Tag Archives: family

Life and character around the family table

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It is surprising how common everyday objects that we hardly notice become a crucial part of our lives and we don’t even realize it. I am writing of the humble table we all have in our homes. About the most time we ever spend thinking about our table is before we buy it. After that about the only attention it really receives other than cleaning, is when company is coming, and we are trying to make it look as pleasing as possible.

When we were in school most of us did our school work on our table, either in the kitchen or in the dining room, before or after dinner. When there was no homework, it was the weekend, or we could not go outside, we play games on the same table. Fortunes are won and lost, as properties were traded and real estate moguls were created. Both amazing, and lucky plays are made playing our board and card games. Pacts are made with other players only to be broken when it seemed it was the worst possible time for us. We were heroes or zeros in the roll of the dice, or the flip of a card.

The real character of our family members, and friends comes through depending on how they conduct themselves while winning or losing, and how they play the game. Cheating is found out and dealt with severely in this game, or encouraged in another game. Losing poorly is punished, as is gloating too much when winning. Our opponents around the table are quick to point the weak spots in our play, and our personality, of course they smile as we lose, and they push our buttons to make us angry.

As we became more worldly, games with real money take the place of our other games. Small but real mini fortunes are made and lost, bragging rights established, and we learn a little more about the value of money, especially if we lose some of ours. After a given time most of learn that money is too hard to earn and too easily lost to play with in games of chance. Unless it is a holiday, and the family is getting together, and we feel lucky.

As we became older, we sit at the table and make life decisions. We plan out our future, our weddings, funerals, and pay or not pay our bills depending on how life is going this month. We listen to salesman trying to make a buck by selling us something we really do not need, and probably can not afford. We share meals with family and friends. We listen to the woes of others and others listen to ours, across the table.

We peel potatoes, slice carrots, do science projects, and hopefully learn the value of service to others at the table. When we are setting the table we usually think about the person’s place we are putting the plate down for, and what we think of them that day. Whether we are happy with them, angry, hurt, or indifferent to them. If we are angry with them, they will get the worst plate, cup, and silverware. If it is company, we are wondering why they are here, and what stories they will have for us to hear since their last visit. They always see and use the best we have in the cupboard.

At the end of the day we sit around the table and talk about times past. Those stories someone thinks are important to family knowledge. They tell a story they learned from someone no longer around any longer. Sometimes we have coffee, milk, or tea to make the time either special, or bearable depending on how important it was to you that day. Don’t forget the pie or cookies….

In many cases, our lives, when they come to an end, there is no need for scales to weigh the good and bad, to see how they balance out. All that is really needed is all the tables we sat at throughout our lifetime. Such stories those tables could tell about the real us.

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Take charge of your life

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John Vorhaus, noted poker player and author, coined an interesting phrase when talking about poker players. I believe it applies beyond poker, although it is much easier to explain in the context of a poker game.

If you have never played poker, perhaps you have seen the game played on television? Ten players sit around a table at their designated seats. In a regular casino game, also known as a ring game, seat selection is random. If you are sitting in a seat you do not like it, as soon as someone leaves their seat, and no one else has asked for a seat change, you are usually allowed to take the seat just vacated. Although there are exceptions, this is generally how it works.

Mr. Vorhaus noted an interesting situation which happens at the poker tables where people should change their seats for various reasons but do not. The term Mr. Vorhauss coined is, “ass glue”. Unfortunately I suffer from it more than I should. On a side note, if you are an aspiring poker player, Mr. Vorhauss has some excellent books, you may wish to add to your poker library. For the rest of us, we sometimes let ourselves be glued into our current situation all to easily.

It is easier not to find a better job, take some classes, read a self help book, or even learn to appreciate our job and do it better than it is to do nothing. For some of us being glued in place is our day to day personal life. We go through the same routine each day. A routine we really are not that happy with, but we do it anyway.

We finish up our day and it was the same as the day before. This ‘glue’ happens in all areas of our life! We did this activity or set of activities twenty years ago, and we are still doing them today. We have fallen in love, married, have children, and still try to live as we did before love, marriage, and family. Then we wonder why we are not happy, and our family is not happy.

As painful as the idea sounds we have to rip our selves out of the chair and live our life! We need to have new adventures, experience new hobbies, and gain new friends. This does not mean leaving your family behind while you go and do these things. Bring them with, and have fun as a family! This should be what our life is about, for most of us at any rate.

Once you are out of your parents house and starting your own life, you are now in a time period known as – the rest of your life. The rest of your life may end in thirty seconds, later today, tomorrow, or decades from now, but it will end sometime.

One thing is certain, you will never be more alive than you are right now, nor will your family, friends, and friends to be. No one you know or will know will ever be as alive as they are right now! We have all heard of someone who worked and saved all their life for that wonderful retirement only to have it snatched from their fingers by some tragedy. Don’t let that person be you!

Change is good, everything changes, nothing stays the same. If you are fortunate in your life, you will live long enough to get old! You will think about the good times you had when you were young. It is horrible to be old and think about all the things you could have done, but did not.

Reality is that some of us reading this right now will not wake up tomorrow. Go do things today! Use your body, it has no use beyond what you do with it. Life will be much more satisfying when you think back on all the things you tried and did, whether they worked or not, than to sit and think about all the things you could have done or were going to do, but did not. Do not let glue control your life.

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Family memories on the porch

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I spent the day out of town visiting family today. I always enjoy visiting family. It is nice to see the kids, and how they grow. Listening to their views and occasional embellished stories is always special. Some of their funniest stories come from things they observe, or have recently happened at their school, especially when they are animated while they tell me their tales.

One of the best parts of being here, is sitting on my Mother-In-Law’s porch. The porch faces the street in a mostly quiet neighborhood. It is an old part of a small town, and unfortunately there are a few abandoned houses on the block. I like to think that is a sign of a well used neighborhood, and not a run down part of the town.

There are a lot of memories surrounding that old porch. I can sit there and think about years past, when there was a holiday and all the family would be there. We would play games, eat, and have fun laughing and joking. I remember a lot of family barbeque’s, that took place by that porch. There were many Fourth of July celebrations from when the nephews and nieces were old enough to participate.

The street would be filled with pops and bangs, smoke, bottle rockets, and of course firecrackers. The kids would be fearlessly wading through the smoke and waste paper, trying to light their next firework, and then running to get another. Some years this off the porch view was better than the city displays I have seen, if not in size, then certainly in duration.

Then there were the quiet afternoon chats with family members, and friends on the porch. Solving world problems, planning the next family get together, or family group vacation. Many years ago the family went as a group to northern New Mexico. The planning was started many months in advance by one family member. As always, on the porch conversation and planning took place before the actual event arrived. All the who, when, and what time questions were discussed sitting in the shade on that porch.

This year most of the family took off to California to see the sights in and around Los Angeles. Because the family is grown up with their own families, and spread out over the state, conversations on the porch were mostly done in reflection, or between two or three members of the family at one time.

I sometimes wish I could move that porch a little closer to where I now live. That way whenever I wanted to think about all the things that took place sitting or are standing around the porch, it would be close by. Other days, I am happy the porch is so far away, because like all memories, that is what they are. They can be relieved over and over in my mind. As with all memories, that is all they are, a marker of time that has mostly long since past.

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Belief and a child’s thinking turned adult

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One day, perhaps relaxing at the lake, or maybe camping I had an interesting thought. For no reason I started pondering why do I think what I think? Why do I believe what I believe? I thought this was interesting because before this moment I never stopped to think about why I believed what I did. Could I have built a whole belief system without ever thinking how these beliefs came to be so ingrained in me?

I started down the process of what I believed and why. Some of my earliest memories floated into my thoughts. One that I remember fondly is my parents sitting on the couch smoking cigarettes, and talking quietly. The sunshine was pouring its rays in through the windows. It must not have been summer time because all the windows were closed.

So here I am, a young child, and the room is filling with small billowing clouds of cigarette smoke floating in the air, looking like approaching fog in a scary movie. I remember sitting on the floor looking at the clouds of smoke moving lazily around the room filling up the clear spots. Just like the clouds I would see outside. I thought how fun it would be to fly through them!

So I did want any little kid would do seeing the smoke and thinking about the clouds outside. I stood up, put my arms straight out from my side and pretended to be an airplane as I ran around the room tilting to and fro. It is such a happy memory from when I was a child. Everything was right with the world. As young children we play, sleep, and play some more, such is our world at that age.

My next thought was thinking about my beliefs and why did I start smoking when I did? I thought of all the not smoking teaching I had in school when I was older, not the specifics, but the general pertinent points. I remember coming home from school and parroting to my folks how bad smoking was for them, and asking them if they would quit? Back in those days, some doctors still advised their patients to either take up smoking because it would help them relax, or keep smoking for those same reasons. My parents doctor was in that group, so they said.

When smoking and other poor health habits caught up with my Dad, he was forced to go to the hospital having a major heart attack. Not the minor ones, he thought he had suffered from previously that he chose to blame on indigestion. He lived through that heart attack, and was instructed by the doctor that treated him to quit smoking, and start walking at least a mile a day.

One of my fathers brothers had a heart attack within the year (same health habits), and the doctor gave him the same instructions. Quit smoking and exercise to heal his heart and lengthen his life. I remember my Father and Uncle talking after my uncle had been released from the hospital. They were sitting on the porch smoking, discussing their heart attacks and the doctors instructions. It did not take them long to agree the doctors were wrong. They agreed that quitting smoking, and exercising would place too much dangerous stress on their hearts. It would probably kill them. They both agreed with this thought, sitting on the porch smoking.

As I worked through this line of smoking, I knew why it was so easy for me to start smoking. I knew then much of what I believed in, and sometimes believed in strongly came from the earliest memory’s of my world as a child. Almost everything from what foods I did and did not like, to my faith was an auto install from when I was a child. It sure was disconcerting to think that a large part of my belief system came from a time when I was too young to question what was going on in my young child life. I felt suddenly like I was standing at the edge of he Grand Canyon. So started the journey of evaluating almost every thought and belief I ever held. I was already a non smoker by this time…thankfully.

Once I arrived at this point, I knew why they believed what they did, and how haphazard my own beliefs might be. It is a serious undertaking to think that everything you think you know may be wrong and you are living in a belief system that is built on sand that could wash away any moment. I have found it is better for my life, to go through the validating, and throw away process of everything I believed in than to simply wrap myself in what was the cotton candy forming the bedrock of my life.

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