 |
| Photo by Kevin Botterman |
I was thinking the other day about the various chores Dad assigned to me and my sibling to keep the family home in good order.
My duties included mowing the lawn, which I assumed as a responsibility during the third grade. During the winter months I helped clear snow from the sidewalks and driveway. I also was responsible for running a vacuum over the carpeting in the family living room and in the dining room. I actually enjoyed my outdoor chores and indoor assignments.
I shared dish-washing duties with my siblings. Dad supplemented our regular weekly chores with season-specific projects and tasks that all of us were expected to lend a hand with.
We also were expected to keep a tidy room and look after our personal belongings, but I failed at those tasks.
My parents purchased a two-story, wood-framed house at 32 S. Mitchell in Arlington Heights in 1966. The house served as my family’s headquarters for more than 30 years. Mom sold the house and relocated a few years after Dad passed away in 1995.
It was a good home, but an old structure with many dated characteristics, including windows frames that required us to hang heavy, glass storm windows during winter and replace them with screens during the warmer months.
I grew up in a family of eight children. I was number six overall and the fourth of six boys. All of us, my sisters included, were expected to lend a hand in preparing the house for winter, both inside and out. This included a variety of tasks ranging from trimming trees and raking leaves, to helping set up the Christmas tree and hanging holiday decorations.
Dad’s late autumn rituals included hanging the storms windows and setting up the outdoor decorations for the Christmas holiday. It seemed everyone in my family dreaded performing these tasks. I will save the Christmas decorations for another time in order to tell you now you about the storm windows.
The house sat atop a foundation of cylinder bricks and concrete flooring. The main floor had about 20 windows that needed attention at the change of seasons. The second floor had fewer windows and only six required seasonal work.
Putting storm windows up always seemed more challenging then taking them down, but both tasks required teamwork and patience. We had plenty of hands to help with the work, but frequently ran short of patience and civility.
No easy task
I don’t know how much each storm window weighed, but back then I figured it had to be at least 60 pounds. I’m sure it was much less, but whatever it was the task of lifting one above your head to pass it up to someone standing at the top of a six-foot ladder was made more challenging due to its width and rectangular shape.
There was no easy way to grasp hold of a frame and transfer it to the next person. You simply had to wrestle the thing and pray you didn’t shatter the glass.
The autumn operation was often made more challenging, because Dad would wait until he was confident cold weather had arrived for the season before he would begin the work. That meant his work crew would be assembled and deployed on a day when temperatures might reach only the low 50s or upper 40s, chilly afternoons in late October or mid-November.
The project typically took a few hours, sometimes longer depending on how many workers managed to slip away during the work. A couple of my older siblings were masters at disappearing during a bathroom break, reappearing only after the project was completed.
The work was physically challenging, but necessary. The work also offered lessons in organization, preparation, teamwork and even helped developed my vocabulary — I learned a lot of new words every time I spent hours working with my Dad and older brothers.
I always marveled at how my dad could swing a storm window into place while standing atop a ladder with a burning cigarette balanced on his lower lip, all along telling us about a range of subjects.
Looking back on those projects I can say I am glad I no longer have to do that type of work twice each year.
But I do miss spending time with my siblings and working under Dad’s supervision. I mentioned above that dad passed in 1995. Two of my brothers also are no longer with us. The siblings who remain are scattered about the Midwest, busy with families and careers.
It is at this time of year, when winter approaches and leaves require raking, that I pause and think about those afternoons more than 40 years ago, when my father would gather his young crew for a few hours of shared labor.
I can tell you that in the warm light of memory, the work is not as difficult as it once was and those window frames are not so heavy after all.
We paused during worship service the other day to greet those around us, and an older woman turned to me and said, “May you be blessed with a sense of peace today.” And that set me to thinking about things.
Her blessing was a variation of the traditional worship greeting, “Peace be with you.” Her message was, I thought, more personal than the traditional phrasing and more time specific. She might have concluded her greeting with the word peace, but chose to narrow her wish to the immediate future, giving it detail and urgency.
Offering a sense of spiritual peace is probably the kindest blessing one can make to another. Sure, we could offer a blessing for financial security, good health or happiness. Money is important, just ask someone who has none. Good health is valuable, too, but sooner or later, in one form or another, good health fails us all — no one survives this journey. As for happiness, well that’s elusive and transient, at best.
Peace, the kind the old lady wished upon me at church, is different from happiness. It is not about joy, satisfaction or even fulfillment. Peace provides a sense of calm that reaches to one’s core. It is a conscious acceptance that all will be well if we simply let go of our fear.
Peace is a recognition of the limits to what we can control and manage. A sense of peace is foreign to many of us because our culture teaches us that every aspect of life can be managed, controlled, enhanced or diminished through proper planning and preparation. It simply isn’t true, but it’s pushed on each of us every day.
Peace provides the freedom to acknowledge limits and accept fundamental truths. Realizing the truth about our lives allows us to distinguish what it is we truly can manage and what is beyond our control. In accepting such truth, we can develop our faith and move nearer to God and his holy spirit.
All of that is available to us if we have the courage accept it. Particularly when it’s extended to us through the simple greeting of an old woman standing next to us at church.
That’s something to think about.
— Got something for me to think about? Send an email to kbotterman@gmail.com. Thanks for visiting.
A little tardy, but here are the college football games I will be following today. I welcome your comments.
UMass v. Boston College
Maine at Toledo
Arkansas State at Auburn
ISU at Northwestern
Virginia at Oregon
Idaho State at Colorado
South Carolina at Miss. State
Old Dominion at App State
Wyoming at Nebraska
Indiana at Minn
NIU at USF
Texas Tech at Arizona State
North Carolina State at East Carolina
Arkansas at TCU
Virginia Tech at Tenn
Penn State at Pitt
The first weekend of the 2016 college football season offered several intense contests and a lot of food for thought. I had time to watch several of the televised games. Here are a few of my observations.
- We learned again the preseason rankings are predictions, and we know predictions are frequently wrong. Unranked Wisconsin defeated No. 5 LSU, 16-10, No. 3 Oklahoma fell to No. 15 Houston, 33-23, unranked Texas A&M defeated No. 16 UCLA, 31-24, unranked Texas beat No. 10 Notre Dame, 50-47, and at the time of this writing No. 11 Ole Miss was leading No. 4 Florida State 21-6
- The Texas-Notre Dame game is my pick for the best game of the weekend. The Longhorns topped Notre Dame double overtime. Texas needed to make a statement with the game, and accomplished the task. While Notre Dame fans no doubt were disappointed with the outcome, there is much to be cheerful about, including the fact the Irish scored in each quarter and found a away to keep themselves in the game. Notre Dame will host Nevada Sept. 10, and Texas will host UTEP.
- Toledo proved again it is a football program to be reckoned with. The Rockets traveled to Arkansas State and went home with a 31-10 victory. Toledo shows up prepared to play football; it’s a simple as that. The Rockets will host Maine Sept. 10. The Black Bears (0-1) lost to UConn 24-21, but gave the Huskies a serious challenge. Arkansas State travels to Auburn to play the Tigers Sept. 10.
- Appalachian State is another mid-major football program you don’t want to take for granted. The Mountaineers fell to No. 9 Tennessee, 20-13, but gave the Vols a fight and even led the game at halftime, 13-3. The Mountaineers will host Old Dominion Sept. 10.
- Western Michigan defeated Northwestern, 22-21, and Broncos coach PJ Fleck demonstrated again he can bring out the best in his players, making Western Michigan a force to be reckoned in the Mid-American Conference. Western Michigan will host North Carolina Central Sept. 10.
Check back later this week for the games I will be following in Week 2 of the college football season.
One of the most rewarding aspects about working at Batavia High School is the opportunity to learn what the graduating seniors plan to do with the next chapter of their lives.
In the days leading up to the seniors final day at the high school, staffers tape a large map of the United States to the wall outside the gym. The simple map is decorated with the logos of every university and college the seniors plan to attend in the upcoming fall semester. Something like 98 percent of Batavia’s graduating seniors go on to attend college, according to public records, so a surprisingly large number of school logos appear on the map.
I was fascinated with the map and impressed by the wide array of schools that appeared on it. The list of schools included large state schools and small, private colleges. The schools are located near and the far. Some are in the east, many are in the south, and a few are located in the west.
A large block of Batavia’s graduating seniors will attend in-state schools, and a slightly smaller contingent will attend schools in neighboring states. A few students will travel overseas to pursue their formal educations.
I found the map exciting and inspirational. Sheets of paper taped near the map listed the names of students and the schools they will attend in August. I felt a sense of pride in seeing so many Batavia students associated with some of the most prestigious schools in the country.
I noted a sense of admiration for the students and the new adventures they will begin in a short time. I graduated high school in 1979, a proud Cardinal from Arlington High School in Arlington Heights. I attended community college before transferring to NIU, where I subsequently earned a BA.
I enjoyed my college career. I established friendships with young men and women who, like me, are now much older than they were then. Time has thinned are ranks a bit, but most are here and remain good and decent individuals.
As I studied the map on the school wall I reflected on those friendships and the days so many years ago, when I arrived on campus as a raggedly and uneasy freshman. The path ahead seemed so bright and full of promise.
I envied the recent graduates for their youth and the experiences they have yet to create. I admired their accomplishments and all that awaits them in the days ahead.
And suddenly I felt at peace with the natural passing of time. I enjoyed the wave of nostalgia that washed over me as I examined the map and thought about my college days. A lot of fine memories jumped back to life, and it was a pleasant moment. But it was also nice to put those memories aside and focus on the days still ahead of me.
I thought you would like to know that.
Regular readers of this blog are familiar with my “tradition” of watching a selection from a short list of films to commemorate the start of baseball season, and I recently received a few queries about which film I selected to mark the start of the 2016 MLB season.
In years past, I announced my selection a week or two before the start of the season, but I didn't this year. I got caught up in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and put off selecting a film until just before the first pitch was thrown. Opening Day came and went without an announcement, and the emails followed. One writer asked if I had given up the tradition. Another asked if I had simply grown lazy. Neither, I was just distracted.
I selected "Field of Dreams”, the classic tale from 1989 about an Iowa farmer who plows under a large section of his corn field and replaces it with a baseball field, after a voice in the wind whispers to him, "If you build it, he will come."
I have a theory that most good movies about baseball tell us stories about life and only use baseball as a background for the larger tale. “Field of Dreams” proves my point, I think.
My theory applies to most good movies about sports, whether its basketball (“Hoosiers”), football (“Remember the Titans”), or even hockey (“Slap Shot”. Yes, laughter should be a big part of every life).
However, films about baseball seem to excel at emphasizing fundamental life values.
My tradition dates to November 1988, when my dad and I watched “Hoosiers” one Saturday morning while we waited for a college basketball game to air on TV later that afternoon. Dad played basketball in high school and college and was a devoted fan of the game throughout life. He followed the NBA until mid-1980s, when he concluded the league had given up on playing skilled defense.
He particularly enjoyed college basketball, so we developed the habit of starting each season with a screening of “Hoosiers”. I think it became his favorite sports movie, and I know he enjoyed listening to composer James Horner’s musical soundtrack for the film nearly as much as he enjoyed viewing the movie. He kept a copy of the soundtrack in his collections of CDs.
I expanded my viewing tradition to include baseball movies and later ones about football. I have a collection of reliable favorites, but friends frequently offer suggestions, and some tell me they have adopted similar viewing traditions of their own.
It seems the films I turn to most frequently are the ones with powerful soundtracks — “Hoosiers”, “The Natural,” “Moneyball”, and “Field of Dreams”.
I think a strong soundtrack, like a strong supporting cast, can make a good movie a great film. Again, “Field of Dreams” proves my point.
Horner also composed the score for “Field of Dreams” and his music is a perfect match to the film’s screenplay. Parts are sentimental and syrupy, others are haunting, and others uplifting.
Perhaps it’s the sentimental charm that attracts me to the “Field of Dreams” soundtrack, much in the same way Dad connected with the music for “Hoosiers”.
Dad passed away in February of 1995, but I continue to watch “Hoosiers” at the outset of each basketball season, and a few days ago commemorated the start of baseball season with “Field of Dreams”. Afterward, I remembered how much I enjoyed those afternoons when Dad and I would sit down for our annual viewing of a movie we’d seen so many times we could almost recite the lines from each scene.
And I reflected on the much older memories I hold of having “a catch” with him with in our backyard in Arlington Heights. I suppose that is why I believe really good baseball movies are more than just stories about baseball. They reflect experiences common to Americans, and they remind us of the individuals who touched and shaped our lives. That’s why I continue my viewing tradition.
I thought you’d like to know that.
— Kevin Botterman can be reached at kbotterman@gmail.com
Actress Patty Duke died March 29 at age 69, and her passing offered me a reminder about the way TV influences our culture and contributes to our memories.
Duke appeared in many TV shows and movies during a professional acting career that began in 1954 and spanned more than 60 years. Duke is probably best known as the star of "The Patty Duke Show", a popular TV show originally produced from 1963 to 1966, and for her Oscar-winning performance as Helen Keller in 1962’s “The Miracle Worker”.
I still think her performance as the booze and pill abusing Neely O’Hara in 1967’s “Valley of the Dolls” is a gem and makes an otherwise weak movie worth watching more than once.
I remain a big fan of “The Patty Duke Show”, which still airs in reruns on a few cable-TV channels. The show featured Duke in a dual-role, portraying a pair of cousins from diverse backgrounds and attending high school in comfortable Brooklyn Heights in the 1960s. It was a situation comedy produced during a time when TV programming was called “wholesome.” Most considered it reliable entertainment, a program that depicted an America that is long gone, if it ever really exited.
I have two distinct memories involving Patty Duke’s work. Both are from my days growing up in the 1960s, and they involve my sisters, Mary Jo and Katie. I think they offer some insight about my enduring appreciation for Duke’s work.
The memory involving Mary Jo (Jo to her siblings and close friends) is one of my oldest involving a TV show. I remember watching Jo standing a few feet from the family TV set, completely engaged in an episode of the “The Patty Duke Show”. I was only slightly familiar with the show, but even at that young age, I could how absorbed my sister was with it, how thoroughly it commanded her attention. I can recall telling myself the show must be pretty special if it could be so special to my sister.
My second memory involves my sister Katie and the movie “Billie”, a low-budget, 1965 production aimed at a teen audience and designed to capitalize on the popularity of Duke’s TV show. Duke played the title character, a high school student who tries out for the boys’ track team and excels because she paces her running to a musical tune she hears in her head. (Don’t spend too much time trying to make sense of the plot, the screenwriters certainly didn’t, and it’s just not that important.)
Most viewers consider “Billie” a largely forgettable production, but it remains memorable to me, because Katie enjoyed it as a child and always invited me to watch it with her whenever it aired on TV. Years later, Katie became a competitive sprinter on her high school track team, and I frequently attended her track meets. The movie “Billie” always came to mind whenever I saw Katie run in an event, and I always wondered what tune was playing in her head as she sprinted along the track.
These memories are uncomplicated, I admit, but I cherish them because they involve my sisters and the simple entertainment Patty Duke provided us on TV so many years ago.
I reflected on those memories when I learned of Duke’s passing yesterday, and then I offered a silent prayer, thanking Duke for sharing her talent with me and my sisters, and for creating some special memories for me.
I thought you’d like to know that.
Every now and then we are reminded the world doesn’t always see us as we see ourselves.
It is a hard lesson for me to grasp. My most recent encounter with it came the other day, when I was assisting at an indoor track meet at the high school where I work. I was standing near a barrier used to keep visitors off the track during races and yelled a word of encouragement to one of the runners as she ran passed me.
A man standing nearby asked, “Is that your granddaughter?”
“What?” I said after a long silence, stunned that anyone would think I was old enough to be a grandfather. After all, grandfathers are old people.
Noticing my shock, the man modified his question. “I mean, you know, is that your daughter?”
No, I said, just a student I work with here.
I walked away thinking the man was a fool, but also started a quick inventory of the possible clues that led him to ask his question.
I am 54, partly bald, with plenty of gray in the hair that remains on my head. And yes, my midsection is ample and my footwear is selected for comfort, rather than fashion, but all of these elements do not a grandfather make, I reasoned.
The guy’s question remained with me throughout the day. When at home later, I examined my image in the mirror and identified other factors contributing to a grandfatherly image — the thick lenses in my eyeglasses, the double chin, the sweatshirt and khaki pants (sensible for early March weather, but far from fashionable). All the features combined helped me to see how the man at the track meet reached his conclusion.
So I started crafting a sturdy rationalization.
Once upon a time a little extra weight indicated wealth and comfortable living, I told myself. Why, there are far worse things than being a grandfather, I acknowledged. After all, I am the father of a 20-year-old daughter, and I do hope to be a grandfather one day, many years from now.
Rationalizations typically work for me, but this time they came up short.
It was then I remembered the people around me, friends and strangers alike, don’t always see me as I see myself. I think that’s a lesson some of us learn more than once before it really takes root in our minds. Some learn it from a stranger at the grocery store. Others learn it while talking with friends at a party. I learned it (again) at a track meet, and I think now I finally see the value in the lesson.
I just wasn’t ready for a stranger to see me so clearly.
— Send email to kbotterman@gmail.com
