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Hello. My name is Ken. And I’m a pachydermophobic. That’s an irrational fear of elephants. But I don’t think it’s irrational, and you may not either after you have read my story.

I didn’t realize I had pachydermophobia until recent years. You see, my grandkids love to visit the Birmingham Zoo, and I enjoyed going with them. But I’ve had to stop. I was okay watching the lion. No problem with the giraffe. The zebra was beautiful. Even the snakes didn’t bother me. But when we got to the elephants, my heartbeat accelerated, I got fidgety and I just wanted to move on.

It’s not as though the elephants at the Birmingham zoo looked particularly threatening. Quite benign actually. Mostly they were just trying to cool off by using their trunks to toss water over their hides, or scoop straw into their mouths. My grands love watching them, and would do so all day, but I found myself trying to tug the kids away, bribing them with an offer of ice cream from the concession stand.

Silly you say? Ah, but you didn’t experience what I did all those years ago.

It was the late 1970’s and I was working as a local TV sports anchor at a station in Tallahassee, Florida. The circus had come to town and was looking to drum up publicity to advertise their shows. As a stunt, they invited local media folks to come and participate in an elephant race, knowing we would bring cameras and use it on the air. Free promotion. The event was to take place across the parking lot of the biggest shopping mall in town. My boss thought it would be a bit undignified to send his news anchors, but sports guys are, apparently, expendable, so he sent me.

The spectacle was scheduled early in the morning before the stores in the mall opened so the parking lot would be empty. I arrived with a videographer to find a surprisingly large number of spectators gathered around a pack of about six elephants lined up behind a makeshift starting line. I should have had misgivings when the circus people, even before introducing themselves, hurriedly presented me with a waiver to sign, absolving them from any liability.

Oh well, I thought. This will be fun. I pictured it would be kind of like those pony rides you take as a child, where the trainer leads you down the path, firmly holding the reins of the horse, walking at a leisurely, comfortable pace. As they showed me my ride, his name was Jumbo, I quickly realized this was no pony. You don’t really appreciate how massively huge an adult elephant is until you are standing at its feet. They used a hoist to lift me up to the animal’s shoulders. There was no saddle, no reins, nothing to hang on to. Jumbo was bare backed. Nobody from the circus seemed concerned about this, so I wasn’t either. After all, it would be just a gentle bounce as we toddled across the pavement.

My videographer set up on the sidewalk next to the finish line, about fifty yards away. The plan was for me to fun-lovingly smile and wave at the camera as I went by. Once all the media types had loaded up, a circus clown with a megaphone counted down from ten to start the race.

When the countdown reached zero, I saw a trainer off to the side snap a whip. Suddenly, Jumbo took off as though he was being chased through the Serengeti by a hungry lion. It was only then that I came to the horrifying realization that this was, indeed, a real race. I was bouncing around like a fishing pole bobber in lake waves. The back of Jumbo’s neck was so broad that I couldn’t wrap my arms around it to hold on, and it felt inevitable that I would eventually slip off to the side. Even more terrifying, Jumbo had about a two length lead on the other elephants, meaning that when I did fall off, I was going to be hopelessly trampled by the rest of the herd.

I have never been so absolutely paralyzed with fright in my whole life. I really felt as though I was going to die. And there it would be, captured on video for the world to see. Or maybe it would be so graphic that media outlets wouldn’t even show it. It would become one of those bootleg video clips you have to find on the dark web.

The actual race took only a few seconds. I really couldn’t tell. I was just barely conscious. I guess I held on somehow, and when they lifted me down off Jumbo, I was numb all over. Couldn’t feel my legs. I must have been white as a sheet because everyone seemed to be having a good laugh at my countenance. My videographer and I would later watch the video, and what was supposed to be a happy, playful wave to the camera was anything but. My eyes were as big as half dollars and the look on my face was one of absolute shock. It was so disconcerting, my producer decided not to use that part of the video on the air, instead just showing my getting on the elephant and the start of the race. I took the next day off.

Well, that was about 45 years ago. It’s taken awhile, but I’m better now. I have my pachydermophobia under control. Although, the other day, I was reading Horton Hears a Who to my grandson, and I did break out into a sweat.

There he is. The beach chair rental guy. He struts around with his sun bleached curly hair and his biceps. He thinks he’s such hot stuff with his flat stomach and bright orange swim trunks with the white stripes down the side. He always wears that brown panama hat………and he hates me.

No, really. He hates me. He must hate me, because every time we rent a tandem set of chairs from him he puts us in the worst seats on the beach. It’s become a dubious tradition. Every early September Sharon and I are finally able to get away for a few days to our favorite Orange Beach condo. And when I say we go to the beach, I mean that literally. We head to the waterfront and park our weary bodies on a lounger and watch the waves roll in. That’s all we do. We’re not there to shop, or visit the water park, or eat seafood, or swim in the pool, or go fishing.

We just want to relax under an umbrella, dig our toes in the sand, and let the rolling waves lull us to sleep. Our idea of activity is trying to read the banners trailing behind the advertising helicopters. They usually urge you to eat at the “world famous” local restaurant. Virtually every dining establishment on the beach claims to be world famous for something. Crabs, shrimp, calimari, sea shells that look like Barry Manilow, whatever it is, they are world famous for it.

No matter to us. We just want to bask in the hum of the roaring surf. Being basically a cheapskate, and lazy, I never invested in my own umbrella and chairs. Seems like a lot of effort. Dragging your own gear all the way down to the sand, desperately trying to dig that hole deep enough to keep your umbrella from dislodging in the wind and impaling a bystander. Why bother? We just rent a set when we get there. Of course, that means we have to deal with the chair rental guy. Did I mention that he hates me?

First of all, he always puts us in the most distant chairs. Once, we were so far away from the shoreline, I think my smart watch shifted into Eastern time. And you can be sure he will assign us a location right behind the large family that has erected a tent roughly the size of a small industrial warehouse. We can’t see the water, but we know it must be there because of all the sea gulls trying to eat the orange peelings the kids in the tent are throwing toward us.

Every few hours the rental guy will courteously visit other chair renters and offer to reposition their umbrellas so they can remain in the shade. Meanwhile we are usually left to pick up and tote our seats, like Lewis and Clark carrying canoes across a sand bar, in relentless pursuit of the shadows.

There was one occasion when he had put us a short cab ride from the water, and shortly afterward we noticed he set up a man right on the water’s edge, way closer than the other rentals. I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask him why. He explained that the man was blind and requested to be closer so he could at least hear the ocean.

Yeah, right. I’m pretty sure I saw the blind man playing volleyball about an hour later.

Even a person as thrifty as me reaches his limit. So this year I took the plunge. I bought all our own stuff. Our own umbrella, chairs, sand drill, cupholders, and the wagon with the wide sand wheels. The whole package. After loading it all up in the condo, I may have pulled several small muscles lugging the wagon into the elevator, down the walkway, and across the sand, but it was worth it. I made it a point to cross right in front of the rental guy’s little headquarters, where he sat with his boom box and his bodybuilding magazine.

I tried to sneer at him as I went by, but there was too much sweat pouring down my forehead to make my face visible. Anyway, I set up as close to the shoreline as I could. Even the blind man couldn’t have gotten closer to the water. I collapsed into my lounger, exhausted but feeling victorious.

After a few minutes, I noticed the rental guy was drilling umbrella holes in the sand just parallel to us. Again, I couldn’t help myself. I asked him why. He said because the beach is not crowded, he can move all the rentals up closer.

Obviously, he still hates me.

Sharon and I recently made the six and a half hour journey to Williamstown, Kentucky to take in the Ark Encounter. The magnificent structure is an intriguing mix of Bible fact and artistic license. The builders call it “ark-tistic license”.

You know the story. God told Noah to build the giant boat to the size of just under two football fields. Noah and his family, and thousands of animals, survived inside of it after forty days of rain washed out all life on the planet. The Bible supplies only limited detail about what the ship looked like and how it functioned. Because of this, many regard the story of Noah and the great flood as little more than legend.

To their credit, the builders of the Kentucky ark are very up front about having to fill in the gaps. The first thing you see when you board is a series of plaques explaining how much of it is based on Scripture, and how much needed to be guessed at, based on the resources available at the time.

I had no problem with this. After all, the mission of the Ark Encounter is not so much to convince you that the story of Noah is true. It is to convince you that it can be true, that you don’t have to suspend all rational thinking to accept it as fact. As such, the builders make a reality-grounded case that Noah and his clan, given enough time, could indeed have built it, gathered the animals, and navigated the flood, as per the biblical account. The exhibit also provides ample geologic evidence that such a flood did actually take place.

Of course, there had to be a few nods and winks to modern convenience to make the structure viable as a tourist attraction. I’m pretty sure Noah didn’t have ceiling fans, elevators and Coke vending machines, not to mention Uncle Leroy’s Candy Kitchen on the second deck. No matter. The large collection of visitors had little problem separating the meaningful from the marketing.

Speaking of the crowd, I probably did as much people watching as ark observing. I was fascinated by the diversity of the visitors, in age, gender, ethnicity, everything. At various times I heard folks around me speaking languages that sounded like German, French and Spanish. We met nice travelers from New York and Illinois. There were people from every stage of life. Seniors like me, young adults bringing their small children, teenagers in groups. I saw long hair, pink hair, nose rings and full body tattoos.

There’s a punch line in there about God sending two of every kind of human to the ark, but I’ll refrain.

I saw very little boredom. There was a palpable air of excitement. Everyone wandered the decks, read the plaques, watched the videos, stared wide-eyed at the displays. There were smiles. There was reverence. There was…..something else. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it vindication? Or just plain relief?

Most Christians want to believe the Bible, but it’s hard to keep doubt from creeping in because of some of the fantastical improbabilities. Adam and Eve, the parting of the sea, Jonah and the whale, David and Goliath, Daniel and the lions den. Does accepting the credibility of accounts such as these require some brand of blind faith that often must ignore what appear to be scientific facts?

Maybe not. Along comes the Ark Encounter. Here we see a logical, believable, realistic, step-by-step depiction of how the story of Noah and the flood can not only be true, but likely is so.

Perhaps that was it. That’s what I saw in the faces of so many visitors. The joy one feels when you discover solid evidence that supports what you so desperately want to place your faith in.

People today hear a lot of voices coming from a lot of different directions. We all have a need to believe in something, to invest our faith in a consistent source. If you find yourself twisting in the wind of troubled waters, take a trip to the ark. It just might help you drop anchor.

So, are you worried that the ongoing Hollywood writers and actors strike will affect your favorite TV programs in the fall?

Yeah, me neither.

Most of the new shows out there are agenda-driven tripe anyway. And it’s hard to feel empathy for the Hollywood crowd. I know the great majority of them are just aspiring folk struggling to make a living, but my admittedly stereotypical vision of them pictures a hedonistic culture full of excess, addiction and immorality.

There is one facet of the strike that does grab my attention. A key item among the demands is for limits and controls on the use of artificial intelligence, commonly known as AI. It’s been riveting to me to learn of how far the technology has come. I read, for example, that AI was used to make Harrison Ford look younger in the most recent Indiana Jones movie. In fact, the innovation is now capable of cloning an entire performer and assimilating his voice. Actors are legitimately concerned that they can, and ultimately will be replaced.

AI is equally a threat to the writers. Apparently, if you were to take all the existing scripts for a popular show, say Law and Order for instance, and feed them into the system, AI can learn how the show is written, and can create new scripts for new episodes without human help. The writers want assurances that TV producers will never let this happen.

I confess I am a bit puzzled about the union strategy. Seems to me the best way to make sure computers don’t take your job is to stay on the job and continue to do it well. Wouldn’t going on strike force your employer to use the very technology you are trying to squelch? Guess I don’t understand show biz.

Anyway, it’s their problem, right? AI is not a threat to you and me…..he wrote nervously.

In truth, most of us have little awareness of how much it already affects (controls?) our lives. Those ladies with the sultry voices inside our smart phones, Siri and Alexa, set alarms, look up information, and send text messages for us. Maybe you’re scrolling through your Facebook wall and come upon an ad for a Doobie Brothers concert coming to Oak Mountain Amphitheater. You click on it just out of curiosity to see what the tickets might cost. Then, as you resume scrolling, your newsfeed suddenly is cluttered with ads for concerts of all types. Somebody, or more accurately some thing, has tracked your activity.

You turn on your TV and the screen immediately suggests the shows it thinks you want to watch. It also customizes the commercials you will see. Automated customer service machines help you solve your tech problems without speaking to a human. Your smart phone activates by recognizing your face. You can watch live video of someone at your front door, even if you are a thousand miles from home. You can put it in control of your thermostat and refrigerator. You can use it to start your car when you are not in it. Soon it will drive the car.

All of this is super great, so long as we continue to be the ones deciding how to use it. But what if, one day, we get into our self-driving car and tell it to take us to the farmers market. It knows what sort of items you usually buy there, and has calculated you can get them cheaper at the grocery store, so it decides to take you there instead. “But I don’t want to go to the grocery store!” you shout to it. “I want to go to the farmers market!” No matter. The vehicle has already decided what is best for you, and off to Publix you go.

You turn on your TV and, on a whim, decide to watch the latest episode of The Bachelor, a show you haven’t watched in years. But your TV decides this is not a program that you have been interested in, and redirects you to a rerun of Andy Griffith. You scream at your television and hurl the remote across the living room, but Andy and Barney remain on the screen.

Sound like the stuff of a corny, old sci-fi movie? Maybe, but the technology already exists to do both of those things, and more. It also occurs to me that I could feed several of my past blogs into an AI computer, and the machine could start writing my columns without me. This won’t be hard for you to discern.

If my blogs suddenly become much more clever, insightful and smart, you’ll know I didn’t write them.

It finally happened. I knew it was just a matter of time, and I’ve been dreading it. I was shopping at one of Trussville’s big box stores and, after I had gathered my purchases, I strolled over to the checkout area searching for a cashier.

There were none.

There was only a bank of self-checkout machines, accompanied by a couple of watchful employees. So, we’ve finally gotten there. The time when checkers have been all but eliminated and we have to check ourselves out. I try not to be one of those people that hates change. But I don’t think I’m going to handle this well.

For starters, can we not standardize these these things so they all handle the same stuff? One machine takes cash only. One takes credit cards only. One takes cash and credit cards. One only takes cards from Southern Baptists. Another is for Capricorns.

Then there’s the search for the bar code. I’m convinced the packagers are entertaining themselves by deliberately trying to make them as hard to find as possible. Kind of like playing a game of Where’s Waldo. After rotating my can of paint for ten minutes in a futile attempt to find the code, I am rescued by the employee monitor, who seems annoyed at my incompetence. She points out the tiny code, which is located on the bottom of the back label, partially obscured by a sticker telling me this product is helping to save the environment. I’m not certain, but I could swear I saw the employee roll her eyes at me as she walked away.

The robotic female voice in the machine tells me to remove my items from the platform and bag them, unsympathetic to the fact the bags are too small to hold anything larger than a cantaloupe. “Take your receipt” she says. Glad to. Where is it? I have this uncanny ability to choose the machine that has run out of paper.

All the while I feel the heavy gaze of the monitors, watching me intently, the way a mother watches her toddler after telling him to stay away from the wet paint on the kitchen doorway. I have this fear of accidentally forgetting to scan one of my items, and immediately being led out of the store in handcuffs. You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you.

I blame Piggly Wiggly. Back in the early 1900’s, when grocery stores and supermarkets began to proliferate, the customers would give their shopping lists to the clerk, who would then gather your groceries, and bring them to you. But around 1916, the first Piggly Wiggly opened in Memphis, Tennessee, pioneering a radically new concept. They let the customers actually roam the aisles by themselves, gather their own items, and bring them to the checkout. It was the genesis of a nefarious plot to make the customers do more of the work, while the employees do less, making them more expendable. The experiment was so successful that in 1937 the company introduced the next step, the shopping cart. Now, not only did you have to pick out your own stuff, but you had to tote it to your car and load it.

As you can see, it was inevitable that, ultimately, the process would become complete when the customer would also have to check himself out. And here we are.

It’s not a total revolution just yet. Most stores still keep a checker or two available so that you have the option. Folks who choose to do self-checkout usually do so because they don’t want to stand in line. They feel they are saving time by doing it themselves. Want to know a secret? Studies have shown that most shoppers who have multiple items don’t get out of the store any faster using self-checkout than they do by waiting it out in the cashier line. It just seems faster because you are busy doing something.

I’m going to miss the cashiers once they’re gone for good. That friendly lady asking me if I’m having a good day, or how I like that new brand of toothpaste, or offering me a choice between paper and plastic. I’ll miss placing that wooden divider stick on the moving belt, protecting me from paying for the broccoli the lady behind me tried to sneak into my items. Little did she know I hate broccoli. It won’t be the same without arm wrestling my cart away from the aggressive bag boy, who insists on pushing it to the car, desperate to look busy so that he doesn’t get laid off.

Alas, no matter. The self-checkout is here to stay. I expect I’ll get used to it. Guess I’ll see you at the store. I’ll be the one down on my hands and knees trying to find the slot where the receipt comes out.

The Bible teaches us to love all people, and to love others as we love ourselves. But this can be very challenging, especially when it comes to those who are not like the rest of us.

I’m speaking, of course, about left-handed people.

Yes, lefties. You know who you are. The eight percent of human beings who need their own special scissors, golf clubs and spiral notebooks. The ones whose hands are always dirty because they drag them along the paper as they write something. The ones who complain that doors and refrigerators don’t open in the correct direction. In school they struggled because the desks were connected to the chairs on the wrong side.

They are different. They require certain adjustments to your lifestyle. I know this because I married a lefty. We learned, for example, that when Sharon and I go to a restaurant and sit on the same side of the table, I can never be to her left. Otherwise, by the time our meal has ended, our elbows and arms will be black and blue from banging into each other. I failed miserably at trying to show her how to swing a tennis racket or a golf club because everything is reversed.

Life hasn’t been easy for Sharon. When she was a child there was no such thing as a left-handed scissors, or at least they were very rare. She had to teach herself to cut with her opposite hand. Her grandmother insisted she hold her spoon in her right hand. Grandma’s generation thought of lefties as being defective, even handicapped. Some went so far as to believe they were possessed by an evil spirit. I’ll bet you didn’t know that the word “sinister”, which connotes evil or darkness, comes from a Latin word that literally translates to “on the left side”.

The entire English lexicon has been unkind to southpaws. If you come up with an idea that is crazy or stupid, it is said to be coming “out of left field”. If you insult someone but phrase it in a nice way, it is “a left-handed compliment”. One who is clumsy and uncoordinated might be considered to have “two left feet”.

I have found it helpful to think of lefties as being, not so much different, but “special”. There’s actually some evidence of this. Lefties are considered to be more creative. Leonardo Da Vinci and Helen Keller were left handed. So were Michelangelo and Aristotle. Left-handers tend to excel in the fine arts, such as music (Mozart, Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix, Lady Gaga) or theater (Julia Roberts, Keanu Reaves, Morgan Freeman, Judy Garland, Charlie Chaplain).

Some of them are smart and enterprising too. Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Madame Curie and Julius Caeser were all left-handed. Prince William as well. I read somewhere that, whenever William and Kate are side-by-side in front of a crowd, William will always be to Kate’s left, so that he can wave to the masses with his dominant hand.

Left-handed athletes are considered to have an advantage. Babe Ruth and LeBron James are good examples. Two of Alabama’s most famous quarterbacks, Kenny Stabler and Tua Tagovailoa, threw with the wrong hand.

Lefties even have their own special day. In fact it is coming up shortly, on August 13.

Still, despite my best efforts, I find myself subconsciously biased against these unfortunate folks. I hand a ball to my two year old grandson and encourage him to throw it back. I always put the ball in his right hand. Sometimes he tosses it back, other times he transfers the ball to his left and chucks it. Guess he hasn’t decided yet. Scientists still don’t know exactly why we choose one hand over the other. Statistics seem to indicate that genetics play a role. Another theory is that it has to do with how the baby is positioned in the womb. Others think the mother watched too many Three Stooges movies while pregnant.

I just figure God intended for everybody to be right-handed. After all, when you take an oath to tell the truth in court, “so help you God”, you are told to raise your right hand, not your left. Soldiers are told to salute with the right hand. During the pledge of allegiance, “one nation, under God”, we are told to place our right hand over our hearts.

But not to worry, lefties. God still loves you. And so do the rest of us. We’ll just try our best not to notice while you put your belt on backwards.

Let me apologize in advance if this column seems a bit incoherent. I just woke up from a nap. Which is weird. Because I didn’t plan to take a nap. It just sort of happened. I was sitting there in the living room watching TV, and I nodded off. I think I was out about thirty minutes.

This seems to be a growing trend. For the great majority of my life, the only place I’ve ever been able to sleep is in the comfort of my own bed, at night. I’ve never been able to nap during the day. I’ve always been envious of people who can sleep at will, any time, anywhere.

My dad was great at that. He would come home from work, eat dinner, sit down in his recliner, and within five minutes he was out, mouth wide open, in full snore mode, sound asleep. When he took me to the barber shop for a haircut, which took about fifteen minutes (it doesn’t take long to get a flat top), Dad would spend that time zonked out on a chair in the waiting area. If he had thirty minutes to wait before dinner was ready, he would announce he was going to use the time for a power nap. And he did, conking out almost immediately. In church he got many a jab in the ribs from mom, who would catch him drifting off.

I’ve had friends with the same ability. They could nap on demand, just by closing their eyes and leaning back on something, anything. The other day I was leading a Bible study and, halfway through it, two members of the group had fallen asleep. Some leaders may have been annoyed. I was actually more jealous than anything else. I could never sleep in the middle of a gathering of any kind.

I never slept well in hotels, could never drop off in airports or in a car. I always want to be the driver on long family journeys, because it’s so boring being a passenger, and not being able to sleep. You can only read so many billboards, or watch so many farm fields rolling by, hoping to spot a cow or a horse, or a disgruntled farmer frowning at you because you are in an air conditioned car, and he is not.

But now, as I navigate through my septuagenarian years, all of that seems to be changing. I find myself dozing off all over the place. Watching TV in the living room, reading a book, working a crossword puzzle, or brainstorming a column. It’s so strange. Kind of like losing time off your life. One minute I’m sitting there watching Pat Sajak and Vanna White come out at the opening of Wheel of Fortune. The next thing I know, they’re congratulating the winner of the bonus round and the closing credits are rolling. What happened? Thirty minutes of my existence passed and I can’t account for it.

What makes my unscheduled siestas embarrassing is that, when I do fall asleep, I become my father’s son. Just like him, my jaw automatically drops like a broken drawbridge and my yap is wide open. The result is a snore that, I am told, rivals the roar of any train bustling through Trussville. It is loud enough that our little dachshund jumps up on my chest and licks my face just to make it stop.

The ironic part about these unintentional snoozes is that I feel groggier when I wake up than I did before. Which makes me wonder, are frequent naps a good or a bad thing? Naturally, I consulted that unimpeachable source of credibility, the internet. Of course, immediately, I found two completely conflicting answers. One article stated napping restores energy level, makes you more alert, and may even improve your memory. The next article revealed napping can be a sign of diabetes, heart disease and depression. (deep sigh)

Well, I’ve decided I’m not going to worry about it. I’m going to think of it as just part of the natural process of growing older. My sweet mother lived to be 103. She was sharp as a tack until the final few years, and she napped every day. Sometimes all day.

It turns out there is a real art form to napping. Researchers say you should nap in the early afternoon, between one and three pm. Try to relax some place where it’s dark and quiet. Turn off your electronics. Avoid caffeine and alcohol. They also say you should keep your naps very short. Fifteen minutes or less. Set an alarm if you have to. They claim even just five minutes is helpful.

Really? Five minutes? Hardly seems worth the effort. My snoring hasn’t even had a chance to build up to wind tunnel volume in five minutes.

This would mean that, in the time you took to read this column, you could have instead taken a nap, woke up, and felt refreshed and more energetic.

I probably shouldn’t have told you that.

(You can read more from Ken at kenlassblog.net)

The elderly man worked his way up to the third floor of the church building where his Sunday morning bible study class takes place. As he enters the room, he is greeted warmly. Everyone is excited to see him because he’s been absent the past two months after having knee replacement surgery.

It also happens to be his birthday. One couple brought donuts for the class to celebrate the occasion. He is ninety years young on this morning. Once the group is called to order, the man’s presence is acknowledged, and he receives a round of applause. He is, by far, the oldest member of the gathering, and one lady asks him if he has anything he wants to say.

He thinks for a moment, searching for words. “I guess all I want to say is, I wonder why I’m still here. God must have a purpose for me, but I don’t know what it is. I just wonder why I’m still here.”

Now there’s a question. And you don’t have to be ninety years old to ask it. In fact, it might serve all of us well to ask it of ourselves.

All too often, it seems we’re just here to get through the day. Just to get done with all the tasks, appointments and commitments on our calendar. Our mission is to finish the day’s work so we can have a little fun in the evening, or just relax.

We learn to put aside that discomforting fundamental question early on. As younger adults, our long term goals are commonly financial. Got to work hard to earn enough money to acquire the lifestyle that we desire for our family and ourselves. By middle age we begin to achieve that lifestyle and try our best to make time to enjoy it. It’s also time to lay the groundwork for the senior years. At retirement age, we focus on health and family and the rising cost of staying alive.

It can be joyous, worrisome, exhausting and time consuming, all at the same time. But does any of it have anything to do with why we’re here? Or is there even an overriding purpose for existing? (I know, we’re getting heavy and deep now. Indulge me for a moment.)

Of course, there is the school of thought that the answer is no. There is no ultimate purpose to life. All of existence is random. The universe is just a series of chemical and biological reactions unraveling with no control. History is merely unfolding organically.

It’s comfortable and easy to accept this. It lets us off the hook for not making the effort to meet any kind of moral standard. It gives us permission to make our lives self-centered. We exist to make ourselves happy. Anything we do to provide for others makes them happy, which in turn, makes us happy. It’s ultimately about us.

Yet somehow, if we are honest, we intuitively sense this is wrong. Ultimate satisfaction, if there is such a thing, remains elusive. Call it peace if you like. We observe the physical world around us and the obvious conclusion is, there must be more. Achieving all the material goals seems only to create an appetite for more of them. We read daily about the rich and famous, folks who have acquired all the material treasures we can only fantasize about. Still, their lives are riddled with addiction, divorce, perversion and, often, mental illness. They achieved what they thought their purpose was, and it proved inadequate.

So then why are we here? If not for personal gratification, then what?Could you state an answer in a simple sentence? It’s not easy to do. Even a ninety year old man, with all the wisdom of his age, still has to ask the question. But in doing so, keep in mind, he added “I know God has a purpose for me”.

He didn’t realize it, but those eight words were the most profound thing he could possibly say. They encapsulated his witness. His testimony. Knowing and trusting the source of your existence, is a great step toward defining it.

I think he just did.

Another Father’s Day is almost upon us. I’m having trouble comprehending that it’s been thirty-three years since Dad died of cancer back in 1990. I remember everything about him so vividly, the sound of his voice, his favorite shirt, the little sayings he loved to quote.

To understand my dad is to understand the family model of his generation. He was the undisputed, unquestioned king of his castle. The leader and authority figure of the family. All other members, including my mom, were subservient. Which is not to say he didn’t love us or take good care of us. He did. He was a hard working, excellent provider. He loved my mom with all his heart and soul. He didn’t spend a great deal of time with his three boys, but we knew we could count on him when the chips were down.

Yet we all understood that this family was a monarchy, not a democracy. He was the decision maker, the final word. Nothing of any consequence could take place without his knowledge and approval. He was also in charge of enforcement and punishment. He was not a “send-you-to-your-room” guy. His discipline was physical and swift. A hard spanking, and then it was over. As the youngest, I received fewer than my older siblings, but what I did get certainly got the point across.

Dad was a salesman, on his feet pretty much all day. When he got home from work, he was usually exhausted. Mom would have dinner ready. We ate on his schedule.

Like many dads, perhaps like yours, he had his chair in the living room. His chair. His place of refuge. After dinner, he would collapse into his brown recliner, grab the TV remote control, and turn on the news. Within five minutes, he was sound asleep, snoring loudly. Amazingly, somehow, some way, even in deep slumber, he had the ability to notice when one of us kids tried to change the channel to cartoons. Immediately he would open his eyes and yell in a stern voice “Turn that back! I was watching that!” With the news back on, he would quickly resume his nap.

Most nights, he almost never rose up out of that chair. He was a major league TV watcher. He loved westerns, variety shows and war movies. Especially war movies. As a World War Two Army veteran, he would scan those films intensely, looking for things that weren’t accurately portrayed. “Look at that gun he’s holding” he would say, pointing at the TV. “Those things weren’t even built until the 1950’s”. He had great delight in spotting an example of Hollywood taking dramatic license.

He’d watch the late news, the late night talk shows, and the late, late night talk shows. In those days, TV stations would sign off a little after midnight, usually with a devotional of some sort, followed by the national anthem. Dad would be there til the screen went to static.

The rest of us watched what he watched. Only rich folks had multiple TV’s in the house. Like most families, we had just the one, a Motorola console in a brown cabinet, with cables running up through the ceiling to the roof antenna. In the morning Mom would get to watch her soap operas, her “stories”. After school we would get to put on Woody Woodpecker and Huckleberry Hound. But once Dad got home, the set was his domain, no questions asked.

Restaurants were strictly a weekend treat for us and Dad picked the place, usually the local fish fry on Friday night. Sometimes he would bring home a bucket of fried chicken. He would set it down in front of himself at the table, open it up, pick out the two best pieces of white meat in the container, then pass it on. Nobody complained.

If the family was in the car together, Dad did all the driving, even when my older brothers were old enough to drive. He mowed the lawn and washed the car, but never, ever helped in the kitchen. That was women’s work. I idolized him. He was my hero, my role model.

The American family dynamic has evolved a lot since then. Husbands are no longer dominant in most families. Wives are working full time outside the home and are, at the very least, considered equal partners in the household, if not the leading influence. Spanking children is now commonly frowned upon. Many men not only help in the kitchen, but do the majority of the cooking. Have the changes been positive for our culture? I suppose it depends on your point of view.

I do know that Dad would have had a difficult time adjusting to it. But he would have, because, deep down, he loved us more than he did his place of authority.

And that’s the thing I will most remember every Father’s Day.

I arise out of bed around 6:30 in the morning. After washing up and getting dressed, I walk into the kitchen and approach the closed laundry room door. As I push the white door open, for the first time in fourteen years, our little brown, short-haired mini-dachshund Oscar does not come bolting out.

His bed is still there. His water and food dish are empty and stacked on top of each other. A half filled bag of dog food remains on the floor next to the dryer. On top of the dryer are two cans of soft dog food. We tried everything to get him to eat and gain weight toward the end. Sharon even made boiled chicken and rice for him. Nothing seemed to replenish his energy or put meat on his bones.

We sit down at the table in the kitchen. I have made scrambled eggs and bacon for Sharon and me for breakfast. Oscar should be standing on the floor beneath us, his large brown eyes giving us his best sympathetic beg for food look. If none is forthcoming, he might actually jump up on our lap at the table. Sometimes he would lose his balance in the effort and tumble backwards to the floor, then spring up as if to say “I meant to do that”. He wasn’t hurt and we would laugh hysterically.

After breakfast we go out for our morning exercise stroll down the local river walk. Several friendly faces come by the opposite way with their dogs on a leash. Just the way we used to walk Oscar down this path virtually every morning. We would get annoyed at his frequent stops to sniff a leaf or a pine cone. He loved these walks. People came to know him and greet him by name at the park.

We sit in the living room to relax, perhaps watch a little TV, or read, or peruse social media. Sharon and I have side-by-side rocker recliners. As soon as we sat down, Oscar would pick one of us, usually Sharon, jump up on her chair, and snuggle into her hip, gradually dropping off into a contented nap. If Sharon has to get up out of the chair to go do something, Oscar immediately comes to the other chair and nestles in with me. He disliked being alone. He relished human contact. As he got older he couldn’t manage jumping up on to the chairs any more. We bought him a set of dog steps so that he could climb up to us.

Today we are both sitting there in our chairs. Even though we are right next to each other, we can’t help feeling a bit lonely. Our little buddy is not there to snuggle.

We decide to go out for lunch. It is automatic that any time we leave the house together, we must first take the dog out. It is branded into our brains. I find myself going to get his leash. It takes a moment to realize there’s no need. We open the kitchen door leading down the steps to the garage to get in the car. We have always had to remember to close that door behind us, otherwise Oscar will come down and roam the basement. It occurs to me that it no longer matters. Door open, door closed, there’s no one to escape.

Oscar had the uncanny ability to know when it was 5pm. That was his feeding time. He would confront us and bark at us, letting us know what time it was. His tummy was as reliable a clock as a sun dial.

Evening has come. It’s time to hit the bed. There’s no need to tell Oscar what time it is. When we turn the TV off, he immediately jumps down and heads into his laundry room bed, anticipating his good-night snack. But on this night I grab the remote and push the power button. The screen goes black, but there is no thump as he hits the floor. No pitter patter of little paws tapping on the kitchen tile and fading into the laundry room. No snack to hand out.

It’s hard to comprehend how much Oscar was a part of our daily life routine. The decision to put him down was one of the toughest we have ever had to make. The veterinarian assured us it was the right thing to do, before he entered the suffering stage. Oscar drifted off to his final sleep in our arms, peacefully enjoying our caresses.

I find myself in emotional gridlock. I want another dog, another companion. But I don’t think I can handle this kind of heartbreak again. We’ve said good-bye to other pets in the past, and it just keeps getting harder. Maybe it’s because we are getting older and approaching our own mortality. I guess I wrote this blog as a kind of self therapy. I apologize if it brought you down. Oscar brought us a lot of joy and I’m sure eventually we will remember only the good times. We gave him a good life and he returned the favor.

Pets give us something we seldom find in fellow humans: Unconditional love. Oscar gave us fourteen years of it.

Turns out it wasn’t enough.