I write three blogs (one of which is this one) so I always have an outlet for any inspiration I may have.

That's what it is. Inspiration. That must have been what my mother encouraged in me when I was little. Mom was about creativity, which has a symbiotic relationship with inspiration. She taught first grade, and I think most of the people who came through her classroom and their parents would tell you she was the most creative teacher they ever knew.

After she died, my family received hundreds of letters from old friends scattered across the country, a few even halfway around the world. One friend who knew her when she was a teenager sent us a letter with some photos of Mom participating in a play in junior high or high school. In the photos, she was clearly hamming it up in her usual way, and the friend remarked in his letter, "I always thought that, if Mary had not gone into teaching, she would have gravitated to the stage."

A career on the stage might have satisfied her yearning for creative outlets. She found other outlets, one of which was encouraging me to write. I had other influences along the way, but I am quite sure she was my earliest. When I was in elementary school, she arranged for me to take piano lessons, which I did for many years. I haven't kept up with it, but all that practice made my fingers quite nimble, and I am sure it contributed to my typing ability, which has been valuable to me all these years. I have certainly found it to be an advantage since personal computers took over the workplace. Many of my colleagues still hunt and peck, but I took typing in junior high and I already had the advantage of several years of piano lessons under my belt.

Of course, typing alone is not the same as writing. Simply stringing words together in grammatically correct sentences is not the same as writing unless you explore related ideas and themes. That is something I have worked on for years, and I really think it has paid off. I have people who read my blogs all over the world. Some sign up as followers who are notified whenever I post something new; others just pop in from time to time to catch up on what I've written.

Occasionally, they write to me. One wrote, "I can't wait to see what you will write about next."

I suppose that sums up how I feel about writing. I often know what I want to write about; I just don't know what I will say about it until I sit down and write.

That is the pleasure I get from writing — discovering what I think or how I feel as a result of writing about it. Sometimes I honestly do not know how I feel about something until I start writing about it. Sometimes, I am as surprised as my readers at what I think.

And it is appropriate to think about that on Christmas — because that is a gift my mother gave me.

Thanks, Mom.

If Wishes Were Fishes

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"If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets."

Frank Herbert (1920–1986)

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I've been thinking lately of decisions I wish I could be allowed to make again — because I know I would make different choices.

It's that old "if I knew then what I know now" thing. I remember hearing that when I was a teenager and giggling at it the way teenagers do, in their way of making you aware that they are merely humoring you — but, in fact, they don't appreciate the irony and probably can't until they've put on more mileage. I realize now, as I reflect on it, that I knew a lot less then than I thought I did. (I like to think I know more now.)

Another way of putting it was "You can't go home again" — and that is something else at which most teenagers would probably smirk because they know it is rubbish. They think that because most teenagers have experienced time, but few have experienced space, and it is only after experiencing both that you can grasp that concept.

It is only after you have experienced an extended distance from the only home you may have had that you can appreciate the truth of that cliche. In one's absence, the memory of home becomes romanticized. You forget the bad things — and there were bad things because there are always bad things — and you idealize the good.

I think that often plays a role in the difficulties that some soldiers experience when they come home from a war. It isn't the only factor, of course, but I do believe it is one of them. Expectations are raised to a level that is simply unrealistic.

Still, I suppose most people have the inclination to look back wistfully on their youths. I know I do.

If I knew then what I know now, I'd treasure the time I had with friends who are no longer with us even more than I did. There were some friends whose deaths were anticipated, so I had time to reflect on how much they meant to me before they died. Others died unexpectedly; those are the ones who haunt me. I miss both sets of friends equally, but there is a sense of unfinished business with one group.

I feel that with my mother. She died in a flash flood 19 years ago this month — on Cinco de Mayo, as a matter of fact. Since the anniversary is always so close to Mother's Day, that holiday is always a reminder.

As if I needed one.

I've lived with many regrets. I regret the times I didn't tell her I loved her. I made a fatal mistake — I took her for granted.

Well, I made that mistake repeatedly when I was a teenager, not so much later. We had a good relationship, and I'm sure she knew I loved her — mothers usually do. I did tell her that often, as a matter of fact — but not the last time I saw her.

Next year, Mother's Day will fall on the 20th anniversary of her funeral. That's a date I will always remember as well. I lived in another state in those days and couldn't be in Dallas until the evening of the 9th. Arrangements were made for the funeral to be on the 10th.

For the first few days after the flood, it was easy to fool myself into believing that things weren't really as I had been told. Oh, I knew that wasn't the case, but outwardly my life had not changed. Everything was exactly the same ...

Until I arrived in Dallas. I got here late on the night of the 9th. My father had already gone to bed, so no one greeted me. I went into the dining room, fully expecting to see Mom come through the door at any minute. Instead I saw all the tell–tale signs of a death — flowers and cards on the dining table, flowing into the living room, and lots of covered dishes in the refrigerator.

I remember getting something to drink and just sitting in the dining room, looking around at a room that was so familiar and yet seemed so alien to me. I wish I could have a do–over for those moments. I would do a better job of preparing myself for what was to come in just a few hours.

The next day, at the funeral, everything hit me at once. I felt like Indiana Jones getting crushed by the big ball.

Yes, sir, if I had to go through that experience again (and I might have to; my father is still living), there are a lot of things I would wish for. I would wish to be better prepared this time. I guess the end result is no better, but it beats being blindsided.

Most of all, I guess, I would wish to not have to go through it again.

But that isn't how life works, is it?

Burst of Joy

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In my career as a journalist, I have known several people who truly were gifted at photography.

Personally, I have never been much more than an aim–and–shoot photographer. When I was a reporter, I occasionally took a camera with me and returned with acceptable photographs that ran with my stories. But I never mastered the intricacies of photography. Never came close to snapping a photograph that was worth the proverbial 1,000 words or a Pulitzer Prize.

I've always been a little envious of those folks who had a photographer's eye. I've been told that I am a good writer, and one person even told me that my writing was like music, which appealed to me because I love music even though I'm not terribly musical.

Music is an art form, and I love the arts. I get that from my mother, I suppose. She was a first–grade teacher, and she used her classroom to spread her creative wings. In fact, after she died, we received a letter from an old friend of my parents. He said that he had long suspected that, if Mom had not gone into teaching, her artistic gifts would have drawn her to the stage.

Anyway, Mom always encouraged a love of the arts — and writing was one of them. Her encouragement sure worked on me. I have always loved to read, and writing has always been more pleasure than work for me.

But writing has never seemed that artistic to me. Maybe that is because it has always come easily to me, maybe too easily at times, and I've always felt that great art requires great effort — like giving birth.

But, for some people, maybe it doesn't require a great effort. Maybe it really is as effortless as it seems.

Maybe that is how it is with great photographers.

Great photography, like the theater, excels at capturing dramatic moments in life, and there have been few moments in my lifetime that were more dramatic than when American prisoners of war started coming home from Vietnam in 1973.

I saw many dramatic photographs in those days. In fact — in hindsight — 1973 was filled with dramatic moments. It was the year that Richard Nixon famously declared that he was not a crook — an astonishing assertion for a president to make — a few months after it was revealed that Nixon had been recording Oval Office and telephone conversations for a couple of years. It was the year that Rose Mary Woods tried to take the heat for her boss — and failed. Her re–creation of her alleged error was preserved by many photographers.

But the most dramatic photographs of that year came when the POWs began coming home from Vietnam.

For the most part, America's veterans were treated shabbily by their fellow Americans. To an extent, it was understandable that Americans behaved as they did. They were frustrated by the waste of the war, and they felt deceived by their government. Being unable to take out their frustrations on the people who were really responsible, they lashed out at the most visible and most accessible symbols of the war — the young men who fought in it.

That wasn't fair. Soldiers carry out orders. They don't make policy. Even so, many Americans — to their everlasting shame — greeted returning Vietnam vets in the vilest ways.

Not so at Travis Air Force Base in northern California on this day in 1973.

Associated Press photographer Sal Veder happened to be in the right spot at the right time to snap a photo (above) that came to be known as "Burst of Joy." Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm was greeted by his family after spending more than five years as a prisoner of war. His 15–year–old daughter led the way, her arms outstretched. Her brothers, sister and mother followed, each face glowing in a radiant smile.

When I first saw that photo, it seemed to be the perfect bookend for a painful chapter in American history. It took many photos to tell the story of the Vietnam war — the photo of Vietnamese children running from their burning schoolhouse showed a side of war that non–combatants seldom see, and the photo of a young girl kneeling over the body of a victim at Kent State illustrated the divisions at home.

"Burst of Joy" allowed Americans to feel good again after years of feeling bad.

But there is a truth behind pictures that can't be seen — and the truth behind "Burst of Joy" was the fact that Stirm, who had been released by North Vietnam only three days earlier, had received a letter from his wife on the day of his release telling him that their marriage was over.

I don't know if the children knew about this so their smiles may well have been genuine. But the smile on Loretta Stirm's face, at least, hid a darker truth about the price of war.

Veder won a Pulitzer Prize for the photo he shot of the homecoming, and copies of it are on display in each of the children's homes.

But the focal point of the photo, Lt. Col. Stirm, does not. For him, it is a painful reminder.

Nevertheless, "Burst of Joy" continues to be "part of the nation's collective consciousness, often serving as an uplifting postscript to Vietnam," wrote Carolyn Kleiner Butler for the Smithsonian magazine eight years ago. "That the moment was considerably more fraught than we first assumed makes it all the more poignant and reminds us that not all war casualties occur on the battlefield."

Memories of a Mentor

It is my understanding that the word mentor has its roots in Greek mythology.

It was the name of a contemporary and friend of Odysseus (also known as Ulysses) who befriended and advised Odysseus' son. Because of Mentor's relationship with the younger man, over the centuries his name has come to mean someone who shares what he has learned with a younger and less experienced comrade.

Well, that's my understanding, anyway. I really have only a modest background in mythology, and I could be wrong.

Nearly everyone has a mentor, I suppose — to some degree. A few of us thrive in spite of growing up in adverse conditions — including not having an older and wiser influence to keep us grounded and focused — but, thankfully, for most of us, there always seems to be a teacher, a minister, a professional role model.

Someone. Usually several someones.

In my case, it was a man named John Ward. He was the editor of my hometown newspaper, the Log Cabin Democrat in Conway, Ark. I met him through my mother, who must have known nearly everyone in my hometown. I'm not sure when that was, but it was long before he actually became my mentor.

He actually became my mentor, I guess, when I was in high school. I had always been interested in writing, and my mother encouraged me to apply that interest to newspaper writing. As a result, she prodded me to seek John's counsel, and he was quite obliging.

Many were the days I spent in his newsroom office as a teenager, learning from him and soaking up the wisdom he had acquired. My memory is that John was a large, gregarious man, larger than life in many ways — although perhaps he only seemed so to me.

I know he was a presence in the community, helping to establish Toad Suck Daze, an annual festival in my home county that gets its name from an actual town along the Arkansas River. He was an accomplished musician and probably performed at the early Toad Suck Daze festivals although that would have been after I left Conway.

He was an admirer of Winthrop Rockefeller and played important roles in both his gubernatorial candidacy and statehouse tenure. John wrote two books about Rockefeller, the first of which I bought and gave to my mother. She enjoyed it so much that she asked me to get him to sign it, which I did.

After Mom died, I kept that book. John's inscription read, "To Mary Goodloe, a wonderful friend and a lady I admire very much. ... Glad you enjoyed this. I wish now I could write it all over again."

Those weren't empty words. When John said something, he meant it.

John gave me my first freelance assignments and showed me, when I brought him my earliest journalistic efforts, what I needed to do differently. Somewhere in some musty microfilm room — or wherever such data is stored these days — you can see (if you want to, that is) my first bylines.

Shortly thereafter, I got my first bylines in my high school newspaper followed by my first bylines in my college newspaper — and, after that, my first bylines as a professional writer. I like to think that the stories that followed those early bylines got progressively better; and, if that is so, it is in large part because of John's influence on me.

A life in writing had been launched, for good or ill, and John had been the one to smash the champagne bottle at its christening.

John died a week ago, and I have been trying to think of a way to honor him.

And I have concluded that the best way is what I've been doing.

For the last 2½ years, I have been an adjunct journalism instructor in the local community college system, sharing with my students what I learned in my years of newspaper work.

But I have come to realize that my students are getting more than that. They are getting the benefit of wisdom I acquired from John — and it is often shared, I have discovered, in the same words he used when he shared his wisdom with me.

Such are the often subtle ways a mentor influences.

For all I know, they may have been the same words that were shared with John many years before that. Who knows the lineage of a pearl of wisdom? My students don't know it, but what I tell them is never something that I was the first to discover. Journalism is like anything else. There are truths about it that remain constant.

Sometimes, I must admit, I feel like a bit of a plagiarist when I share things with my students that John or my college mentor, Roy Reed, told me — but I guess that's a reflection of my training. I always feel compelled to attribute that knowledge to my source (even if it wasn't the original source of the knowledge).

I feel I learned from the best. There are/were others almost as good — but none was better.

Thanks, John. Vaya con Dios, amigo.

Death of a Good Guy

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I knew when I heard that George McGovern was in hospice care that he was not long for this world.

According to reports Wednesday afternoon, the 90–year–old was "unresponsive" at a hospice center in South Dakota, the state he represented in Washington.

He lingered for a few days — never, to my knowledge, regaining responsiveness — and died earlier today.

History — or destiny or fate or whatever you want to call it — had an unusual plan for George McGovern's life. He was a real long shot to win his party's nomination, but he did — albeit with the help of Richard Nixon's "dirty tricks" squad.

But then he went down in flames in the 1972 general election. He lost every state but Massachusetts and the District of Columbia for a total of 17 electoral votes. It was the most one–sided election in 36 years — and, frankly, I doubted I would ever see its like again.

Twelve years later, though, Ronald Reagan trounced Walter Mondale. Reagan didn't receive as much of the popular vote (percentage–wise, that is) as Nixon did, but he held Mondale to fewer electoral votes than Nixon did against McGovern.

I heard that Mondale spoke to McGovern after the 1984 election and asked McGovern how long it took to get over a landslide loss. "I'll let you know when I get there," McGovern assured him.

(I don't know if McGovern kept that promise, but Bob Greene writes at CNN.com that he did overcome that massive landslide loss — although perhaps not in the way one might expect. Greene covered McGovern's 1972 campaign as a young reporter. His assessment of the man? "[H]e was an awfully good guy.")

Whenever I heard about McGovern over the years, I always thought of Mom. She was a diehard supporter of McGovern — in part because she agreed with him and admired his stance against the Vietnam War but also in part, I'm sure, because she despised Nixon.

In the fall of 1972, Mom went door to door in our county in central Arkansas, ringing doorbells for McGovern. I went with her on several occasions. Many doors were slammed in our faces so I guess she wasn't surprised when Arkansas voted better than 2–to–1 against McGovern that year.

Mom followed the news so I'm convinced she knew McGovern wouldn't be victorious. She had seen the public opinion polls.

(And, even though Greene recalled that McGovern confessed to being baffled by the discrepancy between what the polls were saying and what he was seeing on the campaign trail, I always thought McGovern must have known. My memory of that time is that everyone knew how the election was going to turn out.)

Mom never spoke to me about it, but I'm quite sure she knew what was coming. Hell, even I knew what was coming, and I was just a young boy.

I've been reliving those days this year. 2012 is the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break–in and McGovern's improbable march to the Democratic nomination.

I shook hands with McGovern twice that year. He made airport stops in Little Rock a few weeks before the Democratic convention that summer and again a few weeks before the general election that fall, and Mom and I were there on both occasions.

I worked my way up to spots where I was sure to be able to shake his hand when he came through — and I did, both times, but we didn't exchange any words other than cursory greetings.

Twenty years later, though, we did. I was in my first semester of teaching journalism at the University of Oklahoma, and McGovern came to the campus to deliver a speech about two weeks before the 1992 election.

When he finished speaking, I practically sprinted from my seat to greet him as he stepped from the stage.

"Senator," I said to him, "I'm sure you don't remember me, but I shook your hand at the Little Rock airport in 1972."

McGovern smiled and nodded. "I remember stopping in Little Rock," he replied, "and I remember that your governor, Dale Bumpers, told me we were going to carry Arkansas in the election!"

And we chuckled. We both knew how far he had been from even thinking about the possibility of winning Arkansas — much less actually winning it — even if he never said so publicly. Bumpers was one of McGovern's colleagues for the last six years of his Senate career. We both knew what a spin artist he was.

At that point, McGovern's attention was drawn away from me to others who wanted to shake his hand and speak with him briefly. I never spoke to him or shook his hand again.

As an adult, I didn't always agree with McGovern, and, on the occasion of his death, it has been mostly the notable figures from McGovern's own party who have offered tributes to him, but even Newt Gingrich had something nice to say.

McGovern was, he said, "[j]ust a great guy."

Farewell, Eleanor

I was looking at the obituary section of my hometown newspaper's website, and I saw that an old friend of the family passed away this week.

Her name was Eleanor Opitz, and she was one of my mother's closest friends. They were community activists together in the central Arkansas town where I grew up. They frequently supported the same political candidates and volunteered in the local campaign headquarters, giving out pamphlets and bumper stickers and buttons and answering phones.

Even though I was quite young, I put in some time with them at the campaign headquarters. I learned a lot from both, and it was from Eleanor that I learned much about people and politics.

I have always thought Mom was the most knowledgeable person I ever knew, but Eleanor was a close second. And I'll tell you something that is funny.

My mother died more than 17 years ago (that isn't the funny part). But ever since I saw Eleanor's obituary, I've had the same thought bouncing around in my head. I have to tell Mom that Eleanor has died. She would want to know.

And then I remember that, of course, I can't tell Mom.

I haven't had that feeling since the Christmas after Mom died, when I went through the stores and saw all kinds of things that I would have given Mom if she had still been around. And I had to remind myself that, of course, she wasn't around anymore.

There aren't many people in this world — outside of my father and brother — I associate that closely with my mother.

Once, I recall chatting with Eleanor on a primary day.

In those days, you practically had to have sworn affidavits in your possession affirming that you really would be out of town on Election Day in order to cast what was known then as an absentee ballot. Otherwise, you had to vote on Election Day. No exceptions.

Today, early voting periods are commonplace, and no one has to jump through hoops to vote early.

Anyway, Arkansas held its primary in June in those days so I was out of school and I had gone early that day to the headquarters for whichever candidate it was that Mom and Eleanor and I were supporting.

Eleanor wasn't in the office when I got there around 9 a.m. She showed up a few minutes later and explained that she had been voting. I didn't think much about that, and I didn't ask her why she had gone to the polling place in the morning, but she told me, anyway.

"I always vote early in the day," Eleanor told me. "That way, if I get hit by a bus or something in the afternoon, I know my vote will be counted!"

The more I think of it, she may have told me that on the day in 1974 that Bill Fulbright lost the primary for his Senate seat to Gov. Dale Bumpers. Mom and Eleanor and I were supporters of Fulbright, and the outcome wouldn't have been affected if Eleanor had been prevented from voting. My memory is that Bumpers won by a 2–to–1 margin.

But Eleanor impressed on me the importance of showing up. On one of my favorite TV shows, The West Wing, the point was often made that "decisions are made by those who show up." Eleanor was a believer. She made me a believer, too. It's probably why I always vote in the early voting period.

The other memory of Eleanor that stands out probably was from around the same time.

Mom and I were visiting Eleanor one day, taking advantage of her swimming pool on a hot summer day. I brought along a book I had just started reading — a paperback copy of the edited White House transcripts that Richard Nixon hoped would satisfy congressional investigators who had been trying to gain access to the tapes of Oval Office meetings and telephone conversations.

And I read it between dips in the pool.

When Nixon released the transcripts, they only succeeded in re–igniting a debate over executive privilege, supplemented by discussions about the content of the transcripts. A lot of people criticized the frequent "expletive deleted" labels that were inserted to hide Nixon's private swearing from public view, but many others read them more critically — including Eleanor.

Eleanor compared the transcripts to what had been said in congressional hearings and took a pretty even–handed approach to it all. Mind you, she loathed Nixon, but she was nothing if not fair. She wouldn't kick a man when he was down unless she had been given ample reason.

"There are times," she told me, "when I read the transcripts and I am inclined to say, 'Hang him!' But then I will read something else and I will think that, just maybe, his story is plausible."

If you are old enough to remember Nixon, you may agree that that is about the fairest thing anyone could say about him.

(I learned something ironic from Eleanor's obituary. Her birthday was August 10 — which was the day after Nixon resigned.)

I don't know what caused Eleanor's death. Her obituary didn't mention a cause, but my guess is that she had some sort of illness — and that, at some point recently, she knew that she was going to die.

I say that because the obituary explicitly stated that Eleanor asked that anyone who would be attending her graveside service wear casual clothing. She wanted everyone to "be comfortable," the obituary said.

That really was typical of Eleanor. It's supposed to be 104° in my hometown Saturday. The graveside service will be in the morning, but it is sure to be in the 90s by then.

Yet, even with her own mortality staring her in the face, Eleanor's thoughts were of those who would be left behind.

Eleanor was a remarkable woman, an inspiration to me when I was young and I'm sure she was every bit as inspirational to others in her last years.

Rest in peace, Eleanor.

The Randomness of Life

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I took this picture of Mom's grave this morning. See that
dark marker in the center? That's where she is buried.

---

A couple of days ago, Stan Musial's wife, Lil Musial, died at the age of 91.

I think it is fair to say hers was a storybook life. The Musials were married for more than 70 years, and they raised four children, who gave them 11 grandchildren, who have given them 12 great–grandchildren so far. Stan is remembered as one of the great hitters of all time — unorthodox in his stance and swing but very effective — and Lil is remembered as his constant booster, his #1 fan.

Mrs. Musial passed away at 6 p.m. on Thursday — "her favorite number," one of her grandchildren told the St. Louis Post–Dispatch, as her husband's uniform number was 6.

Her grandson also said she had been sick recently, and the family had been been aware that her death was imminent — so many family members were at her side when the end came.

I guess that's the way most of us hope to make our exits — with the people who mean the most to us at our side.

And I wish life was fair that way. But it isn't.

Today, I have been thinking of a song that Paul Simon recorded in the mid–1970s. I think it was called "Some Folks' Lives."

The refrain of the song, as I recall, went like this: "Some folks' lives roll easy / Some folks' lives never roll at all."

I'm not sure why that song is in my head today. Perhaps it is because today is the anniversary of the day my mother died. Thoughts of Mom often bring thoughts of Paul Simon to my mind. She was a fan of Simon & Garfunkel, and many of my childhood memories include her and the Simon & Garfunkel records she frequently played. On such occasions, the music literally filled the house.

But why that song?

I'm not really sure — except that the manner of Mom's death (she drowned in a flash flood) was so sudden and shocking. It's been exactly 17 years since she died, and I can still remember how I felt each day for a long time thereafter and the general melancholy that lingered much longer.

Perhaps thoughts of that song are more about my own life, not Mom's.

There are only two things of which one can be absolutely certain in life, I have been told — death and taxes.

There are some things that folks tend to take for granted — for example, that parents will not outlive their children. And that's usually the way it works. But sometimes children die before their parents do. There have been people with whom I grew up who died while their parents were still living. Nothing fair about that.

So, while people may think, may even expect, that they will die before their children, there are no guarantees.

Neither are there any guarantees that there will be enough advance notice of your approaching death that the people in your life can be assembled and at your side when the time comes.

Even that taxes thing isn't absolute. That part presupposes that everyone will (at least) live to adulthood — and participate in that annual ritual of paying income taxes. But I've known people who died when they were still children, still totally dependent on their parents — and did not yet file tax returns..

If they were old enough, of course, they paid sales taxes. I guess my first real experience with sales tax was when I would buy gum and candy with my weekly allowance when I was about 4 or 5, but it sometimes happens that small children die so even that sales tax thing would not be something they would experience.

Death is the one constant. It's the one thing that everyone will experience. But the experience is different for everyone.

Parents tend to assume that their children will have to bury them — just as most of them had to bury their own parents. It's the natural order of things, and most people probably expect that they will die relatively peacefully in their beds of some disease that tends to afflict the old, surrounded by the people they love. Much like Lil Musial.

Odds are, anyway.

But it isn't always that way. People don't always outlive their parents. Sometimes people die young, and sometimes people never find a significant other and wind up dying alone. It's different for everyone.

I guess most people, given a choice, would prefer the way my grandfather died — in his sleep with plans to go fishing with one of his buddies the next day. There was no lingering illness that forced him to spend his final days, weeks, months in a hospital room. When he died, he may well have been dreaming of a day spent dedicated to one of his passions in the company of one of his closest friends.

Perhaps, in his last moments, he dreamed he was reeling in the biggest fish he had ever caught.

Not a bad way to ease out of this world and into what, if anything, comes next. But people who don't take their own lives have no real say in how or when the end comes.

Most people probably only think of death in general terms — an event that will happen sometime in the future, presumably the distant future — and they don't think at all of how their deaths will affect those who are left behind. When people have children, it has been my experience that they give little, if any, thought to that day when they will die and their children will have to cope with a new reality — and any unpleasant memories from the experience.

(When my mother died, I was living in another state, and my father had been injured in the flood. It fell to my brother to identify her body. I have always tried to remember that he must carry that memory.)

If people do give it any thought, it is the kind of thought that usually goes unexpressed until circumstances make it necessary.

My mother, I'm sure, rarely gave any thought to the eventual circumstances of her death or how it would affect her family and her friends. She probably never gave much thought to which friends and relatives would outlive her — except that she probably assumed she would outlive my father. Both of my grandmothers outlived my grandfathers, and I think that was the pattern in the previous generations although you'd have to confirm that with my father. He's the genealogist in the family.

It is an ironic story, an irony she might have appreciated if she hadn't been the casualty.

In the last decade (or more) of her life, my mother was greatly influenced by the sight of my grandmother slipping deeper into dementia. Mom always called it "hardening of the arteries," and I am no doctor so that may well be a sort of layman's way of describing an actual medical condition, but, for the last 20 years or so, I have believed that what my grandmother really had was Alzheimer's disease.

I think Alzheimer's was first identified more than a century ago, but I don't recall hearing much, if anything, about it until after my grandmother died. I was young, though. Perhaps I just wasn't paying attention.

She lived with my parents for a couple of years before the burden of meeting her needs became too great for my working mother, and she was put in a series of nursing homes before Mom finally settled on one that she believed had an honest staff that would provide the best of care for my grandmother.

My grandmother lived into her 90s, and my mother, who believed (as I did) that she would live a long life, too, eagerly absorbed every tip — be it from a study in a medical journal, a newspaper article or word of mouth — that promised to enhance mental acuity, even to advanced age. Through diet. Through exercise. Through whatever.

If Mom was going to live into her 90s, by golly, she was going to make sure that she was mentally engaged to the end. She wasn't going to spend year after year sitting in a chair and staring vacantly out the window of a nursing home.

Mom feared an end like the one she saw her mother go through. She didn't want her children's last memories of her to be of an old woman who didn't know them, wasn't even aware when they were in the room with her.

Turned out, that wasn't in the cards for her. And, not long after her death, I remember a family friend observing that "she went out at the top of her game." I suppose it would have made her proud that she was forever frozen in people's memories as a vibrant life force.

But I think I speak for just about everyone who knew her when I say that we could have lived with her in a diminished state if it had meant we could have another 25 or 30 years with her.

She outlived her mother by about six years. I know it wasn't what I expected — and I am about as certain as I can be that it wasn't what she expected, either.

But that is how it worked out. Some folks' lives roll easy. Some folks' lives never roll at all. My family's lives, I think, fall somewhere in between.

I've been musing a lot about how the future plays out. Maybe it's the influence of that TV commercial where the little boy and his grandfather are sitting on the front porch of the grandfather's house, and the grandson is talking about how much he loves to be there.

"I'm going to have a house just like this when I grow up," he says confidently.

"I hope so," replies his grandfather as the narrator starts to speak about future prospects for home ownership.

That commercial never fails to make me think about things that go far beyond real estate. No one ever seems to think about those parts of it. (Well, I do, but, perhaps, as George Carlin said of himself, that is the kind of thought that kept me out of the really good schools.)

Yes, it would be nice if we always got some advance warning that someone we loved was about to die — but, if we did, it might suggest that we have more control over things than we actually do.

Because today is Cinco de Mayo — a fairly prominent holiday here in Texas — I've been thinking about a particularly touching Christmas episode of M*A*S*H in which the doctors tried to keep a mortally wounded soldier alive (technically) until after midnight so the date on his death certificate would be Dec. 26, and his children would not have to think of Christmas as the day their father died.

Soldiers have a pretty high rate of unexpected deaths, and most of those deaths probably occur with no relatives and few, if any, friends nearby.

But the soldiers' relatives probably treated their last moments together as if they really would be the last ones — ever. They knew that death was a real possibility.

That's something we all should realize. The last time I saw Mom, the thought that it would be the last time never entered my mind. In hindsight, I have told myself that, somehow, Mom may have sensed it was the last time, and I have told myself that I remember a little something extra in her last embrace.

But then there are times when I think that is something I must have dreamed up, that there was nothing unusual about our parting embrace, nothing that hadn't been there a thousand times before. Mom always hugged me when we said goodbye.

That was on an Easter Sunday. Mom was killed less than three weeks later.

Maybe it was for the best the way it turned out.

But I will always wish I told her all the things I wanted to tell her. They all came down to one simple sentence. It was one I said to her often, and I always meant it. I just wish I could have told her one more time.

I love you.

Just Thinkin' Out Loud

There really isn't anything terribly remarkable about this evening.

It's just an ordinary Wednesday. As Jimmy Stewart observed in "Rear Window," the calendar is full of 'em.

But that calendar runs out on everyone eventually. That's something of which I have been reminded far too often in recent years, and it's something we all know we'll have to face ... someday. We alone among the creatures who walk or swim or fly on this planet possess the intelligence to know that our days are numbered.

That knowledge can be as much of a curse for some people as it is a blessing for others. I have known people who feared — and I do mean feared — death, and I have known people who welcomed it — the sick and the elderly.

When you think about it, there really isn't much people can leave behind except their appreciation for the things they hold dear. They can only hope that someone will pick them up like a fallen baton.

Most people have children with whom they can share their passions for things or activities. In my family, my brother was more like my father. They liked to build things with their hands. I leaned more to the things my mother liked — books, music, that sort of thing. Both of my parents were creative. They were just creative in different ways.

Mom encouraged my passion for writing, which had a lot to do with my choice of journalism as my profession. And i wouldn't trade the years I worked as a reporter and an editor for anything in the world, but I often think that, without realizing it, I made a trade that will always make my life experiences different from those of most of my friends.

Relationships never seemed to thrive for me when I was in my 20s, and I was working five nights a week (including weekends and holidays) for a morning paper or getting up at 4 in the morning to get to work at an afternoon paper by 5:30. There was a time in my life when I really wanted to get married and have a family — but I never had the experience of being a parent, as so many of my contemporaries did.

But I did kind of experience it by proxy.

My best friend from my high school days and his wife at the time made me the godfather of their daughter, Nicole. It is, I believe, the greatest gift anyone has ever given me — or will ever give me.

I didn't see much of Nikki when she was a little girl, and that is something I deeply regret, but we have communicated a lot in the last few years, and I have tried to pass on to her some of the things I have learned, some of the things that I value.

She and I often exchange thoughts via Facebook, where she frequently posts quotes from writers and other creative types. She reminds me of Mom when she does that, and it makes me realize, in a way that little else could, that Mom died far too soon.

Mom died before the internet really blossomed commercially, but I have no doubt that she would have embraced things like Facebook, sharing quotes that she found meaningful and/or intriguing with her friends.

She was the one who introduced me to many of the writers whose works I cherish today — Mark Twain, Allen Drury, Joseph Heller. One memorable summer when I was in college, we discovered the writings of Stephen King together and exchanged his books all summer long.

I've tried to share some of my passions with Nikki — like this evening, for example. Nikki quoted Jim Morrison on Facebook, and I mentioned that she should listen to some of his music if she hasn't done so. She indicated — as one can do on Facebook — that she liked my comment.

I don't know if she has listened to the Doors' music or not. She must have at least some exposure to it if she is quoting Morrison.

I mentioned the other day that I felt her tastes were very literary, and she indicated that she liked that, too. I teach writing at the local community college, and I found myself wishing, as I often do, that Nikki lived close enough to enroll in one of my classes. It would be a lot of fun for both of us.

I know that won't happen, though, but I will continue to encourage these things in my goddaughter that I saw in my mother.

And perhaps those things that meant something to Mom and also mean something to me will be passed along to her. Maybe she will pass them on to her son, and he, in turn, will pass them on to his children.

In that way, I can experience what most of my friends have experienced, and, in a way, I can live on after I'm gone.

Well, it's worth trying, don't you think?

Mom's Milestone

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---

Today would have been a milestone for my mother — if she had not died in a flash flood 16 years ago.

Today would have been her 80th birthday — and, if nature had not intervened, I am quite sure she would still be with us today.

I can't know a thing like that, of course. But I know the family history, and I know what Mom's health was like on the day she drowned. At the time she died, I believed she could have been with us for another 20 years, at least, and I still believe that today.

Anything else could have happened in the last 16 years, though. Family history isn't infallible. Mom's father died of a heart attack in his sleep when he was 70. The same thing could have happened to her.

But my grandmother outlived my grandfather by nearly 20 years — even though the quality of the last 10 years of her life is debatable. She suffered increasingly from dementia, and I know that Mom feared a similar fate.

She never said so, but she didn't have to.

Mom was a first–grade teacher. At times, it seemed to me that she drew energy from the 6– and 7–year–olds in her classroom. They kept her young, and I realized, after she died, that a significant part of her was afraid of ending up like my grandmother, unable to recognize those who came to see her, unable even to communicate in her final years.

Funny thing — when Mom died, she was the subject of several newspaper articles because she had been recognized for her classroom innovations. Someone (and I can't remember now whether it was an administrator or another teacher or a parent who said this) was quoted as saying Mom was "everyone's favorite grandmother."

I had trouble seeing her as a grandmother. Mom was a free and independent spirit. She also had a childlike fascination with things that I'm sure made her popular with the children who spent their first year in elementary school in her classroom. It permeated her life — and I never realized that until after she died.

I remember one day when I was sorting through my mother's belongings following her death. My father walked into the room while I was looking at a special vest Mom wore on an excursion to St. Louis with some of her colleagues. The vest was covered in buttons she got at a Cardinals baseball game.

One button was equipped with a music player. When you pressed it, it played "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." I pressed it, listened to it, looked up and saw my father, who had entered the room without my notice. He smiled. "Your mother was a child," he said, turned and walked out of the room.

Yes, she was. Maybe that was what made her such a great mother — and a great teacher (and, by extension, everyone's favorite grandmother). Above all other things, my memory is that it was fun having her for my mom. She made everything an adventure. I'm sure it was that way for the children in her classroom.

I am about to begin my second year of adjunct teaching in the local community college, and I am trying to apply things she taught me in my classroom. It is a work in progress.

After she died, a family friend sought to comfort my brother and me by observing that Mom "went out at the top of her game."

At that time and under those circumstances, it simply wasn't possible for me to be comforted by that thought — I didn't want her to be gone, still don't, and no thoughts that indicated an acceptance of the new reality could be tolerated — but I have drawn some comfort from it since.

I wish Mom was still with us, but if she was spared her mother's fate, then I am thankful for that.

You see, I understand now, in a way that I really didn't before, that no one lives forever. Oh, I said things like that, but it was more of an expression for me, I guess. I didn't really think about the truth of those words or however subtly they might be influencing me (sort of like the Pledge of Allegiance I dutifully recited each morning as a child). I do now.

I understand that, while no one really wants to die (probably because none of us can be absolutely sure what happens when we die — we may think that we know, but no one who is living can really know), it's going to happen to all of us. I can't imagine what that will be like, but I've concluded that there would be no advantage in living forever — not even if one could strike some sort of deal and be sure never to age or lose one's mobility.

Since such a Faustian arrangement is not possible — at least as far as I know — I would rather not linger past the time that all my contemporaries have gone. I would rather be taken when I am still alert and capable — and the people I leave behind believe there were still things I didn't do that I should have done before I died — than to overstay my welcome and die long after my quality of life began to decline.

Whichever it turns out to be, I would just prefer that my death wouldn't be an excessively painful or lingering one. I don't even have to know it's happening. My grandfather died in his sleep — wouldn't any of us choose that over being conscious?

Mom's quality of life definitely did not decline — and I can only hope that she did not experience too much pain. But that is something I will never know.

---

---

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about Mom's sense of humor. It was different, but I really miss it.

Mom had a great knack for laughing at herself.

When I was a child, she used to make a beef–noodle casserole that was absolutely delicious. As far as I could see, it was perfect. Mom used to rave about how easy it was to prepare, and I don't exaggerate when I say it was one of my favorite dishes. I actually looked forward to evening meals when I knew it was on the menu.

She served it once when some friends came over, and they went wild, insisting that Mom give them the recipe. She promised that she would.

Never one to put off such things, Mom typed the recipe on an index card the very next day and passed it along to her friend while she was out running errands.

(Now, when I say "typed," I mean that — literally. It was long before personal computers and word processors with spell checkers or any of that other stuff. Mom used a typewriter — and it was the old–fashioned, manual kind, too.)

Mom didn't proofread the card first, and it turned out she had typed an o instead of an e in the word "noodle" in the title of the recipe (which was something very basic, like "Beef–Noodle Casserole," but, with the typo, it read "Beef–Noodlo Casserole").

Someone noticed the typo and remarked that the dish was "Goodloe's Noodle–ohs." Mom liked that. We ate it at least once a week every week — and we called it "Goodloe's Noodle–ohs" for about as long as I can remember.

It became kind of a family joke. I can remember having friends over to spend the night, and I would ask Mom what we were having for dinner. She would reply "Goodloe's Noodle–ohs," seemingly oblivious to the fact there was a guest in the house who wasn't familiar with the joke.

Mom also liked to joke about what she called the "Goodloe luck." It was sort of a family variation on Murphy's law. I'm not sure if she originated it or not — or if perhaps my father played a role — but if something went wrong, we were sure to hear the "Goodloe luck" mentioned.

The photo of Mom sitting in our foldout camper was taken on the occasion of my favorite example of the "Goodloe luck." We had driven from Dallas to South Padre Island during the Christmas holidays — about an 11– or 12–hour drive, as I recall. It was something we had done — without incident — the year before, and the entire family was looking forward to some sand, surf and fresh seafood.

The picture that shows Mom smiling and laughing in our camper was taken about an hour after our arrival. The weather was gorgeous, and everyone was in a jovial mood. But, during the night, a storm front moved in, and we spent the next couple of days huddled around that small table, eating modest meals and playing card games while wind and rain pounded the tiny trailer outside.

Finally, my parents decided that we had had enough, and we left on the third day. We took down our camper in a pouring rain and began the long drive back to my grandmother's home in Dallas. On the way, we heard on the radio that the storm was the worst to strike the area in decades. Boats were missing at sea.

That, my parents agreed, was the "Goodloe luck."

I guess the most extreme example of the "Goodloe luck" was the flash flood that took Mom's life. But that would be a real misnomer. There was nothing lucky about that night.

Well, anyway, today would have been her birthday. It isn't the anniversary of her death. It's an appropriate time to remember who she was, not how she died.

I can't help feeling somewhat wistful on this day. I think of the world that existed on the day Mom died and the world that exists today, and I can't help wishing she had lived to see some of the things I have seen.

The flip side of that, of course, is that I'm glad she was spared some of the things that have happened since her death — so I suppose it is something of a tradeoff, as it is in every life, be it wealthy or privileged or longer than most.

In the great scheme of things, I guess one life is pretty much the same as the next. Some are longer than others. Some are more accomplished.

Religious people often speak of "God's will" and his "plan." I guess it is the only way some people can make sense of the irrational. There must be a reason why terrible things happen. We just aren't smart enough to figure it out.

I guess it's comforting, in a way, to believe that things that appear to make no sense — like the deaths of children — really do have a purpose. And some people believe the purposes for all things will be revealed to us when we die.

But some people will tell you that, whatever the reasons for these things may be, those reasons are God's, not man's — and God is under no obligation to explain himself.

So life continues to be, as it has always been, unfair. Some lives end far too early while others go on for a century or more, and there is no justification for it. Some lives are harder than most while others are easier, and there is no obvious justification for that, either.

I don't think I ever discussed this with Mom during her life. I know she believed in God, but I don't know what her conclusions were about the inequities of life.

Mom's life could have been longer than it was. Perhaps it could have been more accomplished.

But today, I want to remember Mom's life, and I want to do something to mark the occasion. Today is Saturday, and I'm going to the cemetery.

Maybe it seems odd to say that, but it isn't. Not really. In the years since Mom's death, the cemetery is the only place where I can feel close to her. I don't know if it is her "spirit" or not. I just know that is the way it is.

I used to go there every year on the anniversary of her death. I preferred going to the cemetery in May over going there in August, even though going there in May always seemed like more of an observance of her death than her life. It's always hot here in August — and it has been especially hot this summer.

But, since this would have been a milestone birthday for Mom, I will brave the elements, however severe they may be, and pay a visit in the morning hours. I'll keep it short, though. Classes at the community college begin next week, and I have last–minute preparations to make.

Mom would have understood.

Losing My Religion

My parents were Democrats.

I feel it is necessary to say that right up front because it tells you something about how I was brought up. It should tell you something about what I value.

In case it isn't clear, let me spell it out for you:

• I believe in truth even when truth hurts.


• I believe in fair and equal treatment for everyone in every situation or endeavor.


• I believe justice is a two–sided coin, and it isn't always what the majority may think it should be.


• I believe in individual freedom, and


• I believe that, while respect must be earned, everyone is entitled to a certain amount of respect from others simply because they exist.

There are other things I believe, too, but that will do for openers.

Being a Democrat was like a religious faith in my family. My roots run deep in Southern soil, but my parents, who spent the first several years of their marriage living abroad, always identified more with the Democrats from the other regions of the country.

They were rarely in sync with many of the Democrats in the small Arkansas town where I grew up. They supported things like civil rights, and they were against the war in Vietnam.

I remember accompanying my mother when she went campaigning door to door for George McGovern in 1972. We encountered few positive responses on our sojourns through our county. I don't know how many doors were slammed in our faces. I just remember that there were a lot of them.

I also remember that the kids with whom I went to school reflected their parents' (and, as it turned out, the state's) political preferences. Richard Nixon got about 70% of the vote in Arkansas that year.

Kids always want to be accepted by their peers, and they are sensitive to the things that they think are barriers to that acceptance. I was quite young in 1972, but I remember feeling that supporting the Democratic ticket was keeping me from gaining the acceptance I craved.

Anyway, I remember one October afternoon when my mother and I were driving into the rural parts of our county to try to win one or two supporters for McGovern's quixotic presidential campaign. Henry Kissinger had just announced that "peace is at hand" in Vietnam, and I mentioned that to Mom.

And then I asked her a question. Mom wasn't given to icy stares, but she gave me one on that occasion.

"If Nixon ends the war in Vietnam," I asked, "couldn't we be for him then? Isn't that what we want to do, end the war?"

Mom stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. "Yes, we want to end the war," she finally said, "but there is more to it than that."

I didn't understand that at the time, but I understood what she meant when I got older.

And, for most of my adult life, I was a Democrat. Until 2008, I supported Democrats in every presidential election after I turned 18.

But I just couldn't vote for Barack Obama. It wasn't that I disagreed with him on many issues. Just the opposite, in fact. To be honest, I was bewildered at the time. I even told some friends, "I can't believe a Democrat is about to be elected president ... and I'm not going to vote for him!"

My friends were even more baffled than I was. I tried to explain it to them, but I couldn't. It was just a gut feeling, I said. I didn't trust Obama.

You must be racist, my Democrat friends said dismissively. But that conveniently overlooked the fact that I was raised by parents who were active supporters of civil rights in the American South at a time when white Southerners who did that wound up having crosses burned in their yards — or worse.

I just didn't trust him. Never have. But I couldn't explain it any better than that in 2008. And my uneasy feeling has continued to grow, along with the unemployment rate. As I wrote here about 18 months ago, I have become an independent.

I have tried to understand it better, and I think I do. In fact, I think there are lots of others out there who are beginning to experience the same nagging doubts I have had about Obama since he emerged as the Democrats' frontrunner three years ago.

They may be just as bewildered as I was — although they shouldn't be because there was much less evidence to support my position in 2008. Folks who are having doubts about Obama today have had 30 months to observe his actions — and inactions — in office.

For the most part, all I had to go on were my suspicions. I'll grant you, they were nothing more than gut feelings three years ago, and I tried to persuade myself that there was nothing to them — or, if there was, I hoped he would overcome the shortcomings that I feared he possessed.

But I have seen nothing since this president took office that has led me to believe that my suspicions were mistaken — or that Obama has made any progress in overcoming his weaknesses.

Persuasion really is the operative word here because that is a big problem I have perceived in not just Obama but many of the prominent members of his party in the last several years. I think it predates Obama's election — which, I suppose, would make him more of a product of it.

It really should come as no surprise when folks on the left and folks on the right disagree — that happens frequently. But I have seen an outright unwillingness on the part of the so–called liberals to treat dissenting opinions with enough respect to listen to them and respond to them. Instead, Democrats tend to dismiss the dissenters as stupid — and/or racist or sexist or whatever.

Say what you will about Rush Limbaugh and the other right–wing radio hosts — and most of it is true — but they treat callers with dissenting views with more respect than their counterparts on the left. They listen to what they have to say (usually), and they respond to the points that are made.

But Democrats too often skip the persuasion part. It's hard work. It's much easier to treat dissenters with contempt or condescension.

When I was growing up, both political parties were positioned more in the middle of the road, and they worked together to resolve their differences. Today, both are so far to either extreme that there is simply too much that stands in the way of compromise.

That's under normal circumstances. It's even tougher to persuade people to come around to your side when you've been demonizing them or dismissing them as fools.

A basic fact that many Democrats seem to have forgotten is that people respond positively to politicians who act as if they respect the voters' intelligence. Democrats like to accuse Republicans of being country clubbers — and many may well be — but, in fact, many voters see Democrats as smug and elitist with no respect for ordinary Americans' beliefs, fears and values.

I have often observed that the Republican Party veered far to the right when it nominated Ronald Reagan in 1980, and it has largely remained there for the last 30 years after striking its deal with the Christian conservatives.

It is harder for me to pinpoint when Democrats veered so far to the left, but I think it took root midway through the last decade — in the aftermath of Republican mishandling of the Terri Schiavo tragedy and the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

The pendulum swung back to the Democrats, and they began seizing the components of the federal government — but it turned out that all they had learned from Republican control of Congress (and, later, the presidency) was how to bully people into doing what they wanted.

That kind of politics, as Democrats should have learned by now, has a short shelf life.

Tributes

It never occurred to me before.

Last summer, as you may recall, my practically lifelong friend Phyllis died. She had been living with cancer for a few years, but then she was stricken with pneumonia, and it was too much for her body to withstand.

A mutual friend of ours participated in the funeral planning. He returns to our hometown at the end of each semester to participate in commencement ceremonies at the university there, and Phyllis' death came very near the time when he would be doing that at the end of the summer session.

He spent a little more time there than normal last August, helping with the arrangements.

Anyway, he is back there now. He just arrived yesterday. The university will be holding its spring ceremonies this weekend, and he posted a notice on Facebook.

A friend informed him that a "Relay for Life" is being held in a nearby town in Phyllis' honor this weekend. I gathered from his response that he had already spoken to Phyllis' family and had been told about this event.

And it all clicked.

Of course. I've seen this before. I knew a couple of people who died of brain tumors when I was growing up, and, at some point, folks organized special events like this "Relay for Life" in their memories. Likewise, I knew some people who died of other diseases, and similar events were organized in their memories.

I suppose these events have — almost always — been intended to raise money for medical research. They also — almost always — become annual events and carry the deceased person's name.

It's a form of immortality, I suppose — I couldn't wish it for a better person even though I still wish, perhaps for selfish reasons, that she was still around.

And I'm glad her name will be remembered — even when the time comes when the people who remember her name have no memory of her.

It's been nearly a year since she died, but in that time, there have been many occasions when I have remembered things about Phyllis that I had forgotten — or, at least, haven't given a lot of thought in awhile.

She continues to influence me, at times to inspire me, in ways that neither of us ever could have dreamed when we were children in Conway, Ark.

Neither, I suppose, could we have imagined, when we saw fundraising events being named for people we had known, that one of us — and, who knows, perhaps even both of us — would be remembered in such a way, possibly long after our contemporaries have joined us.

I am glad she is being honored in this way, but I am sorry she didn't know just how many fish were caught in the wide net she cast during her life.

I guess that is the thing I find singularly sad about such tributes.

Yesterday, as I wrote in this blog, was the 16th anniversary of my mother's death. She was a first–grade teacher when she died in a flash flood — admired and mourned by many.

(She knew Phyllis when I was growing up, knew her pretty well, as I recall. Mom knew all of my friends, but some she knew better than others. We lived in the country, and she knew the kids with whom I played every day, of course, but Phyllis, like most of my classmates, lived within the city limits.

(Mom didn't see most of those friends as frequently. She was acquainted with the kids who attended our church — but Phyllis didn't belong to our church when I was growing up. Nevertheless, Mom and Phyllis gravitated to each other and became friends. I'm not sure how or when that occurred, but it did. I remember that, by the time I was in high school, I noticed Phyllis and Mom seeking each other out at school functions.)

Anyway, the last children Mom taught are old enough now to have children of their own. In a few years, they may be first–graders in the school where Mom taught for the last 12 years of her life.

Those children, obviously, never knew my mother. But they will almost surely know her name. Less than a year after she died, the school dedicated a garden on the school property to her memory.

I don't know what the garden is used for today, but the original intention, as I understood it, was for it to be a place for contemplation, for reflection, for storytelling. A sort of a "quiet place," you might say, and that, I think, would have suited Mom just fine.

It was not a playground for recess. The swings and the slides could be found on the other side of the building.

There was a sign that identified the garden and on it could be found my mother's name. Even if you only ever walked past it and never stopped, you were almost sure to absorb the name from reading the sign — in much the same way that some people who perform heroic deeds say they learned the procedures for CPR and the Heimlich maneuver by casually glancing at posters on breakroom walls.

I haven't been on those grounds in a long time, but I assume that garden is still there. If it is, I am glad that it stands as a monument to Mom.

At the same time, I have a hard time thinking of my mother as a name on a garden wall or Phyllis as the name of an annual fundraising event. They were flesh–and–blood people for me, people who continue to influence my thoughts, my life, my memories.

When I think of my mother, I don't think of the honors she received for her creative teaching techniques. I think of her dedication, of evenings I spent sitting with her at the dining room table, helping her grade papers so she would have some free time to watch TV or play with the cat.

And when I think of Phyllis, I remember laughs and moments we shared, some with other people, some with just us.

I'm sorry they're gone. I miss them every day.

And, when all is said and done, I am glad they are remembered by others.

Even if those people never met them.