Forty Years in the Desert: Is There Pie at the Next Oasis?

The Lenten season will soon be upon us. It's the time of year that one of my friends, also a Catholic, refers to as his "desert journey".

I thought he said "dessert journey" and I told him I'd be glad to go along with him and have some pie. He pointed out that maybe, since it's Lent and all, I should take my own desert journey and give up eating pie for 40 days.

We Catholics are notorious for sacrificing or "giving up" during Lent. Personally, I've always felt that rather than deny myself something pleasurable over the course of the holy season, it would be much more righteous of me to do something unselfish for others.

I thought perhaps I could start by sharing my pie. That way everyone wins. Of course, I'll need to get more pie.

Now the idea of the 40 days of Lent being likened to a "desert journey" is a reflection on the 40 years that Moses spent in the desert, leading the Israelites to the Promised Land. We've managed to narrow it down to 40 days for our own purposes because someone must have figured out that it should never have taken the Chosen People that long to get from Point A to Point B.

The only reason it did was because Moses was so fiercely stubborn.
That and he walked slow. His bunions really bothered him. And the Lord, with his wonderful sense of humor, led him to Mt. Sinai and said, "Here, Moses. Take two tablets and call me in the morning."

So it's no wonder the people were getting so testy on their desert journey. And at one point they had had quite enough and turned on Moses.

"Come on, Moses! It's been almost 40 years and we're getting nowhere! Day after day, the same thing. Tear down the campsite, trudge through the heat, up one sand dune and down another, step in camel poop and ruin another pair of sandals!

"And what do we get to eat, Moses? A bunch of weird, stale cookies that fall out of the sky. Then you do that trick where you tap the rock with the stick and--presto chango--we all get a drink of water! Whoopee!

"Well, yesterday we noticed something when you tapped that rock. It's the same rock every day! We've been walking in circles! We're lost, aren't we? And all because you refuse to stop at an oasis and ask for directions!

"This is why we build golden calves! For something to do! We're going crazy out here, Moses!

"Then to scare us, you come down from that mountain looking like you've seen a ghost, you've aged about 90 years, you're muttering some nonsense about a bush that's on fire, then you tell us that you've got some new rules for us that are written on a couple of slabs of rock! Is the heat getting to you, Moses? Well, we can't take it anymore!"

After putting up with all of that, it must have been disappointing for Moses to find out that God would not let him enter the Promised Land. Everyone in his group was jumping up and down, whooping and hollering, "We made it! Yay! It's the Promised Land! There it is!  Come on, Moses. We'll race you!"

"No, that's all right. You guys go on ahead and I'll catch up later."

Now that was probably one of the most unselfish acts of all. To lead a whining, belly-aching, and faithless throng on a desert journey for 40 years, without cable TV, while knowing full well that he himself could never cross over into the Land of Milk and Honey.

Sometimes it probably did appear that Moses had no direction, that he didn't know where he was going. Yet he forged ahead on his desert journey with no map, but only faith.

And often that's what life is like, isn't it? We seem to wander aimlessly, without direction, wondering if we're really getting anywhere. But, like Moses, we don't stop to ask for directions, because if we have faith, that is our road map. We know we just have to keep moving.

So when Lent rolls around,  have a good desert journey and take time out for a piece of pie. 

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Copyright by Wendel Potter
 

The Great Phone Booth Escapade

In some circles back home in Fullerton, Nebraska the "Phone Booth Story" became legend.

As it often happens, and it did in this case, a tale can take some bizarre twists as it travels from one ear to another. But I'm going to clear things up and tell the story the way it really took place.

I remember it well. And I should. As it turned out, it was my first brush with the police.

Every small town has its "characters," usually colorful folks who, for one reason or another, stand out from the crowd. Helen Harper was one such citizen. The main reason she stood out was because she weighed upwards of 400 pounds. There was a lot to stand out.

Helen once paid a visit to our town doctor and he ordered a physical exam. They needed to record her weight, so they sent Helen down to the grain elevator. It was the only place in Fullerton where there was a scale that would support her.

I would guess that Helen, at that time, was somewhere around 35 (which also happened to be her shoe size). She was married to a wiry little man in his 70s and they had at least eight children. She could have been hiding at least one or two more. Helen always looked like she was about to give birth to octuplets.

And talk about pushing her weight around. Rare was the person who messed with Helen.

Bell Telephone tried it. Helen was behind in paying her bill, so her phone was disconnected.

Take that, Helen! Yeah, right.

Upon discovering why her phone didn't work (I wonder if they called her to tell her she had no phone service), Helen ripped the telephone off the kitchen wall and wildly drove her blue Plymouth station wagon downtown to Ma Bell's business office where she slammed the phone down on the manager's desk, and told him quite plainly where he could stick his dial tone.

And that is where the Phone Booth Story begins.

It took place on a summer evening back in 1968. There were four of us young men who had wandered downtown, probably to get a Coke at Clara's Cafe, then to walk the small town streets looking for harmless adventures.

We had passed by the telephone company's branch office and turned at the corner where there sat, fittingly, a phone booth. We ventured on about a half block when we stopped and turned. The blue Plymouth station wagon had driven by and pulled up to the curb on the corner.

Helen Harper jiggled out from the driver's side and headed for the phone booth. Without phone service at home, this was her only alternative if she wanted to place a call.

Our curiosity got the best of us. We were extremely interested to see how this woman was going to fit into that phone booth. We figured it was worth watching. After all, teen aged boys will be boys.

Helen pushed on the glass doors and began stuffing herself inside the booth, filling every square inch. It reminded me of that famous old college prank where fraternity brothers would see how many of them could fit inside a phone booth. With just Helen in there by herself, it looked like the entire university.

What happened next was totally unrelated to our mission and, to three of us in our group, totally without reason. But, as Helen dropped in her dime and began dialing, one fellow among us, on a strange and fateful impulse, reached down and, in one fluid motion, scooped up a handful of gravel from the parking lot where we were standing. He reared back and let the rocks fly in the direction of the phone booth.

My two innocent cohorts and I stood frozen, watching in amazement. It unfolded like a slow motion movie. The spray of gravel pummeled the phone booth and that was followed by the sound of breaking glass. We could actually see the glass shatter and hear the bellowing of the woman inside the booth.

Suddenly we unfroze and began running. That's what level-headed teenagers do when they smell fear. They run like panic-stricken dogs.

After a couple of blocks, we stopped to gather our wits and three of us asked the perpetrator why he had suddenly decided to kill Helen. He had no reasonable answer. So we figured, he's on his own. We went our way and he went home.

The rest of the evening passed uneventfully. Later, we couldn't help returning to the scene of the crime. I guess we wanted to make sure there was no blood. Fortunately there wasn't, although glass was everywhere (along with four or five candy bar wrappers) and there was no sign of the station wagon.

The next evening, I was over to the house of one of the friends who had been with me the night before. We were alarmed when his dad sought us out and told us that one of our local policeman was in the living room and wanted to question us.

Sam the policeman was an aging, friendly sort and when we walked into the room, it showed in his eyes that he knew we hadn't done anything wrong, but he needed to know who had. He told us that Helen hadn't been injured in the incident the night before, but when he had arrived, she was standing on the corner violently shaking glass out of her big cotton tent of a house dress.

It seemed Helen had spotted a couple of girls across the street from the phone booth. Sam had tracked them down and asked them if they had seen anyone in the vicinity. They obliged and gave Sam our names. So we obliged and gave Sam the name of our friend who had launched the preemptive strike.

Now, come to find out, Sam had already been down to my house, so it wasn't long before my parents showed up to join the festivities. My dad was fit to be tied, mostly because I hadn't already mentioned anything about the previous evening to him.

He explained to me that running away was the worst thing a guy could do in that predicament. Somehow, I begged to differ. I just couldn't feature myself walking up to an angry 400-pound woman covered with shattered glass and saying to her, "Excuse me, but my friend over there took a sudden notion to watch a phone booth implode with you inside and I'll be glad to call a cop and have the lad sent up the river if you'll just promise not to sit on me."

Well, I think I was grounded for a week after that. The boy who threw the rocks had to make restitution. And, fortunately, Helen Harper never found out where I lived.

So, in a nutshell, that's the legendary Phone Booth Story, just the way it happened. And (sorry, Dad) but if I had it to do all over again, I'd still run like hell.

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Copyright 2011 by Wendel Potter

Have a Very Merry Whatevermas

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"A very merry Xmas and a happy New Year, Let's hope it's a good one without any fear." -- "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", John Lennon and Yoko Ono


John and Yoko must have been the original political correctionist officers.  But I'm sure they felt that, by replacing "Christ" with "X," they were spreading their season's wishes to everyone in the world, to all cultures, races and creeds.

When I was a small boy in Catholic school, our favorite teacher, Sister Attila -- we called her Attila the Nun -- made it very clear that saying "Xmas" was not proper. As a matter of fact, it would be pagan of us to say "Xmas," and for those who risked such an impropriety, the chances were pretty good of spending an eternity in hell, roasting like an Xmas goose.

"If you take out Christ, you won't have Christmas," she used to tell us.

That's true, I thought. Remove Christ, and we'd be left with plain old "mas." How weird would that be?

Change those traditional songs to "We Wish You a Merry Mas," "I'm Dreaming of a White Mas" and "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Mas," and they just wouldn't have the same ring or rhythm to them as the original versions.

Of course, keep in mind that, if you study the lyrics to those songs, you won't find any mention of Christ throughout except in the word Christmas itself. Nor will you in "Silver Bells" or "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer."

Why bring political correctness into the scheme of holiday things? I've known Jewish people who warmly exchanged "merry CHRISTmas" with me. I've also known folks who professed no real religious faith at all, but they didn't hesitate to share a cup of holiday cheer, nor did they rebuff me when I wished them a "merry CHRISTmas." They even wished it back right back.

With or without Christ, the message of peace and goodwill still rings out loud and clear like the peal of a church bell whenever a heartfelt "merry Christmas" is passed from the lips of one person to the ears of another.

The declaration that Christ is "the reason for the season" has been a fashionable Christmas sentiment over the past few years. People like catchy little phrases, especially if they rhyme. It's that Madison Avenue influence.

Surely Christmas,  as many of us know it, is rooted in the birth of Jesus. Of course, along the way, we've added traditions that stemmed from other cultures, like the Christmas tree, the lights, the holly and garland, the ornaments, the wonderful foods, the wrapping paper and bows and so on.

It's all been blended in a fabulous mix that delights us every December -- and keeps retailers' cash registers ringing.

At the same time, Christians shouldn't be so narrow as to assume we corner the market on Christmas, not where the true meaning of the yuletide spirit is concerned.

"Merry Christmas" isn't solely a religious greeting just because it contains "Christ." It so happens that it's a wonderful offering of friendship that happens to contains Christ's message: Love one another.

The way I see it, to spread that message must be the reason Jesus came to earth.  And not only Christmastime,  but all year long should be the season for the reason.

John and Yoko needn't have replaced Christ with X in order to reach people the world over with their song of peace. Today, we needn't say "season's greetings" or "happy holidays" merely as a politically correct substitute for "merry Christmas."

On the other hand, Christians should be sensitive to the beliefs that non-Christians hold dear to their own hearts. As long as everyone is on the same wavelength of peace on earth, goodwill toward men, does it really make a difference who the messenger is as long as everyone gets the message?

All I am saying, is give peace a chance.  And have a Merry Whatevermas.


Copyright 2010 by Wendel Potter

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My Lean Halloween Years by Wendel Potter

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As a youngster, I went through two dismal Halloweens with no tasty treats.
 
In Emmetsburg, Iowa, where I was born and lived until I was nearly ten years old, the Halloween celebration achieved a status that ranked right up there with the Fourth of July and V-J Day. Well, almost.

There weren't fireworks lighting up the sky after dark, but porch lights beamed from nearly every house in town, welcoming all the costumed goblins, ghosts, and witches to each door where treats o' plenty were doled out with great kindness and generosity. In a couple of hours' time, we kids hauled in more loot than the James' Gang after a train robbery, enough sweets to get our dentist gleefully warming up his drill and pricing winter homes in Jamaica.

Our M.O. was pretty much like that of Charlie Brown and the "Peanuts" gang. As soon as darkness had fallen, we'd all meet at one house, map out our 20-block strategy, then hit the ground running with large grocery sacks in tow. None of those tiny, plastic pumpkins for us! Volume was our goal.

Then one year Halloween came crashing down for me like a witch shot off her broomstick. We moved to another town across the state that discouraged the very fine art of trick-or-treating.

Worse yet, we lived there for two years! That means on two consecutive Halloweens I wasn't allowed to put on a mask and go door-to-door for candy.

Now this particular town had a twisted posture when it came to trick or treating. The civic leaders wanted to keep the kids home after dark and off front porches. Apparently, they figured if Halloween was assigned a low profile, then the town was less likely to suffer from the rueful tricks of Halloween-inspired vandals.

But their alternative to trick-or-treating stunk. The Chamber of Commerce staged a downtown parade for the youngsters and everyone who participated received a measly bag of tasteless sugar-free candy and was then scooted off the streets and sent home.

I was a well-practiced trick-or-treater. Not only was it not customary for me to walk in the door by seven o'clock on Halloween night, but to return home with less than forty pounds of goodies was a blow to my ego.

The kids in that town never balked at the deprivation, though. They didn't know any better. They hadn't experienced the joys of trotting from one house to another and being handed candy bars, caramel apples, and popcorn balls.

Personally, I was having a sugar fit! I lost weight during those two cruel years. The condition of my teeth even began to improve.

The poor dentist in that town lived in a tar paper shack and had no running water. I heard that he later moved to Pennsylvania where he set up shop across the street from the Hershey chocolate factory and became quite wealthy.

Fortunately we moved, too. We came west to Fullerton, Nebraska where trick-or-treating was happily in fashion and smiling porch lights and sugar highs were the order of the night on October 31st.

By that time, though, I was getting near the age when soon it would be no longer appropriate for me to dress up like a ghoul and demand candy from the citizens. There's a fine line between trick-or-treating and terrorism.

But I still feel like I was cheated out of those two Halloweens. It's just something you can never get back.

Or can you? Let's see. I'll need a mask and a large grocery sack and a map of the neighborhood...

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Copyright 2004 by Wendel Potter

Jade Needs A Sprinkling of Fairy Dust

Jade is our niece, my sister-in-law's granddaughter.  She's four years old and not much bigger than a two-year old.  

Her size is a sign, or symptom if you will, of a birth defect.  No one knew,  or even suspected.   They just thought she was small for her age.


Her mother was 16 when Jade was born.  Now, only 20, she's learning medical terms like "coarctation of the aorta".

She first heard of that just a couple of weeks ago, when Jade saw her family doctor for a persistent fever, then was hustled off to a specialist at the University of Iowa Health Center.

The aorta is the major artery leading out of the heart.  Coarctation means narrowing.  The effect is that the proper amount of blood is not being pumped through the body.

Heart surgery must be performed to remove the part of the aorta that has narrowed and a graft used to replace it.  Jade's surgery is scheduled for the morning of August 25.

This can be a very risky surgery for a four-year old.  The family has been assured that UIHC Children's Hospital is among the best in the country.  That's comforting.

But the real comfort  will come down the road, when Jade has recovered and can once again play dress up and be a fairy princess which is her very favorite thing.

For now, all Jade knows is that the doctors are going to fix her heart.  She doesn't understand congenital birth defects, coarctation of the aorta, or open heart surgery.


She's not afraid.  Children are only afraid of that which we make them afraid.  

So we are afraid for her.

If you pray, please say one for Jade.  If you don't pray, at least give her a thought.  Good karma, energy, whatever you want to call it, is welcome.

Right now, Jade can use a little sprinkling of fairy dust.  Perhaps we all can.


.....by Wendel Potter
wendelsworld@yahoo.com 

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