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The Useless Microphone
I‘m sitting in an audience, straining to hear the speaker. “Why?” you ask. I’ll tell you. The microphone is too far away from the dude’s mouth. All he needed to do was move closer to the microphone, and, BAM, his little voice would be amplified, and we’d hear him. But he doesn’t. Why do rational people refuse to use microphones? Why do they believe that the conversation level of their voices will carry through a large room? I once sat in a large meeting room in San Antonio, Texas, that could hold 500 people. An Army JAG Colonel was talking about career progression in the JAG Corps. I was interested,…
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Lame Claim to Fame
To successfully navigate the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, one must have a sponsor to steer the drunk from continuing on his or her destructive path. My dad had just such a sponsor. He is the guy in the photo. I’ve listened to my dad, through smoke-filled rooms, give testimony to his life with and without alcohol. I preferred without. Thankfully, he did too. After sitting through more than a few AA meetings, I’m convinced that all alcoholics really just trade alcohol for coffee and cigarettes. In our little town in South Alabama, there was a house on the banks of a small river. In this house, converted to a…
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The Russian Lesson
In the next room, I hear the unmistakable chatter of a foreign language. Actually, I hear my bride, Inna, speaking Russian, which is not all that unusual as she was born and raised in the land of matryoshkas (see picture), permafrost (be thankful you don’t have it), and, well, more snow. Inna is teaching Russian to one of my daughter’s friends, who wants to be a translator. Although she can speak a few sentences, they’re starting with the alphabet. Which of course, is a great place to begin. My youngest is also sitting in. But she has an unfair advantage. She’s heard Russian from her mother and grandparents since the…
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Living on Russian Time
Ivan Ivanov (not his real name) was a pretty important person in his little town in Russia and was involved in a lot of building projects. I’m not sure if his work included the statue of Lenin near the airport (or the one at just about every street corner in town). This project was to be completed by the end of the calendar year. Which sounds reasonable. Unless there just isn’t enough time to complete said project by the end of the year. Then, there could be problems. The government was making an addition to the hospital and it was crucial that the project must be completed before December 31.…
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Chapter Endings
Also: One day at a time… At the time, I thought the years (actually only six weeks) that I had spent in basic military training at lovely Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio were the worst. But the next day after graduation (and after having been awarded honor graduate for my “skills” as guidon during honor flight competition) I stepped onto a chartered Greyhound bus headed north for Wichita Falls, TX (which conveniently was a mere 9,990 miles away) I contemplated the past six weeks. The past six weeks? They really weren’t that bad, I thought. I got into great physical shape after having gained a great deal of…
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Learning To See Clearly
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash We’re at a little church that we’ve visited several times lately. It’s just a big country church with good, friendly people. Nothing fake here. There is one problem, however. And I hate to bring it up. But … There are pieces of artwork on either side of the front wall, on both sides of the preacher. It’s metal ironwork with curves and circles. The iron forms a fleur de lis, a flower lily. It’s the symbol that the New Orleans Saints NFL football team uses. It’s also the symbol numerous churches have used for thousands of years. Sometimes people use the fleur de lis to refer to…
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Coinage from Heaven
I’m six years old. And like normal six-year-olds, I am fidgety, shifting my little body back and forth in a wooden church pew in a community called Plateau, which, by the way, most people mispronounce. I’m clutching coins in my hands. They’re mostly pennies, a few nickels, and some dimes. But, no quarters. I would have kept those. A minute earlier, my mom had handed me the now tightly clutched coins in preparation for, “The Collection.” This was not a particularly joyful occasion. Judging by the looks on peoples’ faces, I’d say it was more like a romantic breakup. “Goodbye. I’ll miss you, little dollar. Write me!” Then, the obligatory…
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A Love Story in Winter
I twirled her around a few times while the soft moonlight filtered and fractured its way through the frozen branches of a row of nearby birch trees. It was this magical moment that one simply cannot replicate in the warm and mostly snow-less climate of central Arkansas. But I was in Russia and for me, everything — everything about that place was educational, motivational, and intoxicating. This was one of those intoxicating moments. I had met this smart, talented, and beautiful northern woman weeks earlier. A few minutes earlier, we had taken some toys to an orphanage and were now walking through the snow and ice back to her home. Now before…
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Happy Paternal Unit Day, Papa
As a new paternal unit, I pondered what I wanted to be called by our children. For some reason, I wanted them to call me Papa. I’m not sure why. Maybe because that’s what their mother had always called her paternal unit in Russia where she was born and raised. Papa. I liked the sound of it. Like millions of families, our girls heard a mixture of two languages in their first few years. The one I liked to hear was, “Papa.” “Where’s Papa?” “Papas’ home.” “Papa’s going to class.” “Go tell Papa we’re ready to eat.” “Papa’s going to read you a story.” I very much loved being called…
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The Power of a Wrong Word
I’m on a bus in northern Russia. Our small group consisted of my future mother-in-law, a friend named George, and me. We were headed somewhere in town. My Russian skills then, like now, were nonexistent, but I want to tell my mother-in-law something. I needed to tell her the one thing that all women worldwide appreciate hearing from a man. I want to tell her to calm down because well, she did need to. Or so I thought. I turn to George. “George, what’s the Russian word for “relax?” Because what could go wrong? Am I right? We were both single, so neither had any real substantive thought process going…
