NAIVETÉ : HOW DID I EVER SURVIVE!

My wife Jane insists that God has assigned a special convoy of angels to accompany me and to save me from own naiveté. She may be right.

Even though I grew up in the country surrounded by animals of all kinds my sex education was greatly delayed. I will never forget my conversation with my friend Clarence. I said, “Clarence, I have been watching our chickens play tag. Why is it always the rooster that is “it and never the hens?” His look at me was one of amazement at my ignorance.

Then I was a slow learner. When I was single and principal of a Lutheran school in a small town I very seldom went to a bar. But one night the School Board meeting had been really rough and I decided I needed a beer. While nursing it alone I had really not noticed the female on the other end. The bar tender came and said, “The lady down there asked me to ask you if you come from Indiana. She thought she may have seen you there.” My honest response, “Oh no.I am from Texas but my fiancé is from Indiana.” And then I finished my beer and headed home


Talk about a slow learner. Years later I was leading a workshop near O’Hare airport and at the end of the day was going over my notes in the lounge. I noticed there was a female at a near-by table but stuck to my work. I do not recall seeing her leave. As I was leaving I noticed that she had left her hotel room key on the edge of her table. I dutifully took it to the barkeep saying, ”I think the lady who just left forgot her keys.” He gave me the same look I had gotten from Clarence 20 years earlier.

My children couldn’t decide if I was naivé or stupid. This was about an investment in Las Vegas land. I met a young man on the golf course at Torrey Pines. He seemed credible and was a likeable chap. He was offering shares in a syndicate that was buying raw land in the Las Vegas area. It sounded good to me. I cashed in a very small life insurance policy and used the money for a down payment and then financed the balance of an $18,000.00 investment. After ten years I had paid off the loan. The land still just sat there. My kids wondered if the city would reach that far north in their lifetime. Then a letter came from the city of North Las Vegas. They were building an access road around the property. They needed to acquire just a small edge of the property. The land was valued at $5,000.00. They were willing to purchase it for $25,000.00 I checked the offer with a friend at church. He said “Accept it with a certified response before the day is out.” I did and the check arrived and cleared. Nothing for 10 years. Then an offer for $278,000. That check too was good. That land is now helping pay for my retirement home-and my kids still shake their heads.

My pastor surprised me most of all. He couldn’t decide if I had faith or was just incredibly naive. The national Lutheran Church had asked Jane and me to go to Hong Kong. Our task was to help set up a school system in the British Crown Colony swarming with refugees from Mao’s China. I didn’t even know where Hong Kong was, spoke no Chinese and had never managed more than one other staff person. We went. The Chinese overlooked my ignorance, youth, and my slowly learned Cantonese. The British winked at my American assertiveness and risked money and land rights. Fellow missionaries prayed. We sewed some seeds. Today there are more than 25,000 students and 700 teachers in that system.

Naiveté, dumb luck, divine providence? Some of each but I continue to bet on the last one.

THROWING OUT THE FIRST PITCH

The phone rang in my office at The Lutheran Schools Association of Metropolitan New York. It was the New York Mets. They told me the Mets were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers at Shea Stadium. The date had also been set as Lutheran Schools Day at Shea. They asked if I’d be interested in throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.

Silly question. Of course. What time should I be there?

Then reality hit. I haven’t thrown a baseball in years. Can I get it from the mound to home plate? What if I bounce it or throw it over the catcher’s head?
The answer is practice. So I visit my grandson. I step off the distance from the mound to the plate. I use an official regulation National League baseball. I get it. I can do it.

On the appointed day I go to the assigned box in the stands between home and first base. The manager and Rod Hundley, the catcher come to greet me. The big right field score board announces in lights, “Throwing Out the First Pitch is Mel Kieschnick of the Lutheran Schools Association.” I’m ready. I ask for the best route to get from the box seat to the mound.

I am told, “Oh no, just stay in the box and throw it to Hundley. He’ll stand right here.”

So I made my great FIRST PITCH all of ten feet of it, from a box seat. Hundley caught the ball, handed it back to me and wished me a nice day.

Sometimes the excitement of anticipation is greater than the thrill of reality.
At least the Mets beat the Dodgers that day.

FIT FOR THE QUEEN

I get out of the taxi and move toward the Royal Guard to present our official invitation to this gala garden party celebration. It is Queen Elizabeth’s Official Birthday. The fete is in the Governor’s Home on the Peak in Hong Kong, then a Royal Crown Colony.

The prescribed dress is “garden formal.” That has presented a slight problem. By all proper English decorum that means ladies will wear appropriate hats. My wife, Jane, had left all her “garden hats” in the States years before. Missionary salaries precluded a visit to any local millinery shop (of which there were none in the Colony anyway) to secure proper head wear. However, in her usual excellent taste, ingenuity and skill, and drawing upon genes inherited from a grandmother who had run a millinery shop in the haute culture center of Decatur, Indiana at the turn of the century - and with the assistance of missionary wives of several religious denominations she is, in fact, properly attired with a gorgeous hat most suitable for a Garden Party in Honor of the Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.

I have been led to understand that “appropriate dress” is subject to a variety of interpretations. In the case of Jane’s hat and the Queen’s Garden Party one rule of chic was paramount: she dare not look like a missionary wife!
I was recalling other instructions on fashion statements given me by my parents. When, during the Great Depression of the 1930’s I questioned the stylishness of the knickers handed down to me by an older cousin, my mother had instructed me, “If the clothes is clean and well ironed, it will be just fine.”

My father added his advice, “If your shoes are freshly polished, everyone will agree you are well dressed.”

Incidentally, we had a great time at the Garden Party, and I, for one, thought I had the most smashingly attired partner of anyone there.

SCARCITY

I am a child of the great American depression era. I blame that for my mental outlook which my New Age friends term “coming out of scarcity.” For me it means a growing feeling of never being sure that I have enough - enough time, enough food, drink, clothes, golf balls, filing space - you name it.

The late 1920’s and early 30’s were in fact times of great scarcity. My memory is that at mealtime we were restricted to one tiny piece of meat. When there was no meat we ate boiled potatoes and pickled beets. When my dad returned from an out of town teachers conference and brought back a candy bar that bar was cut into many pieces so that each of the 9 of us children (or whatever the number was at that time) could get the appropriate fraction. During nine months of the year we went barefoot everywhere. We saved our shoes and pair of socks for Sunday wear. After our house “got electricity” my parents told me a million times to “turn out the light.” Money and electricity were scarce. To get ready for whatever eventuality, my mother, one spring and summer, canned 800 quarts of vegetables!

The amazing thing is that we always had enough. I never went hungry, wore rags, lacked love, warmth, attention, toys, tablet paper or ink. Things weren’t really all that scarce.

Why then do I still “come out of scarcity?” If I’m to do a one hour workshop I prepare enough material for two hours so I won’t run out of stuff to present. Why is my garage packed with paper, boxes, clothes, old golf clubs, scrap lumber, telephone wire, half-empty paint cans, cracked flower pots, baby beds, 8’ x 12’ sheets of plywood, an old Weber bar-b-cue tarpaulins, old light switches, etc. etc.? Why do I buy 10 pounds of meat for the six guests we’re having for dinner, and pack six shirts for a three day trip” Why do I invite 8 people for dinner just to make sure that 6 will show up?
I blame it all on my childhood depression era scarcity. My idea of heaven is that finally there’ll be enough of everything foreveryone, including me.

AGEING PARENTS:AGEING SELF

My spell checker insists that “ageing” is not a word. But it is a reality, regardless of how one may choose to spell it. My last two days have brought me again face to face with people who age. It began with a wonderful presentation here at La Costa Glen, the Continuing Care Community to which Jane and I moved 4 months ago. Our Executive Director gave us a report of her first ever trip to China and her work there in helping to establish the first ever continuing care community in that country. She reminded us of something that we already know: China faces a tremendous challenge in assisting its citizens through the later years of their life. Because of the one child policy there will soon be less than three people under 60 to support each one person over 60. If each family has only one child then that one child may have to support not only his parents but also 4 grandparents. The multi-generational family under less than one roof may have worked in a rural economy but not in the modern urbanized China. The state guarantees of old age pensions from state run enterprises have disappeared. Meanwhile the life expectancy grows. The Confucian mandate of filial piety is still embedded, especially in the minds of the elderly who still insist that being cared for outside the traditional family home is a sign of failed parenting. Thus even the one large facility for the elderly recently opened is not fully occupied. One consequence is that general hospitals have an overload of patients who have no option but to remain hospitalized.

But one need not go to China. I had only to visit a former neighbor. The story is familiar. The single older male is no longer able to care for himself. He refuses to look at options other than staying in his home. (Even though he does not know how to cook, has never done laundry, and needs regular infusions of saline solutions for his severe Sjogren’s disease. Meanwhile one of his children lives in another state and one (who is in ill health herself) tries to cope. It isn’t working. When I offer alternatives (fortunately there are adequate financial resources) there is a complete refusal to even look at any other options.

As I was on my way to visit the above gentleman a neighbor stopped me. “I am in a bind, Mel,” he tells me. “ My daughter is divorced. She has a mentally retarded child. Her ex- husband just lost his job and so can’t make his child support payments. So I need to send money to my daughter and granddaughter, but here I am on fixed income and goodness knows what has happened to my IRA and other savings plan.” He thought he had planned well for his years of ageing and now he is beginning to wonder how it will all end.

As I reflect on my own ageing, my kids sustain me in my own images of the future. When I recently said something about a decline in assets they responded “”Dad you have assets, 5 big ones. They are your five kids.” And when I stew over the future, Jane has the perfect three-point response “1. God has always taken care of us in the past and God is not about to change. “ 2: If we die young we have enough resources to see us through.” 3. “If we live a long life the market will have turned around and the assets will be there”

And that is good enough for me.

ONE SUNDAY’S MUSIC

It was a Sunday much like hundreds of others in my life .It was a Sunday full of music-all kinds of music and all manner of emotions stirred, recalled, expressed. Even at 7:15 when we got into our car the all-classical music station to which Jane’s radio is perpetually set welcomes the days with arias, cantatas and fugues. When we sat down in our pews our extraordinarily gifted Minister of Music Stan was already doing one of his incredible riffs on the opening hymn During this season of the church year our congregation is focusing on Christ’s light shining throughout the world so the various parts of the sung liturgy featured the words, the beats, the melodies labeled “Peruvian traditional “ and “Creek Indian" and “from the Norwegian” and “Finnish folk song” Our 50 voice choir sang the plaintive song, “Open My Eyes”. So it was no surprise that when after the service the visiting couple sitting in front of Jane and me turned and said “We always come to this church when we are in San Diego on vacation. It is such a beautiful church-and we love your music!”

I must admit that during this service I had let my mind’s eye and my inner ear roam the world. I wanted to hear the millions of voices and instruments from New Guinea to New Hampshire, from Brazilian Pentecostals to New York Episcopalians, from black soul to white chorals light a spark of the divine within us all; each plucking strings deep within us that start to vibrate when music fills the space around us.

The feeling lingered into the afternoon when daughter Liz called from Connecticut. “I had to call,” she said, ‘ because I cried in church today as I thought of you.” “You see” she said, "we sang 'God be with you till we meet again'. It brought up all those memories of when your family all sang that song at the end of our family reunions. And since Uncle Hal died a couple weeks ago he was the first of the nine of your kids to go-and so when you sing that song again it will have an added dimension.”

Then Liz’s reverie turned angry, as she was very upset. Her teen-age son had just returned from a Church Youth retreat. It was an interdenominational event and the keynote speaker was a narrow fundamentalist. He instructed son Ryan and all others in attendance “When you get home today-before you go to bed- I want each of you to destroy your ipods Smash them to smithereens! Explain to your parents that this is a tool of the devil who in the siren songs of today’s music is luring you all into hell!”

But my Sunday was not yet over. It was easy for me to skip the Grammy’s. My musical tastes don’t really run in the direction of Lil Wayne or Alison Krauss. My kids are making a valiant effort to help me catch up on all the movie classics I have missed in my earlier life and the day’s feature was Casablanca. The first notes coming from Sam’s piano in Rick’s bar touched me in the same place as it touched Ingrid Begrman and the memoirs flowed. I was back in the late 40’s early 50’s and the woman who is now my wife and I held hands etc. to the tunes of Glen Miller, the Mills Brothers, Rudy Valle, Perry Como. All I need is the words “Some Enchanted Evening” and I am again walking my date back to the dorm and all is well in God’s wonderful world.


Then the day, as they all do, came to its end. But my life had been again been changed by the power of the music of an everyday Sunday.

WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK! A LESSON TOO WELL LEARNED

My mother of blessed memory taught me many things, including lots of memorized material. Night after night she sat with me to ensure that I had done my memory work” for the next day’s religion class at the Lutheran elementary school. Thus we memorized not only Luther’s Small Catechism but also the hundreds of “proof texts” in Dr. Schwan’s expanded version of that classic. Added to that were hymns, a few poems and many proverbs and sayings. Some of the proverbs were known to all in that German community. I still hear “Eigenlobt stinck” (Self praise stinks.) any time I come close to telling someone of a personal accomplishment. Other sayings she made up for the occasion: “Wenn du hungrig bist, denn schmueck auch jelly brot gut.” (If you are hungry, then plain old jelly bread tastes good.) This came when I complained that there were no freshly baked cookies available.

There is, however, one frequent reminder that, I fear, I may have over-learned and that is “What will people think!” That was really important to my mom. She often reminded me that I was the son of the principal of that small Lutheran school and people would be watching my actions. What would they think if I misbehaved! We often wore hand-me-down clothes, but they needed to be clean and ironed or else, “What would people think!” I learned to say, “Thank You” and “Please” and “I am sorry” because if I failed to do that, “What would people think!” I had to watch my manners, my mouth, my eating and spending habits. The threat was there, spoken and unspoken. Mess up in any of these areas and people would think poorly of me, of my family, of German people and certainly of Lutherans.

As stated above, this lesson served me well. It caused me on occasion to reflect before I acted or reacted. I believe it helped me develop a sense of empathy. It helped me to not bring shame to my heritage.

And it has also not always served me that well. At times I have kept my mouth shut when the situation really demanded that I speak the truth. Fear of people’s reaction trumped my obligation to speak up. I have accepted invitations, taken on too many assignments, expected too much from my children, hidden some of my political or even religious views and values, etc… all because I was afraid that if I exposed my true thoughts, feelings, values or desires, then I would be though less of. In the process I have sometimes compromised my integrity.

So, dear Mother, I have written this blog even though there is a voice in the back of my head warning me, “What will people think!”

PEBBLE BEACH - BLISS

I am standing on the 18th hole of the Pebble Beach Golf Links. It’s the most beautiful and awesome meeting of sea, shore and fairway greens in the world. The prevailing wind will accentuate my natural slice from left to right. I nail my drive. The ball sails over the bay, is blown to the right and lands in the middle of the fairway of this incredible par 5 finishing hole. My golf car like Elijah’s chariot carries me to my perfect lie. My ensuing three wood is straight and on line. My hopes soar. A seven or eight iron to the green. There’s hope for a birdie. I swing. I have duck-hooked it. The ball is somewhere under an incoming Pacific Ocean wave. I take my penalty, try again and end up with a double bogey seven. I regret the inability to convert promise into reality, but I do not mourn for long. I have been to golfer’s Mecca and it is paradise on earth.

When I grew up during the depression, the son of a rural parochial school teacher, golf was beyond even my wildest fantasy. Once an uncle “from the city” had given me a golf ball. I treasured it and hit it, fungo-like with a baseball bat, into the cow pasture. I sought till I found it and hit it again. Then I couldn’t find it and I assumed my golfing life was over.

But it wasn’t. I’ve ended up playing more golf than I ever fantasized about and in venues where I still have to pinch myself to be sure I’m actually there. Hundreds of rounds at Hong Kong Golf Club, Fan Ling (no longer The Royal Hong Kong Golf Club). I’ve worked my way around many of the most wonderful courses imaginable: Kapalua on Maui, Hawaii, Westchester Country Club in New York, The Palm and the Magnolia in Disney Land, Cog Hill in Illinois, Torrey Pines in California, Banff in Canada.

There are unique elements of the golfing experience understood only by those who’ve been there, done that. The anticipation that goes with opening a new sleeve of balls on the first tee. The posturing, complaining, negotiating that precedes the first swing. The downward spiral of feeling as a ball just catches a trap, lands beyond the white out-of-bounds stakes, lips out of a cup. The almost orgasmic sensation of a six iron that hooks around a tree and lands on the green, the 30-foot putt that drops. There are always the post-round autopsies over a few cold beers. Although we all know that no one (no one!) really cares about the final score of another golfer, we all rehearse selected agonies and ecstasies.

Yet, it is not unique. Every being that is still really alive is stirred by the anticipation of, achievement, is exhilarated by possibilities, disappointed in failure, and longs for the companionship of a shared experience. Golf is, as they say, a four-letter word. For me that four letter word is LIFE.

Erna

Erna, four years older than I, is the eldest of the nine children in my family. She learned responsibility early. When mother gave birth to child number 9 in the dining room of our country home (It was the only room with a stove in it) Erna stayed home from high school. She not only assisted mother and baby, but also cared for other sibs who chose that same time to come down with some childhood disease. I don’t remember which disease it was, since eventually all of us had them all: measles, mumps, pink eye, scarletina, whatever.

Staying home for a while to serve as care giver did not seem to have a negative effect on her scholastic performance. She graduated #1 in her high school class, valedictorian.

She was awarded a college scholarship. She did not accept it. Instead she went to the big city of Austin to earn money as a clerical staff person for a financial institution. She had to earn the money so that her younger brother, that’s I, could go to the church’s preparatory school for service as a teaching minister in the church.

She helped pay my tuition and room and board. And since I was in the same city where she worked, we spent some time together. She taught me some much needed social graces. “When with a girl you must walk on the street side of the city sidewalk.” Or - “Leave at least a nickel tip.”

On the day of my prep school graduation I was stunned to receive a marvelous wristwatch as a gift from my family. I learned that Erna was financing it, $5.00 down, then $5.00 a month for 6 months.

Two months later I was at college, on the football team. Early in the season we returned to our locker room to discover there had been a theft. While we were on the practice field someone had gotten into the locker room stealing everyone’s valuables. My watch was gone.

When I told Erna she sympathized with me. Then she assured me that she would continue to make the remaining 3 payments on the watch I was never to see again.

In the some 60 years since then Erna has continued to be there, faithfully and lovingly supporting her little brother.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

I am in Washington, D.C. addressing the House Committee on Education. I am suggesting that patterns of schooling and education of some foreign countries, specifically Hong Kong, might provide some valuable lessons for America. The Representatives and staff listen politely, ask some good questions, thank me for my insights and excuse me. As I now reflect I am clear on one thing: My presentation did not make any difference.

I am again in Washington. This time at the White House. I am with three carefully selected Roman Catholic bishops and an influential rabbi. Finally, after months of using the right channels, getting the schedule organized to the minute and having our respective “talking points” finely tuned, we await our time with the President. Just before we are to be with him, an aide appears. “An international situation has just surfaced. The President will be unable to meet with you.” I quickly stuff into my pockets a few White House embossed napkins as souvenirs to prove that I did in fact have an appointment with the President of the United States. My appearance at the White House certainly never made a difference.

It’s as tough an assignment as I’ve ever been given. A major denomination is in the midst of an ecclesiastical civil war. Finally, the decision is made to bring together spokespersons for the various factions. Put them together for 3 days, face to face, heart to heart, and try to resolve the issues. I am asked to facilitate the process. It looks to me like it worked. There were open conversations, new insights, overtures for peace. I feel good about it. But then “the powers that were” decided not to opt for peace. The denomination fractured. I made no difference.

I am the facilitator for an international gathering of the members of a venerable and highly respected order of Catholic priests. The order has ministries worldwide, owns multi-million dollars worth of property, and is awash with liquid assets. However, it does not have new members of the order. By its own canons all members must live in community; but there are not enough “religious” to form communities at all of their ministry sites. They want to reach consensus on which ministries to close, which to transfer to other entities, which to consolidate. They have 3 days to complete the process. I am to facilitate this. At the end of the three days there is no consensus. My efforts did not make any difference.

I am with a young couple who have just (for the second time in 24 months) gone through the stillbirth of an infant. I am there to listen, to puzzle, to grieve, to pray, to just hold them in my arms. I make a difference.

I meet a man who is retiring after years of successful service as a classroom teacher. He tells me, “Remember that night in the parking lot in Hutchington, Kansas? I had given up. I decided to quit teaching, maybe go dig ditches somewhere. You listened, you counseled, you encouraged. I tried again and the last years of my teaching were by far the most enjoyable and successful of my life.” I have made a difference.

Making a difference. Sometimes it’s not at some grand national or international level, but in a quiet, virtually unnoticed private encounter among just two or three that a difference is made.